Ok, you're forcing a Modern Western Standard of Living model which isn't necessarily the ideal standard of living.  But the use of magic and Spirits to fill occasional roles science fills now would change the requirements for making clay pipes, stone sluices, what have you.

I'm trying to find the link, but there's an island community that has the longest living people per capita, is self-sufficient (albeit without many 'modern' conveniences), has little to no stress (they don't use clocks  - go figure!), and are some of the healthiest folks on the planet.  No they didn't advance much beyond the 17th or 18th century in technology if I remember correctly, but they aren't lacking in quality of life as a result, they just live more simply.




Their imaginations and intelligence aren't being stifled, they just don't go into creation of over-abundance to the extent mass-production allows, but then again, the society wouldn't require it.  Spirit pacts and magic could handle these same processes and Engineers would still exist.



Only if you apply physics as the Western world regards it.   But large kilns don't require advanced technology, they existed 2500-3500 years ago.



The conceit that extra items which provide for 'ease of living' is somehow synonymous with a 'higher standard of living'.  If you're content with  what you have, and feel you contribute, then  a lot of the current 'advances' would be seen as extraneous and unnecessary, instead of as 'improvements'.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying I could give up my conveniences - but the point is, nothing we have now would've been developed if it hadn't been for a desire to control our environments instead of taking what was provided in such a way as to not exhaust the resources simply as a result of our own arrogance.

(Case in point - the Dust Bowl was a direct result of mass production of cheaper tillers/plows which were used to create industrial level farms but failed to overturn deeper furrows like the older style plows previously used so when the dry weather and high winds came, erosion was much worse than what it would've been.  The result was one of the worst man-made disasters in history.  Greed and poorly researched science/'manufacturing' farming techniques resulted in loss of a lot of prairie, farmlands and mass-migrations to cities where no work was available.)

For all the 'advances' we have with an increased 'standard of living', we haven't necessarily added to the 'quality of life'.

But you're right, we're probably arguing past each other.  :)

I better go *poof* so I don't overstay my welcome!  (Thanks Stray!  (& Belle for interesting discussion!))

Arguing that they're not trying to do this and are instead trying to be happy at a lower level of technological and scientific progress isn't the debate we are having.

The contention being made here is these people will become more technologically advanced with a higher standard of living because they are culturally better than everyone else.

The whole thing stems from my argument that the Summoning is not a "win" scenario because it leaves the Lakota in a state where they will never reach their full potential as a culture because they will forever be stuck in the Old Ways.  No matter how smart they are or what they figure out, their inventions, etc. will never work.

Rabbit argues, essentially, that magical assistance will create a different technological infrastructure that is superior to real life technology.  I am saying that if this new system is to exceed what real life technology can offer, it is my opinion that the logistical and economical implications of this go against the lore of the setting. In other words, in this fictional universe, I don't think there's a substitute for something like plastic despite the existence of magical elements and unobtainium.  Rabbit does not support this view.

And the thing is it all stems from my point that a Mad Scientist character would have a hard time with an action that, in his or her view, condemns these people to barbarism, even if it was the best choice available.  A good, moral character with that particular AB who cared about what happened to the Sioux centuries down the line would not see a moral or just course of action here, only a menu of bad choices (kill the whites, kill the Sioux, damn the Sioux to barbarism but spare everyone's lives).  I think that's a flaw in the scenario, IF, and big IF, the "No transistors for you!" ending is meant to be the clearly morally good one; if it's meant to be a "No Win Scenario" then it works fine.

Whether it is so or not in the universe's reality is actually a side debate, because the character in universe would lack the larger perspective to understand the scenario properly. We debate here as gods in a sense.

And all this is fine, I'm just being a nerd and my opinion on the matter is purely for my personal entertainment only, I get nothing for being right and I lose nothing for being wrong.  Maybe in this particular universe it goes this way or that way, or some third way neither of us have proposed.

If I were to solve this problem (assuming it's meant to be morally clear what the "Right" ending is to the Posse), I would find a way to communicate to Mad Scientist characters that future technology coming through the time tunnel will be so disruptive to the current state of things, that everything they think of as progress would never come to exist due to the disruptions and paradoxes, so the only solution is to ensure  any sufficiently advanced technology which enters the world here won't function.



That would be motivation.

Then portray the Sioux as the volunteers of the time portal who are willing to live in the "dead zone" for all eternity as guardians.

Maybe we gave Stray a little food for thought.  If so, lovely.

Some food for thought: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=98NZlpscMtk

Hey, question about soaking.

Jeremy took 1 Wound, I soaked. Then he was Shaken, which I took.

Jeremy was Shaken and then took 1 Wound (w/the accompanying Shaken), which I rolled a 6 to soak.

Now, which of these is correct:

1) I soaked the Wound from the third attack, which made me recover from the accompanying SHaken, so I'm left Shaken from the second attack without the two combining to give me another wound.

or

2) The Shaken from the second and third attacks immediately stack, meaning the third attack was Shaken and 2 Wounds and my 6 leaves me with Jeremy at Shaken and 1 Wound?

I'm fairly certain its the second one, but I wanted to be sure before going up against The Scorpion King Rotten Bear Killer.

If you soak all the wounds from an attack, you remove the Shaken status with it. Since the wound came after the Shaken condition, when you soaked it, you took the Shaken condition with it.

You only take wounds if you are Shaken and then something damaging causes a Shaken condition but didn't get high enough to cause a Wound. If you're taking a Wound while Shaken, the Shaken condition you already have doesn't add another Wound.

Basically, if you take a Wound from an attack, you only have to worry about that wound, not any additional complications from being already Shaken.

Oh shit. My home game players will love that.


OH shit, Rev. Grimme is still alive!


*goes back to the writing board*

If the Flood wipes out Grimme's inner circle, then he goes with them.

Yeah.

*makes airplane-passing-overhead noise*


EDIT: I think I fixed my math in Pow Wow. Did decently well, actually.
This message was last edited by the player at 20:45, Sun 26 Mar 2017.

If you have cities. Which we don't (culture), and your positing of economic disparity requires specific unparalleled developments on only the European side (culture) which may well not happen anyway without access to the resources and land conquered in our world, besides the setting going off on an entirely different technological tangent - and ideas about standards of living (culture) - due to the hothousing of science between traditions (culture).

The Black Hills have plenty springs. Also, bonfire firing, not that you need specifically ceramic pipes for anything, cf. Skara Brae again.

...but everything th' batrean said, too. Gosh, I'm glad there's someone who can be up all night and talk sense also.


Wha...I have no idea how to dismantle this because I have no idea where it came from (unless you just believe that hard in cultural superiority, eww). No, the contention being made is that White Science Progress, that results in the exact replication of technologies we have now, is not the only kind of progress possible in any universe. Especially and specifically the fantasy one under discussion.

Picture electricity, right? All the changes that made that were unthinkable to some Neolithic farmer pensively picking her nose as she worked out which way to make beans grow best. Now picture something comparably game-changing that you can't even imagine because we don't have it, and the advances that could be made with that power. That's the effect of the Great Summoning. Would we get telephones, ever? Maybe not. Would we get something else, earlier and more efficient, affecting later and mechanised changes? Quite possibly!

This is like giving the Internet to Neolithic people, with an off-planet infrastructure. What could happen is not necessarily wonderful or terrible, but it's certainly not static just because it's not plodding along from the domestication of the ox upward. I'd argue it's entirely the opposite. You drop the internet in the Neolithic, people are going to do more learning, thinking...and what's more doing it shielded from their Iron Age neighbours who want to cut them down, so they don't have to get forced into an Iron Age first and work up from scraps. They can talk to their nighbours, exchange stuff with their neighbours, create new things over the fence because they're not dead and trampled into the dust.

I may be a 'soft' scientist according to chem/bio/physics specialists (and a 'hard' one according to social scientists...Archaeology, it's the Engineering of the Humanities), but the prospect of that much scope for innovation makes me do the happy chirp noise, and I don't even have the objective knowledge buddying up with a spirit is a possiblity. Imagine being able to just ask physics shit, like "yo, universe, you made of strings?". All right, it might lie, but I guarantee the concept alone would get any scientist I know (which is a lot) scrambling off their chairs to try out the effects of the answers.

tl;dr I do think Unobtanium can be plastic if you need it to be, but if tech did not require plastic, why would you need it to be? A Mad Scientist who couldn't picture a highly motivating future with extra scientific diciplines just because they don't fit setting-current colonial academic categories would be crippled in imaginative capacity (and thus broken as a scientist in their own right to start with - it'd be all manitou).

...and oh gods, I just realised you could probably grow lighttrees from lightbulbs. In fact, I think I just worked out how to do it.

---

On the theme of innovation driven by cultural rivalry (hard-capitalist vs. socialist art, in this instance), the mock-drama between Kapoor and Semple continues to crack me up. I'd need to have a project in mind before getting some of this, but look at it on the tinfoil, damn: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SpM9CksS__8

I wonder if you could paint yourself in that and not die?

Well let's just say we see the magic in Deadlands very differently.  I believe it's purposefully limited in the setting expressly to prevent what you're proposing from ever occurring.



Okay, that's one point I'm making, we actually agree.  Mad Science predicates on a false belief that the New Science is simply an extension of natural science, and even then only natural science as conceivable by the Victorian era.

With a Mad Scientist, it is all manitou.  The human it's attached to is incidental.  Any human imagination and volition is perverted and taken out of its natural state.

On a completely unrelated topic, the "Causin' a Ruckus" thread title has the Wu Tang Clan's "Bring da Ruckus" running through my head for some reason.

That's all for now.
This message was last edited by the player at 04:33, Fri 31 Mar 2017.

I wish there was a Like feature on OOC posts so much right now XD

Well, alright, guys, see you in 3-5-life

I bet Matt is now realizing why Roger was laughing at the thought of him meeting his superiors...

When The Stray was asking what you want to do next, your answer should have been 'tail that suspicious-looking Ranger'. Might have gotten you in less trouble...

Yeah, in no way is Player!Matt surprised by this turn of events.

Hey, wait! What if I kill Haverford?

If it gets the entire Union army to leave the North unprotected, I'm all for that course of action!

I doubt things would work out well for Matthew after that.

Haverfords gonna sit two floors down from Custer and call ME a traitor? I'm gonna save the world and have this guy's job!

Considering Haverford's assignment is to spy on Custer (and he's only in this position because he is, by default, the highest ranked Agent in the area), I'm sure he's well aware of that.

Yeah, yeah, yeah...

FYI : I'm going on vacation starting next Tuesday 4/11 ... the wife and I are heading to Greece so while I will have interwebs I most likely won't be online much...

Sooooo.... where are we and what has happened?

Yay! Glad to see you back!

Von Steinhof has been patiently listening to things in the presence of Lt. Haverford on the Military Intelligence thread (I'd recommend reading it). I also had him pitch his "weaponized bureaucracy" idea to Haverford after Logan brought it up (mostly just by restating your original post).

Meanwhile, Moses has been dwelling in the Mint with Jackie Wells, the Dog Soldiers, and Coot Jenkins. The rest of the group has splintered off to do other things. Let me know what Moses is planning to do so I can open up a thread for him.

Well, if we're off to the devils tower tomorrow, now might be a good time to check in on that friend of screaming rabbit.


But what to do with my entourage?