You disgusting, nazi. I hope a mutant spider lays eggs in your intestines. You keep feeding me your crap. I’d like to strap you to a table and do the same to you. I wonder, did the Union alter your mind or are you stupid enough to believe their lies of your own free will?
This is the world you’re so proud of!? You boast of democracy. Thanks to your Programs, most Americans don’t even bother to vote! You boast of vaccines and medicine. I’ll concede that modern medicine can do much more for the body, but you’ve posioned the soul.
Yes, the Sleepers should be safe. The Electrodyne Engineers never argued with that. The Gauntlet is a good thing. But you don’t know when to stop. Warnings on coffee cups!? You want to keep people safe from themselves, safe from ideas you find dangerous, safe from the truth.
Tell me, you pallid NWO Drone, where in any of your media trash is their wonder? The tired sitcoms? The reality shows that encourage people to be cruel and deceitful for money and teach the audience to revel in watching that cruelty and deceit? Is it in your infotainment? News programs now treat celebrity break-ups as genuine news items. Are you proud?
Read 1984 again. Is that world the one you work so hard to create? Space empty of Ether is wonder!? Sure thing, and Ignorance is strength.
You disgust me.
E-Mail me to arrange a meeting on the Digital Web. That way, I can tear you apart literally.
Sturmhauke and Captain Amazing at least know what I’m ranting about. I’m willing to bet that they are some Virtual Adept Dopers who haven’t stepped forward yet as well. I’m willing to go as far as to say that some of the Mods are Tradition members. ColdFire and Bibliophage are Etheristnames at the very least.
See, we hijacked Hiryuu’s phi thread, because, frankly, it was pretty silly, and DocCathode decided, apparently, to take it another step with a pit thread.
jarbabyj, if you’re going to rant against Velveeta, start your own fucking thread. Besides, it appears that the NWO Drones are responsible for imitation dairy products.
Yes this is an inside joke based on Mage. I wanted to keep the whole thing in character a la Tony Clifton. But, I couldn’t e-mail Cap through his profile(Hence the mention of e-mail in my OP). The idea was that eventually someone would say “You do realize it’s just a game?” To which all the involved parties would reply “That’s just what we want you to think.” It was fun while it lasted though. For the record I do know that it’s just a game. Cap, please do not take any of the insults seriously.
On a serious note, I believe we have found a better solution to trolls. Just out troll them. If they say the moon landing was a hoax, claim that the moon itself was created by NASA in 1941. If they engage in a JDT style rant against circumcision, demand mandatory foreskin enlarging surgery on all male newborns.
But can one of you MAGE fans explain to me what exactly is supposed to be so bad about the Technocracy? I’m not overly familiar with the game, having only read the core rulebook and part of one of the splatbooks (Virtual Adept, if you’re curious.) I just don’t get the problem. They don’t seem that bad, certainly not worthy of a capital A in Adversary.
You read the core book and you still have to ask? The Technocracy ARE Big Brother. They want to eradicate imagination, independent thought, hope and individuality. Imagine the world of Vonnegut’s Harrison Bergeron. The true horror of Mage is twofold-The Masses are happy to have the Technocracy control their lives, and a pseudo-Technocracy exists in the real world.
Americans have announced that they are willing to give up their rights in exchange for safety. Tired, cliche-ridden sitcoms and movies rake in money. Read the late Ken Keesey's One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest. His Combine is an excellent fit(and likely one of the models)for the Technocracy.
But they make the trains run on time. And they’re not a bunch of whiny, self-absorbed, limp-wristed aeshthetes like most of the Traditions. Frankly, I can see the attraction.
Sorry, I have the wrong mind-set for Mage. Which is why I’ve only read the Core Rulebook.
Well, DocCathode, I did add you to my Yahoo Messenger along with an in character friend request.
To stand up for the Technocracy, they’re really not that bad, from my standpoint. They’re rationalists, their logical, and they’re, from their standpoint, altruists. It’s not so much that they want to get rid of independence, imagination, etc. It’s more that they want to harness these things for the good of society as a whole. Their ideology is similar to popular ideology in the 1940’s-50s. Progress is good, technology is good, conformity is good, the people in charge have your best interests at heart, any problems we have can be solved by a better, more rational, less superstitious approach to the world.
So, why are they the villians in Mage? From the standpoints of the Mage world, and most of the White Wolf worlds, the fantasy world is real, and good. Werewolves exist and are noble fighters for the earth, mages have mystical powers they can tap into to seek enlightnment, etc. In a world with that ethos, a group that says, “The supernatural is ignorance and, if real, dangerous and frightening to people. These “mages” are freaks and their quest for “enlightnment” is selfish and immoral”, become natural villians.
There is more, though. The point of the Technocracy is stagnation. The goal of every good scientist, and of every good artist, and of every skeptic is to explore, to challenge what is known, to explore the gates of what if. We may all do it in seperate ways, but the general goal is to make known what is unknown, and to question what you are doing to make sure you’re doing it right, to try to find a better way.
The point of the Technocracy is to stagnate. To lock down, to have rules followed unquestioningly. Which would make a scientist no better than a unthinking fundie (Defined as unquestioning variant, not as fundamentalist christian).
I’m retired from White Wolf these days, it’s a defeatist worldview, I find, and playing it online is a bore. I’m having more fun with GURPS and D&D 3rd edition, working on a pulp campaign variant of the rules. 3rd may be the best rule system for play yet, the dice float into your hands in play. Barely interrupts the flow of the game.
Mmm. Another thing to put in MPIMS, after I finish researching the TF history. I’m having a heck of a time trying to track down the Spiderman Sentai shows, and they’re fairly important to a point I want to check.
