From: owner-dgrpg@delta-green.com on behalf of The Man in Black [mib@cyberspace.org] Sent: Saturday, March 25, 2000 7:39 AM To: dgrpg@delta-green.com Subject: Re: DG: Re: Salutations! On Thu, 23 Mar 2000, William Timmins wrote: > Space ship design, more info on space operations I think you need to call that ORBITAL. I don't care if the Bussard Project is expecting a return flight from Barnard's Star, everything in vaccuum should be ORBITAL~! The Man in Black is : Kenneth Scroggins Novus Ordo Seclorum : Annuit Coeptus : E Pluribus Unum "Don't make me take off my sunglasses!" - Griss, Bringing Out the Dead http://www.carnwyffa.u-net.com [EMERALD HAMMER] From: owner-dgrpg@delta-green.com on behalf of The Man in Black [mib@cyberspace.org] Sent: Saturday, March 25, 2000 7:42 AM To: dgrpg@delta-green.com Subject: Re: DG: Cookbook Technology On Thu, 23 Mar 2000, Graeme Price wrote: > Plus it would start fighting back. A useful analogy would be something > along the lines of "imagine dissecting a live octopus with a teaspoon". Strangely enough, that's actually a lot easier than one would imagine. The Man in Black is : a master of sushi Novus Ordo Seclorum : Annuit Coeptus : E Pluribus Unum "Don't make me take off my sunglasses!" - Griss, Bringing Out the Dead http://www.carnwyffa.u-net.com [EMERALD HAMMER] From: owner-dgrpg@delta-green.com on behalf of The Man in Black [mib@cyberspace.org] Sent: Saturday, March 25, 2000 7:52 AM To: 'dgrpg@delta-green.com' Subject: Re: DG: On Gates and similar matters On Thu, 23 Mar 2000, Crossingham, Adam wrote: > Anybody on the list got an opinion or comment to share, or a factoid that I > missed? Instead of dwelling on metaphysics, I'll add a few mechanics that gates may or may not have. Often Gates can be keyed. The key can be just about anything, and a specific object or password is not the only thing I'm talking about. One nasty trick is to have the gate keyed to a one way exit in a hostile environment unless the proper key is used. In the Ultima series, the Moongates only open during the correct phases of the two moons - thus Gates can be timed to a complex cycle, possibly taking centuries. Also, the magic stone that opens the Moongate can be dug up and moved. This also works for object gates like mirrors and boxes, just pick it up and go. The Man in Black is : Kenneth Scroggins Novus Ordo Seclorum : Annuit Coeptus : E Pluribus Unum "Don't make me take off my sunglasses!" - Griss, Bringing Out the Dead http://www.carnwyffa.u-net.com [EMERALD HAMMER] From: owner-dgrpg@delta-green.com on behalf of The Man in Black [mib@cyberspace.org] Sent: Saturday, March 25, 2000 7:59 AM To: dgrpg@delta-green.com Subject: Re: DG: Re: GO and the GOO On Thu, 23 Mar 2000, Andy Robertson wrote: > The Antarctic Old Ones seem to have an obsession with geometry, forced by > the difficulties of their pentagonal symmetry - I wonder if they play tiling > games? We already know the Greys do something like this. Although such behavior may not be gaming per se. The Man in Black is : Kenneth Scroggins Novus Ordo Seclorum : Annuit Coeptus : E Pluribus Unum "Don't make me take off my sunglasses!" - Griss, Bringing Out the Dead http://www.carnwyffa.u-net.com [EMERALD HAMMER] From: owner-dgrpg@delta-green.com on behalf of The Man in Black [mib@cyberspace.org] Sent: Saturday, March 25, 2000 8:03 AM To: dgrpg@delta-green.com Subject: Re: DG: On Gates and similar matters On Thu, 23 Mar 2000, William Timmins wrote: > Short explanation of space-time and why instantaneous travel is time travel: Good explanation, unfortunately, at no point in gate travel does one move faster than light (re: wormholes). The Man in Black is : Kenneth Scroggins Novus Ordo Seclorum : Annuit Coeptus : E Pluribus Unum "Don't make me take off my sunglasses!" - Griss, Bringing Out the Dead http://www.carnwyffa.u-net.com [EMERALD HAMMER] From: owner-dgrpg@delta-green.com on behalf of The Man in Black [mib@cyberspace.org] Sent: Saturday, March 25, 2000 8:15 AM To: dgrpg@delta-green.com Subject: Re: DG: Re: GO and the GOO On Fri, 24 Mar 2000, James Holloway wrote: > Particularly as there is nothing different about the two sides in a game of > chess - a nice moral ambiguity/vacuity... There is a significant difference. White goes first. This is a proven mathematical advantage. Bobby Fischer once said that if he played 1. d4 on God that he would stalemate. > Which makes me think someone doesn't guess to well, because (oddly) the > embattled guy in the middle nearly always wins, unless he's playing like > an idiot. Tic-Tac-Toe and Global Thermonuclear War should always end in stalemate. Not every game is perfectly designed. > So, a game could be used as a "test" to distinguish one type of mind from > another - maybe minds susceptible to the Vibe from minds which aren't. The > Mi-Go resoundingly aren't. We don't know that. Mi-Go do have some tenuous connection to Hastur in certain stories. The Man in Black is : Kenneth Scroggins Novus Ordo Seclorum : Annuit Coeptus : E Pluribus Unum "Don't make me take off my sunglasses!" - Griss, Bringing Out the Dead http://www.carnwyffa.u-net.com [EMERALD HAMMER] From: owner-dgrpg@delta-green.com on behalf of Andy Robertson [andywrobertson@clara.co.uk] Sent: Saturday, March 25, 2000 8:22 AM To: dgrpg@delta-green.com Subject: Re: DG: On Gates and similar matters ----- Original Message ----- From: The Man in Black space-time and why instantaneous travel is time travel: > > Good explanation, unfortunately, at no point in gate travel does one move > faster than light (re: wormholes). > Is that SOP? If that is so maybe Gates make sense after all. Wormholes and Einstein-Rosen bridges I can grok. Thinking about it, "The Dreams In The Witch House" does not imply FTL at any point and that's the main man. Other stories are subsequent accretions & Derlethisms - "The Gable Window" and so on - zat right? The Glove Cleaner From: owner-dgrpg@delta-green.com on behalf of The Man in Black [mib@cyberspace.org] Sent: Saturday, March 25, 2000 8:26 AM To: dgrpg@delta-green.com Subject: Re: DG: Lifepath character generation On Fri, 24 Mar 2000 Popeyesays@aol.com wrote: > Look at FASA's 2rd Edition of Mechwarrior - it is full of ideas for a life > experience track system for rolling up characters - well worth the look - a > gem of a system. OH GIMME A BREAK~! You twerps haven't heard of Central Casting? Sure they're homophobic and only use the missionary, but the rest is too Kewl. And who wants a transvestite character anyway? Not this MiB. The Man in Black is : wearing your momma's panties...on his head. Novus Ordo Seclorum : Annuit Coeptus : E Pluribus Unum "Don't make me take off my sunglasses!" - Griss, Bringing Out the Dead http://www.carnwyffa.u-net.com [EMERALD HAMMER] From: owner-dgrpg@delta-green.com on behalf of William Timmins [wtimmins@hotmail.com] Sent: Saturday, March 25, 2000 8:28 AM To: dgrpg@delta-green.com Subject: Re: DG: Re: Salutations! > > Space ship design, more info on space operations > >I think you need to call that ORBITAL. I don't care if the Bussard Project >is expecting a return flight from Barnard's Star, everything in vaccuum >should be ORBITAL~! > >The Man in Black is : Kenneth Scroggins Orbital it is, mon capitan. ObDG: Perhaps Nyarlathotep is the great evil paradox stamper-outer. He obliterates races before they figure out how to really screw with the universe. Perhaps intelligence isn't just naturally absent with the most powerful of the Outer Gods... perhaps it's a function Nyarl has to keep the universe safe.... -=Will ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com From: owner-dgrpg@delta-green.com on behalf of William Timmins [wtimmins@hotmail.com] Sent: Saturday, March 25, 2000 8:33 AM To: dgrpg@delta-green.com Subject: Re: DG: Lifepath character generation >OH GIMME A BREAK~! You twerps haven't heard of Central Casting? Sure >they're homophobic and only use the missionary, but the rest is too Kewl. >And who wants a transvestite character anyway? Not this MiB. > >The Man in Black is : wearing your momma's panties...on his head. I actually have two of the Central Casting books. Good inspiration for what I want to do. The advantage in a fixed game, however, is being able to focus and avoid some of the 'Um, a mysterious stranger gives you a ... thing. And then something bad happens. And then...', but I'll be taking a look at it, Fuzion, and Traveller for ideas. I've chatted with a friend about Mechwarrior and taken notes, too. -=Will ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com From: owner-dgrpg@delta-green.com on behalf of William Timmins [wtimmins@hotmail.com] Sent: Saturday, March 25, 2000 8:37 AM To: dgrpg@delta-green.com Subject: Re: DG: On Gates and similar matters > > Short explanation of space-time and why instantaneous travel is time >travel: > >Good explanation, unfortunately, at no point in gate travel does one move >faster than light (re: wormholes). > >The Man in Black is : Kenneth Scroggins The 'normal' Gate listed in the book does not limit speed. I seem to recall trips of many lightyears, from various stories, going at signification multiples of c if not instantaneous, and so forth. So, um, other than perhaps Limbo gates (which may or may not be FTL, depending on the mapping of Limbo space to real space), you're wrong. -=Will ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com From: owner-dgrpg@delta-green.com on behalf of Andy Robertson [andywrobertson@clara.co.uk] Sent: Saturday, March 25, 2000 8:46 AM To: dgrpg@delta-green.com Subject: Re: DG: Nyarl/Games/AZATHOOTH ----- Original Message ----- From: William Timmins > Perhaps Nyarlathotep is the great evil paradox stamper-outer. He obliterates > races before they figure out how to really screw with the universe. > > Perhaps intelligence isn't just naturally absent with the most powerful of > the Outer Gods... perhaps it's a function Nyarl has to keep the universe > safe.... I was thinking about the earlier Games thread - that perhaps the Universes that AZATHOTH randomly spins off could be considered games, each a product of the (musical) meta-game played by the Flute Players, with "rules" that translate down to physical laws, coupling constants & mixing angles. It's an attractive idea, but I think you are right in saying that character and intelligence and anything we could think of along those lines go no higher up the hierarchy than NYARLATOTEP and he's happy to keep it that way. "And in contempt he struck his master's head" and all that. The Glove Cleaner From: owner-dgrpg@delta-green.com on behalf of The Man in Black [mib@cyberspace.org] Sent: Saturday, March 25, 2000 8:48 AM To: dgrpg@delta-green.com Subject: Re: DG: Bizarre suicide On Fri, 24 Mar 2000, Jonathan Turner wrote: > Still, as Graeme says, when it comes to bizarre suicides - Stepehn Milligan > beats them all. Milligan is not even close, not by a long long long shot. BEHOLD~! THE DARWIN AWARDS~! 2000 Darwin Awards Confirmed True by Darwin (28 February 2000, Texas) A Houston man earned a succinct lesson in gun safety when he played Russian Roulette with a .45-caliber semiautomatic pistol on Monday. 19-year-old Rashaad was visiting friends when he announced his intention to play the deadly game. He apparently did not realize that a semiautomatic pistol, unlike a revolver, automatically inserts a cartridge into the firing chamber when the gun is cocked. His chance of winning a round of Russian Roulette was zero, as he quickly discovered. And my personal favorite legend: http://www.darwinawards.com/legends/legends1998-16.html The Man in Black is : Kenneth Scroggins Novus Ordo Seclorum : Annuit Coeptus : E Pluribus Unum "Don't make me take off my sunglasses!" - Griss, Bringing Out the Dead http://www.carnwyffa.u-net.com [EMERALD HAMMER] From: owner-dgrpg@delta-green.com on behalf of The Man in Black [mib@cyberspace.org] Sent: Saturday, March 25, 2000 8:57 AM To: dgrpg@delta-green.com Subject: Re: DG: Bizarre suicide On Fri, 24 Mar 2000, Jonathan Turner wrote: > Obviously a Glock is a clinical, precise, almost surgical weapon by > comparison. My respect knows no bounds... The Glock, this is the weapon of a Pathologist. Not as clumsy or as random as a Shotgun. An elegant weapon for a more civilized time. The Man in Black is : feeling the force. Novus Ordo Seclorum : Annuit Coeptus : E Pluribus Unum "Don't make me take off my sunglasses!" - Griss, Bringing Out the Dead http://www.carnwyffa.u-net.com [EMERALD HAMMER] From: owner-dgrpg@delta-green.com on behalf of The Man in Black [mib@cyberspace.org] Sent: Saturday, March 25, 2000 9:12 AM To: dgrpg@delta-green.com Subject: Re: DG: On Gates and similar matters On Fri, 24 Mar 2000, Jonathan Turner wrote: > >Hmmm... What Mythos entities would fit in best with the various academic > >fields? What type of scientist has the best chances of "accidentally" > >making contact with a Mythos deity? > > Archaeologists, anthropologists, physicists, theoretical mathematicians. You imbecile, Juergen obviously meant which sciences correspond to which dieties. Gawd! I recommend you unsubscribe immediately. Bleah! > I was wondering if anyone had any information about the mysterious > disappearance of this sub. I saw a piece on it on the nuclear accident > URL I posted, but has anyone heard anything else? You did not post an URL. Just some insulting ramblings about the great Homer J. Simpson, you doughnut eating primate. The Man in Black is : Kenneth Scroggins Novus Ordo Seclorum : Annuit Coeptus : E Pluribus Unum "Don't make me take off my sunglasses!" - Griss, Bringing Out the Dead http://www.carnwyffa.u-net.com [EMERALD HAMMER] From: owner-dgrpg@delta-green.com on behalf of MurfNMurf@aol.com Sent: Saturday, March 25, 2000 9:12 AM To: dgrpg@delta-green.com Subject: Re: DG: Alternity / Dark Matter / Wizards of the Coast News In a message dated 3/25/00 5:49:57 AM Central Standard Time, mib@cyberspace.org writes: Ken, the MiB warned << FEAR THE WANDERING MONSTER~! >>... Hey Ken, while obviously Off Topic, that'd make a pretty nifty, _that's-right-I'm-a-nerd_ T-shirt for wearing at Cons. -Ken- From: owner-dgrpg@delta-green.com on behalf of The Man in Black [mib@cyberspace.org] Sent: Saturday, March 25, 2000 9:25 AM To: dgrpg@delta-green.com Subject: Re: DG: On Gates (relativity and time travel) On Fri, 24 Mar 2000, William Timmins wrote: > You can experiment yourself with some graph paper and some thought. It's not > at all hard to set up paradoxes, where an observer sees someone exit a gate, > then sends a signal to the 'earlier' timeperiod and tells them not to enter > the gate (or blows it up). > > Now, the fact is that in the normal universe, most reference frames are > somewhat close. These effects would probably never occur in normal > situations. It's still possible, however, and that's a problem (for > causality and physics, at any rate) Like I said before, gates and teleportation are completely seperate. You cannot use thermodynamics to describe electrical resistance (although some materials change resistance with temperature). The fact that you mention "the normal universe" shows that you are not dwelling in the realm of the mythos, where causality; like I have stated on many an occasion, is a total sham. The only true understanding is that nothing can be understood. The Gate can only be created by abandoning nonsensical human science. The Man in Black is : Kenneth Scroggins Novus Ordo Seclorum : Annuit Coeptus : E Pluribus Unum "Don't make me take off my sunglasses!" - Griss, Bringing Out the Dead http://www.carnwyffa.u-net.com [EMERALD HAMMER] From: owner-dgrpg@delta-green.com on behalf of The Man in Black [mib@cyberspace.org] Sent: Saturday, March 25, 2000 9:27 AM To: dgrpg@delta-green.com Cc: cd skogsberg Subject: Re: DG: USS Scorpion On Fri, 24 Mar 2000, Frank Frey (SOK) wrote: > The lead in to the search message is actually a headline from a series > that the Seattle Post-Intellegencer did on the Scorpion. I have most of > the material at home and will post it when I can get to it. No thank you. > There were other submarine disasters as well including the loss of a > Soviet SSB (Golf Class I believe) that occurred around the same time. The > efforts to salvage the Soviet Sub were detailed on a Nova program about a > year ago. The project involved the construction of a large ocean going > salvage ship called the Glomar Explorer. The builder was Howard > Hughes. The CIA funded the operation under the codename Project Jennifer. Yes, we know. The Man in Black is : Kenneth Scroggins Novus Ordo Seclorum : Annuit Coeptus : E Pluribus Unum "Don't make me take off my sunglasses!" - Griss, Bringing Out the Dead http://www.carnwyffa.u-net.com [EMERALD HAMMER] From: owner-dgrpg@delta-green.com on behalf of The Man in Black [mib@cyberspace.org] Sent: Saturday, March 25, 2000 9:37 AM To: dgrpg@delta-green.com Subject: Re: DG: The Illuminati On Fri, 24 Mar 2000, Adam Weishaupt wrote: > Guess where my name (Adam Weishaupt) comes from. It might also start us off > on a new thread. I'm guessing it's from the shame and humiliation UUU get when UUU UUuse your real name, no thanks to those child molestation convictions. Of course, I could be mistaken. The Man in Black is : Kenneth Scroggins Novus Ordo Seclorum : Annuit Coeptus : E Pluribus Unum "Don't make me take off my sunglasses!" - Griss, Bringing Out the Dead http://www.carnwyffa.u-net.com [EMERALD HAMMER] From: owner-dgrpg@delta-green.com on behalf of The Man in Black [mib@cyberspace.org] Sent: Saturday, March 25, 2000 9:49 AM To: dgrpg@delta-green.com Subject: Re: DG: Re: The Illuminati On Sat, 25 Mar 2000 LizardRoi@aol.com wrote: > Thomas Jefferson received the design for the Great Seal from a MIB I don't have to sit here and read these wild allegations! You're engaging in speculation. You can prove anything! I got my rights, I know the law... ...What? No. I'm not being defensive not at all! You're the one who's being defensive! Is it me or is it him?! The Man in Black is : appalled, just appalled! Novus Ordo Seclorum : Annuit Coeptus : E Pluribus Unum "Don't make me take off my sunglasses!" - Griss, Bringing Out the Dead http://www.carnwyffa.u-net.com [EMERALD HAMMER] From: owner-dgrpg@delta-green.com on behalf of moorebros@earthlink.net Sent: Saturday, March 25, 2000 9:59 AM To: dgrpg@delta-green.com Subject: Re: DG: Bizarre suicide The Man in Black wrote: > And my personal favorite legend: > > http://www.darwinawards.com/legends/legends1998-16.html Guy falls out the window and is shotgunned on the way down! Homicide: Life on the Streets did an episode with this as one of their story lines. I seem to remeber Munch and Kellerman being the investigators. Most of the Homicide characters make great templates for DG investigators--top notch investigators with very human quirks. Speaking of Homicide: Life on the Streets, has anyone ever read the book by Dan Simon? He was a reporter for the Baltimore Sun. He took a year off to trail the Baltimore Homicide unit in their job. The result was this brilliant novel and a kick-ass TV series. When you read that book you get a feel for how hard it is to get away with murder once the police are on to you. From: owner-dgrpg@delta-green.com on behalf of Chris Pencis [cpencis@yahoo.com] Sent: Saturday, March 25, 2000 9:52 AM To: dgrpg@delta-green.com Subject: Re: DG: Re: The Illuminati Davide Mana wrote: Good one, that man! I'm currently toying with the idea of a Steampunkish conspiracy campaign, throwing in all the Victorian stuff I have handy, and making the whole run on the Window. The thing is still in its infancy, but could as well develop in a sort of Victorian Delta Green. I'll keep the list posted, just in case.... Davide Mana Torino, Italy doctor.dee@libero.it The Ice Cave - http://www.fortunecity.com/tattooine/leiber/50/ice_cave.htm Did you care for The Difference Engine?... most of the guys around here who read Bruce Sterling (from Austin TX, my hometown BTW so I get a bit saturated) couldn't stand it. Can't come up with an OBdg.... um er... damn... who's at the door. Andrea... Andrea who? Chris __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Talk to your friends online with Yahoo! Messenger. http://im.yahoo.com From: owner-dgrpg@delta-green.com on behalf of The Man in Black [mib@cyberspace.org] Sent: Saturday, March 25, 2000 9:58 AM To: dgrpg@delta-green.com Subject: Re: DG: Lifepath character generation On Sat, 25 Mar 2000, William Timmins wrote: > The advantage in a fixed game, however, is being able to focus and avoid > some of the 'Um, a mysterious stranger gives you a ... thing. And then > something bad happens. And then...', but I'll be taking a look at it, > Fuzion, and Traveller for ideas. That mysterious stranger and his thing (OK get your mind outta the gutter) exists as a fantasy cliche. You just plug in a NPC and an item relevant to an upcoming scenario or even campaign. It's similiar to GURPS, in that it's supposed to be generic and vague in order to spark imagination and creativity. It's not a hard and fast mold, but a tool for sculpting. The Man in Black is : Kenneth Scroggins Novus Ordo Seclorum : Annuit Coeptus : E Pluribus Unum "Don't make me take off my sunglasses!" - Griss, Bringing Out the Dead http://www.carnwyffa.u-net.com [EMERALD HAMMER] From: owner-dgrpg@delta-green.com on behalf of The Man in Black [mib@cyberspace.org] Sent: Saturday, March 25, 2000 10:03 AM To: dgrpg@delta-green.com Subject: Re: DG: On Gates and similar matters On Sat, 25 Mar 2000, William Timmins wrote: > The 'normal' Gate listed in the book does not limit speed. I seem to recall > trips of many lightyears, from various stories, going at signification > multiples of c if not instantaneous, and so forth. You are still confused. Gates do not teleport. You can see the other side. You walk through at about 1mph. You walk out at 1mph. Teleportation is instant travel from one place to another, completely seperate, place. Gates allow two places (however far apart) to be linked as one. When I walk though a door I do not exceed c. When I walk through a Gate I do not exceed c. I hope this clears things up. The Man in Black is : Kenneth Scroggins Novus Ordo Seclorum : Annuit Coeptus : E Pluribus Unum "Don't make me take off my sunglasses!" - Griss, Bringing Out the Dead http://www.carnwyffa.u-net.com [EMERALD HAMMER] From: owner-dgrpg@delta-green.com on behalf of The Man in Black [mib@cyberspace.org] Sent: Saturday, March 25, 2000 10:13 AM To: dgrpg@delta-green.com Subject: Re: DG: Bizarre suicide On Sat, 25 Mar 2000 moorebros@earthlink.net wrote: > The Man in Black wrote: > > > And my personal favorite legend: > > > > http://www.darwinawards.com/legends/legends1998-16.html > > Guy falls out the window and is shotgunned on the way down! > Homicide: Life on the Streets did an episode with this as one of their story > lines. I seem to remeber Munch and Kellerman being the investigators. Most of > the Homicide characters make great templates for DG investigators--top notch > investigators with very human quirks. I remember that one! I also remember thinking that they must have stole it from the Darwin Awards. Munch always gets the weird ones, he was even on the X-files. In other news, our falling suicide appeared in Magnolia (a really good, if long and bizarre film) along with the Scuba diver in the forest fire, and three men named Green, Berry, and Hill. The Man in Black is : Kenneth Scroggins Novus Ordo Seclorum : Annuit Coeptus : E Pluribus Unum "Don't make me take off my sunglasses!" - Griss, Bringing Out the Dead http://www.carnwyffa.u-net.com [EMERALD HAMMER] From: owner-dgrpg@delta-green.com on behalf of Michael Beck [msb216@is7.nyu.edu] Sent: Saturday, March 25, 2000 10:19 AM To: dgrpg@delta-green.com Subject: DG: Intelligence This is something that just hit me a few hours ago. The question of sentience. We see intelligence as a scale, we are more or less intelligent than other people, animals are less intelligent than people, and the GOOs and the other races of the universe have alien *forms* of intelligence--but we never question the basic assumption of intelligence. That there exists some universal constant and at some point it is possible to say "a race is sentient" or "a race is not sentient". What if things are different. What if intelligence exists not in a one-dimensional line but a Cartesian plane (or in more dimensions, but we can best visualize two), and the nature of a life forms sentience (note, I'm assuming that there's a universal constant as to what is and isn't alive), and different areas on the plane equate to different *types* of intelligence. Animals simply exist on a different *part* of the graph than humans do. Humanity has a different "area of intelligence" than the Deep Ones, or the Mi-go. The Deep Ones do not serve Cthulhu for religious or cultural reasons--the truth is that in the portion of the sentience graph that they work on, worshipping Cthulhu *is the natural thing for them to do*. Normally, humanity sticks to its own little circle, as defined by our culture and our knowledge. People who have lost SAN get further and further away from the center, until they just don't fall into the common realm of sentience. How does that sound? From: owner-dgrpg@delta-green.com on behalf of Mused [mused@idirect.com] Sent: Saturday, March 25, 2000 10:35 AM To: dgrpg@delta-green.com Subject: Re: DG: Re: The Illuminati -----Original Message----- >I don't have to sit here and read these wild allegations! You're engaging >in speculation. You can prove anything! I got my rights, I know the law... > >...What? No. I'm not being defensive not at all! You're the one who's >being defensive! Is it me or is it him?! I'm out of order? You're out of order, the whole system is out of order. The stars are not in order... But when they are, HOO-WEE ain't we gonna have fun! From: owner-dgrpg@delta-green.com on behalf of Mused [mused@idirect.com] Sent: Saturday, March 25, 2000 10:37 AM To: dgrpg@delta-green.com Subject: Re: DG: Re: The Illuminati -----Original Message----- >In a message dated 3/24/00 9:04:03 PM Pacific Standard Time, >mused@idirect.com writes: > ><< Alright, try and guess mine! > > Mused > > (Hint: Alien Anthropologists, End of Human Race) > >> > > OK. You are the genderless spawn of the inbred Mused clan, and your parents >were the twins, A and Be. > > Now guess mine! > > (Hint: Lizard and French for king) Damn, got it right on the first guess! Actually no. I always pronounced it Lizardry. Sort of like heraldry but using reptiles instead of banners. From: owner-dgrpg@delta-green.com on behalf of Andy Robertson [andywrobertson@clara.co.uk] Sent: Saturday, March 25, 2000 10:29 AM To: dgrpg@delta-green.com Subject: Re: DG: Re: The Illuminati ----- Original Message ----- From: Chris Pencis > Did you care for The Difference Engine?... most of the guys around here > who read Bruce Sterling (from Austin TX, my hometown BTW so I get a bit > saturated) couldn't stand it. And William Gibson. It has great steampunk ideas but runs out of steam . . . . I think it's intruiging to imagine a GOO or at any rate some higher being bootstrapped out of the mechanical cybernetics the story uses. Data processing built on percussion arrays and molecular gear-trains and memory coded as physical alterations could get a lot more practicable as they get smaller (a lot of nanotech speculation is built around ideas like this). From: owner-dgrpg@delta-green.com on behalf of Mused [mused@idirect.com] Sent: Saturday, March 25, 2000 10:46 AM To: dgrpg@delta-green.com Subject: Re: DG: Fire Vampire summoning gone awry >From Today in History: March 25, 1911 In an incident that underscored the poor working conditions at sweatshops, a fire broke out at the Triangle Shirtwaist Co. in New York City that killed 146 people, mostly poor immigrant women. Many were killed as a result of a main door that was locked. The company owners were found guilty of manslaughter charges. Whatever he summoned it did not stick around From: owner-dgrpg@delta-green.com on behalf of Mused [mused@idirect.com] Sent: Saturday, March 25, 2000 10:44 AM To: dgrpg@delta-green.com Subject: DG: Re: Intelligence -----Original Message----- >People who have lost SAN get further and further away from the >center, until they just don't fall into the common realm of sentience. How does >that sound? I describe it like this. On one side there is normal sanity. You know comforting little lies, life is fair, that sort of rot. Then there is a barrier. This is insanity. You are seeing things skewed, not as they really are. Out the other side is super sanity. This is reality. No illusions. It is scary on this side and many who make it here try to flee back through the barrier. But it is only permeable one way. Once Super Sanity has been achieved, you can never go back (at least not without the memories being destroyed, either physically (brain damage) or chemically (thorazine in LARGE doses) The Mythos races were probably one like us, living in the soft sweet fog of sanity, but one by one they passed through the barrier. Maybe somewhere there are Deep Ones, holding out against their kindred's "insanity" Eventually humanity will pass through the barrier. We say the Mythos critters worship the GOOs. That is our sanity clouded mind looking at a relationship we cannot comprehend. Religion is for this side. BTW, I got hte basis for this idea from the book One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. It is one of the most interesting novels I have ever read, being written as it is from the perspective of an insane man who sees himself as perfectly rational. From: owner-dgrpg@delta-green.com on behalf of Mused [mused@idirect.com] Sent: Saturday, March 25, 2000 10:47 AM To: dgrpg@delta-green.com Subject: Re: DG: Bloody Tongue -----Original Message----- >> Update on the Ugandan death cult. Apparently the authorities are now >> hunting down the rest of them. Death toll includes 78 children. How come >> nobody ever gets these nutters before the wheels come off? > >Because then they might survive to pass their flawed traits on to future >generations. This is how natural selection helps the human race. TIME TO CULL THE HERD! From: owner-dgrpg@delta-green.com on behalf of Mused [mused@idirect.com] Sent: Saturday, March 25, 2000 10:52 AM To: dgrpg@delta-green.com Subject: Re: DG: Nyarl/Games/AZATHOOTH -----Original Message----- >> Perhaps Nyarlathotep is the great evil paradox stamper-outer. He >obliterates races before they figure out how to really screw with the universe. Cool. Nyarlathotep. The ULTIMATE MiB >I was thinking about the earlier Games thread - that perhaps the Universes >that AZATHOTH randomly spins off could be considered games, each a product >of the (musical) meta-game played by the Flute Players, with "rules" that >translate down to physical laws, coupling constants & mixing angles. I think they are flute players because tenatcled blobs playing guitars looks really silly. From: owner-dgrpg@delta-green.com on behalf of Steven Kaye [box_nine@ix.netcom.com] Sent: Saturday, March 25, 2000 10:42 AM To: dgrpg@delta-green.com Subject: DG: DGML FAQ Minor correction to the FAQ, from a previous post by CO Christopher: > >I have begun a daily project to maintain DGML archives at Delta-Green.com. >Be warned, the archives from July 1999 to the present are incomplete, but >future archives should include all messages sent to the list. New archive >files will be added once or twice a day. I suppose something should be added about how to discuss books and movies without setting off flamewars as well. Possibly a note to the effect that Case Officers shouldn't worry if there's duplication of cells ("Why does he get to be T Cell? I wanna be T Cell!" "Everybody wants to be T Cell."). Possibly a list of DG supplements and fiction to date. Steven ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------- Steven Kaye box_nine@ix.netcom.com Reason - rationality - is a concentration camp, where the sets of concepts for surviving in a chaotic universe form vast, though finite, rows of huts, separated into blocks by electric fences, which the searchlights of Attention rove over, picking out now one group of huts, now another. Thoughts, like prisoners - imprisoned for their own security and safety - scurry and march and labour in a flat two-dimensional zone, forbidden to leap fences, gunned down by laser beams of madness and unreason if they try to. Ian Watson, THE EMBEDDING From: owner-dgrpg@delta-green.com on behalf of Mused [mused@idirect.com] Sent: Saturday, March 25, 2000 10:54 AM To: dgrpg@delta-green.com Subject: Re: DG: Lifepath character generation Central casting as a character generator is iffy. As apart game it is hilarious. Alright, let's see if anyone can generate a non-pedophile character this time! -----Original Message----- > >OH GIMME A BREAK~! You twerps haven't heard of Central Casting? Sure >they're homophobic and only use the missionary, but the rest is too Kewl. >And who wants a transvestite character anyway? Not this MiB. > >The Man in Black is : wearing your momma's panties...on his head. >Novus Ordo Seclorum : Annuit Coeptus : E Pluribus Unum >"Don't make me take off my sunglasses!" - Griss, Bringing Out the Dead >http://www.carnwyffa.u-net.com [EMERALD HAMMER] From: owner-dgrpg@delta-green.com on behalf of Mused [mused@idirect.com] Sent: Saturday, March 25, 2000 10:57 AM To: dgrpg@delta-green.com Subject: Re: DG: On Gates and similar matters -----Original Message----- >You are still confused. Gates do not teleport. You can see the other side. >You walk through at about 1mph. You walk out at 1mph. Teleportation is >instant travel from one place to another, completely seperate, place. >Gates allow two places (however far apart) to be linked as one. When I >walk though a door I do not exceed c. When I walk through a Gate I do not >exceed c. I hope this clears things up. Hmmm, I see. And how long have you been walking through these, what did you call them, ah yes, gates? (Oh yeah, I can see the Freudian vaginal imagery of a gate) From: owner-dgrpg@delta-green.com on behalf of Andy Robertson [andywrobertson@clara.co.uk] Sent: Saturday, March 25, 2000 11:03 AM To: dgrpg@delta-green.com Subject: DG: Re: Intelligence ----- Original Message ----- From: Michael Beck > This is something that just hit me a few hours ago. The question of sentience. > We see intelligence as a scale, we are more or less intelligent than other > people, animals are less intelligent than people, and the GOOs and the other > races of the universe have alien *forms* of intelligence--but we never question > the basic assumption of intelligence. The only objective criterion is survival and reproduction. I'm sure there are many different ways of tackling that same problem & getting a favourable answer. We have no evidence on this one way or the other here on Earth because our way of thinking (the mammalian brain) is the first sort to evolve here & has exterminated anything that could be a possible rival. > That there exists some universal constant > and at some point it is possible to say "a race is sentient" or "a race is not > sentient". Well _I_ never assumed that > What if things are different. What if intelligence exists not in a > one-dimensional line but a Cartesian plane (or in more dimensions, but we can > best visualize two), and the nature of a life forms sentience (note, I'm > assuming that there's a universal constant as to what is and isn't alive), and > different areas on the plane equate to different *types* of intelligence. As I may have pointed out before, computers, for example, do not think like human beings and in fact do not "think" at all. The nearest biological analog to computer processing is the genetic DNA->protein data processing that keeps your cells running. However, though computers do not think in the same way as brains, they will often get the same answers. Two and two still equal four and so on. I'm sure that there are an infinite number of other ways of processing "the data", but given the same environment there is _often_ (not always) only one answer that does not lead to you getting eaten. So the behaviour of even very alien creatures may not be 100% non-understandable. > Animals simply exist on a different *part* of the graph than humans do. Actually animals are our close (genetic) relatives and probably think very like us. This animal/human separation is a relic of Judaeo-Christian religion, beware of it, say I. > Humanity has a different "area of intelligence" than the Deep Ones, or the > Mi-go. The Deep Ones do not serve Cthulhu for religious or cultural > reasons--the truth is that in the portion of the sentience graph that they work > on, worshipping Cthulhu *is the natural thing for them to do*. Normally, > humanity sticks to its own little circle, as defined by our culture and our > knowledge. People who have lost SAN get further and further away from the > center, until they just don't fall into the common realm of sentience. How does > that sound? > It sounds right, but I think we would do well to distinguish between SAN - the sort of behaviour which leads an individual in a species to successful survival and reproduction - and logical thought, which is just a useful tool that may sometimes help, sometimes hinder. The social-behaviour SAN of a hive-dwelling clonal mollusc is likely to be very different from the social-behaviour SAN of a large lone-hunting predator: but their maths may be more or less similar. To put it another way - you say that "a species" exists at some "part" of "the graph". What if there are many different graphs, each relating to a particular aspect of behaviour, and the range of species you are studying maps in different ways to each different graph? I think that there are _some_ graphs where all intelligent species would map pretty close together - the ones dealing with simple arithmetic, simple physics maybe. On others they would truely be all over the place. The Glove Cleaner From: owner-dgrpg@delta-green.com on behalf of Steven Kaye [box_nine@ix.netcom.com] Sent: Saturday, March 25, 2000 11:03 AM To: dgrpg@delta-green.com Subject: Re: DG: Intelligence At 11:18 AM -0500 3/25/00, Michael Beck wrote: > >Animals simply exist on a different *part* of the graph than humans do. >Humanity has a different "area of intelligence" than the Deep Ones, or the >Mi-go. The Deep Ones do not serve Cthulhu for religious or cultural >reasons--the truth is that in the portion of the sentience graph >that they work >on, worshipping Cthulhu *is the natural thing for them to do*. Normally, >humanity sticks to its own little circle, as defined by our culture and our >knowledge. People who have lost SAN get further and further away from the >center, until they just don't fall into the common realm of >sentience. How does >that sound? The cultural definition of SAN's been batted around some on this list, but it might be amusing to have agents forced to deal with someone like R.D. Laing or Thomas Szasz (sp?). An interesting support function for DG could be 'Mythos psychology' - though there are obvious methodological problems ("The Shambler keeps teleporting out of the Skinner Box! And that's the fifth lab assistant we've lost this week!"), to say nothing of over-identification with the subject. The Tcho-Tcho in Derleth's original story, for example, don't fear guns - because they're outside their experience, so they don't associate guns with death (even after they know several of their tribe have been killed by such things). Various Mythos creatures might have instinctive behavior which could be taken advantage of by especially brave agents. One could invoke neurolinguistic programming to offer a pseudo-scientific rationale for tomes costing SAN - they're imposing a foreign concept set on the readers. Anyone with linguistics background care to comment further on this? Steven ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------- Steven Kaye box_nine@ix.netcom.com Reason - rationality - is a concentration camp, where the sets of concepts for surviving in a chaotic universe form vast, though finite, rows of huts, separated into blocks by electric fences, which the searchlights of Attention rove over, picking out now one group of huts, now another. Thoughts, like prisoners - imprisoned for their own security and safety - scurry and march and labour in a flat two-dimensional zone, forbidden to leap fences, gunned down by laser beams of madness and unreason if they try to. Ian Watson, THE EMBEDDING From: owner-dgrpg@delta-green.com on behalf of Michael Grasso [mgrasso@sprynet.com] Sent: Saturday, March 25, 2000 11:19 AM To: dgrpg@delta-green.com Subject: DG: Re: Intelligence ----- Original Message ----- From: "Michael Beck" To: Sent: Saturday, March 25, 2000 11:18 AM Subject: DG: Intelligence > This is something that just hit me a few hours ago. The question of sentience. > We see intelligence as a scale, we are more or less intelligent than other > people, animals are less intelligent than people, and the GOOs and the other > races of the universe have alien *forms* of intelligence--but we never question > the basic assumption of intelligence. That there exists some universal constant > and at some point it is possible to say "a race is sentient" or "a race is not > sentient". > > What if things are different. What if intelligence exists not in a > one-dimensional line but a Cartesian plane (or in more dimensions, but we can > best visualize two), and the nature of a life forms sentience (note, I'm > assuming that there's a universal constant as to what is and isn't alive), and > different areas on the plane equate to different *types* of intelligence. > Animals simply exist on a different *part* of the graph than humans do. > Humanity has a different "area of intelligence" than the Deep Ones, or the > Mi-go. The Deep Ones do not serve Cthulhu for religious or cultural > reasons--the truth is that in the portion of the sentience graph that they work > on, worshipping Cthulhu *is the natural thing for them to do*. Normally, > humanity sticks to its own little circle, as defined by our culture and our > knowledge. People who have lost SAN get further and further away from the > center, until they just don't fall into the common realm of sentience. How does > that sound? Which also might provide a good explanation for the supposed idiocy of everyone's favorite Daemon Sultan. He just doesn't score well on those nasty four-dimensional-universe-biased standardized tests. Anyone'd score a 0 on the INT scale with *his* type of intellect. In other words, he's not dumb, it's just the universe's fault. Mike, first-time poster, looooong-time lurker From: owner-dgrpg@delta-green.com on behalf of Andy Robertson [andywrobertson@clara.co.uk] Sent: Saturday, March 25, 2000 11:51 AM To: dgrpg@delta-green.com Subject: DG: Re: AZATHOTH > > Which also might provide a good explanation for the supposed idiocy of > everyone's favorite Daemon Sultan. He just doesn't score well on those nasty > four-dimensional-universe-biased standardized tests. Anyone'd score a 0 on > the INT scale with *his* type of intellect. In other words, he's not dumb, > it's just the universe's fault. > > Mike, first-time poster, looooong-time lurker > He seems to be "surviving" well enough. I have always been tremendously impressed by the poem where HPL describes AZATHOTH. It's not available online, so I'll quote just a bit . . "They danced insanely, to the high shrill whining of a cracked flute clasped in a monstrous paw Whence flow the aimless waves whose chance combining gives each frail Cosmos its eternal law" AFAIK The idea that there must be many universes with randomly different physical laws is quite a recent development of Cosmology - (see eg. this link for the Anthropic Principle http://www.anthropic-principle.com/index.html , if you are not already familiar with the idea) How HPL intuited it 75 years ago I don't know, but I like to think I can guess. The Glove Cleaner. (post some more!) From: owner-dgrpg@delta-green.com on behalf of MattRuane@aol.com Sent: Saturday, March 25, 2000 12:05 PM To: dgrpg@delta-green.com Subject: DG: HELIOS Field Report #2 -Ongoing Start Transmission Open File ID: 9468-BQ-76DODSECUREOUT Date: 25 MARCH 2000 KEYWORD: PROJECT HELIOS, TERMINAL END, MARS POLAR LANDER, MARS ATMOSPHERIC PROBE, THREE MAGI, HELIOS PROBE Submission: Agent Davis, Delta Cell Origin: Routing: All Priority One Routing Prefixes Enabled Distribution: Active Delta Green Cell Leaders as of 1 March 2000 All Cell Leaders be advised that Delta Cell membership has been terminally compromised as of this date. Agent Daphne was terminated as of 2300 EST, 24 March 2000, in a single car accident on Interstate 95, approximately 15 miles south of Kennedy Space Center. Eye-witness and news reports indicate that her vehicle was cut off by a long haul tractor trailer rig which forced her car to abruptly swerve off and into the grassy median where her car flipped and rolled approximately one half dozen times. There were no survivors and a FHP spokeman stated that the unknown driver died of injuries sustained in the single vehicle accident while being transported to hospital. The body was flown to Holmes Regional Medical Center in Melbourne, FL by air trauma units. Official time of death was listed as 0101 EST, 25 March 2000. At the time of the accident, Agent Daphne was in cellular phone contact with reporting Agent Davis, discussing handing over briefing documents indicating the NASA had visual confirmation of exterrestial contact during the two failed Mars missions of late 1999. She also indicated that both Mars missions, the atmospheric probe and polar lander, were attempts to invoke visual confirmation of the HELIOS phenomenon using the recently repaired Hubble Telescope. (See HELIOS Report #1) All information regarding passage of celestial phenomena and impact of operating Hubble Telescope on scientifc community are to consult PROJECT HELIOS info distributed 9 September 1999 under secure cover as TERMINAL END TEST DATA. As the single surviving member of Delta Cell, I am officially ending Operation HELIOS PROBE, and requesting that future communications between myself and Alpha Cell be originated through normal operating channels. A final status report will be forwarded through these secure channels within 48 to 72 hours. I will also request that current DG friendlies be restored to their inactive or "sleep" status with appropriate compensation to be funded through remaining HELIOS PROBE accounts. One friendly, codenamed GATOR, will remain "on call" to close loose ends with FHP and HRMC. GATOR beleives their is a 30% chance of recovering papers and documentation from Agent Daphne's belongings. All further active operations have been terminated due to high risk in discovery and resulting negative exposure. Earlier recommendation that PROJECT THREE MAGI should be enabled must be reconsidered in light of Delta Cell compromise. My current daily operations and routine are believed to be under constant surveillance by members of MJ -12, and I beleive that termination of my position may be imminent. I have been able to delay routine flight evaluation procedures for approximately six weeks, though I now risk both rank and flight privileges if an evaluation is not completed within 7 days. I also believe that USAF and US Sapce Command assets are being used by MJ-12 to ferret out remaining sources of leaks to DG among base personnel. Loyal staffers have done much to isolate my private life from public scrutiny and inquiry, though I believe that may soon be coming to an end with the elimination of Agent Daphne. As of this date and time, Operation HELIOS PROBE has been terminated. Further correspondence, except for the final report, will be issued with the header, PROJECT SPRING RENEWAL. Godspeed my brothers. ID: 9468-BQ-76DODSECUREOUT Close File End Transmission From: owner-dgrpg@delta-green.com on behalf of LizardRoi@aol.com Sent: Saturday, March 25, 2000 12:43 PM To: dgrpg@delta-green.com Subject: Re: DG: Bizarre suicide In a message dated 3/25/00 7:53:45 AM Pacific Standard Time, moorebros@earthlink.net writes: << Guy falls out the window and is shotgunned on the way down! Homicide: Life on the Streets did an episode with this as one of their story lines. >> If this is the despondent fellow who wanted to inherit money so he loaded the shotgun his father was in the habit of threatening his mother with ..... It opens the film Magnolia. A must-see for Fortean afficionados. Mark McFadden Check out the Biblical verse on the hand lettered sign in the studio audience. No, it wasn't John 3:16. P.S. Watched Breakfast of Champions last night. Good stuff Maynard. The UUU shows up at a crucial point if you squint. Kilgore Trout and Dwayne Hoover are talking at a table in a hotel cocktail lounge. Dwayne is over the edge and flailing. He reads the story in one of Kilgore's beaver magazines, Now It Can Be Told, which is a letter from God to the single solitary creature in existence with free will. As he reads aloud, the lightshow for the lounge singer places slowly revolving triskelions on the faces of both Dwayne and Kilgore. This is not an accident, as the triskelions remain in place for some time through several different shots. BTW, the triskelions arms curve to the right rather than to the left, so it isn't perfect, but what the hell. Another in my series of Spot the UUU. From: owner-dgrpg@delta-green.com on behalf of LizardRoi@aol.com Sent: Saturday, March 25, 2000 12:43 PM To: dgrpg@delta-green.com Subject: Re: DG: On Gates (relativity and time travel) In a message dated 3/25/00 7:26:33 AM Pacific Standard Time, mib@cyberspace.org writes: << The only true understanding is that nothing can be understood. The Gate can only be created by abandoning nonsensical human science. >> And adopting sensical human science. I truly loved the details on the space\time ramifications of Gating, and will probably find some good uses for them later. But, the models described seemed to deny the possibility of getting from here to there instantaneously without paying some Einsteinian penalty. When an electron leaps from one shell to another, it does so instantaneously and without ever existing in the "space" between shells. It's here now it's there. So describing the process as a leap just confuses the issue, since leaping implies that the electron was "there" throughout the journey. It wasn't, it couldn't be, it's against the rules (today). It was there, now it's here with no transition state. Paradoxical and apparently impossible, but there you are. And before someone notes that there is a big difference between an electron and an intelligent being, remind yourself of what intelligent beings are made of. This behavior therefore makes magickal sense. "As above, so below" or vice versa. No arguments here, just supplying the rationalization for Gating about without checking your watch. It's always local time. Mark McFadden From: owner-dgrpg@delta-green.com on behalf of Michael Grasso [mgrasso@sprynet.com] Sent: Saturday, March 25, 2000 2:16 PM To: dgrpg@delta-green.com Subject: Re: DG: Magnolia (was Re: DG: Bizarre suicide) ----- Original Message ----- From: To: Sent: Saturday, March 25, 2000 1:43 PM Subject: Re: DG: Bizarre suicide > In a message dated 3/25/00 7:53:45 AM Pacific Standard Time, > moorebros@earthlink.net writes: > > << Guy falls out the window and is shotgunned on the way down! > Homicide: Life on the Streets did an episode with this as one of their story > lines. >> > > If this is the despondent fellow who wanted to inherit money so he loaded > the shotgun his father was in the habit of threatening his mother with ..... > > It opens the film Magnolia. A must-see for Fortean afficionados. > > Mark McFadden > Check out the Biblical verse on the hand lettered sign in the studio > audience. No, it wasn't John 3:16. Yep, there were three references to SPOILER SPACE . . . . . . . . Exodus 8:2 in the movie, one in the game-show audience, one when the rain stops and all the bus kiosks light up, and one right at the beginning when the guy jumps off the building -- two little pieces of wire are bent into the shapes "8" and "2." A fun movie; can't wait till the DVD comes out and pick out all the hidden stuff. My apologies if this movie's been picked to death on the list before; I just recently re-subscribed about a month ago. ObDG: Forget all the *obvious* Vibe-influenced filmmakers with Brotherhood ties, how about a filmmaker who's a dilletante in the occult and/or conspiracy theories and sticks a whole bunch of hidden messages in his latest film just for kicks. Trouble is, a certain group of equally dilletantish but way more dangerous Yellow-Sign-wearing/octopus-idol worshipping (whichever way you wanna go) ticket-buyers see a whole lot more in the young filmmaker's magnum opus than just biblical references and Fortean events. All of a sudden, the filmmaker's a cult figure, literally, and requires either DG protection or sanction. A bit like Foucault's Pendulum, really, to cross the streams one more time: "You know more about us than we do." > P.S. Watched Breakfast of Champions last night. Good stuff Maynard. The UUU > shows up at a crucial point if you squint. Kilgore Trout and Dwayne Hoover > are talking at a table in a hotel cocktail lounge. Dwayne is over the edge > and flailing. He reads the story in one of Kilgore's beaver magazines, Now It > Can Be Told, which is a letter from God to the single solitary creature in > existence with free will. As he reads aloud, the lightshow for the lounge > singer places slowly revolving triskelions on the faces of both Dwayne and > Kilgore. This is not an accident, as the triskelions remain in place for some > time through several different shots. > BTW, the triskelions arms curve to the right rather than to the left, so it > isn't perfect, but what the hell. Another in my series of Spot the UUU. > Sweet. Of course, I always wondered when this movie opened and where, because I never saw it in theaters. Mike, Uncle Kurt survives World War II, smoking Pall Malls his whole life, *and* a house fire... obviously, the man has a very high Luck. From: owner-dgrpg@delta-green.com on behalf of Philip A Posehn [paposehn@juno.com] Sent: Saturday, March 25, 2000 2:09 PM To: dgrpg@delta-green.com Subject: Re: DG: Re: The Illuminati I too would be very interested in hearing your thoughts on this. I've been toying with the idea of doing something similar with the FuManchu cannon, H. Ryder Haggard and some other contemporaries or near contemporaries of HPL. Phil . > Good one, that man! > I'm currently toying with the idea of a Steampunkish conspiracy > campaign, > throwing in all the Victorian stuff I have handy, and making the > whole run > on the Window. > The thing is still in its infancy, but could as well develop in a > sort of > Victorian Delta Green. > I'll keep the list posted, just in case.... > > > > > Davide Mana > Torino, Italy > doctor.dee@libero.it > The Ice Cave - > http://www.fortunecity.com/tattooine/leiber/50/ice_cave.htm > ________________________________________________________________ YOU'RE PAYING TOO MUCH FOR THE INTERNET! Juno now offers FREE Internet Access! Try it today - there's no risk! For your FREE software, visit: http://dl.www.juno.com/get/tagj. From: owner-dgrpg@delta-green.com on behalf of Philip A Posehn [paposehn@juno.com] Sent: Saturday, March 25, 2000 2:45 PM To: dgrpg@delta-green.com Subject: Re: DG: Intelligence I feel that intelligence is most definitely non-linear. We generally measure "intelligence" by the speed with which one can process information which is not necessarily related to the ability to produce completely original thinking. Sentience, which is generally defined as the awareness of the self, is a different kettle of deep ones entirely. Any other thoughts on these definitions? Phil On Sat, 25 Mar 2000 11:18:43 -0500 Michael Beck writes: > This is something that just hit me a few hours ago. The question of > sentience. > We see intelligence as a scale, we are more or less intelligent than > other > people, animals are less intelligent than people, and the GOOs and > the other > races of the universe have alien *forms* of intelligence--but we > never question > the basic assumption of intelligence. That there exists some > universal constant > and at some point it is possible to say "a race is sentient" or "a > race is not > sentient". > > What if things are different. What if intelligence exists not in a > one-dimensional line but a Cartesian plane (or in more dimensions, > but we can > best visualize two), and the nature of a life forms sentience (note, > I'm > assuming that there's a universal constant as to what is and isn't > alive), and > different areas on the plane equate to different *types* of > intelligence. > Animals simply exist on a different *part* of the graph than humans > do. > Humanity has a different "area of intelligence" than the Deep Ones, > or the > Mi-go. The Deep Ones do not serve Cthulhu for religious or cultural > reasons--the truth is that in the portion of the sentience graph > that they work > on, worshipping Cthulhu *is the natural thing for them to do*. > Normally, > humanity sticks to its own little circle, as defined by our culture > and our > knowledge. People who have lost SAN get further and further away > from the > center, until they just don't fall into the common realm of > sentience. How does > that sound? > ________________________________________________________________ YOU'RE PAYING TOO MUCH FOR THE INTERNET! Juno now offers FREE Internet Access! Try it today - there's no risk! For your FREE software, visit: http://dl.www.juno.com/get/tagj. From: owner-dgrpg@delta-green.com on behalf of Philip A Posehn [paposehn@juno.com] Sent: Saturday, March 25, 2000 2:26 PM To: dgrpg@delta-green.com Subject: Re: DG: Re: Minor sci point Try reading an 1880s text on comparitive religions. Then roll a san check. Reading costs 2/1D6 San. One of the reasons I'd rather play in an 1880s game than run one is that the game needs at least one player willing and able to play the Eurocentric parochial attitude of the average white Christian of the period. Its a lot harder to find the cultist in Egypt when EVRYONE wants to kill you. Phil On Sat, 25 Mar 2000 08:28:26 -0500 (EST) The Man in Black writes: > On Wed, 22 Mar 2000 Appelion@aol.com wrote: > > > Got a very interesting excerpt from a 1881 history text in history > today... > > "The white races are imbued with the greatest share of > intelligence, courage, > > and wisdom..." Especially when you realize your great-grandfather > (whom I > > respect very much) probably used that book, or one much like it > (to his > > credit, I highly doubt he held any of those beliefs, but then, he > would have > > been the exception). > ________________________________________________________________ YOU'RE PAYING TOO MUCH FOR THE INTERNET! Juno now offers FREE Internet Access! Try it today - there's no risk! For your FREE software, visit: http://dl.www.juno.com/get/tagj. From: owner-dgrpg@delta-green.com on behalf of Michael Layne [theherald@hotmail.com] Sent: Saturday, March 25, 2000 3:09 PM To: dgrpg@delta-green.com Subject: Re: DG: USS Scorpion (long...) On 24 March, 2000 AD, Mark McFadden, Trusty Shellback, otherwise known as LizardRoi@aol.com, has this to say concerning the loss of the USS Scorpion: >In a message dated 00-03-24 09:55:10 EST, you write: > ><< I was wondering if anyone had any information about the mysterious >disappearance of this sub. I saw a piece on it on the nuclear accident URL >I >posted, but has anyone heard anything else? >> > > Blind Man's Bluff: the untold story of American submarine espionage > by Sherry Sontag and Christopher Drew > ISBN 0-06-103004-X > > discusses it in general with some more details that are new to the public That was the source I was about to recommend -- you beat me to it! The book, in fact, has a chapter ("Death of a Submarine") devoted to the "Scorpion". > > Michael Layne! Come on down! > Since you ask...:) Those of you reading the newspaper article at the original URL that started this thread, be sure and read down to the bottom of that URL's coverage, where some of the info cited in "Blind Man's Bluff" is mentioned... Most especially, the possibility that the "Scorpion"'s sinking was brought about by a hot-running torpedo! The fish in question, the Mk-37, already had a reputation for such malfunctions, which could endanger the boat. The course change made by the "Scorpion" was apparently not torpedo evasion, but an effort to deactivate the fish before its warhead cooked off! A Mk-37, like many modern torpedoes, employs a pair of built-in safety measures -- "Run-to-Enable" and "Anti Circular Run" -- to prevent the firing vessel from accidentally torpedoing herself. (That sort of major embarrassment can and has occurred -- during WWII, at least one US submarine (USS Tang) was sunk when one of her own torpedoes circled back and hit her! It is not a glorious way to die...) "Run-to-Enable" essentially means the torpedo must travel a certain preset minimum distance before the warhead will arm. (Circumstances such as the underwater battle in "Hunt for Red October", where the target vessel is able to take advantage of this and get inside the fish's arming distance, are extremely rare!) The "Anti Circular Run" safety is what has been cited in the most viable (IMHO) theory of the "Probable Cause" of the loss of "Scorpion". It didn't cause the sinking, per se, but it provides us with a clue as to what happened... If the torpedo's guidance system detects a course change that puts it on a reciprocal heading, an automatic safety system (Anti Circular Run) shuts down the fish and safes the warhead. (The fish will then sink to the bottom without exploding, thus preventing a repeat of the loss of the "Tang".) In the case of USS "Scorpion" and the Mk-37 torpedo, the theory goes that, when the problem with the hot-running torpedo was reported to the control room, the CO (or OOD) implemented what had become standard procedure in such a case, and ordered a hard turn to starboard to put the boat on a reciprocal heading. When the torpedo started running hot, its guidance system energized. Turning the submarine also turned the torpedo, making its guidance system think it had somehow reversed course, and causing the Anti Circular Run safety to kick in and shut down the fish before it was too late. Unfortunately, in the case of the "Scorpion", it apparently was too late... The Mk-37 is a relatively small torpedo, only a little over half the size of more familiar models such as the WWII Mk-14, or the modern Mk-48. Its warhead is "only" 330 lbs of Torpex -- about half the weight of those in many of the full-sized torpedoes. Yet, it was sufficient to complete the primary purpose of a torpedo warhead -- to open up the hull. The simulations the Navy later ran, assuming the torpedo had exploded in the forward torpedo room, seemed to almost invariably lead to loss of the simulated sub... (Generally in 90 seconds -- the submarine in "Ice Station Zebra", which suffered a similar casualty, and survived, was very lucky!) From what I've read, this is probably what killed the "Scorpion"; I (personally) don't hold with the theories that she was detected and sunk by a Soviet SSN. Detecting her would not have been easy (even with knowledge she was someplace in the general vicinity), and firing on her would have been highly unlikely. True, communications security had been compromised, and the Soviets may have known she was in the area. But even the Soviets would have been unlikely to actually fire on a US sub in international waters, that was doing nothing more hostile than perhaps recording their sound signatures! Blowing her out of the water, under the circumstances, would have offered them fairly trivial benefits (the ocean there was too deep for them to salvage items from her wreck) for some very non-trivial risks! (Of course, had the "Scorpion" been detected in _Russian territorial waters_, it would probably have been open season...) One of the unwritten "Rules of the Game" -- if you detect the other fellow, in international waters, you can follow him around... you can photograph him or record his sound signature... you can ping him (giving his sonarmen headaches) and play tag with him... you can even train your own men by setting up practice firing solutions... but you _don't_ shoot at him! Most of the other theories I've heard to account for the loss of "Scorpion" seem to also assume an explosion in or adjacent to the torpedo room. For example, there is a (IMHO, less likely) variation on the "hot-run" theory that suggests that the malfunctioning Mk-37 was already loaded in one of the tubes, and was fired -- whereupon its safety systems malfunctioned, its warhead armed, and it circled back and sank the firing vessel. Another theory suggests that the explosion in the torpedo room was due to an accidental detonation of one of the initiator charges for the nuclear warhead of one of the pair of Mk-45 ASTOR torpedoes included in the boat's ordnance loadout. (The warhead itself obviously didn't detonate -- the boat wasn't vaporized -- but even the "small" initiator charges for the W34 warhead would have still breached the hull...) One theory that doesn't involve the torpedo room suggests the sinking was due to a hydrogen gas explosion in the boat's battery well. While such explosions have taken place on other submarines, and have even led to the loss of several, I (personally) consider it a bit less likely here than the torpedo explosion theory... A few "Scorpion" related sites for those interested: USS Scorpion Alumni Association: http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/Hills/9260/ "Computer Simulation" of the Scorpion breakup: http://www.jmsnet.com/jms/simulate.htm Photos of boat & crew, list of crew lost: http://www.sealion.com/ssn585class/585_class.html Coverage on the "SubNet" site, including photos, stats, report of environmental monitoring of the wreck site, and the two nuclear weapons (Mk-45 ASTOR) aboard): http://www.subnet.com/fleet/ssn589.htm Launch & Commissioning Photos, News coverage of the loss, photos of wreck: http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/Plains/8319/USSScorpion.htm Scorpion page, including photos, crew list: http://www.txoilgas.com/589.html Submarine Accidents page at Ron Martini's Submarine Webpage (including Scorpion and Thresher sinkings, various links): http://wavecom.net/~rontini/accident.html I hope this helps, and I'm sorry I got so wordy again! (At least I don't do it as often as I used to...):) Michael Layne DGGF#688 theherald@hotmail.com ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com From: owner-dgrpg@delta-green.com on behalf of Andy Robertson [andywrobertson@clara.co.uk] Sent: Saturday, March 25, 2000 3:13 PM To: dgrpg@delta-green.com Subject: Re: DG: On Gates (relativity and time travel) ---- Original Message ----- From: > I truly loved the details on the space\time ramifications of Gating, and > will probably find some good uses for them later. But, the models described > seemed to deny the possibility of getting from here to there instantaneously > without paying some Einsteinian penalty. That's like saying that "Your models of the the Earth seem to deny the possibility that points on its surface could be in a straight line rather than in a curve". They do deny it, and they are accurate, or at least more accurate than the flat-world picture. If you fly from London to New York to Los Angeles you have to curve round with the Earth's surface. Your use of a magical or technological "gate" to do the journey in three steps will not put those cities in a straight line. It's the same with the timeslip effect of "instantaneous" gating, in that the "penalties" derive from the geometry of the space/time you gate about in, and are nothing to do with the technology of the Gates. I think it's interesting too - FX the Earth's orbital motion would have a big effect on the time of arrival of a Gate journey to a distant star, as has been said. But let's not wiggle a dead thread too hard. The Glove Cleaner From: owner-dgrpg@delta-green.com on behalf of Davide Mana [doctor.dee@libero.it] Sent: Saturday, March 25, 2000 3:20 PM To: dgrpg@delta-green.com Subject: Re: DG: Re: Re: Games and the Mythos Greetings. The Man in Black wrote a lot, but he's clearly starting to think in numbers >I guess that explains why the Moanalua Chess Club 1986-1990 was >undefeated, cause we played at least three hours a day in school >(including lunch and recess) then went home to play some more. Five days a >week all semester long. Defeat is in your mind. And it's not a function of time ;> >Mediocre...HAH~! You're just a dabbler in the dark arts. You wouldn't know >a seven move forced mate if it required a queen sacrifice right in front >of your face. So what? Are you one of those guys that replicate fixed patterns from memory? How quaint. See what I meant when I said I was disgusted with Chess players? Not that I'm disgusted with the MiB, of course.... I've been too long on this list to be. The point in my post was, the rest of the time we played life. Take care, gentlemen (and ladies) Davide Mana Torino, Italy doctor.dee@libero.it The Ice Cave - http://www.fortunecity.com/tattooine/leiber/50/ice_cave.htm From: owner-dgrpg@delta-green.com on behalf of Davide Mana [doctor.dee@libero.it] Sent: Saturday, March 25, 2000 3:30 PM To: dgrpg@delta-green.com Subject: Re: DG: Re: The Illuminati Greetings. Chris wrote >Did you care for The Difference Engine?... most of the guys around here >who read Bruce Sterling (from Austin TX, my hometown BTW so I get a bit >saturated) couldn't stand it. Can't come up with an OBdg.... um er... >damn... who's at the door. Andrea... Andrea who? I found it extremely pretentious, and a bit rambling as it progresses. But I'm not so hot about Sterling (which I find generally pretentious). So far I've found most Steampunk I read to be not completely to my tastes - Moorcock's Oswald Bastabble stories were fun, but later authors either took themselves too seriously or were too 'romp-oriented'. I'm designing my own setting - and 'designing' is probably too big a word - just because there's a lot of good stuff in published games, but they all fall short in one respect or another, for my tastes. And here I stop, as this has no DG content at all. Sorry for the OT. Cheers! From: owner-dgrpg@delta-green.com on behalf of Andy Robertson [andywrobertson@clara.co.uk] Sent: Saturday, March 25, 2000 3:59 PM To: dgrpg@delta-green.com Subject: DG: Re: The Rudyards cease from Kipling ----- Original Message ----- From: Philip A Posehn > One of the reasons I'd rather play in an 1880s game than run one is that > the game needs at least one player willing and able to play the > Eurocentric parochial attitude of the average white Christian of the > period. Its a lot harder to find the cultist in Egypt when EVRYONE wants > to kill you. For 1880's to 1900's background I tentatively suggest - read Kipling. Intelligently. He was a genius of a writer, and though we might call him a "racist" today his attitude to "non-Europeans" was definitely far more complex (and far more positive) than the cliches suggest. For one thing Kipling did _not_ hold the "Eurocentric parochial attitude", though he objectively portrayed many people who did. Pay him some attention and you'll be astonished. Ob DG - he wrote many fine supernatural stories. "The End Of The Passage" contains a quote which Leiber used for the title of his "A Bit Of The Dark World". ("there was a hole in his head, and a bit of the Dark World came through and pressed him to death"). Do you trust Fritz Leiber's taste? As for the "Eurocentric parochial attitude" - the "Ethnocentric parochial attitude" is the universal and perpetual fixation of the _human_ race. The unusual thing about "Europeans" is not that they are racist, but that, today, some of them believe being racist towards others is wrong. Almost all other people in almost all other cultures either don't give it a second thought or believe it a positive virtue. The Glove Cleaner From: owner-dgrpg@delta-green.com on behalf of James Holloway [j_holloway26@hotmail.com] Sent: Saturday, March 25, 2000 5:56 PM To: dgrpg@delta-green.com Subject: Re: DG: Re: GO and the GOO > >We don't know that. Mi-Go do have some tenuous connection to Hastur in >certain stories. > ?? The only connection I recall (and I could be wrong - I'd be interested to know) is that in "Whisperer," it is pointed out that there is an organization "connected" to Hastur and the Yellow Sign which opposes the Mi-Go's operations on Earth. In published CofC material, this has been described as a kind of weird paramilitary cult, possibly composed of hardcase immortals, which globetrots, whupping Mi-Go butt. Doesn't seem terribly "Yellow-Sign-ish" to me, so I tend to ignore it... -- James Holloway "And yet in the end, for all his pains, he only knows how to play a game." - Baldesar Castiglione, "The Book of the Courtier" ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com