From: owner-dgrpg@delta-green.com on behalf of box_nine@ix.netcom.com Sent: Friday, April 21, 2000 1:40 PM To: dgrpg@delta-green.com Subject: DG: Useful Resources for Deep One Society and Technology Of course, the old refrain of "Check the Ice Cave!" is always worth following. It's been a while since I read it, but I believe Poul Anderson's THE MERMAN'S CHILDREN had some discussion of technology. It would take some judicious weeding, but the thread on alt.horror.cthulhu - Deep One Societies (http://www.deja.com/threadmsg_ct.xp?AN=577131328) might also have some useful info. One could speculate on a technology based on temperature and pressure differentials, I suppose. Any more thoughts? Steven From: owner-dgrpg@delta-green.com on behalf of Michael Layne [theherald@hotmail.com] Sent: Friday, April 21, 2000 2:53 PM To: dgrpg@delta-green.com Subject: Re: DG: S.P.I.D.E.R. On 21 April 2000, Popeyesays@aol.com stated, between cans of spinach: >Amongst your evil organization acronyms you have forgotten T.H.R.U.S.H. >from >The Man from U.N.C.L.E. - and - for those of us who read the Man from UNCLE >books - the truly sinister D.A.G.G.E.R. > And, before they ask, T.H.R.U.S.H. was an acronym for Technological Heirarchy for the Removal of Undesirables and Subjugation of Humanity. (This meaning is slightly less well-known than T.H.R.U.S.H.'s Nemisis, U.N.C.L.E. -- United Network Command for Law Enforcement) It was mentioned in one of the "Man From U.N.C.L.E." novels I used to own. (Quite possibly "The D.A.G.G.E.R. Affair", in which the two organizations had to ally temporarily to oppose the plans of D.A.G.G.E.R. This may have been the same novel that suggests that T.H.R.U.S.H. was formed in the late 19th century by a mystery man who may have been Professor Moriarty, and that even then it made use of Babbage Difference Engines modified by the Professor! IIRC, D.A.G.G.E.R. only appeared in that one novel, but was threatening the world with an energy-damping field that would prevent the use of electricity, internal-combustion engines, and possibly fire. If the book mentioned what D.A.G.G.E.R. stood for, I don't recall it now, and can't check on it, as my once-large collection of U.N.C.L.E. novels has unfortunately almost entirely vanished over the years... Michael Layne Old enough to have watched "The Man From U.N.C.L.E." first-run, from the beginning... DGGF#688 theherald@hotmail.com ________________________________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com From: owner-dgrpg@delta-green.com on behalf of Popeyesays@aol.com Sent: Friday, April 21, 2000 3:13 PM To: dgrpg@delta-green.com Subject: Re: DG: S.P.I.D.E.R. In a message dated 4/21/00 2:58:07 PM Central Daylight Time, theherald@hotmail.com writes: << IIRC, D.A.G.G.E.R. only appeared in that one novel, but was threatening the world with an energy-damping field that would prevent the use of electricity, internal-combustion engines, and possibly fire. If the book mentioned what D.A.G.G.E.R. stood for, I don't recall it now, and can't check on it, as my once-large collection of U.N.C.L.E. novels has unfortunately almost entirely vanished over the years... Michael Layne Old enough to have watched "The Man From U.N.C.L.E." first-run, from the beginning... DGGF#688 theherald@hotmail.com >> Greetings from another fossil! The D.A.G.G.E.R. Affair and the one where they get mixed up with Dracula (I cannot remember the title unfortunately) were my two favorite books in the series. From: owner-dgrpg@delta-green.com on behalf of Davide Mana [doctor.dee@libero.it] Sent: Friday, April 21, 2000 3:24 PM To: dgrpg@delta-green.com Subject: Re: DG: The B&W Thing Greetings. back on-line with a new keyboard after the other committed seppuku last night. Nice to see mr Mcfadden dissecting such an excellent specimen. > I love that movie. It is so quintessentially 50s without realizing it. What he said. Oh, yeah. I was, what?, eight or nine when I first saw 'The Thing', staying up late - going to sleep after midnight? At eight? To watch old B/W movies? Hell, I'll have to go and hug my parents and tell them I love 'em. It was part of the same cycle that exposed me at an early age to teh Marx Brothers, to Bogart and to film noir. Some passions are born early. So, yes, I was about nine, and already I had got this crazy notion of going out there and be a geologist. Can you imagine what 'The Thing' did to me? > The head scientist looks like Lenin in a yachting outfit. He apparently >doesn't sleep due to his pill intake and speaks glowingly of a sexless race >free of these sticky distractions, a race of pure emotionless intellect, what >things they could show us since thay are already so superior. Of course they >are peaceful, they're smarter than me, it's axiomatic. Guilty as charged - it was me, your honour, the one laughing in the dark at the 'Alien' premiere, when they 'kill' the ship doc and he goes on ranting about a perfect organism. Hordes of kids necking in the dark, and I was there telling them it was all a ripoff of 'The Thing' ('La Cosa da un Altro Mondo' in Italian - 'The Thing from Another World' the simple implications of the title being staggering in themselves - there's a worldfull of those critters out there) > Shit. > Do not get me wrong. I really and truly love this film on several levels, >and several of them admire the craft. It works. You've got to do some mental >time travelling to appreciate the traditional sci-fi horror form so capably >expressed, and some insight into the period helps. Just think Joe McCarthy >and Godless Communism. What we see now is not what they saw then. Or think about it as a kid would. It was downright scary. 'A walking vegetable for a monster'? You smartass, why do you think I still do not eat carrots to this day?! [no, I'm not joking - I hate the goddam stuff] Think back at the scene with the little alien embryos growing from the thing's amputated arm, irrorated with human blood. I repeat: it was damn scary! So - to quote from the poet - show some respect for the old animals. And vegetables, too. > Watching the skies. Yeah. Like he said. Davide Mana From: owner-dgrpg@delta-green.com on behalf of PM [mermoud@easynet.fr] Sent: Friday, April 21, 2000 4:27 PM To: dgrpg@delta-green.com Subject: Re: DG: S.P.I.D.E.R. > I'll let someone with the James Bond books close at hand answer the >S.P.E.C.T.R.E. question, although IIRC it stands for SPecial Executive >Committee for Terrorism, Revenge and Extortion. SPecial executive for Counterintelligence, Terrorism, Retorsion and Extorsion. As for THRUSH, an acronym was given in some novels, according to a book about the Man from UNCLE I read, but never in the show proper. ============================================= Patrice Mermoud (Paris - France) mermoud@easynet.fr ============================================= From: owner-dgrpg@delta-green.com on behalf of a hyperintelligent shade of blue [ilikemonkeys@geocities.com] Sent: Friday, April 21, 2000 4:32 PM To: dgrpg@delta-green.com Subject: Re: DG: Shoggoths > Perhaps the survivors in an Oklahoma outpost were the ancestors of the >K'n-yan. Self-replicating clones could be prone to telepathy. Cloning is a >form of immortality. But real immortality is possible with preserved ET >equipment and no party-pooping ET governors built into the design. > And destroying the idols of Tsathoggua because they discovered the true >nature of his worship? Puh-leeze, not while still dabbling with Yig and Tulu >and Hastur and Shub-Niggurath and Ghatanothoa who knew Nug who begat Yeb and >lo she bore him in tears an oak tree, which stood for three days and then >fell over - like a bridge, and beneath this bridge there came a catfish, and >he was swimming, and he was the biggest she had ever seen.... where was I? > Anyhow, maybe they just didn't like Tsathoggua's looks after they learned >something else. > Well, someone mentioned this lurker's pet Great Old One, so I suppose I'll chime in. Think of Tsathoggua's main worshippers, the Formless Spawn. Formless, protean, found underground, likely prone to bludgeoning hairless apes with pseudopodia. Sound like a certain other Mythos critter that just happens to be the topic of this thread? Does to me. Heck, in my own Tsathoggua Mythos, I have a distressingly Mr. Shiney-like uberSpawn (darn synchronicity, I thought I had an original idea for once.). So, you're the descendents of some slaves from this outpost and you find some critters that remind you somewhere deep in the hindbrain of some particularly nasty... overseers? coworkers?, either way, some particularly nasty bastard. I'd think you'd want to get the hell out of Dodge, and make sure they don't overthrow YOUR hard won civilization. My surprise is that the K'n-Yanni didn't go back and do the Blue-Litten Cavern equivalent of a firebombing on the place, or maybe they planned to, and the broadcast apathy of Lord Tsathoggua made 'em decide to watch reruns of the 'T'stoggnungpph'a and Marty Show'. Just a thought, since all this Deep One and Shoggoth and Ghoul stuff is so common. Doesn't anyone use Nightgaunts, Formless Spawn, and Serpent Men anymore? Ian still looking for his very own Encylopedia Cthuliana. "I write because I am personally amused by what I do, and if other people are amused by it, then it's fine. If they're not, then that's also fine." -- Frank Zappa From: owner-dgrpg@delta-green.com on behalf of Andy Robertson [andywrobertson@clara.co.uk] Sent: Friday, April 21, 2000 7:08 PM To: dgrpg@delta-green.com Subject: Re: DG: Re: Hoyle From: The Man in Black > And this is where it all falls apart. Humanity cannot understand the Great > Old Ones. Humanity cannot understand Science either. We are the ones who are killing ourselves trying. > The fallible nature of our perceptions make us assume that > science is tru7h, No Scientist assumes that. That is just a cover story we spread to keep the funds coming in. Real-world true. > but no amount of science will ever be able to explain anything. "Explain" _completely_, no. > There will always be more to understand or an alternate but just > as valid explanation. In essence you are correct. But you see "Science" as a human dogma imposed over an inhuman universe. That is, indeed, how teachers present science But it isn't like that when you actually do it. ---- **** ---- Science is tactical, not strategic. It provides us with stuff that is _useful_. Who cares if it is "true?" Scientists don't! We understand - on a deep,instinctive, level - that it's all models, models, theories - things to discard like a quick scribble on the back of an envelope. Philosophy got nowhere for millenia when it was searching for "the Truth". It was when we junked that search and turned Philosophy into Science that we started to rock and roll. Today, Science lets us build H-bombs. It's not much, I know. But isn't it one small step? That's all we claim. We have built good weapons. We broke our balls getting here. We'll do better in future. What does it _matter_ whether or not we "really and deeply understand" the Mythos entities, so long as we can _hurt_ them? And how are we going to learn to hurt them if we just chant "we can never understand" in chorus? Please, can't you give us one thin word of approval? The Glove Cleaner From: owner-dgrpg@delta-green.com on behalf of Daniel Harms [dmharms@acsu.buffalo.edu] Sent: Friday, April 21, 2000 7:31 PM To: dgrpg@delta-green.com Subject: Re: DG: The noble skill of Lying At 08:30 AM 4/21/2000 -0400, the MiB spluttered while desperately paddling after the jetskis: >The only tru7h is that our friend Daniel "I refuse to >use toilet paper" Harms is celibate as a Skoptsi Lemur (TM) deep in the >opposite of heat. You're still miffed that I got R&D to rig up a paddle-boat to look like that ultra-cool jet-boat from "The World is Not Enough", right? I thought so. At least we left on the torpedoes this time. 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 Daniel Harms [dmharms@acsu.buffalo.edu] Sent: Friday, April 21, 2000 7:44 PM To: dgrpg@delta-green.com Subject: Re: DG: Shoggoths In a message dated 4/21/00 1:28:04 AM Pacific Daylight Time, andywrobertson@clara.co.uk writes: << What the hell stops the Shoggoths from eating the world? They are obviously, from an evolutionary point of view, hypercompetent. Do they have trouble breeding? >> I'd give one suggestion, inspired by the shan discussion way back when: Shoggoths can breed, but they've had the biological imperative to do so removed. Perhaps with chemical stimulation on the part of the Elder Things, it might work, and it would be simpler than maintaining breeding vats... 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 Philip A Posehn [paposehn@juno.com] Sent: Friday, April 21, 2000 7:50 PM To: dgrpg@delta-green.com Subject: Re: DG: Shoggoths Campbell Was the editor who published ATMOM (Astounding), so it's safe to saw he was familiar with the Mythos. I don't know if ATMOM was HPl's first submission to him or not. "Who Goes There" was published in 1938...well after ATMOM. Phil On Fri, 21 Apr 2000 04:34:51 -0500 forvalaka@juno.com writes: > > > Anyone here know if Campbells "The Thing" was derived from ATMOM? > > > > > > > > The Glove Cleaner > > > "The Thing" was taken from "Who Goes There?" by John W. Campbell. > i > have no idea if he was inspired by the Mythos. > > > > Charles O. Baucum Jr. > > Mortuus non est quod in aeternum insiditur > et aetate ignota mors ipsas finiretur > ________________________________________________________________ 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 moorebros@earthlink.net Sent: Friday, April 21, 2000 11:05 PM To: dgrpg@delta-green.com Subject: Re: DG: Fiction: ANGEL 6 David Farnell wrote: > ANGEL (David Farnell, 2000) > Six: Long is the way, and hard Dave, I'm sorry that it took me so long to read this and comment. (like you were holding your breath or something, right?) This is your best bit on Angel yet! You hit your stride, found your voice, etc. I really love the dark hints of past ops. And your dialogue is dead on! This was one of the best Shrink/Patient relationships I've seen since the Sopranos. Your pace is more pulp(is that the right description?), like Ellroy. Now does story end? I hope not, but I'd also understand if you felt you got all the milage out of it that you could. Of course I would immediately demand that you write something else for my amusement! Dance, you fool! Dance! (just joking) Seriously, this was great! Roger From: owner-dgrpg@delta-green.com on behalf of Dave Farnell [superdave@disinfo.net] Sent: Friday, April 21, 2000 11:58 PM To: dgrpg@delta-green.com Subject: Re: DG: Fiction: ANGEL 6 On Fri, 21 Apr 2000 21:05:24 -0700 moorebros@earthlink.net wrote: >Your >pace is more pulp(is that the right description?), like Ellroy. No higher praise can you give me, babe. Thanks. >Now does story end? Not for a while. I'm just stalled out on Ch. 7, as I've been breaking in a new computer and starting 4 new jobs (one is full-time). But it will come eventually, maybe sooner than I think. SHould be about 10 chapters in all, but when I revise it later, it might get longer (or shorter). But I can see why you might think it was the end, because I SCREWED UP! A couple of times in Ch. 6, Doc and Maria/Laura/Dolores/Gracie mention the event from 25 years ago. Er, that was supposed to be "15 years ago." D'OH! For those who might have suffered similar confusion, the structure is like this: Odd-numbered chapters are the "present," the ongoing investigation of Col. Collins. The even-numbered chapters are flashbacks of the road that led Maria to her meeting with Collins. Soon they will merge and...remember the recent discussion of "tickling the dragon's tail"? So chapter 6 happened a few years before Maria and Jerry went to Austin. Thanks again. I should be getting quite a lot written tonight, but Ch. 7 is turning out to be pretty long, perhaps the longest so far. Dave From: owner-dgrpg@delta-green.com on behalf of Andy Robertson [andywrobertson@clara.co.uk] Sent: Saturday, April 22, 2000 3:47 AM To: dgrpg@delta-green.com Subject: Re: Re: DG: Shoggoths ----- Original Message ----- From: > > Mark wrote: > I like to think that the really large original shoggoths went to the ocean > deeps and grew without restrictions, thinking new kinds of thoughts as they > got too big for centralized control, and discovering new abilities in the > pressure and cold. > > Combining this with the details in "The Call of Cthulhu" about water blocking > telepathic impulses, one wonders what the Elder Things were thinking when they >decided "Oh, let's allow our shoggoths to evolve undirected in the water. > Better still, let's join them down there, just in case they run out of Tetra Penguin Flakes." That is precisely why I think they did *not* allow them to evolve undirected, or even to reproduce without supervision >Anybody want to comment on how common liquid water is in the cosmos? That is a *very* perceptive point. Liquid water appears to be the necessary substrate for Briahtic life (I use the term "Briah", which I think is derived from the Torah, to denote the whole space-time Cosmos we live in, and its laws: starting with the Big Bang.) Because it requires a narrow temperature/pressure range, it is extremely rare. It does not exist in interstellar space, except possibly in the core of comets being heated by radioactivity. It exists nowhere except on the surface of rocky planets like the Earth. >It is curious how both Cthulhu (to some extent) and the Elder Things are brought own by the effects of it. Yes, and it will bear a lot of thinking about. The Glove Cleaner From: owner-dgrpg@delta-green.com on behalf of Andy Robertson [andywrobertson@clara.co.uk] Sent: Saturday, April 22, 2000 4:00 AM To: dgrpg@delta-green.com Subject: Re: DG: Re: THE BLOB! (in Technocolor) ----- Original Message ----- From: The Man in Black > Perhaps all their mucking about with humanity is to figure out how to > create sentience (and thus POW) out of protomatter. Consider a few things: > Shub-Niggurath is *required* for Mi-Go reproduction. Humans (based on > protomatter) derive from Ubbo-Sathla. It would seem that if neotissue > could resolve into Mi-Go life, then the Mi-Go would gain more control over > their biology, and a measure of freedom from Shub-Niggurath. Of course > they would only be trading one Outer God for another, but at least they > would have a choice. Hmm - is Ubblo-Sathla more than an analogy? (*US* - you know). Or am I making a distinction that doesn't apply in this realm? In either case I think what you are saying makes a lot of sense. So, is there any way we can we hand them a poisoned chalice? The Glove Cleaner From: owner-dgrpg@delta-green.com on behalf of Andy Robertson [andywrobertson@clara.co.uk] Sent: Saturday, April 22, 2000 4:02 AM To: dgrpg@delta-green.com Subject: DG: Re: The B&W Thing (spoilers. Oh come ON, there has to be a statute oflimitations) ----- Original Message ----- From: > ObDG: hrrruumppphhhh. Ob my ass, this thing has DG all over it. Yup. Obvious, isn't it? The Glove Cleaner From: owner-dgrpg@delta-green.com on behalf of Andy Robertson [andywrobertson@clara.co.uk] Sent: Saturday, April 22, 2000 4:05 AM To: dgrpg@delta-green.com Subject: Re: DG: Re: THE BLOB! (in Technocolor) ----- Original Message ----- From: > Of course, then we would have a race of immortals among us, cautiously > cooperating but knowing full well that in the end, > > There can be only one! > (big one on the bottom of the ocean after it eats all the others) Yup, that makes sense - except that the intervention of other Mythos entities may yet allow them to "squirm and splash to more blasphemous conquests" in other realms. The Glove Cleaner From: owner-dgrpg@delta-green.com on behalf of Andy Robertson [andywrobertson@clara.co.uk] Sent: Saturday, April 22, 2000 4:21 AM To: dgrpg@delta-green.com Subject: DG: Re: Useful Resources for Deep One Society and Technology ----- Original Message ----- From: > > One could speculate on a technology based on temperature and pressure differentials, I suppose. Any more thoughts? > Basically, they can't use electricity, fire, inertia, or any metal except gold. And though they are immortal they ain't superhumanly bright. If it isn't biotech - including left-over Elder Race biotech - it's nothing. They live Deep, out of the photic zone, so they have no agriculture: they get their food by hunting and their population is low. But they have bioluminescence, and some domesticates, and they can build in stone and probably keep records on stone (or gold sheets). The Glove Cleaner From: owner-dgrpg@delta-green.com on behalf of Davide Mana [doctor.dee@libero.it] Sent: Saturday, April 22, 2000 7:21 AM To: dgrpg@delta-green.com Subject: Re: DG: Re: Useful Resources for Deep One Society and Technology Greetings. On the subject of DO technology.... >> One could speculate on a technology based on temperature and pressure >>differentials, I suppose. Any more thoughts? >Basically, they can't use electricity, fire, inertia, or any metal except >gold. Consider that through pressure you can generate electricity - it's called cataphoresis, IIRC. Deep ones have plenty of pressure. And gold should make for a good conductor. > And though they are immortal they ain't superhumanly bright. If it >isn't biotech - including left-over Elder Race biotech - it's nothing. They've got shoggoths, or so a pretty fishy guy on Gray Dragon Island once told me. On the other hand, I wonder - ok, let's say they have biotech (the subject, incidentally, was amply discussed in the past and is stored in the Cave); but, given the fact they have biotech, whould they be completely without any other form of technology? Would not they use just anything that works, as long as it works? >They live Deep, out of the photic zone, so they have no agriculture: they >get their food by hunting and their population is low. They also live below the CCD - Calcite Compensation Depth - so no hard shells or bodies of carbonate for them. All the calcium they have is dissolved in the water. So, sorry, no deep sea coral cities - they'd melt like a soda popsicle in the sun. Faster, probably. But they could build silica structures all right. Or organic matter - I once again mention bryozoans as Deep Ones building blocks of choice. >But they have >bioluminescence, and some domesticates, and they can build in stone and >probably keep records on stone (or gold sheets). Which points towards an almost hunters/gatherers kind of structure, but that's imposing our patterns on their society, and it might not work. The abundance of siliceous materials on the bottom of the oceans should not be underestimated. The ocean botton is forever under a slow snowfall of minute silica particles - most the remains of algae. The stuff is everywhere. Sure, most is pretty yucky oozes and other incoherent (that is, not solid) stuff, but with a little ingenuity you can work with those - using pressure as a tool to consolidate them, or turn them into a gel. After that, what? You feed it to shoggoths, so they'll excrete flint bricks? And what if consistent chunks of their tech are based on water? After all, they have much more water than stone, down there, right? Let's start with the favourite commonplace statement of Scientific Poseurs, Department of Anthropology: eskimos have words for snow. Water could be like that for the DOs - difference in temperature, salinity, degree of illumination, make for different materials. Need to corrall fishes? - use the cold current surrounding the high temperature water cell above a black smoker. You only need to place 'hot' fishes in the hot cell, and the'll be unable to leave. Pressure takes care of the top and bottom limits of the corrall. Or you can alterate the salinity of similarly limited body of water for the same purpose. Working on salinity is probably easier than working on temperature, incidentally. And consider that both temperature and salinity also influence the breeding patterns of many water-based life forms, so that your corral might also work as breeding inhibitor/accelerator. All this, which is pretty basic, without going into the subject of the memory of water, the theory that water molecular interaction can record patterns for some time after being imprinted with it. For us it is fringe research, but the DOs are living in the stuff all of their lives. What could they do with it? Short-time records? Or can they simply read the imprint? Considering the part that expansion of gases has in our tech, and we live immersed in a gas cocktail, you can guess what liquids and their ptroperties could mean for Deep ones. And not just water: there's the already mentioned silica oozes, and all colloidal substances. So, what I'm aiming at in this short introductory post is - let's think sideways for a while. Let's try not to impose our tech on the deep ones. Let's not think of what they can't do with our unavailable tech. Let's see if they can do it instead with what they have at hand and we have not. Is there a good chemist in the house? 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 Randell Wolff [randell.wolff@murraystate.edu] Sent: Saturday, April 22, 2000 9:40 AM To: dgrpg@delta-green.com Subject: Re: DG: Re: Useful Resources for Deep One Society and Technology I don't really have anything to add--I'm certainly not a chemist--but I just wanted to say that your post was absolutely inspiring. Thanks! Randell Wolff "If ignorance is bliss, then knock the smile off my face." --Rage against the Machine, "Settle for Nothing" -- Begin original message -- > Greetings. > > On the subject of DO technology.... [Excellent material snipped] > So, what I'm aiming at in this short introductory post is - let's think > sideways for a while. > Let's try not to impose our tech on the deep ones. > Let's not think of what they can't do with our unavailable tech. > Let's see if they can do it instead with what they have at hand and we have > not. > > Is there a good chemist in the house? > > > Davide Mana > Torino, Italy > doctor.dee@libero.it > The Ice Cave - http://www.fortunecity.com/tattooine/leiber/50/ice_cave.htm > > -- End original message -- From: owner-dgrpg@delta-green.com on behalf of Andy Robertson [andywrobertson@clara.co.uk] Sent: Saturday, April 22, 2000 10:03 AM To: dgrpg@delta-green.com Subject: Re: DG: Re: Useful Resources for Deep One Society and Technology ----- Original Message ----- From: Davide Mana > Would not they use just anything that works, as long as it works? > > They also live below the CCD - Calcite Compensation Depth - so no hard > shells or bodies of carbonate for them. All the calcium they have is > dissolved in the water. > So, sorry, no deep sea coral cities - they'd melt like a soda popsicle in > the sun. > Faster, probably. > But they could build silica structures all right. > Or organic matter - I once again mention bryozoans as Deep Ones building > blocks of choice. Um. Very good points. > >But they have > >bioluminescence, and some domesticates, and they can build in stone and > >probably keep records on stone (or gold sheets). > > Which points towards an almost hunters/gatherers kind of structure, but > that's imposing our patterns on their society, and it might not work. > Yr right. Unless you are a filter feeder, there is no choice but to be a "hunter" at sea - there are no big plants. Could semi-hominids sustain a settled/city society based on hunting as a food source? In the sea, maybe, cos: long distance travel for hunting requires far less energy they are not homeothermic. Less food needed.. > The abundance of siliceous materials on the bottom of the oceans should not > be underestimated. The ocean botton is forever under a slow snowfall of > minute silica particles - most the remains of algae. The stuff is everywhere. > Sure, most is pretty yucky oozes and other incoherent (that is, not solid) > stuff, but with a little ingenuity you can work with those - using pressure > as a tool to consolidate them, or turn them into a gel. > After that, what? > You feed it to shoggoths, so they'll excrete flint bricks? > This goes back to dregs of Elder Race tech being the main source of their technology. The Shoggoths obviously include whole libraries of somatic form: I imagine them being "tool kits" for the Elder Race (Lift this rock. Now extrude a knife . . . . now eat up this shit and convert it to alcohol . . . now encyst for another century or so, I don't need you. No need to hold my neck so affectionately). Now the Deep Ones want to turn them into chemical factories. So they are trying to breed and change the Shoggoths. It's a half-understood, fantastically dangerous, technology. Suppose the Deep Ones are having problems with their Shoggoths? We should not always assume the Mythos entities are allied together with each other and against us: this is rarely the case in Lovecraft, and if the Shoggoths have undermined and eaten one intelligent race they can do it to another. > > So, what I'm aiming at in this short introductory post is - let's think > sideways for a while. > Let's try not to impose our tech on the deep ones. > Let's not think of what they can't do with our unavailable tech. > Let's see if they can do it instead with what they have at hand and we have > not. Yr right: I repent me > > Is there a good chemist in the house? > Not me, alas! I'm a physicist. Excellent post. The Glove Cleaner From: owner-dgrpg@delta-green.com on behalf of The Man in Black [mib@cyberspace.org] Sent: Saturday, April 22, 2000 11:20 AM To: dgrpg@delta-green.com Subject: Re: DG: S.P.I.D.E.R. On Fri, 21 Apr 2000, Michael Layne wrote: > IIRC, D.A.G.G.E.R. only appeared in that one novel, but was threatening > the world with an energy-damping field that would prevent the use of > electricity, internal-combustion engines, and possibly fire. If the book > mentioned what D.A.G.G.E.R. stood for, I don't recall it now, and can't > check on it, as my once-large collection of U.N.C.L.E. novels has > unfortunately almost entirely vanished over the years... Now I know where Destro (high priest of Cyaegha) and Cobra Commander got that PYRAMID OF DARKNESS~! (TM) thing with the space teletubbies/ogres and so forth. The only time Major Bludd really kicked ass as I recall. The Man in Black is : rolling Snake Eyes. Novus Ordo Seclorum : Annuit Coeptus : E Pluribus Unum "Don't make me take off my sunglasses!" - Griss, Bringing Out the Dead http://www.carnwyffa.u-net.com [EMERALD HAMMER] From: owner-dgrpg@delta-green.com on behalf of Stephen Joseph Ellis [sje1@st-andrews.ac.uk] Sent: Saturday, April 22, 2000 11:21 AM To: dgrpg@delta-green.com Subject: DG: ODH size. Dear all, Having missed most of the recent brouhaha over ODH (I wish we had a searchable archieve. oh well.) , a question for the Paganistas suddenly occurred to me. Will 'Our Darkest Hour' be competing for the 'biggest Cthulhu title ever' award? After all, I thought Countdown (425 pages) was unfairly pipped to the post by Beyond the Mountains of Madness (440 pages) last year. Perhaps ODH will make it past the 500 page mark? (To bulk up the size, how about including a special deal where you get the complete 'The World at War' video collection with every ODH?) Keep up the good work Pagan! Steve. (who by his calculations is eagerly expecting the 2010 Pagan release of over 1000 pages. I'll have to go start building a reinforced book case to hold them all now.) "In the long run we are all dead" -John Maynard Keynes From: owner-dgrpg@delta-green.com on behalf of The Man in Black [mib@cyberspace.org] Sent: Saturday, April 22, 2000 11:30 AM To: dgrpg@delta-green.com Subject: Re: DG: Re: Hoyle On Sat, 22 Apr 2000, Andy Robertson wrote: > In essence you are correct. Well of course I am! > Science is tactical, not strategic. It provides us with stuff that is > _useful_. Who cares if it is "true?" I care. The ETHOS care. INVISIBLE cares. Tru7h is illumination. > What does it _matter_ whether or not we "really and deeply understand" the > Mythos entities, so long as we can _hurt_ them? But you can't. > And how are we going to learn to hurt them if we just chant "we can never > understand" in chorus? Because humanity's extinction is already engraved in sandstone. It's not a matter of species war, but of inevitability. > Please, can't you give us one thin word of approval? I think that humanity will destroy itself instead of being destroyed by the Mythos. I doubt Cthulhu gives a ripped condom about a species like us, even as consumables. The Man in Black is : yummy to the last drop. Novus Ordo Seclorum : Annuit Coeptus : E Pluribus Unum "Don't make me take off my sunglasses!" - Griss, Bringing Out the Dead http://www.carnwyffa.u-net.com [EMERALD HAMMER] From: owner-dgrpg@delta-green.com on behalf of The Man in Black [mib@cyberspace.org] Sent: Saturday, April 22, 2000 11:32 AM To: dgrpg@delta-green.com Subject: Re: DG: The noble skill of Lying On Fri, 21 Apr 2000, Daniel Harms wrote: > You're still miffed that I got R&D to rig up a paddle-boat to look like that > ultra-cool jet-boat from "The World is Not Enough", right? I thought so. > At least we left on the torpedoes this time. Damn the torpedoes, full paddle ahead! At least I remembered to bring the JATO disguised as a Palmtop Organizer. The Man in Black is : Jet Assisted. Novus Ordo Seclorum : Annuit Coeptus : E Pluribus Unum "Don't make me take off my sunglasses!" - Griss, Bringing Out the Dead http://www.carnwyffa.u-net.com [EMERALD HAMMER] From: owner-dgrpg@delta-green.com on behalf of The Man in Black [mib@cyberspace.org] Sent: Saturday, April 22, 2000 11:43 AM To: dgrpg@delta-green.com Subject: Re: DG: Re: Useful Resources for Deep One Society and Technology On Sat, 22 Apr 2000, Andy Robertson wrote: > Basically, they can't use electricity, fire, inertia, or any metal except > gold. And though they are immortal they ain't superhumanly bright. If it > isn't biotech - including left-over Elder Race biotech - it's nothing. > > They live Deep, out of the photic zone, so they have no agriculture: they > get their food by hunting and their population is low. But they have > bioluminescence, and some domesticates, and they can build in stone and > probably keep records on stone (or gold sheets). So far everything said_in_the_thread has been under human assumptions of science and biotechnology. I tend to presume that the Deep Ones use *spells* for most things (like refining gold), but I can see making Shoggoths for specific purposes (like refining gold). I don't see why they Deep Ones can't live off weird agriculture like the odd stuff in Escape from Innsmouth, or even sulfur based vent lifeforms for that matter. As for keeping records, we know for a fact that Deep Ones have their own writing, which is carved into spirals on conical stones. They probably have a more short term writing material (made from shells?) for mundane stuff like inventories or Deep Sea love letters. Then again, maybe they only use stone cones for religious writings and glop onto a memory shoggoth for other stuff. The Man in Black is : Kenneth Scroggins Novus Ordo Seclorum : Annuit Coeptus : E Pluribus Unum "Don't make me take off my sunglasses!" - Griss, Bringing Out the Dead http://www.carnwyffa.u-net.com [EMERALD HAMMER] From: owner-dgrpg@delta-green.com on behalf of The Man in Black [mib@cyberspace.org] Sent: Saturday, April 22, 2000 12:05 PM To: dgrpg@delta-green.com Subject: Re: DG: ODH size. On Sat, 22 Apr 2000, Stephen Joseph Ellis wrote: > Steve. (who by his calculations is eagerly expecting the 2010 > Pagan release of over 1000 pages. I'll have to go start building a > reinforced book case to hold them all now.) By my much superior calculations, I expect a 10'x10'x10' Gelatinous Cube imprinted with several holographic infinities of Pagan Publishing material, including the disembodied brains of the staff, to be available. The Man in Black is : gonna go recheck those calculations. Novus Ordo Seclorum : Annuit Coeptus : E Pluribus Unum "Don't make me take off my sunglasses!" - Griss, Bringing Out the Dead http://www.carnwyffa.u-net.com [EMERALD HAMMER] From: owner-dgrpg@delta-green.com on behalf of Philip A Posehn [paposehn@juno.com] Sent: Saturday, April 22, 2000 12:37 PM To: dgrpg@delta-green.com Subject: DG: favorite acronyms Slightly OT but brief...Donald E. Westlake wrote a series of SF stories that took place in the galaxy F.U.B.A.R. 9. And then there was the government agency that Roger Zelazny had in "This Immortal" that was in charge of oniform destgn whose acronym was O.A.F.I.S.H. Phil ________________________________________________________________ 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 Graeme Price [graemep@immagene.mcg.edu] Sent: Saturday, April 22, 2000 1:09 PM To: dgrpg@delta-green.com Subject: Re: DG: Re: Useful Resources for Deep One Society and Technology Well, after a week's enforced absence due to catastrophic server failure, I'm back. And what should I find except... >On the subject of DO technology.... >>> One could speculate on a technology based on temperature and pressure >>>differentials, I suppose. Any more thoughts? >>Basically, they can't use electricity, fire, inertia, or any metal except >>gold. > >Consider that through pressure you can generate electricity - it's called >cataphoresis, IIRC. >Deep ones have plenty of pressure. >And gold should make for a good conductor. You've missed an obvious point. If you have electricity, you also have the possibility of electrolysis of water into hydrogen and oxygen. Leaving the possibilities of hydrogen alone, the availability of oxygen means: -fire is possible -therefore smelting and metalcraft is possible Consider also that it is possible that DO cities are pressurised (perhaps in underground caverns with a simple U-bend to act as an airlock). You could also envisage the ability to set up a form of simple agriculture arrangement to grow seaweed and produce an oxygen/carbon dioxide atmosphere (although light could be a problem - bioluminescence is generally quite faint, but I suppose selective breeding of bioluminescent algae could enhance this somewhat), alternatively air could be initially brought down in bladders to set up the environment, which is then maintained by photosynthetic organisms as rudimentary CO2 scrubbers. >>They live Deep, out of the photic zone, so they have no agriculture: they >>get their food by hunting and their population is low. Why? Taking Devil's Reef as an example, that was pretty shallow. Even if the cities are in the depths, why not transport agricultural products in from satellite "ranches" in the shallows? Alternatively, you could culture large bacterial or fungal colonies as food which don't neccesarily need light or air (don't laugh - there were serious proposals to use both fungal and bacterial biomass as a solution to global food shortage in the 1980's). My guess as to the population being low is rather due to difficulties in breeding (perhaps DO mating with other DO's is impossible, or fraught with problems - perhaps chronic inbreeding has resulted in reproductive problems- enhancing the need to outbreed with human populations), but nasty keepers may prefer huge DO populations in the depths that are just never encountered. >And what if consistent chunks of their tech are based on water? >After all, they have much more water than stone, down there, right? Need I mention thermal vents, which could imply the existence of heat exchangers and steam turbines to generate electricity or just move water from place to place (yes, hydraulics - that's what I meant). >Or you can alterate the salinity of similarly limited body of water for the >same purpose. >Working on salinity is probably easier than working on temperature, >incidentally. A form of primative diffusion cell for seperation of elements? Could work given sufficient time and stability of the gradient. >For us it is fringe research, but the DOs are living in the stuff all of >their lives. >So, what I'm aiming at in this short introductory post is - let's think >sideways for a while. >Let's try not to impose our tech on the deep ones. >Let's not think of what they can't do with our unavailable tech. >Let's see if they can do it instead with what they have at hand and we have >not. > >Is there a good chemist in the house? Well, I've tried to introduce a few basic points, but there's obviously much more to it. Anyway, better get back to some real science. Later Graeme graemep@immag.mcg.edu From: owner-dgrpg@delta-green.com on behalf of The Man in Black [mib@cyberspace.org] Sent: Saturday, April 22, 2000 1:34 PM To: The MiB's Mailing List Subject: DG: THE GUN EATERS My first short story in a while. Some of you old timers may recognize the three primary protagonists. I've finally been getting some overdoses of caffiene, plus stress, time and isolation. I apologize for any annoying formatting errors that may occur. ******* THE GUN EATERS A story of NYPD Mythos corruption, the DREAMLANDERS, and Delta Green By the Man in Black. "We are the hollow men... Our dried voices, when We whisper together Are quiet and meaningless As wind in dry grass Or rats' feet over broken glass In our dry cellar."- T.S. Elliot, "The Hollow men" ******* "You don't understand... they *already* ate their guns - a long time ago." Her voice trembled. It was audible fear. "I'm not impressed, I don't care about the undead." edwards told the thin malnourished girl sitting across the table from him. She was scared and jonesing for a hit. Scared enough to risk Bob Masters' knives, and edwards' apathetic callousness toward human life. "These guys are cops, maybe every cop is like these guys!" she pleaded. edwards looked into the brown shit of her cesspool eyes, contemplating her water-colored tarnished beauty. "I don't care about cops," said edwards. "Clean yourself up. Get yourself some food, and get the fuck out," he said dismissively, gesturing toward the door of the cold grey apartment. "You gotta help me!" she wailed, "There's no one else left," she said plaintively. "FUCK YOU! I have no obligation to you. You'll just steal our shit and dope yourself to death. I should kill you myself," edwards threatened. It wasn't the answer she was looking for. She bent down onto the table and put her arms over her head. edwards didn't care if she was weeping or not. Instead, he turned his attention towards the door. Keys turned one by one, unlocking each of many locks securing the door. edwards took the shotgun off the table and aimed for center mass. It was Robert Masters, who entered still wet from a filthy New York rain. He had two bags of groceries, paper in plas tic. Belinda looked up, blood from the track marks in her tear ducts turned her eyes pink. She cried the red tears of a junkie. ed concentrated on the shotgun and put the safety back on. "You gonna kill me with that thing, or what?" Bob joked, deadly and inappropriate as a Hitler in a Jerusalem. Bob headed toward the kitchen and began filling up the fridge. The huge albino form of Daniel Cloudtoucher entered, consuming the doorway's space . He slowly and deliberately locked all six deadbolts one by one. Then he fastened the short chain. >From the kitchen, Bob inquired without guile "Nice to see you again Belinda. Here to see your brother ed?" ******* Detective Howard Durango sat on the edge of the bathtub with his 9mm service pistol in his right hand. He remembered the words of Robert Hubert: "Bite the Bullet, just chow down and eat up." Durango put the business end of the pistol into his mouth and pulled the trigger. As all the juicy parts of his brain splattered across the mildewed tiles, The Lord of the Gun thought to himself as he had so many times before; Hubert was right, it really does work. ******* She sold out Micheal, practically pissed on Alison's grave, and watched Masaru get beaten to death. Why? Just to get another poke in the eye, another needle piercing her skin and stabbing into her veins with the sick joy of dying slowly. Now she was here with edwards, she thought she could trust him, but he was smart, he knew all about the cravings. ed had become different, cruel and uncaring. Another good thing had withered and died. He wasn't always like this. She remembered when they had been placed in the same foster home and he helped her hide the razor thin scars from the social services people. Belinda had always felt compelled to slice her body. But today, self-mutilation was t he least of her worries. "I won't let a junkie with a gun out on the streets. Give me that." ed brusquely took away her weapon. He removed the 9mm magazine. ******* Belinda left and walked down the rain shattered sidewalk. Gray people greeted her with the indifference of night phantoms, the need was building inside her, nothing existed except her yearning for heroin. No one noticed her tears. No one ever did. edwards talked to his two cronies in the building's lobby. "Bob, I want you to follow her on foot, see if anyone else does, and kill them. Daniel, we'll follow in the van, doing vehicles." His buddies nodded their assent. Robert Masters expertly followed in front of his shadow, rather than behind. Belinda furtively looked behind her, paranoid that the night streets of New York City would chew her up and spit out a cracked up dead whore. She never saw the man draw his gun in front of her. Masters materialized an eighteen inch black blade from within the confines of his long black trenchcoat. It was writ small and large with florescent violet runes. With one terrible bloody slash, he severed the man's hand off at the wrist... and the hand kept pulling the trigger. An onlooker down the street took a direct hit in the chest, and Belinda screamed. Masters flipped a slender stiletto into the hand before it hit the ground while stabbing the man in the throat, drawing forth a gout of scarlet rain. edwards kicked open the van's side door and put a shotgun slug into the head of Belinda's attacker. The head made a brief bloody explosion and collapsed in ruins. The severed hand on the ground pulled the trigger some more. edwards swatted a slug heading towards him with the splintering butt of his shotgun. The other bullets tore through the van's thin metal skin and whistled past his head. ed's bunt off the curbside ricocheted into the headless horror, knocking it a step back. Robert threw another sliver of steel into the hand, riveting it into the concrete. Daniel Cloudtoucher leaped across the front of the van, and howled with the rage of the transcendant. An unmarked police rustwagon burnt rubber, crossed traffic and almost rammed him. But a sudden shifting aurora borealis blinded the occupants and Warmaker sunk it's claws deep into the front side and flipped over the car. It trailed sparks, and momentum drove the skidding vehicle into the street side of Daniel's van, knocking edwards out onto the sidewalk before Belinda's would be assassin. edwards' skull bounced off the grimy rain soaked sidewalk. His stomach landed hard on two knives, and an undead hand which clawed unrelentingly towards his groin. Intense pain clouded his cold grey vision, making it into deadly golden light. Robert slammed into the gory body with furious intensity, stabbing it in the belly over and over again. Sickly discolored guts poured out over his hand and spilled yet more blood onto the grimy wet sidewalk. The light rain couldn't wash the sanguinous fluid away in time. The walking headless gutless horror clubbed Masters with a brutal unholy strength and he sailed away into a plate glass window, battering the glass with his head and hands as cafe patrons fled in fear. edwards slowly rose onto one knee. In the street, the cop car had rolled onto it's side with the top facing Warmaker. The creature ripped into the hood of the car and tore the entire engine block right out of it's mountings. The white furred monstrosity lifted all eight cylinders over his head as the frantic officers panicked and emptied their clips through the windshield and into the tremendous anger of the beast itself. With a suddenness begat from righeousness, Warmaker leaped several stories into the air and hurled the engine down upon the brand new car wreck, crushing the two corrupt police officers in the front seat. It was better than the NFL in violent action. It was spiking the football: Live and in Person, Primetime - Nationwide. Shattered car parts lay strewn about in a vaguely semicircular pattern of rage. The cop pulp in the crater wriggled in defiance of nature. Bob lay bruised, bleeding and stunned on the ground. "Fuck!" he thought to himself, looming over him was a corpse that refused to die no matter how many times he killed it. Warmaker roared in victory on top of the white dented van where he had landed. The street was completely vacated by the sane New Yorker crowd. Traffic had vanished, and sirens answered Warmaker's cry. A dark figure crawled out of the rear window of the broken cop car. He stepped over pools of still quivering flesh and emptied the clip of his AK-47 into Warmaker. The white creature slipped off the van's wet roof and landed backwards on a fire hydrant, screaming in agony. edwards stood up, his eyes glowing with a hideous light. He grabbed the monster about to pummel Robert Masters' life away and gazed with unstoppable sorcery at half an eyeball. The creature immediately began to melt away under the inherent pressure of the golden light. It flopped it's liquid limbs helplessly as it dissolved. ed offered Masters a hand and helped him up. edwards hurriedly began to scoop up his shotgun while Masters rushed over to assist Daniel Cloudtoucher, who was human once more, and suffering from many minor bullet wounds. Before they could accomplish anything, they saw a man with an AK-47 on the sidewalk. The three wanderers didn't move an inch. "You're edwards aren't you?" asked the unknown man. edwards said nothing. There was a tense uncomfortable silence. "All I want is the girl. Give her to me." he said. "We don't have any girls." said ed. It was completely true, Belinda had wisely slipped off sometime during the fight. "We're not pimps you know," said Robert, stringy guts still clinging to his arms. He didn't really negotiate much. "GIVE HER TO ME~!" The man screamed. His face tight with years of frustration. "no," said ed. "I know who you are. You're Howard Durango, Detective, New York City Police Department. You're on the take. The Fate owns you, and you think that your status as Lord of the Gun can save you from us." ed paused. "You're wrong." The Lord of the Gun began to raise his assault rifle, and the three men started to move against him. But then Belinda poked her head out from Daniel's smashed up, bullet ridden van. "Daddy?" cried Belinda, in disbelief and anger and resentment. She stepped out onto the sidewalk in shock. Durango pulled the trigger, and Belinda's heart ripped into shreds. She died with an addict's pain. They jumped on the Lord of the Gun, and killed him. It took a long time. A very long time indeed. THE END ******* FOR THE GAME: The Gun Eaters are bad cops who have been manipulated into a darker corruption by the Fate, usually by addiction to a group of necromantic drugs called Animator, which enables them to regenerate. Eventually these once honorable police officers commit s uicide, unable to handle addiction to a drug causing hideous needs to commit ever increasing acts of intense violence and brutal sexual assualt. They were enslaved by the Fate and overseen by the Lord of the Gun. Because of the sorcerous necromantic drug permeating their flesh, simply eating a service revolver and pulling the trigger turns them into some sort of ghastly regenerating walking corpse. As if this was not damaging enough to sanity, the Gun Eaters must continue to feed their addiction or physically relive their deaths, regenerating into their abnormal state over and over again. For the Gun Eaters, withdrawal is addiction to suicide. The Fate exclusively provides Animator from unknown sources while Tiger Transit distribute to an extremely limited market. The drug is actually a treatment which requires many different compounds, administered clandestinely (like poison) or overtly (by force feeding). Only seven cops in NYC have been "animated", and plans exist to expand into the New Orleans and Chicago police departments in the future. ******* The Man in Black is : Kenneth Scroggins Novus Ordo Seclorum : Annuit Coeptus : E Pluribus Unum "Don't make me take off my sunglasses!" - Griss, Bringing Out the Dead http://www.carnwyffa.u-net.com [EMERALD HAMMER] From: owner-dgrpg@delta-green.com on behalf of Davide Mana [doctor.dee@libero.it] Sent: Saturday, April 22, 2000 1:37 PM To: dgrpg@delta-green.com Subject: DG: Immunitary System Lock-up Cheers! Something just surfaced that sounds interesting. Today, to celebrate the fact that I'll be taking three full days off work and school (wow!), I set out of home with my brother and a fistful of inflaction-stricken Italian Lire to look for some comics to occupy my free time (I do not feel like books right now). In the end I landed some nice deals, including a pair of titles in the 'Worlds of H.P. Lovecraft' series by Caliber comics, a daft thing called 'Lori Lovecraft' by the same publisher (Mark McFadden take note - Necronomicon-style book & b-movies in Hollywood!) and the whole Harlan Ellison 'Dream Corridor' from Dark Horse. Each, mint, for about 70 cents. [I might wax lirically on the subject of the best deal of them all - a ravishing beautiful Italian 'art comic' that reads like R.E.Howard let rip on Cthulhu by Gaslight, but why be cruel? ;>] The real ObDG treat of the day, tho', and the subject of this post, is a manga by a guy called Hiroki Endo (original edition by Kodansha). The title of the work is 'Eden', and judging from the first volume is just what the doctor ordered, despite the run of the mill artwork. The premise: most of humanity is killed by a truly nasty retrovirus (possibly a bioweapon), that acts like the opposite of HIV - it boosts your immunitary system reaction to the point that both endocithosys and exocitosys (sp?) stop, locking up metabolism, and you die. One of the character describes the progression of the illness as 'visible autism', and it sounds good. The comic is pretty hard SF, and includes footnotes to explain some of the technicalities, and the virus side is presented in a nice realistic manner, made to _sound_ plausible and scary. Now, given my scarce background in biology, I can't say if this is just strikingly dressed-up crap, or if the thing as some claim to realism, but sure the effect is great. I hope Herr Doktor Price will enlighten me on the subject. The idea could work both as a good way to give CDC players something to do apart from dissecting protomatter, and as a nice new angle to explore for Endtimes scenarios. And here I stop and go back to my reading couch. Later! 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 LizardRoi@aol.com Sent: Saturday, April 22, 2000 1:45 PM To: dgrpg@delta-green.com Subject: Re: DG: Re: Useful Resources for Deep One Society and Technology In a message dated 4/22/00 5:28:21 AM Pacific Daylight Time, doctor.dee@libero.it writes: << Consider that through pressure you can generate electricity - it's called cataphoresis, IIRC. Deep ones have plenty of pressure. And gold should make for a good conductor. >> Yes, and so does salt water. People people people. List all the swell ways you can get electricity, or heat, or a source of semi-refined metal underwater. List for me *all* of the myriad ways genetically altered life-forms could fill in the gaps. Given. Then I'll add five more. Now then, here is the thing *everyone* is failing to mention or avoiding like a great BIG PARTY-POOPING PLAGUE!!!!! How did they get there? How did they make the tools to make the tools? It's important, not just because it determines what they can have, but because I am going to hound and belittle the next post postulating a biotech-based technology sprouting spontaneously under the ocean without something to fill in the gaps between slimey predator and gene-splicing technologist. You guys are jumping ahead to all the kewl biotech battles when you send in the combined DG\PISCES parascuba commandos and minisubs on their assault against Deep One Schloss, aren't you? Aren't you? Sorry, you can't have any pudding until you eat your meat. There you are, underwater. Gosh, you think, this swimming about like a frog bites big time, everything else can outswim me and spears don't throw for shit. And forget a deadfall or chasing a school over a cliff. Hmmmm, I think we are going to have to counter every other aquatic creatures physical advantage over us with some high tech. Hand me some refined metal. Yeah, yeah, gold so it won't corrode. Oh. Later then. OK, hand me that sea anemone and an abalone, I'll whip us up a, uh, lathe in two shakes. You guys are going to play the Mythos magic card, aren't you? << Considering the part that expansion of gases has in our tech, and we live immersed in a gas cocktail, you can guess what liquids and their properties could mean for Deep ones. And not just water: there's the already mentioned silica oozes, and all colloidal substances. So, what I'm aiming at in this short introductory post is - let's think sideways for a while. Let's try not to impose our tech on the deep ones. Let's not think of what they can't do with our unavailable tech. Let's see if they can do it instead with what they have at hand and we have not.>> Now that's more like it. So they don't see much lightning and they don't get many static shocks. They don't have flame or much free solar power. So skip all of that, and focus on what they do see and feel. Starting from zero and opposable thumbs, what directions does the tech urge follow from the evidence they would see? Mark McFadden Of course a slave race using 'liberated' tech adapted to the environment by the (former?) masters is another thing entirely From: owner-dgrpg@delta-green.com on behalf of LizardRoi@aol.com Sent: Saturday, April 22, 2000 2:22 PM To: dgrpg@delta-green.com Subject: Re: DG: Re: Hoyle In a message dated 4/22/00 9:31:36 AM Pacific Daylight Time, mib@cyberspace.org writes: << But you can't. ... move a rubbertree plant > And how are we going to learn to hurt them if we just chant "we can never > understand" in chorus? Because humanity's extinction is already engraved in sandstone. It's not a matter of species war, but of inevitability. >> Written by who? I do not acknowledge their authority and suspect their motives. One man's cant is another's belly laugh. So your cant says we can't. My take is that the returns aren't all in yet and there are signs of gerrymandering. Or we could take the word of mad Arabs and translators with 0 SAN. Let's ask Little Stevie Alzis for the straight dope. He has no hidden agenda. Mark McFadden Not saying that we are *not* doomed, just noting that it's the duty of all prisoners to continue escape attempts. From: owner-dgrpg@delta-green.com on behalf of LizardRoi@aol.com Sent: Saturday, April 22, 2000 2:22 PM To: dgrpg@delta-green.com Subject: Re: DG: Immunitary System Lock-up In a message dated 4/22/00 11:42:46 AM Pacific Daylight Time, doctor.dee@libero.it writes: << Today, to celebrate the fact that I'll be taking three full days off work and school (wow!), I set out of home with my brother and a fistful of inflaction-stricken Italian Lire to look for some comics to occupy my free time (I do not feel like books right now).>> OT, but indulge me per favore. When I was last in Italy (77-78) I noticed that 100 Lire notes were not necessarily good from town to town. I looked closer and noticed that 100 Lire notes were of many different colors and designs, and in fact were all signed checks from a local bank. Is this still the case? Just trying to get those little details that make foreign adventures more fun. << In the end I landed some nice deals, including a pair of titles in the 'Worlds of H.P. Lovecraft' series by Caliber comics, a daft thing called 'Lori Lovecraft' by the same publisher (Mark McFadden take note - Necronomicon-style book & b-movies in Hollywood!)>> I'll see my dealer. << and the whole Harlan Ellison 'Dream Corridor' from Dark Horse. Each, mint, for about 70 cents. >> Hard to go wrong with Harlan. AND, 'The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen' by Alan Moore is being re-issued. I picked up Volume 1. Yeehaaa! Mark McFadden