From: owner-dgrpg@delta-green.com on behalf of Jonathan Turner [j.turner@irishnews.com] Sent: Friday, April 07, 2000 10:00 AM To: dgrpg@delta-green.com Subject: Re: DG: the movie At 03:20 PM 4/7/00 +0100, you wrote: > >But if there were a UN equivalent to DG, then perhaps UNIT might be a >template... > >Of course the turf battles between them and, say, MJ12 and PISCES might >be a campaign all on their own! > Now that is a good idea. There would be ideal opportunity to tie in the usual One World Government conspiracy threads there with a dose of the Mythos. I mean, would the Mi-Go really be content with just one government under their sway. Perhaps all those other kinds of aliens - Nordica, reptilian aliens and so on, are forms they have created artificially like the Greys to influence other governments. Didn't they build UFO `hotels' with landing pads in French in the 70s? Jonathan From: owner-dgrpg@delta-green.com on behalf of Crossingham, Adam [Adam.Crossingham@Octavian1009.E-MAIL.COM] Sent: Friday, April 07, 2000 11:04 AM To: 'dgrpg@delta-green.com' Subject: DG: DG Live Here's something that appeared on the Cthulhu Live list a few days ago: Robert McLaughlin reported that "the word is that Cthulhu Live: Delta Green is a go! Delta Green will most likely be our next supplement after the Cthulhu Live Companion... so get your conspiracy hats on. If you have ideas for any pieces of the Delta Green project... start letting us know! We'll have some material from Tynes, Glancy and Detweiller... but special sections on live-action gaming will be required and we'd also love to continue growing the Delta Green partnership with new elements to the DG universe. " HTH the LARPers out there. -- Adam Crossingham "Shoot the loud, well dressed women first. They're more dangerous. They prefer dressing up and politicking than sitting round a table with a bunch of fat blokes." Home e-mail: zodiac@theblackseal.org Any opinions expressed in this email are those of the individual From: owner-dgrpg@delta-green.com on behalf of Imandos@aol.com Sent: Friday, April 07, 2000 10:30 AM To: dgrpg@delta-green.com Subject: Re: DG: RE: Interesting reading Steven wrote: >Ken's also written NIGHTMARES OF MINE, a useful guide for people running horror >RPG campaigns. This may be one of the most useful inspirational gaming supplements on the market. If you want to know how to run a scary horror game, this book will be your bible. I agree with Steven's recommendation for both beginners and advanced Keepers or players. There is a reason this book appears on many recommended reading lists in the back of many competing companies bibliographies. It simply is the best "How to run horror!" source I have seen. Tom Woodall Imandos@aol.com From: owner-dgrpg@delta-green.com on behalf of REFLECTING SKIN [reflectingskin@hotmail.com] Sent: Friday, April 07, 2000 10:48 AM To: dgrpg@delta-green.com Subject: Re: DG: the movie >>Jumping at a tangent... casting against type: Robert Redford is >>Stephen >>Alzis Alzis is suppossed to be of an inderterminate age and of ARABIC descent. >Sir Anthony Hopkins should be Alzis. Failing that, perhaps Sylvester > >McCoy? Isn't McCoy that awful Dr.Who actor? I despise that show. ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com From: owner-dgrpg@delta-green.com on behalf of Noyes [ft203004@fsinet.or.jp] Sent: Friday, April 07, 2000 11:32 AM To: dgrpg@delta-green.com Subject: RE: DG: the movie I'm not exactly sure who he should play, but I feel that Jeffery Coombs deserves a place in the show as well. Possibly as a DG friendly. I would also like to see "Darkness of the Hillside Thickets" get at least a cameo. From: owner-dgrpg@delta-green.com on behalf of Crossingham, Adam [Adam.Crossingham@Octavian1009.E-MAIL.COM] Sent: Friday, April 07, 2000 12:33 PM To: 'dgrpg@delta-green.com' Subject: DG: ODH Power limits [was RE: DG: Montecassino] > Gil Trevizo worries: > <<< Actually, this points out an issue I hope to see dealt with in OUR > DARKEST HOUR - a WW2-era Delta Green has a lot more power than their > modern-day counterparts. [snip] don't have the pull to get all the > high-tech weapons and hardware that can turn your average Mythos > beastie into so much mulch. A modern-day DG team is basically left to > their own personal firepower and wits >>> > Ironically I think a WW2 team is in a similar situation, but this is due mainly to way I see special occult ops occurring. If regular forces are needed they would be sent and would have the advantages that Don fears will damage play balance. However the mythos isn't stupid, it won't stick around to eat firebombs if it can help it. A little rethinking of the ability of extra-terrene material that some mythos entities consist of may be useful too. Advances in weaponry means that the modern day civilian or para-police investigator team has access to similar amounts of firepower as WW2 military teams the exception being access to explosives and missiles. Given the evidence that has been revealed in DG and DG:CD, only the Karotechia are organised seriously. Everyone else operates in a commando/ranger/airborne/partisan/espionage role which means lightly armed troops, operating in smaller numbers than conventional infantry. What they lack in firepower is compensated with by surprise, and relative vulnerability of the target. <<< Now a WW2-era DG team can call in airstrikes, artillery, a Ranger > company, whatever they need - why learn that Mythos spell when you can > just get on the horn to HQ and have a squadron of B-24s level the > place for you? >>> > I think that Don emphasises the accessibility a little too much. This may have been the American way in late 1944, but with the rest of the Allies and earlier in the war this suggested ease of communications didn't exist. Radio communication behind enemy lines was detectable, eavesdroppable and dangerous, and battlefield radio technology didn't have the range; Airstrikes depend on forward observers and armed aircraft in the combat zone, and are unlikely to outside a combat area; artillery is easier to get hold of, but has a top range limit of approximately of 20 miles (I'm guessing here folks); a Ranger battalion has to be on standby to be useful, if it isn't you might be dead by the time they get there (a couple of days); you have to be able to talk to HQ to get what you want... HQ will always be reluctant to spare B-24s from their roles of bombing the snot of the Fatherland. Bomber Command will always have a better target than the one suggested by OSS P-4 or PISCES, ones they have chosen themselves. <<< The only way I see this not going from a game of > personal horror to one of forward artillery control is for DG to have > a lot less pull - to be little more than the X-Files of the OSS, a > tolerated but underfunded and undermanned basement operation that is > seen as one of Donovan's kooky experiments even within the OSS. >>> > >From what I've read, the funny forces always had problems getting hold of the things they wanted, and the regular forces who had to supply them resented doing it. Sabotage and special forces were regarded with suspicion by regular military forces for most of the war. I'm coming from a British view and there SOE had a hard time getting aircraft to fly in agents and supplies. The bombers were always 2nd line obsolete ones. The US Carpetbagger squadrons (Europe, Balkans and Far east) and the Air Commando (?Balkans and the Far East) forces were slightly different being tasked to support covert and behind-the-lines operations but their operating bases were removed from the operational area. Remember that virtually all WW2 aircraft met in a game are going to be prop driven and operating from a base possibly hundreds of miles away. The aircraft are dependent on weather condition unlike some all weather aircraft today. At extreme ranges, they might only be able to dwell over the target area for a matter of minutes. And when sabotage/SF got the equipment for the jobs it was always light. The SAS in North Africa operated using jeeps, high volume GP MGs, heavy MGs and explosives, nothing more. In Europe the SAS, Jedburgh teams, and later the Long Range Penetration and Recce units operating in advance of the Allied advance at the end of the war used similar equipment, or light armoured cars and light mortars, if they were lucky. No support other than air. If they ran into something big, they tried to run - like recce units should. Moving outside of these set-ups into things like commando raids, or proper espionage things become even worse and a lot more dangerous. I think if ODH approaches WW2 ops in the proper manner, and in a similar way to historical precedents than there shouldn't be a problem with overpowering firepower. It's there, but it's someone else's'. And that needs authorisation. Which is a whole another scenario. -- Adam Crossingham "Miles Gallowglass. CO North African Raiding Squadron, the 3rd Corsairs. Pleased to me'cher. My boys do jobs for some fishy people." Home e-mail: zodiac@theblackseal.org Any opinions expressed in this email are those of the individual From: owner-dgrpg@delta-green.com on behalf of Davide Mana [doctor.dee@libero.it] Sent: Friday, April 07, 2000 7:17 AM To: dgrpg@delta-green.com Subject: Re: DG: Creeping longevity Greetings. We are shifting towards applied metaphysics and the question is... > But a question - if you had the chance, would you really want to live > forever? Most certainly yes. >From the data at hand, life is a lot more interesting than death. And I totally subscribe to Roger Zelazny's take on immortality - each and every experience becomes a cherished memory in its uniqueness. 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 Eckhard Huelshoff [EHuelshoff@t-online.de] Sent: Friday, April 07, 2000 11:51 AM To: dgrpg@delta-green.com Subject: Re: DG: ODH Power limits [was RE: DG: Montecassino] Crossingham, Adam schrieb: [snip] > > HQ will always be reluctant to spare B-24s from their roles of bombing the > snot of the Fatherland. Bomber Command will always have a better target than > the one suggested by OSS P-4 or PISCES, ones they have chosen themselves. But I think this would make a cool scenario: The PC are aboard a B-17 [ and not necessarily DG-Agents ] on such a cleanup mission. And on their flight to the target they are not only attacked by FW-190 Fighters, but by flying THINGS... ECKHARD From: owner-dgrpg@delta-green.com on behalf of Gil Trevizo [furrylogic@mindspring.com] Sent: Friday, April 07, 2000 11:53 AM To: dgrpg@delta-green.com Subject: DG: Re: Interesting reading I scanned a copy of Suppressed Transmissions, and it is a great sourcebook for inspiration, but do note that by subscribing to Pyramid Online, you get access to just about all the material that is in the book (Ken Hite's weekly column, which is where the book is gathered from, is archived on site), and of course, access to all the new material he puts out weekly. So check that out: http://www.sjgames.com/pyramid/ Hite's stuff is fantastic - the only place I've been able to find *any* information on the Black Dragon Society (Japan's version of Karotechia, from DG: Countdown), and there's at least a couple of decent DG scenarios in each and every column. The only thing that the book should have over the on-line articles are footnotes - I would love to go over Hite's primary sources. Gil Trevizo furrylogic@mindspring.com From: owner-dgrpg@delta-green.com on behalf of REFLECTING SKIN [reflectingskin@hotmail.com] Sent: Friday, April 07, 2000 11:59 AM To: dgrpg@delta-green.com Subject: Re: DG: Creeping longevity would you want to live forever? Absolutely. With the option to kill myself of course. and I think it would become easy, after awhile your brain wouldn't be able to hold all of your memories, so maybe it would become rather blissful, only able to remember the past 140 years or so with ANY sort of clarity, and everything before that being like memories of early childhood. ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com From: owner-dgrpg@delta-green.com on behalf of Michael Beck [msb216@is7.nyu.edu] Sent: Friday, April 07, 2000 12:05 PM To: dgrpg@delta-green.com Subject: Re: DG: Creeping longevity I once read a short story in which a man is about to die, but an immortal entity comes to him and returns him to life. Over many years the man grows to hate immortality, but every time he kills himself the entity brings him back to life. So he swears to kill the entity--and it leaves, satisfied. Because it too, wants to die, and it brings people back to life so they'll be driven to figure out a way to kill it. Jonathan Turner wrote: > >From today's Daily Telegraph, a story based on an article in Science > magazine by Dr John Harris, professor of bioethics at Manchester University. > > Dr Harris is writing about the subject of ``creeping longevity'', the > gradual advance in medical technology which may effectively make > immortality a reality. Eventually... He paints a bizarre picture of the > elderly seeking euthanasia as the only option if they decide life is too > much for them. According to him, medical technologies such as the > replacement of damaged tissue and organs may boost life expectancy above > 120 in developed countries in the medium term. > > DG-relevance: This reminds me of the story competition on the DG site where > the subject was immortality. I can think of a few DG ideas, such as the > MJ-12 experiment who escapes, but is effectively immortal, as well as the > usual Lovecraftian forms of immortality. > > But a question - if you had the chance, would you really want to live > forever? > > Can't wait to see what Graeme says about this. My own opinion is that he > already has that particular nut cracked. ``Fiddlesticks, Igor! I haven't > got time for this! We still have to perfect that tailored virus which > attacks golfing enthusiasts!!'' > > Jonathan From: owner-dgrpg@delta-green.com on behalf of James Holloway [j_holloway26@hotmail.com] Sent: Friday, April 07, 2000 12:23 PM To: dgrpg@delta-green.com Subject: Re: DG: Re: Interesting reading Suppressed Transmission is quite the thing. How can you not appreciate an author who is (to judge by the introduction) crazier than John Tynes. I particularly admire its style; most conspiracy texts tend to be trying to make some point about how the CONSPIRACY (which could be run by JEW BANKERS) is ruling the world or about how the CHURCH suppressed the TRUTH about JESUS or ALIENS or some damn thing... very serious. Either that, or they're whimsical (but sometimes impenetrable) intellectual games. I think Ken Hite's idea of a roleplaying game is "a game where you get liquored up and go rampaging through historically-plausible alternate universes at impossible speeds kicking alien ass!" Free-wheeling insanity on a foundation of serious weirdness scholarship. I'm such an ST dork I recommend getting the book _and_ subscribing to Pyramid, but there you go. -- 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 From: owner-dgrpg@delta-green.com on behalf of EdDrWho@aol.com Sent: Friday, April 07, 2000 12:29 PM To: dgrpg@delta-green.com Subject: Re: DG: the movie In a message dated Fri, 7 Apr 2000 8:36:26 AM Eastern Daylight Time, Jonathan Turner writes: > He was Dr Whooooooooooo!!!! And he's coming back to play him again on the > radio! > > ObDG: Has anyone used any Who stuff as inspiration for DG? Great > Lovecraftian stories like the Horror at Fang Rock and Image of the Fendahl > spring to mind. Yes, on both counts. Lord, but I do love my cheesy British sci-fi. The Doctor makes a wonderful scientific advisor for PISCES, until he figures out what's going on... From: owner-dgrpg@delta-green.com on behalf of EdDrWho@aol.com Sent: Friday, April 07, 2000 12:33 PM To: dgrpg@delta-green.com Subject: Re: DG: the movie > > ``Sergeant Benton! That scaly green chap choking the professor! Five rounds > > rapid! Quick as you like!'' > > Just as in CoC, bullets usually did nothing to the beasties on Dr. Who. > Another similarity! :-) "What's this?" "Teflon bullets. They'll go right through a Dalek." "They make frying pans out of that stuff..." ---The Doctor and Brigaidier Lethbridge Stewart, ca. 1999, "Battlefield" Wherein a biiig mythosian-type creature is summoned and defeated. From: owner-dgrpg@delta-green.com on behalf of LizardRoi@aol.com Sent: Friday, April 07, 2000 12:39 PM To: dgrpg@delta-green.com Subject: DG: Sylvester McCoy In a message dated 00-04-07 03:36:06 EDT, you write: << > Failing that, perhaps Sylvester McCoy? > (10p oints to anyone who knows THAT actor...) >> Wasn't he, like, Dr. Who # 7 or like that there? Never mind the 10 points, where's my T-shirt and tote bag? Mark McFadden Watching the KCET telethon From: owner-dgrpg@delta-green.com on behalf of LizardRoi@aol.com Sent: Friday, April 07, 2000 12:57 PM To: dgrpg@delta-green.com Subject: Re: DG: Creeping longevity In a message dated 00-04-07 03:57:16 EDT, you write: << But a question - if you had the chance, would you really want to live forever? >> Shit yeah. I've spent my whole life living in the future, now that it's here I want to take my time looking around. Incidentally, a few of the iconoclasts here at work celebrated the new Millenium (since we missed most the real thing being on call or in the Data Center) by coming to work the next Monday in various "future" costumes. I wore my black jumpsuit\coveralls with bar code on my forehead, others wore a black suit with turtleneck shirt, some came in black jeans and T-shirts with mirrorshades... For lunch, we all went to a sushi bar. I mentioned that that was what my ex-wife used to call me - "cold fish." Mark McFadden aka Freddy Pesci From: owner-dgrpg@delta-green.com on behalf of William Timmins [wtimmins@hotmail.com] Sent: Friday, April 07, 2000 1:20 PM To: dgrpg@delta-green.com Subject: DG: Funny childhood games I was playing furious george (http://www.snowplow.org/cgi-bin/george.pl), a demented crime-spree game. So, it occurs to me that this is a demented way to teach children about the states... which have lax laws, and so forth. Then thinking of Endtimes... "Where in the world is the King in Yellow?" Here? "Yes." There? "Yes." Over there? "Yes, again!" -=Will Children's games are a mysterious and horrible thing. The edge between reason and insanity is built of toys. ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com From: owner-dgrpg@delta-green.com on behalf of Matt Cowger [mcowger@kc.rr.com] Sent: Friday, April 07, 2000 1:29 PM To: Secured Server1 Subject: DG: From the weird news Ok, ok the guy is barking mad, but still the premise does make one think. Sort of CthulhuPunkesque...hmmm, the gears are turning. Anyway, for you edification from the current Wierd News newsletter: GHOSTS IN THE MACHINE According to British psychic researcher Alfred Halifcourt, friends that we make while surfing the Internet may really be disembodied spirits. "Cyberspace is a place where the spirit and material worlds overlap and it's easy for spirits to communicate with us there," Halifcourt said in a recent Big Issue article. The famous researcher claims to have first discovered this phenomenon in 1995, while talking to "Carolyn" in an on-line chatroom. "She was very flirtatious but I kept noticing her language was somewhat out of date. I became suspicious and asked if she was a ghost. At first she denied it, but when I pressed her, she admitted that she had drowned back in 1911 at the age of 21." Halifcourt says that some 200,000 spirits are on-line at any one time. Their use of Gothic font and poor knowledge of current events can identify them. your friends at Tenebrous Technologies +_+_+_+_+_+_+ Tenebrous Technologies- 'What we are up to is none of your business' A tradition in Guile, Deceit and Treachery since 1997 Matt Cowger, CEO mcowger@kc.rr.com http://home.gvi.net/~tenebrae Vox: (###)###-##### +_+_+_+_+_+_+ From: owner-dgrpg@delta-green.com on behalf of LizardRoi@aol.com Sent: Friday, April 07, 2000 1:28 PM To: dgrpg@delta-green.com Subject: Re: DG: Topless in Turkey [was: Re: DG: PISCES operation in Turkeygone wrong? In a message dated 00-04-07 05:50:41 EDT, you write: << Concerning DG: Sending topless women on such beaches in such countries might be a Shub-Niggurath-cult's plan to rise the sexual tension in such places. >> Bookmark this thought. Then ask yourself why Eleanor of Aquitane rode topless at the head of the troops on a Crusade. "I made Louis take me on Crusade. I dressed my maids as Amazons and rode bare-breasted halfway to Damascus. Louis had a seizure and I damn near died of windburn... but the troops were dazzled" Has anyone else seen a continuation of the Albigensian Heresies, or a return to pagan values within Eleanor's "Courts of Love?" Yes, long post to follow at a later date. Mark McFadden "Oh God, but I do love being king!" From: owner-dgrpg@delta-green.com on behalf of LizardRoi@aol.com Sent: Friday, April 07, 2000 1:46 PM To: dgrpg@delta-green.com Subject: Re: DG: Some questions In a message dated 00-04-07 05:54:07 EDT, you write: << I know he meant McCain... but that name threw me into movie whiplash hearing voice Alan Rickman's Teutonified voice "Mr. McClane" and "you must have seen to many cowboy movies as a child, who do you think you are? Roy Rogers?" >> My misspelling was unconscious and due to one of my periodic media deprivation experiments. But talk about your List synchronicity. Bruce Willis could be the founder of the Choirboys, because the quote went like this: "Hans Gruber: Uh, no I'm afraid not. But you have me at a loss. You know my name but who are you? Just another American who saw too many movies as a child? Another orphan of a bankrupt culture who thinks he's John Wayne? Rambo? Marshall Dillon? John McClane: Was always kinda' partial to Roy Rogers actually. I really dig those sequined shirts. Hans: Do you really think you have a chance against us, Mister Cowboy? John McClane: Yippee-ki-yay, motherfucker." So sing everyone! Sing with me, Dave, Davide, Andy, John and Roy! "Everyone knows an ant - can't move a rubber tree plant But we've got high hopes. We've got high hopes..." Mark McFadden Incidentally, hope was the last thing to come out of Pandora's Box. Which makes it one of the more ambiguous symbols in the mass unconscious. From: owner-dgrpg@delta-green.com on behalf of forvalaka@juno.com Sent: Friday, April 07, 2000 2:05 PM To: dgrpg@delta-green.com Cc: dgrpg@delta-green.com Subject: Re: DG: Delta Green not horror? > >I once popped a Deep One in the head with a 7.62N round on > > a critical hit and did not kill him. Lobotomized, yes, but not > dead. > > And, did you spot any changes in his character? > > ECKHARD > He seemed a good deal less focussed after that. But then I was busy getting impaled on a speargun shot, so my focus was a bit off as well. That was a rough night, everyone went to the hospital and we are very lucky no one died. Charles O. Baucum Jr. Mortuus non est quod in aeternum insiditur et aetate ignota mors ipsas finiretur From: owner-dgrpg@delta-green.com on behalf of Popeyesays@aol.com Sent: Friday, April 07, 2000 2:22 PM To: dgrpg@delta-green.com Subject: Re: DG: Topless in Turkey [was: Re: DG: PISCES operation in Turkeygone wrong? In a message dated 4/7/00 1:34:17 PM Central Daylight Time, LizardRoi@aol.com writes: << "I made Louis take me on Crusade. I dressed my maids as Amazons and rode bare-breasted halfway to Damascus. Louis had a seizure and I damn near died of windburn... but the troops were dazzled" >> A quote from one of my favorite plays - "The Lion in Winter". My other two favorites are "Ask Praxitiles why he does not work in BUTTER? Because it does not last, Elanor!" and: "I know. You know I know, and I know you know it. We are a very knowledgeable family." From: owner-dgrpg@delta-green.com on behalf of Eckhard Huelshoff [EHuelshoff@t-online.de] Sent: Friday, April 07, 2000 2:27 PM To: dgrpg@delta-green.com Subject: Re: DG: From the weird news Matt Cowger schrieb: > Ok, ok the guy is barking mad, but still the premise does make one think. > Sort of CthulhuPunkesque...hmmm, the gears are turning. Anyway, for you > edification from the current Wierd News newsletter: > > GHOSTS IN THE MACHINE > According to British psychic researcher Alfred Halifcourt, friends that we > make while surfing the Internet may really be disembodied spirits. > "Cyberspace is a place where the spirit and material worlds overlap and it's > easy for spirits to communicate with us there," Halifcourt said in a recent > Big Issue article. The famous researcher claims to have first discovered > this phenomenon in 1995, while talking to "Carolyn" in an on-line chatroom. > "She was very flirtatious but I kept noticing her language was somewhat out > of date. I became suspicious and asked if she was a ghost. At first she > denied it, but when I pressed her, she admitted that she had drowned back in > 1911 at the age of 21." Halifcourt says that some 200,000 spirits are > on-line at any one time. Their use of Gothic font and poor knowledge of > current events can identify them. Ahem, Good Evening. During the first few sentences I loved the story. Even thought that it might be pretty frightening. But Ghosts that can be identified by their "poor knowledge of current events" and on the other hand live in something that has been invented VERY late in the 20th century!?!?!?!?! Yeah, right.... ObDG: A DG friendly computer nerd [ probably Saucerwatch ] is shot dead by MJ-12 assassins. And dying he tumbles and falls on his computer. And somehow his...well you might call it soul or just mind somehow ends up in the computer and -since he was just online- in the net. And then the PC begin to get emails by somebody they think to be dead who warns them about MJ or even something worse... And what if he contacts them in a chatroom where many others "listen" ECKHARD From: owner-dgrpg@delta-green.com on behalf of Eckhard Huelshoff [EHuelshoff@t-online.de] Sent: Friday, April 07, 2000 2:27 PM To: dgrpg@delta-green.com Subject: Re: DG: Some questions LizardRoi@aol.com schrieb: > In a message dated 00-04-07 05:54:07 EDT, you write: > > << I know he meant McCain... but that name threw me into movie whiplash > hearing voice Alan Rickman's Teutonified voice "Mr. McClane" and "you must > have seen to many cowboy movies as a child, who do you think you are? Roy > Rogers?" >> > > My misspelling was unconscious and due to one of my periodic media > deprivation experiments. But talk about your List synchronicity. > Bruce Willis could be the founder of the Choirboys, because the quote went > like this: > > "Hans Gruber: Uh, no I'm afraid not. But you have me at a loss. You know my > name but who are you? Just another American who saw too many movies as a > child? Another orphan of a bankrupt culture who thinks he's John Wayne? > Rambo? Marshall Dillon? [snip] BTW: In the German version of the film "Hans Gruber" is called "Jack Gruber" because the German cinema owners were tired of German villains. ObDG: Making changes when translating foreign movies is a splendid way to influence people in a very discrete manner. Example: Making a comedy out of "Schindler's list" when translating it would make the American producers of the film seem tasteless. ECKHARD From: owner-dgrpg@delta-green.com on behalf of Popeyesays@aol.com Sent: Friday, April 07, 2000 2:43 PM To: dgrpg@delta-green.com Subject: Re: DG: From the weird news In a message dated 4/7/00 2:30:23 PM Central Daylight Time, EHuelshoff@t-online.de writes: << Ahem, Good Evening. During the first few sentences I loved the story. Even thought that it might be pretty frightening. But Ghosts that can be identified by their "poor knowledge of current events" and on the other hand live in something that has been invented VERY late in the 20th century!?!?!?!?! Yeah, right.... >> They don't pick up all the various news trivia and pseudo understanding that is spouted in chat rooms? They just write - not read I guess. From: owner-dgrpg@delta-green.com on behalf of forvalaka@juno.com Sent: Friday, April 07, 2000 2:33 PM To: dgrpg@delta-green.com Subject: Re: DG: Sports hooliganism and social engineering You know, everything doesn't have to be part of the Conspiracy to be an interesting factor in the game. Our heros are playing a deadly game of "cat and mouse" through the streets of some city, not exactly sure which of them is "cat" and which is "mouse." Suddenly, with the prize/quarry/pursuer in sight, the stadium lets out... Thoroughly mundane events, accidents, and visitations of Mr. Murphy can be just as useful a plot element as any tangled thread of conspiracy. After all, aren't your DG operatives dedicating their lives to protecting the mundane ordinary lives of mundane ordinary people? There must, therefore, be a mundane ordinary world out there going about its business in the midst of all the black operations and Mythos phenomena. I have found that dealing with real world problems in the context of the game makes the horror that much more believable. Charles O. Baucum Jr. Mortuus non est quod in aeternum insiditur et aetate ignota mors ipsas finiretur From: owner-dgrpg@delta-green.com on behalf of Tal Meta [talmeta@cybercomm.net] Sent: Friday, April 07, 2000 3:18 PM To: dgrpg@delta-green.com Subject: Re: DG: Dreamspaces & Dreamfusions Andy Robertson wrote: > > I've never experienced a Dreamfusion with another person - and I now suspect > that while Dreamspaces are common, Dreamfusions are almost unknown. Yet I > do think that they are a natural phenomenon, and I do suspect the Dreamlands I have an old girlfriend that I can (and I stress this tremendously) -occasionally- manage this with, even now. Back when we were still dating, and our thoughts were more 'in synch' with each others, it happened alot more often, but it still occurs, even now. It might even be more often that either of us realize (we only count the dreams we both remember - occasionally one or the other of us will have a dream of the same 'quality' as the shared ones, which the other person doesn't remember...) > From: Tal Meta > > > If you do, what will we have learned about the Deamlands? I dunno... but I'd really like to own that house, all the same. Of course, I might change my mind if the doors that I've never been able to open properly in the dreams are just as sticky in real life.... -- talmeta@cybercomm.net - Heretic, Dilettante, & God-Machine ICQ - 12594453 AIM - talmeta Homepage - From: owner-dgrpg@delta-green.com on behalf of Graeme Price [graemep@immagene.mcg.edu] Sent: Friday, April 07, 2000 3:23 PM To: dgrpg@delta-green.com Subject: Re: DG: Creeping longevity >But a question - if you had the chance, would you really want to live >forever? >Can't wait to see what Graeme says about this. Bucking the trend, no I wouldn't want to live for ever.... unless you put the proviso "without aging or degeneration of mental and physical faculties" somewhere in there. As far as mortal fears (and I use the term advisedly) go, being aware of being on an inexorable slow decline is way up there for most people... the medically oriented especially: after all, there is a big difference between understanding (for example) alzheimer's from an abstract clinically detached view point, and actually _having_ alzheimer's (especially if you _know_ what's _going_ to happen _to you_). But, that said, I can see no biological reason why immortality shouldn't be possible. Bacteria for example may or may not be immortal (it's difficult to tell). It is worthy of note that bacteria have circular (rather than linear) genomes... thus there are no ends to get frayed, and no need for telomeres (the bits of protected DNA at the end of each chromosome which cannot be replicated - it is because of telomeres that (most) mammalian cells have a finite life - telemeres cannot be copied, therefore on each division the chromosome loses a bit at the end. Sooner or later you lose something important and either you get either a cancer cell or a dead cell). The real problem isn't longevity, it's space. Sooner or later, either you stop reproducing (a hard habit to break for most organisms) or you run out of the room and resources you require to live. This is why cancer kills people. Immortal cells aren't too much of a problem. It's when the immortal cells don't stop dividing and can out compete the host for space and nurients that the problems really start. The social consequences for immortality would be interesting, to say the least, and would (IMHO) probably be terminal for a civilization (I won't expand on this - I'll let you work out the problems of disease and social unrest/war for resources). Immortality looks god (I meant to write "good" but I'll leave the typo to stand, I think) on paper, but I have my doubts about the social dimensions. >My own opinion is that he >already has that particular nut cracked. ``Fiddlesticks, Igor! I haven't >got time for this! We still have to perfect that tailored virus which >attacks golfing enthusiasts!!'' Actually, Igor and I have been working on something more devious... we're cloning an enzyme that converts cellulose to cellulose-nitrate into a virus which infects grass. So what? I hear you thinking. Cellulose-nitrate is a percussion explosive, and should detonate quite nicely if it's exposed to a sufficiently hard blow focussed on a sufficiently small area. A golf ball coming off a drive should be good enough. It may not attack gofing enthusiasts... but it should make the game more interesting! Later Graeme graemep@immag.mcg.edu From: owner-dgrpg@delta-green.com on behalf of LizardRoi@aol.com Sent: Friday, April 07, 2000 3:37 PM To: dgrpg@delta-green.com Subject: Re: DG: HIV origins In a message dated 00-04-07 06:01:58 EDT, you write: << It's just possible that the field staff in Africa used chimp tissue to culture the vaccine. However all the records say no, they used the same method of manufacture that was used in Europe. >> My understanding is that they used the same method of manufacture, but they used local monkeys as a budget measure. I don't remember them being chimps, and using them would not have been less expensive. I heard it was the local Green Monkeys. No URLS, I haven't researched beyond the original stories, but I got the feeling that it started to look suspicious after the fact when the use of locally procured monkeys was noticed and the connection to AIDS was hypothesized, and a sort of benign coverup began. In other words, they didn't really think it was an issue, but they knew how bad it looked and tried to downplay the whole sequence of events and of course ended up spotlighting the whole mess. Much like the SNAFU theory of the JFK assassination. JFK is killed, all the usual suspects figure that various things they do would look bad if they came to light so they automatically started a reflexive denial, disinfo and counteraccusation campaign to cover their sneaky little asses and of course made everything look suspicious as hell. Mark McFadden Believes maybe half of what he sees and nothing that he hears. Unless it's more fun that way. From: owner-dgrpg@delta-green.com on behalf of box_nine@ix.netcom.com Sent: Friday, April 07, 2000 3:44 PM To: dgrpg@delta-green.com Subject: Re: Re: DG: Creeping longevity Graeme wrote: [stuff about telomeres and the practicality of immortality snipped] How much damage would ultraviolet radiation do, after a few centuries? Or is this relatively straightforward to counteract? Steven From: owner-dgrpg@delta-green.com on behalf of Diego Garcia [dgarcia@ta.telecom.com.ar] Sent: Friday, April 07, 2000 1:58 PM To: dgrpg@delta-green.com Subject: GHOSTS IN THE MACHINE was Re: DG: From the weird news >Ok, ok the guy is barking mad, but still the premise does make one think. >Sort of CthulhuPunkesque...hmmm, the gears are turning. Anyway, for you >edification from the current Wierd News newsletter: > The famous researcher claims to have first discovered >this phenomenon in 1995, while talking to "Carolyn" in an on-line chatroom. >"She was very flirtatious but I kept noticing her language was somewhat out >of date. I became suspicious and asked if she was a ghost. At first she >denied it, but when I pressed her, she admitted that she had drowned back in >1911 at the age of 21." Halifcourt says that some 200,000 spirits are >on-line at any one time. Their use of Gothic font and poor knowledge of >current events can identify them. There is an anime, called "Serial Experiments Lain" that in it first episode starts with a 14? year old girl (Lain) receiving an email from a classmate that commited suicide the previous week. This anime, is situated in the near future, in a world with a much more elaborated net and much more powerful computers.The anime is quite strange, and also a bit DGish, with strange men in black suits, scouting the girl home. I can't give you any more info, since I've only seen the first four episodes. GOOd luck Diego Garcia From: owner-dgrpg@delta-green.com on behalf of Joab Ben Stieglitz [stieg@ix.netcom.com] Sent: Friday, April 07, 2000 4:01 PM To: dgrpg@delta-green.com Subject: DG: RE: Delta Green not horror? My group doesn't play it as horror. They like it because it's more action oriented than straight Call of Cthulhu. We tend to lean toward the espionage/technothriller aspect than horror. -----Original Message----- From: owner-dgrpg@delta-green.com [mailto:owner-dgrpg@delta-green.com]On Behalf Of Randell Wolff Sent: Thursday, April 06, 2000 8:13 PM To: Delta Green Listserv Subject: DG: Delta Green not horror? Today I discovered a review of Delta Green by Henry Harding at the following url: http://sfsite.com/04b/delt55.htm What struck me about the review (which was quite positive, by the way) was the following claim: > This source book is stuffed. You couldn't put another thing in here. It's conspiracy/suspense role-playing at > it's best. Go and buy 12 copies and hand them out in the street. Highly recommended. Five thumbs up. > > But it ain't horror. > > It's as much horror as the X-Files is horror. Let me explain. > > At its core horror needs the Abyss. One of the reasons Lovecraft's stories work so well is that the more > protagonists pry back the superficial veil of reality, the more they find things are not what they seem. True > enough for conspiracy, but horror goes further, touches us deeper. It tells us there is nothing we can do > about it, there is no hope, no God or Buddha or Mohammed to redeem us, there is only the Abyss into which > we all fall eventually, lost forever and ever, amen. It shatters the ground beneath our feet, the anchor we cling > to day to day. > > What makes those Lovecraftian protagonists truly heroic is they stick out their academic chins and keep > going. They say "To heck with it, I must know the truth." They have the courage to stare down into the > Abyss. And they go insane. But put a .357 into a character's hand along with a badge and a cell phone and it > gives them hope. Not horror. I'm still mulling over this particular argument. What do you guys think? Randell Wolff "If ignorance is bliss, then knock the smile off my face." --Rage against the Machine, "Settle for Nothing" From: owner-dgrpg@delta-green.com on behalf of Joab Ben Stieglitz [stieg@ix.netcom.com] Sent: Friday, April 07, 2000 4:01 PM To: dgrpg@delta-green.com Subject: RE: DG: Delta Green not horror? I agree. In our games, the team is confronting other people. So often in Call of Cthulhu, the investigators are seeking out and hunting down a mythos entity. Rarely are the cultists treated as significant. Then again, it's all in how you play it. -----Original Message----- From: owner-dgrpg@delta-green.com [mailto:owner-dgrpg@delta-green.com]On Behalf Of Daniel Harms Sent: Friday, April 07, 2000 12:21 AM To: dgrpg@delta-green.com Subject: Re: DG: Delta Green not horror? Nice review. Actually, it reflects some of my thoughts about the setting. Look out, folks - this isn't directed at anyone in particular, but I'm not pulling any punches. I wouldn't say that just having a badge and a cell phone takes away horror - it's what you do with it - but in a way, it makes it more difficult. My philosophy is that, the more people discuss something, the more important it seems. The DG setting, in my opinion, is especially vulnerable to this sort of thing. Let's take guns. In the back of the DG book, we have a good bit of space devoted to different kinds of guns. On this list, hardly a week goes by when there's not a debate on armaments. Not a bad thing, and I'm not picking on those discussions. On the other hand, the more that we discuss the latest weapons, or the virtues of hollow-point vs. glazier vs. armor-piercing vs. californium ammunition, the more we become convinced, on some level, that such things make a difference in the broader scheme of things. When Lovecraft has a gun in a story, it's usually just a "revolver". Because, really, when you get down to it, it doesn't make a damn bit of difference. Either the hero shoots something, or they don't even get a chance to use it. The same could be said about what Steven Kaye pointed out - about the human side of DG. In many ways, Delta Green is set in the Lovecraftian universe, but it doesn't talk about the vast cosmic forces that push down upon our heads. It talks about individuals confronted by individual horror. That's a really nice focus - especially for someone who's read a lot of Mythos fiction - but if we think too much about those individuals, it can also make us think that they matter. From a Lovecraftian perspective, everyone in the DG setting - Alphonse (sorry, dude) and Lepus and Reggie, with the possible exception of You-Know-Who - is just a mote living on another mote in the vast cosmos. None of them make a difference, except to us. If MJ-12 and the Karotechia and everyone else in the setting goes down, we've earned humanity a few more days. Maybe. The same thing could be said of conspiracy, or any number of other topics. They're parts of the setting, and they're good, if used properly. But, if the DG list is a horror list, isn't it odd that we rarely (if ever) have threads on how to scare our players? The same could be said of a concentration on the glamorous side of DG. We talk about theme music, about gadgets, about movies. Often, we think about the setting in cinematic tones. Let's face it - for most of us, it's neat to be members of a top-secret government conspiracy, to have the badge and the phone and the gun and that elusive License to Kill. All of this is fun, yet on some level, when we turn our favorite characters into movie stars, we downplay the paranoia and the danger. Glamour leads to hipness, hipness leads to angst, angst leads... well, all RPG players know where that leads. ;-) As for the comment about the Mythos monsters - I do see the point. When you get down to it, the Mythos isn't necessary to the setting, by any means. I could probably get monsters out of CHILL or (shudders!) AD&D, without affecting the scheme. Sure, you might have to change the spells and the books, and someone else might have to be responsible for the greys (but in my aborted DG campaign, the Fun Guys weren't, so it's not that difficult). Once again, I'm not busting on anyone here, or on the list in general. I'm not saying we should sip tea and discuss the merits of Lovecraft and Machen, or that we can't talk about other things. This list should be whatever this list becomes (though we could probably be better on the OT posts - but what list can't). I'm also not saying that you can't use DG as a horror setting. I do think, however, that DG is moving away from its roots in the Lovecraftian/Call of Cthulhu paradigm from which it sprang, and if so, we should at least be aware of it. Yrs., Daniel Harms dmharms@acsu.buffalo.edu The Internet: Learn what you know. Share what you don't. From: owner-dgrpg@delta-green.com on behalf of Davide Mana [doctor.dee@libero.it] Sent: Friday, April 07, 2000 4:03 PM To: dgrpg@delta-green.com Subject: Re: GHOSTS IN THE MACHINE was Re: DG: From the weird news Greetings.... > The famous researcher claims to have first discovered >this phenomenon in 1995, while talking to "Carolyn" in an on-line chatroom. >"She was very flirtatious but I kept noticing her language was somewhat out >of date. I became suspicious and asked if she was a ghost. At first she >denied it, but when I pressed her, she admitted that she had drowned back in >1911 at the age of 21." Halifcourt says that some 200,000 spirits are >on-line at any one time. Their use of Gothic font and poor knowledge of >current events can identify them. This one looks like the tabloid story about the girl getting phone calls from her dead grandad. It was used as an example of tabloids as source material for Dark Conspiracy - the twist being that [DELETED] were using the dead man's nervous system as the HD of one of their biocomputers, and the old man had found a way to communicate through the phone lines. But on the other hand - people claims they can get messages from 'somewhere else' (possibly the aftrelife) by tuning a radio-recorder on a dead channel. [I should have a book on the subject hereabouts....] Why not the Web? As to the true meaning of the phenomenon, well, that's a whole different story, of course. 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 William Timmins [wtimmins@hotmail.com] Sent: Friday, April 07, 2000 4:18 PM To: dgrpg@delta-green.com Subject: DG: Endtimes: New stuff Added, as of today: Mages and Wonderworkers (psychics and spellcasters in the 2040s) Rebellion/Liberation (the coalitions among the spiritual descendents of our agents) and greatly expanded on the Oneiros Option, including the assistance of King Kuranes in fighting off the Dark Young in Russia and the growth of new regions in the Dreamlands. -=Will Endtimes : http://wtimmins.tripod.com/DG/endtime/index.html ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com From: owner-dgrpg@delta-green.com on behalf of forvalaka@juno.com Sent: Friday, April 07, 2000 4:06 PM To: dgrpg@delta-green.com Cc: dgrpg@delta-green.com Subject: Re: DG: From the weird news must... get... up... off... floor... must... stop... laughing... need... air... Charles O. Baucum Jr. Mortuus non est quod in aeternum insiditur et aetate ignota mors ipsas finiretur From: owner-dgrpg@delta-green.com on behalf of Graeme Price [graemep@immagene.mcg.edu] Sent: Friday, April 07, 2000 4:36 PM To: dgrpg@delta-green.com Subject: Re: DG: HIV origins > My understanding is that they used the same method of manufacture, but they >used local monkeys as a budget measure. I don't remember them being chimps, >and using them would not have been less expensive. I heard it was the local >Green Monkeys. This is largely true. The big problem is that scientifically it is hard to disprove. Batches of polio vaccine (some of each batch is stored indefinitely just in case of liability or side-effect issues) grown using monkey kidney cells have been tested for HIV (and found negative) in the past, and are about to be tested again. Every few years this story (polio vaccine spread HIV in africa) resurfaces and all the old hacks go bananas (sorry...) about it for a while. This time the trigger was a book called "The River" (author, ISBN etc unknown... I saw it in a book shop, read the back cover and decided it wasn't worth wasting my time on - other's mileage may vary). Frankly, I suspect that it will all turn out to be a lot of effort for no return - the likelihood of finding HIV in a 30 year old vial of vaccine is low and even if you do find it, it doesn't prove anything... and not finding it won't silence the people who are convinced that the theory is true! My own guess is that HIV has been circulating for longer than people think (perhaps in a closed population in Africa) and spread when transport and communication improved to an extent allowing repeated transmission to occur frequently (sociological conditions doubtless also played a part). The current estimates are based on genetic analysis and phylogenetic trees using a fixed rate of mutation for the virus - scientifically I don't find this to be a reasonable assumption... but the data derived from such studies is the best we have and are likely to get. I do recall, however, that at the first world AIDS conference in 1985 (IIRC) someone (can't remember, who but quite possibly Bob Gallo) stood up and said that the virus had been spread to africans from chimps (with the obvious implication that africans had been having sex with monkeys*), which caused the entire african delegation to walk out of the meeting. And so the political lines got drawn from an early stage in the epidemic. Not one of virology's finest hours. * Almost certainly _not_ the case. The real transmission incident (or incidents - there were probably many) was most likely from hunters in contact with the blood of SIV infected monkeys. But I've gotten started again haven't I? Time to shut up, I think. Graeme graemep@immag.mcg.edu From: owner-dgrpg@delta-green.com on behalf of box_nine@ix.netcom.com Sent: Friday, April 07, 2000 4:45 PM To: dgrpg@delta-green.com Subject: DG: Re: GHOST IN THE MACHINE I don't recall the book Davide mentions offhand, but I do know that William Peter Blatty read it and used to try and communicate with his dead mother using a tape recorder. Or so it's reported in EASY RIDERS, RAGING BULLS. A useful link on the subject is http://paranormal.about.com/culture/paranormal/msub26av.htm Worse comes to worst, you've got some creepy WAV files for your next game. The phenomenon's been around for a while, but you might want to blame it on MJ-12's messing up the ionosphere with HAARP. See Greg Bear's PSYCHLONE for why this might be a bad idea. Steven From: owner-dgrpg@delta-green.com on behalf of PM [mermoud@easynet.fr] Sent: Friday, April 07, 2000 4:47 PM To: dgrpg@delta-green.com Subject: Re: DG: the movie >Sir Anthony Hopkins should be Alzis. Failing that, perhaps Sylvester McCoy? >(10p oints to anyone who knows THAT actor...) Alzis exiting from an impromptu phonebooth ????????? ============================================= Patrice Mermoud (Paris - France) mermoud@easynet.fr ============================================= From: owner-dgrpg@delta-green.com on behalf of Eckhard Huelshoff [EHuelshoff@t-online.de] Sent: Friday, April 07, 2000 4:57 PM To: dgrpg@delta-green.com Subject: DG: German BND Agents support Russians in the Chechnyan war Good Evening. Today Germany's Bundesnachrichtendienst [ BND ] - the secret service - had to admit that they send Agents to Russia after their government asked for help to investigate the bombing of appartement houses in Moscow. And these agents helped to trace possible terrorists to Grosny. The problem is: The German government [ and especially the Greens ] always condemned the Russian activities in Chechnya [sp? ]. http://www.spiegel.de/politik/deutschland/0,1518,72189,00.html [ for those who understand German ] ObDG: Probably the Russians [ read: GRU-SV8 ] discovered a connection between the Chechnian rebels and some mythos activities. And they even found some evidence that these rebels used knowledge connected to Karotechia. Therefore: If GRU-SV 8 needs the help of the Germans, this means that there are people in the BND that know of the mythos or Karotechia activities. ECKHARD