From: corleyj@helium.gas.uug.arizona.edu (Jason D Corley) Newsgroups: alt.games.whitewolf Subject: Re: sub realm Date: 13 Feb 1995 18:42:45 GMT Organization: University of Arizona, Unix Users Group NNTP-Posting-Host: helium.gas.uug.arizona.edu Okay, someone mentioned dinosaurs. Hence I must now give the Stupid Son of Ether trick from the latest Mage game. First, you have to know that both the PC and most of his colleagues are _engineers_, not theoreticians. This explains a lot of the (ahem) unscientific terminology. Son of Ether 1: Hey, look at this neat dealie I worked up! You put a living organism in one end, and you get this fine green mist out the other. Player Character: What? That isn't so cool. SoE1: Well, it is when you consider that the organism is okay. All I need you to do is to figure up some anti-entropic way to put it back together and they'll be fine! PC: Oh...so you mean that you could store people in aerosol cans for transport and then reform them later... SoE1: Exactly! [after a few weeks of work, Player Character runs into Son of Ether 2.] Son of Ether 2: Hey, check this out. You feed punch cards imprinted with quantum-electrical life patterns into this hopper and it squooshes the protoplasm into whatever shape you tell it to. Player Character: So you _made_ this hamster? SoE2: Yeah! Isn't it great? PC: So what's the catch? SoE2: Well, that's what I wanted to talk to you about. Can you do a statistical probabilistic breakdown for me? PC (realizing it's a Time 2 Entropy 1 effect): No problem. [scribble scribble scribble] PC: What the hell? SoE2: It's a little unstable, I'm afraid. PC: A little unstable? It's going to explode in 3.24 hours! SoE2 (disappointed): Yeah. With the force of a hand grenade. PC: This is great! SoE2: What? PC: Hamster Hand Grenades! Grab a hamster, throw him...oh, I guess the fuse is a little long. It lasts for around 7 hours. Hey could you make cockroaches? How big would they explode? SoE2: Sure. I dunno...not too much... PC: But I bet we could make jillions of em. SoE2: Sure. No problem. PC: So we make jillions of cockroaches and release them into a Technomancer lab. A few hours later...Ka-Bam! SoE2: Oh...I see....but wait a minute, wait a minute. No, making small creatures is kind of a waste. See, as the mass of the creature increases linearly, the explosive force increases exponentially. PC: Oh, I see...so if you did a cockroach, the yield per gram is a lot less than if you did.. SoE2: An elephant. PC: A dinosaur. [SoE2 reacts (double take). PC reacts (triple take)] [Both: scribble scribble scribble scribble abacus abacus abacus calculator calculator calculator scribble scribble scribble chalkboard chalkboard chalkboard scribble scribble abacus calculator.] SoE2: A dinosaur would explode in the kiloton range... PC: It would last for around 15 minutes...shorter if it were injured... SoE2: It would require 673.828 gallons of protoplasmic fluid... PC: A lot? SoE2: I only have around three gallons made. PC: We'd also need a dinosaur's quantum life thingy. SoE2: Yeah. Quantum-electrical life...uhh...thingy. PC: How can we get more fluid? SoE2: Very old bones. As the timeflow intersects with the zero-point life sequence, it imparts more protoplasmic inertia into the spin-zero integratons. PC: So if we go to La Brea and pull some big nasty stuff out of the tar, you could break it down into a lot of fluid. SoE2: Yes, and I can send Wilkinson to Utah to scan a few dinosaur bones... PC: Let's meet back here in three weeks...wait a minute...we forgot one problem. SoE2: What? PC: Getting the dinosaur into the Technomancer lab. SoE2: Damn! You're right...this equipment is too big to move... PC: Only got 15 minutes...if only there were some way to transport it...oh my God! SoE2: What? What? PC: We could put it in a big hairspray can. I'll be right back. [zoooooooooooooooom out the door] [long story short: all the plans went as expected. They even scammed the location of a Progenitor lab from the VAs. They made _two_ T. Rexes, broke them down into a fine green mist, stuffed them in big canisters, named them "Barney Watson" and "Barney Crick" and delivered them to the site. After a long sequence, the canisters were opened, and the T.Rex gas reformed into two T.Rexes. Player Character was in building, running and shouting like everyone else. He leaped into his rental car and zoomed away. He was on the freeway when the place went up like a roman candle, sending a shock wave that blasted him off the freeway and nearly killed him.] [Suffice to say, the Exploding Long-Distance Dinosaur trick was awfully successful.] -- ************************************************************************ "To die for an idea; it is unquestionably noble. But how much nobler it would be if men died for ideas that were true!" ---H. L. Mencken Jason D. "corleyj@gas.uug.arizona.edu" Corley was seen fleeing the scene.