From: owner-dgrpg@delta-green.com on behalf of USFORREC1@aol.com Sent: Friday, April 07, 2000 5:57 PM To: dgrpg@delta-green.com Subject: Re: DG: Re: Montecassino In a message dated 4/7/00 6:02:23 AM Eastern Daylight Time, furrylogic@mindspring.com writes: << 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. A big thing that keeps DG from descending into a glorified first-person shooter of "Frag the Deep Ones" is that they are an illegal conspiracy, and 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, no matter what government agency they belong to - as in Rules of Engagement, the best they can hope to do is trick their government contacts into working against the menace indirectly. 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? 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. >> Actually, this would be far less of an issue than you think. DG could probably manage to get some of the big items only once in awhile, making them an exception and not a rule. The OSS, first of all, operated primarily behind the lines where this kind of support wasn't available. Teams in the field might be able to get some airstrikes, some personnel back-up from local guerrillas or other teams, but most of this will be simply unavailable. The OSS (and hence DG) would generally be operating at the level of infiltrating agents into enemy ranks to uncover the plots of the Karotechia/SMERSH/Black Dragon/Ect. They would be parachuting very small strike teams in to destroy certain key installations. Judging from what is said in DG and DG:CD, most of their installations and the like aren't even known well enough to target with larger things. DG will be moving through the shadows even then, uncovering plots around the world and dealing with them personally and with what they can carry on their backs. Plus many of the operational areas of the OSS/DG are in either neutral or politically sensitive areas, further limiting what can be brought to bear. Also, at the time, the OSS wasn't that powerful. They were blocked from working in the western hemisphere and the Pacific. Even in the theaters they did get to work, they were underestimated, misused and frequently cut out of things by rival agencies (which could have led to an early, informal "Friendly" network between agents to allow DG to keep tabs on events that occurred outside their area of operations and possibly as a backdoor to slip an occassional operation in through those channels). Finally, DG is still attempting to make sense of what knowledge it does have. They haven't even finished a lot of the translations of mythos knowldge they do have. Their eyes are still being opened to the fringes of the mythos. They know about the Deep Ones and a few other beings but WW2 is the gate that really exposes them to the true nature of things. They won't be in a position to be handing out spells or knowledge any better in the 1940s than they are today. So, while DG would be official and have additional resources to draw upon, they are still limited by the bureaucracy, the constraints of OSS involvement, and what resources non-DG cleared generals and admirals allot to them. The raid on France described in the books would have been an exception and not the rule, one of a few and far between large scale operations. The horror of ODH should still be conspiracy-oriented and personal, just with changes in setting and other tweaks. -Dave K From: owner-dgrpg@delta-green.com on behalf of Andrew John Farrow [andrew.j.farrow@btinternet.com] Sent: Friday, April 07, 2000 7:35 PM To: dgrpg@delta-green.com Subject: DG: Re: Re: Interesting reading Gil wrote - >Hite's stuff is fantastic - the only place I've been able to find > *any* information on the Black Dragon Society thse links might me the source stuff your after . http://www.ccnet.com/~suntzu75/dragon.htm http://www.sfmuseum.org/hist8/terrorists1.html yours - andy . From: owner-dgrpg@delta-green.com on behalf of EdDrWho@aol.com Sent: Friday, April 07, 2000 8:23 PM To: dgrpg@delta-green.com Subject: Re: DG: Sylvester McCoy In a message dated 4/7/2000 12:42:10 PM Central Daylight Time, LizardRoi@aol.com writes: > Wasn't he, like, Dr. Who # 7 or like that there? > > Never mind the 10 points, where's my T-shirt and tote bag? Yes, and you'll get one when I do. Mock not the PayBayEss, for its dire servant, Tay-lay-than shall wreak a horrible venegeance upon thee... From: owner-dgrpg@delta-green.com on behalf of LizardRoi@aol.com Sent: Friday, April 07, 2000 8:27 PM To: dgrpg@delta-green.com Subject: Re: DG: Some questions In a message dated 00-04-07 15:30:41 EDT, you write: << 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. >> Sounds like a description of "The Day the Clown Cried", a Jerry Lewis movie about a clown in a concentration camp who entertained children in line for the showers or somesuch. It wasn't finished because it occurred to someone that clowning + the Holocaust would take a more subtle touch than Jerry had ever displayed. That type of story had to wait for Roberto Benigni. Mark McFadden I cringe at the thought of an alternate universe where casting is changed, and instead of "Buon giorno Principessa" we get "Laaaaadeeee!" The horror. The horror. From: owner-dgrpg@delta-green.com on behalf of EdDrWho@aol.com Sent: Friday, April 07, 2000 8:33 PM To: dgrpg@delta-green.com Subject: Re: DG: the movie In a message dated 4/7/2000 4:53:04 PM Central Daylight Time, mermoud@easynet.fr writes: > Alzis exiting from an impromptu phonebooth ????????? Yes. It _would_ explain why he never dies, and why he can be and go anywhere... From: owner-dgrpg@delta-green.com on behalf of John Petherick [jpetheri@cyberbeach.net] Sent: Friday, April 07, 2000 8:44 PM To: dgrpg@delta-green.com Subject: Re: DG: Interesting reading At 02:10 PM 4/7/00 +0200, you wrote: >Greetings. > >[I'm sending this to both DG List and Strange Aeons - sorry to those that >will get two of these] > >I just received from my British supplier a copy ofa book that might sit >well on the same shelf where you keep your copies of Call of Cthulhu and >Delta Green. >I'm no reviewer, but I'll try.... > >The book's called "Suppressed Transmission", by Kenneth Hite, and is >produced by Steve Jackson Games. [ISBN 1-55634-423-6]. I've looked at this but not picked up a copy. Every single copy that I've seen isn't properly bound - the perfect binding wasn't glued along the spine, so it's only a matter of time for the book to split and lose pages. ********************************************************************* John Petherick, CIH jpetheri@cyberbeach.net From: owner-dgrpg@delta-green.com on behalf of Matt Cowger [mcowger@kc.rr.com] Sent: Friday, April 07, 2000 8:45 PM To: dgrpg@delta-green.com Subject: Re: DG: From the weird news > 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. Hey I just post what I read..... Matt C. From: owner-dgrpg@delta-green.com on behalf of LizardRoi@aol.com Sent: Friday, April 07, 2000 10:34 PM To: dgrpg@delta-green.com Subject: Re: DG: Re: Delta Green not horror? With my penchant for optimism in the face of the Mythos, I suppose I should add my tuppence. I don't take issue with any of the original writers observations, because most of the concerns about "guns and cell phones" ruining the atmosphere were put to rest by DG:Countdown. I figure that if he had read the Hastur Mythos \ King in Yellow section along with the original DG, he would not have written quite the same article. I'm assuming that DG was the only volume available at the time. Hope ruins horror only when it comes to fruition (IMHO). In fact, hope can make things worse; that's why it was the last thing out of Pandora's Box. Surely you didn't fall for that cover story about Hope being added by the gods so that things would never get too bad. Hope isn't a friendly spirit on your side, Hope was the ultimate torture to top off the flood of ills, there is no indication that Hope would help make the situation better. Hope is what kept mankind from saying "Fuck it" and killing themselves, which isn't much fun for a god to watch. As some have pointed out, it's hard to keep players playing a game they can't win. That argument sways me not. Probably because I've never had that problem with any groups I've played in. There is nothing in the rule book that says you have to tell your players that in the final analysis, everything is hopeless (if it is). Let them hope, let them make great plans for finally rescuing mankind, let them make plans based on this optimistic evaluation. You don't even have to go out of your way to crush their puny gestures of defiance, the stats do that quite handily. The odds are against them, and every dice roll makes it worse. Give them safehouses and other refuge, then have Alzis (or *another* avatar for cryin' out loud, he doesn't have his finger in *every* pie) make a person-to-person call. You don't have to try very hard to smear them into a fine paste. Lovecraft did not write "visually". Before you list his lavish architectural details and descriptions of settings...think a bit. One of the obstacles to making a movie of a Lovecraft story is trying to pin down just what all those indescribable incomprehensible ineffable things that the mind of man cannot bear *look* like. Scrubbing bubbles anyone? It was the 20's, movies were out there, but how many did HPL go to? Does anyone think he would willingly go to the dreadfully egalitarian cinemas and sit with all those immigrants? Do you think he would have had a good time and want to return? I don't know, I just thought of this and I can't cite any HPL opinions about film. BUT, try adapting a Lovecraft story as a radio play and you're cookin' with gas. A medium meant to be enjoyed at home with the cats and perhaps a few intimate friends. Try reading an HPL story aloud, it works. In particular, think of WitD as a radio play. Does this mean that "cinematic" writing styles cannot capture Lovecraftian horror? I don't think so, but they are alien to HPLs "voice". We moderns are simply not the same people as the folk of the other end of the last century. We are much much more visually oriented in our entertainments than ever before. No more joining the groundlings to hear the Bard's latest; if we can't see, we'd pitch a fit. Stephen King referred to Alien (in Danse Macabre) as "Lovecraft in space", and I agree. Before the light levels were changed for TV and video, you never ever got a good look at the alien in the first film. Think of the Alien as a Byakhee or somesuch with a parasitic life cycle. Forget mere cinematic writing, this is a movie that captures the feel. But, at the same time it is distinctly un-Howard Phillips Lovecraft-ian. You've got to play to the strengths of the medium. Modern styles of writing can and do create horror, but modern styles of writing are used by modern people for the entertainment of modern people. Don't think of this as writing "down", or making concessions to short attention spans. It isn't. HPL corresponded with peers. So do we. We're all writing, but in different mediums. Think of all of the ways in which email and URLs and emoticons and even using a keyboard change the process, content and look of correspondence. Imagine HPL and REH corresponding by email. Do you think they might be more informal or terse? How would getting an answer a few hours later change the form of the conversation, if not the content? The storytelling conventions of cinema\TV are so much a part of us that you have to submerge yourself in the writings of another time to see how influenced you are. Don't fight it unless it makes you sad. Embrace the modern method and see what you can squeeze out of it. There is plenty of untapped potential. Happy endings. Too many people say that only happy endings work for a movie. These are usually highly paid executives with their tastebuds 4 inches up their ass. IMNHO on *this* subject. Yeah, happy endings like Rhett Butler not giving a damn and leaving. Happy endings like Pruitt dying in From Here to Eternity. Happy joyful endings like Ol' Yeller. Life is Beautiful. Romeo and Juliet. West Side Story. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. The Searchers. The Manchurian Candidate. Gallipoli. Billy Budd. Spartacus. Slingblade. An American Werewolf in London. Se7en. The list goes on and on, and I'm only including movies that were a hit. Ahem. The cognoscenti all agreed that Cameron had gone around the bend and was overdue for a comeuppance when he started to make a multi-(multi-)million dollar movie about a boat sinking. I mean, before you even get to the theater you know it's going to sink and most of the people are going to die. But he got around that hurdle by *showing* the sinking in a computer simulation first. When he showed the sequence of events, he added suspense. Yeah, you know it's going to sink, but you also know it's going to break in half first and the lifeboats are going to be important and so on. The very inevitability was changed from a handicap to a plus. Now here is the important question. Do you think it would have been as successful if Jack had lived? Would it have that element of doomed romance that took it from SFX soap opera to cultural icon? Three guesses what I think. And hope? Season to taste. I tend to think Mel Gibson *almost* making it back to the trenches in time in Gallipoli is more compelling than, oh, having the evil Brit incompetent commander slapping him in the stockade the first time he showed some disrespect and going back to the trenches to watch the massacre. It is certainly more compelling than him stopping the attack. I don't think the *possibility* of winning ruins the atmosphere; that only happens if you do. Win battles from time to time, but never ever win the war. That would end the game, and what fun is that? Mark McFadden From: owner-dgrpg@delta-green.com on behalf of EdDrWho@aol.com Sent: Friday, April 07, 2000 10:39 PM To: dgrpg@delta-green.com Subject: Re: DG: Re: Delta Green not horror? In a message dated 4/7/00 10:37:25 PM Central Daylight Time, LizardRoi@aol.com writes: > I don't know, I just thought of this and I can't cite any HPL > opinions about film. He hated Dracula. From: owner-dgrpg@delta-green.com on behalf of James & Sarah Collins [collwood@gte.net] Sent: Friday, April 07, 2000 10:34 PM To: dgrpg@delta-green.com Subject: DG: Extraterrestrials Hello: >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? Has anyone considered that the Mi-Go merely copied the Greys? Maybe there are Greys, Nordics, and Saurians that aren't tied to the Mythos (but aren't we all tied to the Mythos?) or the Mi-Go. If you tie the Mythos into the UFOs, I'd use Hyperborians (or K'n -Yan) for the Nordics. Serpent Folk are a natural for the Saurians. Just a thought (or two). Later. James D. Collins Painted Frog Productions From: owner-dgrpg@delta-green.com on behalf of Daniel Harms [dmharms@acsu.buffalo.edu] Sent: Saturday, April 08, 2000 12:09 AM To: dgrpg@delta-green.com Subject: Re: DG: Re: Delta Green not horror? A few thoughts on Mark's post: > I don't take issue with any of the original writers observations, because >most of the concerns about "guns and cell phones" ruining the atmosphere were >put to rest by DG:Countdown. I figure that if he had read the Hastur Mythos \ >King in Yellow section along with the original DG, he would not have written >quite the same article. I'm assuming that DG was the only volume available at >the time. However, I would respect the author's desire to review only DG - just as I can buy the main gamebook from a line and review it without having to read all the supplements/splatbooks/what have you. > Lovecraft did not write "visually". Before you list his lavish architectural >details and descriptions of settings...think a bit. One of the obstacles to >making a movie of a Lovecraft story is trying to pin down just what all those >indescribable incomprehensible ineffable things that the mind of man cannot >bear *look* like. Scrubbing bubbles anyone? I'd have to refine this somewhat, because HPL, IMO, had a pretty good visual sense. Not only does he bombard us with detail, but the height of his tales are often crystallized around sharp, vivid images - a mask and gloves in a chair, a horror with one blue eye and one brown, etc. He gives us detail in abundance - and then the camera slides away... And as any number of bad horror movies can be proof, there's something to be said for keeping the horror off-screen. (And I'm more willing to think that it's lack of cinematic ingenuity, rather than HPL's style, which is to blame. Though I might agree with your radio point...) > It was the 20's, movies were out there, but how many did HPL go to? Does >anyone think he would willingly go to the dreadfully egalitarian cinemas and >sit with all those immigrants? Do you think he would have had a good time and >want to return? I don't know, I just thought of this and I can't cite any HPL >opinions about film. You're off-track - but that's OK. Lovecraft went to the movies fairly often, and while he often had a poor opinion, I think it was usually because he'd read the book already (and you know what they say...) [snip; I'm assuming the rest is a reply to me] I acknowledge that, yes, there can be a visual sense, or hope, or unhappy endings (though I think that on that last count, Hollywood is mostly guilty) to horror. Yet when I talk about the dangers of DG and cinematic form, I don't mean any of that. I'm referring to something that can be best summed up as "the movies", which transcends the actual film themselves and carries a whole set of associations with it - glamour, glitz, tuxes, award shows, fancy restaurants, vacation homes in the Caribbean. There's a point in cinema where you're not watching characters in a movie - you're watching movie stars in a movie. And that sort of mood (as most people who saw END OF DAYS would agree) is something which deadens any sense of horror. The more that we attach the aura of glamor to our characters, the more we make Alphonse into the Charlie to our Angels rather than an aging librarian with gumption, the more that we concentrate on the weapons and the badges and what we can do with both of them, the less time we devote to figuring out who and what's behind it all. And I hope to hell that some of this makes sense to someone besides me. 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 EdDrWho@aol.com Sent: Saturday, April 08, 2000 12:35 AM To: dgrpg@delta-green.com Subject: Re: DG: the movie In a message dated 4/8/00 12:34:26 AM Central Daylight Time, reflectingskin@hotmail.com writes: > Isn't McCoy that awful Dr.Who actor? I despise that show. Nobody's perfect. From: owner-dgrpg@delta-green.com on behalf of Jason R. Armstrong [gerwalkveritech@juno.com] Sent: Saturday, April 08, 2000 12:43 AM To: dgrpg@delta-green.com Subject: Re: DG: From the weird news >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 > Mr. Garcia is onto a good thing. I mentioned this before, and I had yet to finish the series. I have now finished it, and I must second his recommendation. IT IS VERY GOOD. WATCH ALL THIRTEEN EPISODES. BELIEVE EVERYTHING. BUT DRAW NO CONCLUSIONS. There will be parts that you'll say, "Ahh, hey! Whadda fuckin' letdown...what is this nonsense?" Regardless, keep watching. Many, many ideas here. All at least somewhat DG/Mythos oriented. No sex; very little gratuitious violence. But lots of death, life after death, and life after life, and maybe it's all bullshit, and nothing you see seems real or reliable, and it's all very uncomfortable and sometimes nauseatingly wierd. "Annhiliation must be swift, Destroy without destruction. Gods of the throne must be watching from Hell, Awaiting the mass genocide..." xJAYx ________________________________________________________________ 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 EdDrWho@aol.com Sent: Saturday, April 08, 2000 1:07 AM To: dgrpg@delta-green.com Subject: Re: DG: ODH Power limits [was RE: DG: Montecassino] In a message dated 4/8/00 1:05:53 AM Central Daylight Time, Adam.Crossingham@Octavian1009.E-MAIL.COM writes: > 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. Fighter Command, on the other hand, kept Typhoons around for that sort of thing. From: owner-dgrpg@delta-green.com on behalf of Eckhard Huelshoff [EHuelshoff@t-online.de] Sent: Saturday, April 08, 2000 1:52 AM To: dgrpg@delta-green.com Subject: Re: DG: Re: Delta Green not horror? LizardRoi@aol.com schrieb: [snip] > BUT, try adapting a Lovecraft story as a radio play and you're cookin' with > gas. A medium meant to be enjoyed at home with the cats and perhaps a few > intimate friends. Try reading an HPL story aloud, it works. In particular, > think of WitD as a radio play. A while ago a German actor made drama for theater out of "Pickman's Model". The clue about this was that he did this as a one-on-one thing. He only let one guest into his room. And there the actor and the guest had to sit at small table, facing each other at a distance of about 30-50cm / a bit more than one foot. Then the actor began his monologue telling of his experiences with that weird artist. Those who did experience that kind of theater reported that it was one of the most frightening things they had ever done. ECKHARD From: owner-dgrpg@delta-green.com on behalf of Andy Robertson [andywrobertson@clara.co.uk] Sent: Saturday, April 08, 2000 2:25 AM To: dgrpg@delta-green.com Subject: Re: DG: Delta Green not horror? ----- Original Message ----- From: > << DELTA GREEN picks up on the indifferent universe (but then, so does > much Existentialist fiction), but explores how humans deal with each > other in this universe. Compelling stuff, but I don't believe it's > Lovecraft. >> > > In his essence Lovecraft never cared how people interacted, all there was was > the narrator and how he becomes subsumed by the void. Delta Green takes the > humanistic tack of, "How do I defend Myself and Others From the Void?" I think both of these statements are accurate, but I want to repeat what I said in an earlier post. (Some) Mythos gaming stuff is _far closer_ to HPL's original vision than (most of) what is produced as pure fiction today, because that fiction has become weak, "fannish" and self-referental to the point where there is no punch left. There are differences related to the mechanics of gaming and its feedback to the collective narrative. But I think the effect is simply that of viewing the same thing - the Mythos - from a different angle. In HPL's stories you have a Searcher or thinker who looks too deep and finds the Mythos. In COC or in, say, Derleth you have a group of people fighting the Mythos and winning. Sometimes, sort of. In DG you have a group of people fighting the Mythos and realising they are fighting something so big that they can only see the inside of its mouth, which is the arch of the sky overhead. You try to imitate HPL and write about a new "revelation" and you end up cataloging just one more cartoon GOO. Unless you want to go on and on doing this you _must_ progress to the next stage, and this involves finding the Mythos in the real world of today. The X-files spin DG puts on this process is, presumably, just one possible way of doing things. Qualifier to what I am saying - these are the word of a non-gamer who probably has a different perspective from the typical list member. The Glove Cleaner From: owner-dgrpg@delta-green.com on behalf of Andy Robertson [andywrobertson@clara.co.uk] Sent: Saturday, April 08, 2000 2:33 AM To: dgrpg@delta-green.com Subject: Re: DG: Delta Green not horror? ----- Original Message ----- From: > You can play Call of Cthulhu as a powergamer slugfest, but we always > played it the way Lovecraft wrote it. lways about > the revelation. My campaign followed in the footsteps > of the originator, after all the stories were what we fell in love with > in the first place. That says it all. I agree completely. The Glove Cleaner From: owner-dgrpg@delta-green.com on behalf of Andy Robertson [andywrobertson@clara.co.uk] Sent: Saturday, April 08, 2000 2:42 AM To: dgrpg@delta-green.com Subject: Re: DG: Sports hooliganism and social engineering ----- Original Message ----- From: Eckhard Huelshoff > BTW: The Turks killed two Englishmen. Istanbul won 2:0! > Frightening. Was the killing probably the casting of the spell "Call the God of > Soccer and convince him to let your team win"? > > ECKHARD > The dead were Kevin Speight, a man of 41. and Keith Loftus, 35. The Turkish police have got someone to confess. A Turkish newspaper ran the headline "Two: Two". http://www.telegraph.co.uk/et?ac=002414157721264&rtmo=02bbbrRq&atmo=02bbbrRq &pg=/et/00/4/8/wleed08.html " Neither Mr Speight, a pub landlord and father-of-two, nor Mr Loftus, an electrical installer, was regarded by British authorities as a hooligan. The bodies of Mr Loftus and Mr Speight were flown to Heathrow airport last night on a scheduled Turkish Airlines flight from Istanbul." The Glove Cleaner From: owner-dgrpg@delta-green.com on behalf of Andy Robertson [andywrobertson@clara.co.uk] Sent: Saturday, April 08, 2000 3:08 AM To: dgrpg@delta-green.com Subject: Re: DG: HIV origins ----- Original Message ----- From: > 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. Yeah, probably. But the "vibe" coming off this one in scientific circles is just a little off-center. There are about seven samples left inside a fridge inside a fridge (sic) somewhere in Europe: you would have thought they would have just walked in there and tested them. But they are making a hell of a fuss about doing it just right - sending each sample to a different & independent lab or something like that. My "5% chance" used to be a "1% chance". It has been edging upward the longer they take. The Glove Cleaner From: owner-dgrpg@delta-green.com on behalf of Andy Robertson [andywrobertson@clara.co.uk] Sent: Saturday, April 08, 2000 3:46 AM To: dgrpg@delta-green.com Subject: DG: Re: Eat the Immortals ----- Original Message ----- From: > [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 > Our cells monitor their genetic material for breaks and mistakes and actively repair them all the time. On immortality - Absolute immortality is forbidden by the laws of thermodynamics, which state (in one formulation) that you can never copy information without some noise creeping in. (Back, Timmins, back. Think of that as a bit of poetry). Not you, not me, not Great Cthulhu, will achieve real immortality except through our Spawn. Survival rate, for any animal, is always 0%. Evolution adjusts the resource balance in our bodies between self-repair, growth and reproduction to the level which gives us the highest lifetime reproductive success (in a hunter/gatherer context), not the longest lifespan. However, we already have evolved (or been modified, eh?) a long way in the direction of life extension. Human beings live far longer than other mammals. The typical mammal our size lives about fifteen years. So maybe we have swapped something (physical robustness I guess. Compare a man to a chimp of equal size) for a longer life. << And no, there never was a time when "people only lived to thirty years" - there were plenty of times when that was the _average_ lifespan, but all that means is that half the kids died before age five. It's been threescore years and ten a least since history began and probably for the last million years or more. >> However, we could probably live much longer if we were willing to be much, much, weaker physically. I don't mean that we have any choice individually, but our distant descendants might evolve even furthur down the big-brain extended-childhood path. Individually, today - - we might gain life extension through technology. The problem about individual life extension (even for 200 years or so) is that you have to compete with your descendants, who are likely to be smarter and tougher than you. Some people freeze themselves and hope to be revived in a utiopian future. Surely it's more likely that the future they are revived into will see them be chewn up, scrapped or divvied up for plugging into a computer? Tomorrow belongs to fast-breeding tough corruption, not crystalline ageless perfection. Eat the immortals. The Glove Cleaner From: owner-dgrpg@delta-green.com on behalf of Deirdre M. Brooks [xenya@teleport.com] Sent: Saturday, April 08, 2000 3:49 AM To: dgrpg@delta-green.com Subject: Re: DG: Re: Eat the Immortals Andy Robertson wrote: > > On immortality - > > Absolute immortality is forbidden by the laws of thermodynamics, which state > (in one formulation) that you can never copy information without some noise > creeping in. (Back, Timmins, back. Think of that as a bit of poetry). > Not you, not me, not Great Cthulhu, will achieve real immortality except > through our Spawn. So what you're saying is, by the cosmology as it exists in Delta Green, that Cthulhu can't be immortal because Hastur will eat him? -- Deird'Re M. Brooks | xenya@teleport.com | cam#9309026 Listowner: Aberrants_Worldwide, Fading_Suns_Games, TrinityRPG "If you loved me, you'd all kill yourselves today." -- Spider Jerusalem | http://www.teleport.com/~xenya From: owner-dgrpg@delta-green.com on behalf of Andy Robertson [andywrobertson@clara.co.uk] Sent: Saturday, April 08, 2000 3:55 AM To: dgrpg@delta-green.com Subject: DG: Re: GHOSTS IN THE MACHINE ----- Original Message ----- From: Davide Mana To: > 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? > I always thought the power of William Gibson's work (NEUROMANCER and so on - segue to THE MATRIX) lay in the fact that he identified Cyberspace with Soulspace - that his Cyberspace is essentially: the place you see when you have religious visions (aka "jack in to the net"), the place where the dead go (aka "download into a computer") the place where the Gods live (aka where "AI's" lurk). There was almost no scientific input - it was all a transcription of ancient myths overwriting a poorly understood technology. Very powerful, though. The Web must be changed to conform with Gibson's vision. ObDG - what technological alterations are needed? (I may have touched on this before - Yithian thread?) The Glove Cleaner From: owner-dgrpg@delta-green.com on behalf of Andy Robertson [andywrobertson@clara.co.uk] Sent: Saturday, April 08, 2000 4:42 AM To: dgrpg@delta-green.com Subject: Re: DG: Re: Eat the Immortals ----- Original Message ----- From: Deirdre M. Brooks > > So what you're saying is, by the cosmology as it exists in Delta Green, > that Cthulhu can't be immortal because Hastur will eat him? > More or less. That doesn't mean he could not "lie immortal" by human standards - existing for millions or billions of years - but the end of the thing we call Cthulhu will come, some time. Death, even for Him. The Glove Cleaner From: owner-dgrpg@delta-green.com on behalf of Andy Robertson [andywrobertson@clara.co.uk] Sent: Saturday, April 08, 2000 4:58 AM To: dgrpg@delta-green.com Subject: Re: DG: Re: Delta Green not horror? ----- Original Message ----- > > And I hope to hell that some of this makes sense to someone besides me. > > Yrs., > > Daniel Harms dmharms@acsu.buffalo.edu > The Internet: Learn what you know. Share what you don't. > Both you & the Lizard King are making a vast amount of sense. I don't have as much to say about this subject as I would like, though. Ask me about science and all that. All I really know is that Glove Cleaners Like This Stuff. The Glove Cleaner From: owner-dgrpg@delta-green.com on behalf of Steven Kaye [box_nine@ix.netcom.com] Sent: Saturday, April 08, 2000 5:14 AM To: dgrpg@delta-green.com Subject: Re: DG: Delta Green not horror? At 8:24 AM +0100 4/8/00, Andy Robertson wrote: > >I think both of these statements are accurate, but I want to repeat what I >said in an earlier post. (Some) Mythos gaming stuff is _far closer_ to >HPL's original vision than (most of) what is produced as pure fiction today, >because that fiction has become weak, "fannish" and self-referental to the >point where there is no punch left. No argument here. Too many writers focus on the GOOs and tomes as 'cool props,' rather than thinking about what function they can serve in a story. Greg Stolze's "Potential Recruit", to my mind, is an excellent example of how to use them properly. I used to be able to recite the whole 'color red' section verbatim. And before I kick in, let me say I've been pleased that this hasn't erupted into a flame war. If my tone in the following comes off as combative, it's not intended. >In HPL's stories you have a Searcher or thinker who looks too deep and finds >the Mythos. > >In COC or in, say, Derleth you have a group of people fighting the Mythos >and winning. Sometimes, sort of. > >In DG you have a group of people fighting the Mythos and realising they are >fighting something so big that they can only see the inside of its mouth, >which is the arch of the sky overhead. > >[snip] I'd argue the difference between fiction and gaming is more significant then you're suggesting here. DELTA GREEN as a game setting has to work against many common assumptions of games and gamers (a game must be 'winnable' to be enjoyable, part of the fun of the game is watching your character's abilities improve, etc.). If I see one more post on gaming boards about how CoC isn't fun, because all you do is go insane, Steps Will Be Taken. My concern, simply, is that the cosmic horror is SO far in the background in the game that it's easy to slip into espionage/special ops mode altogether, which has its own set of assumptions in fiction and gaming. >Unless you want to go on and on doing this you _must_ progress to the next >stage, and this involves finding the Mythos in the real world of today. The >X-files spin DG puts on this process is, presumably, just one possible way >of doing things. Clarification, which is probably not needed, but what the hell: I'm not arguing that all fiction/gaming must be set in the 1890's or 1920's, I'm not arguing that all fiction must have the British spelling of words and series of apposite clauses. I'm saying that the contribution of Lovecraft (and authors who influenced him/were influenced by him) of an indifferent cosmos, which I think is valuable and not a common feature of much modern horror, is in large part set aside in favor of humanocentric allegory in the DELTA GREEN setting. On its own merits, fine and dandy - but what does it have to do with Lovecraft's philosophy as expressed through his fiction? I'm not so sure that there is a next stage. John Tynes, Dennis Detwiller, Greg Stolze, and Adam Glancy are all good writers - but I don't see the need for them to tie themselves to Lovecraft, honestly. >Qualifier to what I am saying - these are the word of a non-gamer who >probably has a different perspective from the typical list member. Which doesn't make it any less valid, of course. 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 Robert Thomas [ThomasR@Cardiff.ac.uk] Sent: Saturday, April 08, 2000 6:22 AM To: dgrpg@delta-green.com Subject: Re: DG: Creeping longevity Hello All, 7F00,0000,0000> 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'', This theme was covered by Kim Stanley Robinson in his trilogy of book about the colonisation of Mars: Red Mars ISBN 0100,0100,01000553560735 Green Mars ISBN 0553572393 Blue Mars ISBN 0553573357 The colonist develop "The Treatment" basically a tailored dna repair sequence which prevent celluar breakdown by repairing the cells of the body. Now its not immortality as people can still die in accidents but disease is a thing of the past. Imagine the effects of such a treatment on the world today from a DG perspective. It could either hasten the end times or put them off for a while, after all if you knew you would be around in 100 years time your a lot less likely to pollute / worship / summon some world destroying entity. However the Hyper Malthuseian effect of such a treatment (no one dies but birth rates remain the same) would or could breakdown social order globally hastening the end times. "People revelling and killing for the sheer joy" That said it could remove a lot of cultist's support / followers most are after all after immortality / survival offer them that and why do they need to worship the GOO for better to oppose them? Anyway all three books are worth reading even if from the perspective of how a colony on Mars might be established the original End Times scenario ressurected maybe after the rise of the GOO use the Martian colony as a new world. Later RobTimes New Roman From: owner-dgrpg@delta-green.com on behalf of Andy Robertson [andywrobertson@clara.co.uk] Sent: Saturday, April 08, 2000 5:39 AM To: dgrpg@delta-green.com Subject: Re: DG: Delta Green not horror? ----- Original Message ----- From: Steven Kaye . Greg Stolze's "Potential Recruit", to my mind, is an > excellent example of how to use them properly. I used to be able to > recite the whole 'color red' section verbatim. > I agree. A brilliant story, not so much for the Mythos elements as for their foregrounding through a real, contemporary, human being and their _believable_ effect upon him. You can talk about undescribable horror till you are blue in the face. The point is to _show_ it. > I'd argue the difference between fiction and gaming is more > significant then you're suggesting here. . I'm sure you are right - I've no way of judging. > >Qualifier to what I am saying - these are the word of a non-gamer o > >probably has a different perspective from the typical list member. > > Which doesn't make it any less valid, of course. > There may in future be other non-gamers who will learn about & celebrate the renaissance of Mythos fiction being inspired by gaming. Will you welcome that? How will you handle it? I won't tell anyone, I promise . . . . The Glove Cleaner From: owner-dgrpg@delta-green.com on behalf of forvalaka@juno.com Sent: Saturday, April 08, 2000 5:41 AM To: dgrpg@delta-green.com Cc: dgrpg@delta-green.com Subject: Re: DG: Re: Eat the Immortals > Absolute immortality is forbidden by the laws of thermodynamics, > which state > (in one formulation) that you can never copy information without > some noise > creeping in. (Back, Timmins, back. Think of that as a bit of > poetry). > Not you, not me, not Great Cthulhu, will achieve real immortality > except > through our Spawn. Don't you mean the Laws of Thermodynamics as we understand them to be? Isn't the Mythos all about finding out that our little cherished beliefs are ultimately wrong? 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 LizardRoi@aol.com Sent: Saturday, April 08, 2000 6:50 AM To: dgrpg@delta-green.com Subject: Re: DG: Re: Delta Green not horror? In a message dated 4/7/00 10:11:36 PM Pacific Daylight Time, dmharms@acsu.buffalo.edu writes: << I'd have to refine this somewhat, because HPL, IMO, had a pretty good visual sense. Not only does he bombard us with detail, but the height of his tales are often crystallized around sharp, vivid images - a mask and gloves in a chair, a horror with one blue eye and one brown, etc. He gives us detail in abundance - and then the camera slides away... And as any number of bad horror movies can be proof, there's something to be said for keeping the horror off-screen. (And I'm more willing to think that it's lack of cinematic ingenuity, rather than HPL's style, which is to blame. Though I might agree with your radio point...)>> The visual details that you mention are the elements of a radio play. The scene must be described in detail to aid the mental picture. And he does not always give us detail in abundance and then the camera slides away - he often leaves the camera there and trots the horror out in front of it ands says you can't understand what you are seeing and words cannot convey it. The geometry defies reason and seems to waver at the edges unseen but flickering at the edge of your peripheral vision. It's like Stan Freberg making the world's largest hot fudge sundae with the fleets of dump trucks full of ice cream and the heated cement trucks of fudge and the Arclight dropping crushed nuts - you can only do it on radio. CGI won't help because the literal picture is nowhere near as good as the symbolic thing you created in your head in place of a picture. You didn't literally "see" the dump trucks and ice cream, you "see" a gestalt of the situation with some visual thumbnails. a truck, a flash of documentary footage of dam construction, a B-52 overhead, splash, a maraschino cherry all at once. It's the words that give it shape. << Lovecraft went to the movies fairly often, and while he often had a poor opinion, I think it was usually because he'd read the book already (and you know what they say...)>> Some people who get their mouths all set for one thing are bitterly disappointed when they get something else. So disappointed, in fact, that they completely miss the subtle, perhaps alien merits of what they got. I chose to find it significant that HPL didn't like Dracula in particular, since that is a story told through first person narrative and correspondence. Also, I am trying to picture the scene. Which movie theater? In Providence? Alone? With a friend or aunt? Popcorn? Butter? Back row? Balcony? Did he like to get some coffee afterwards and talk about it? Rhetorical. << I acknowledge that, yes, there can be a visual sense, or hope, or unhappy endings (though I think that on that last count, Hollywood is mostly guilty) to horror. Yet when I talk about the dangers of DG and cinematic form, I don't mean any of that. I'm referring to something that can be best summed up as "the movies", which transcends the actual film themselves and carries a whole set of associations with it - glamour, glitz, tuxes, award shows, fancy restaurants, vacation homes in the Caribbean. >> 1) Take two sombunall and call me in the morning. 2) I leave the associations at the door, which I find has a salubrious efficacy upon the appreciation of the cinema presentation. 3) Someone could use a long relaxing dip in Lake You. Sorry, I couldn't resist. I'm not trying to score points off of you here. But when film lovers get together and talk about film; glamour, glitz, tuxes, award shows, fancy restaurants, vacation homes in the Caribbean never creep into the conversation. Unless they are complaining about the pinheads with the cell phones. What you call "the movies" I simply call "hype." We see all of these things that we despise being pushed at us in a blonde paparazzi'd privileged package sold to us wherever we turn. And now, like never before, it is slick and snappy and so professional looking. Just like Hollywood product. Hype gives people what they want to see, and I am sometimes horrified to see what apparently the overwhelming majority of my, uh, peers want to see and hear and believe. Then I repeat Sturgeon's Law (90% of everything is crap) and look for the pony I just know has got to be under that pile of manure. I'll teach it to sing. << There's a point in cinema where you're not watching characters in a movie - you're watching movie stars in a movie. And that sort of mood (as most people who saw END OF DAYS would agree) is something which deadens any sense of horror.>> Sombunall. Otherwise you are equating End Of Days with the original version of The Haunting. << And I hope to hell that some of this makes sense to someone besides me.>> All of it made sense, even the stuff I don't agree with. Mark McFadden From: owner-dgrpg@delta-green.com on behalf of Andy Robertson [andywrobertson@clara.co.uk] Sent: Saturday, April 08, 2000 7:13 AM To: dgrpg@delta-green.com Subject: DG: Re: Big C vs The Laws of Thermodynamics ----- Original Message ----- From: > > Don't you mean the Laws of Thermodynamics as we understand them to be? > Isn't the Mythos all about finding out that our little cherished beliefs > are ultimately wrong? > Well, was not immortality in a heavenly afterlife a cherished belief? And was it not destroyed, by science? Therefore Science = The Mythos? Or at least they are kin. Maybe, say I. This is an old debate which has not been resolved and maybe never can be at our level of understanding. If you remember the Gates thread - the debate there was very similar. ----- ***** ----- Some of us understand Science this way. "Science" is a little house we have constructed over our heads with erztaz local materials, and the monsters are stalking about. When they tread on it, squelch. Some of us understand Science this way. Humanity huddles in a cave. "Science" is the view out of that cave. Through Science, we see some of the outside - vaguely and innacurately. Beyond what we see, the Mythos looms. Both viewpoints have virtue, but it is the second which I favour. I believe Science and the Mythos are akin in that they are both windows on a reality (the same reality) which has no natural place for human beings. This isn't the public-relations face of Science, but it is Science as its actual priests & practitioners understand it. I claim that the true progression in science is: Aristotle, Galilleo, Newton, Einstein, Schrodinger - then Lovecraft. When you've taken the first five steps, the sixth does not seem so strange any more. ----- ***** ----- As for big C. vs the Laws of Thermodynamics - I don't think you get to break the laws of Thermodynamics until you reach the level of YOG-SOTHOTH or AZATHOTH. CTHULHU is not, I would say, anywhere near that. Of course I have no evidence to support this: take it as a madman's guess. The Glove Cleaner From: owner-dgrpg@delta-green.com on behalf of Andy Robertson [andywrobertson@clara.co.uk] Sent: Saturday, April 08, 2000 7:19 AM To: dgrpg@delta-green.com Subject: Re: DG: Re: Delta Green not horror? ----- Original Message ----- From: > Also, I am trying to picture the scene. Which movie theater? In Providence? > Alone? With a friend or aunt? Popcorn? Butter? Back row? Balcony? Did he like > to get some coffee afterwards and talk about it? Rhetorical. > FYI HPL worked at a movie house in Providence for a short time. I think in 1920. Irrelevant, I know. I wish I could comment about DG the movie but I don't do the movie thing very much at all. What you say about Hollywood is true. Nods head, smiles, sort of. The Glove Cleaner From: owner-dgrpg@delta-green.com on behalf of William Timmins [wtimmins@hotmail.com] Sent: Saturday, April 08, 2000 8:40 AM To: dgrpg@delta-green.com Subject: Re: DG: Delta Green not horror? Regarding the focus of Delta Green on day to day missions rather than overarching horror... IMO, this is not much different than running a 1920s campaign. The issue is one of enjoyment and survival. Beyond running one shots or limited series where just about everybody gets chewed up or bonkers, 1920s campaigns, by necessity, limit the focus. In a 1920s game, you might be working to prevent local farmers from summoning a Dark Young. Or investigating a haunted house. Or tracking down a crazy man who may or may not be what he seems... The point is, for there to be any continuity, you can't toss the game against the backdrop. Or it will go 'splat'. 'You all die, the universe is doomed, thanks for playing.' Yeah, it's horror, but horror needs style. And for horror to be really convincing, it has to CREEP. Everyone dying in a mass orgy of tentacles (however you choose to interpret that...) is dramatic, but suffers greatly with any repetition. The subtle realization that you aren't quite sure if that event two months ago is having effects on your character... are those eyes buggy? What's going on?? So, to bring this back to DG... in DG the focus is often on people, conspiracies, technology, missions, and so forth. But the tendrils of the Mythos are there... and the curious are doomed. DG is generally focused on a campaign, not a one shot. By NECESSITY, in CoC, this requires you to focus on something other than horror. It focuses on something other than horror PRECISELY to give that horror room to play and develop into something monstrous and vital. Anyhow, my tuppence. -=Will ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com From: owner-dgrpg@delta-green.com on behalf of John Petherick [jpetheri@cyberbeach.net] Sent: Saturday, April 08, 2000 9:10 AM To: dgrpg@delta-green.com Subject: Re: DG: ODH Power limits [was RE: DG: Montecassino] At 02:07 AM 4/8/00 EDT, you wrote: >In a message dated 4/8/00 1:05:53 AM Central Daylight Time, >Adam.Crossingham@Octavian1009.E-MAIL.COM writes: > >> 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. > >Fighter Command, on the other hand, kept Typhoons around for that sort of >thing. > > And I'm sure that PISCES had contacts within the RAF who could scramble a Mosquito intruder mission. Able to fly higher, faster and with the same bomb load of a B-17. The fastest thing flying in Europe until the M-262 and final production runs of the Spitfire and similar fighters. The intruder missions appeared to be "seat-of-the-pants" flying, with target selection based on the pilot's whim (with complaints from the navigator about flak). Tasked missions might have included pathfinder missions, attacks on Peenemunde or the precision bombing of Amiens prison to release french resistance fighters. Late in the war, Mosquito intruder missions were flying as far as Czechoslovakia from bases in Britain, although some were refuelling at airfields in France. ********************************************************************* John Petherick, CIH jpetheri@cyberbeach.net