Rifter Tech Porn Getting Out of Hand

[flatline]

What's a "dimensional energy matrix"?

--flatline

[Bill]

As optional material, it's always up to the GM whether anything from The Rifter is included. However, I agree with you. Some editorial guidance on what limits should be in place would be good to establish.

[Icefalcon]

What's a "dimensional energy matrix"?

That's from WB7:Megaverse Builder:

Each dimension has its own unique signature that can be recognized on the quantum level. This signature resonates a certain harmonic that determies how energy is transfered in the dimension. The harmonics resonate at different frequencies, producing four distinct matricies ... positive, negative, neutral, and universal. What type of energy your technology works with determines whether or not it will function in other dimensions. -- MB, pg. 15.

Basically, if you have a gun built in a positive energy dimension, it will not function in a negative energy dimension, but will work in a dimension with universal energy. And vice versa. No technology from outside a neutral energy dimension will function at all; only technology developed there originally.

But this handy just-add-water device makes what are, essentially, the laws of quantum physics completely irrelevent. It's just too convenient.

I don't have the book but in the situation you describe it does seem like the energy matrix is a broken mechanic. I also agree that many things in the Rifter seem to gravitate towards finding a workaround for the canon rules.

[Soldier of Od]

While I usually love the Rifter, I have noticed a trend where writers try to come up with a technological or TW way to overcome a physical law of the megaverse or a easy way to overcome a complex problem.

For example, there is a issue (can't think of which one) in which the CS has developed huge underground metal rings of some kind that surround their cities and prevent mages from teleporting inside. This kind of technology, designed to deliberately counter a primary advantage of magic, really limits the scope of how magic can be used and dramaticlly reduces its effectiveness as combatant against tech. Very unfairly, I think.

Another example is a TW device (Rifter #59, pg. 57) that allows you to adapt your weapon to any type of dimensional energy matrix. This completely negates the point of having a different energy matrix and effectively takes it out of the game as a plot device.

Of course, the GM doesn't have to allow either of these, and I'd personally encourage GMs not to because it really unballances the game. I think it's great to expand on the abilities of various groups and technologies, but those which completely counteract a major component of the enemy's abilities or can modify physical laws of reality on a cosmic level out to be restricted.

It seems to be that many of these devices are not being thought out as to their full ramifications, both to power creep and how they effect the use of existing game devices in the context of actual game play.

What do you think?

I think it depends on how a GM uses these items. Just because an anti-teleport ring exists doesn't mean that every city or installation has one. If the players are used to teleporting in everywhere, then the addition of a city with this rings around it could make for a very interesting situation, forcing the group to find a new strategy instead of following the same boring old teleportation routine every time. Having a couple of players sneak in to the city to deactivate the rings so that the others can teleport in is a great adventure opportunity! It is only when every single city, town or bus stop has these rings that things might get a bit frustrating for the teleporting mage.

I don't see how you can say that the techology is 'unfair'. You could also say the opposite, that teleportation 'unfairly' reduces the advantage of walls and guards. All's fair in love and war! Of course an anti-magic, technological society is going to try to make technology 'designed to deliberately counter a primary advantage of magic'. Wouldn't you?!

Same for the TW device - what if there is a bit of tech that you really need to work in this other dimension? Trying to track down one of these devices, or someone who can build one, or just raise the money and/or components to make it could be a great adventure in itself! It doesn't negate the energy matrix as a plot device, it actually gives it an extra facet, instead of just 'your gun won't work here'. The only way it would negate the concept is if they were so common you got a free TW dimensional matrix adaptor with every Happy Meal!

I don't see any problems here, just opportunities!

[Prysus]

Wouldn't it be interesting if the authors of these controversial works were here? Hmmm... I wonder what they think?

Greetings and Salutations. Since the talk of the Anti-Magic Incursion Ring has been brought up, I feel I should point out the author is on these boards. Though, I think these days, he just tends to stay away from the topic due to too much bickering (doesn't mean ashamed, just doesn't want/need the headache). If you're curious to some of his thoughts though, I suggest checking out this thread:

viewtopic.php?f=8&t=124933&

Look for the posts by "Dead Boy." He's the author of that one. Once he starts posting, he keeps going until near the very end (even having the 4th to last post before it's locked). I think he goes into it in another thread or two (this was/is a hot topic), but I believe this is the most indepth one (I could be wrong). Whether you agree with his decisions or not, I only ask that anyone/everyone who looks into it respects his decisions (even if not agreeing with them) and respect that fact he had the quality of writing and a vision good enough to see print in the Rifter.

Thank you for your time and patience, please have a nice day. Farewell and safe journeys for now.

[Ectoplasmic Bidet]

Rifter material is optional content. Just ignore the anti-teleportation rings. They're just an obvious attempt by a fan to justify the Coalition's continued existence in the face of the plot immunity granted to them by Kevin.

[BookWyrm]

At least they didn't include a "samoflange".......

[Soldier of Od]

Hi Snuzzles,

Regarding fairness, I was just trying to say that I don't think you can really assign 'fairness' to any power, weapon, item etc. Just because something is better than something else, or counters something else doesn't make it 'unfair'.

I still think that the issue is how these things are used. Almost any item can be abused or misused; many would be unbalancing or would negate another item or power if everyone had one. If every character automatically had auto-mind block, many psychic powers would be almost useless. But they don't. So when a psychic comes up against a character who does have it, this is the exception, not the norm, and can be played out differently. If radio jammers were on every street corner, radios would be useless. If anti-magic clouds were common knowledge and cheap to cast, magic would be useless. etc. If anti-teleport rings surrounded every building, teleport spells would be useless (but even then, you could teleport freely around the countryside. Unless the whole country was surrounded!). Any tech is limited by who can build it, what materials are required and how much is costs to make, so are not freely available to everyone who wants them.

To be honest, I haven't read megaverse builder, so I don't know for certain whether the device mentioned is 'disrespectful' or 'unkind' to the original creator or his creation. But it seems to me that if someone had written some super plot device where some god casts a spell and negates all dimensional energies everywhere for ever and ever, that would be disrespectful, and would negate the whole concept. But creating a single device that could counter the limitations of dimensional energy for one item, if you could get hold of it, does not damage the concept at all. As I said, I actually think it adds to it. Does inventing the aeroplane ruin the concept of gravity? How rare are these items? Can any techno-wizard make them or would you have to learn how off an expert? Surely the techno-wizard involved would need to know all about dimensional energies as well? How common is this knowledge?

So I will continue to be optimistic about this!

[Soldier of Od]

Hello again. I can totally see your points, Snuzzles. I re-read the teleport rings and they are more common in CS locations than I remembered. but at least they are not infallible. I think it is possible to see the situation from both directions. Maybe an 'anti-gravity harness' would have been a better analogy than aeroplane! And in response to your Star Trek shield analogy, there are many occasions in Star Trek episodes and films where the crew of the Enterprise manage to temporarily disrupt the shields or similar so that they can teleport past them. Some of them were specific to the situation, but others were just deus ex machina plot devices so that they could do it that episode. But even though they could probably do it again in another episode, it hasn't broken the concept of not teleporting past shields for the Star Trek universe.

Don't forget these are just Rifter articles we're talking about here. I do think it makes a difference if these things are presented as optional material in Rifters as opposed to official books. I don't like using the often quoted phrase 'if you don't like it, change it or ignore it' when talking about the proper books, because I always like to use the standard rules as written whenever possible (you shouldn't need to change anything!), but when talking about Rifters, that phrase is definitely appropriate.

I think you are right in that we will have to agree to disagree on this one! It is very pleasant to see a disagreement on these boards that has remained friendly and civil! Good work!

[kamikazzijoe]

One of the big questions every asks from the tolkien war is why didn't one side just.....
- do this
- or that
- or teleport a nuke into chi-town. The anti teleportation rings give a nice reason of how the CS has been able to exist despite the massive trump card that is teleport superior. Without some sort of limiter on it, magic kingdoms would overrun everything in days.

As for the energy matrix harmony, as much as I love Carl's books, bringing a positive energy pistol into a negative dimension would make your gun go click instead of bang. It would give you a big bang as the matter/anti matter reaction annihilated everything.

[The Dark Elf]

I agree with Dr Doom v3.0

[Pepsi Jedi]

While I usually love the Rifter, I have noticed a trend where writers try to come up with a technological or TW way to overcome a physical law of the megaverse or a easy way to overcome a complex problem.

For example, there is a issue (can't think of which one) in which the CS has developed huge underground metal rings of some kind that surround their cities and prevent mages from teleporting inside. This kind of technology, designed to deliberately counter a primary advantage of magic, really limits the scope of how magic can be used and dramaticlly reduces its effectiveness as combatant against tech. Very unfairly, I think.

I think you're misreading the purpose of the thing, in setting.

If you read through rifts and it's assioated books, one could go "Well, why hasn't one of the Magic groups simply gotten smart and saved up their cash, instead of throwing money away hand over fist at the CS. Saved up. Bought a few nuclear bombs. Then used the rather simple teleport spell to teleport into Chi town.. Right into the throne room. One suicide bomber, goes in. BOOM takes out the CS high command. Why hasn't someone done that? It's so simple people can put together the rather 'easy' method of ending (Or severly crippeling) The CS Threat in one fell swoop.

Even better. Get 5 or so of the bombers. Take the throne room. The military wing, the command room and the armory, and while we're at itt, a hospital or two. Just tele in and nuke um?"

You look at it and go "Well...... there's no.... rules that say you can't... what the heck? These mages fighting for their lives never thought of this? Why hasn't it been done?


The easiest answer is, 'It hasn't been done, because there's something preventing it from being done"

I mean it's SUUUCH a simple thing to dream up. Surely these guys who LIVE to bring down the CS had to have thought it up the first time they sat down to drink and talk about it.

So instead of assuming that every single mage or CS hating group in the planet. Nay the Megaverse are brain dead, you think about it. "Ok They have thought it up, but it doesn't work for some reason"

The Anti teleportation rings, answer the question that has been asked since the first edition but never addressed. It's not to some how defeat a law of the universe. Or even a 'simple way' to answer a complex question.

It's a rather involved answer to a question that ----had----- to have been answered "In the game" Years and years and years ago. Other wise before Chi Town was even built up, that tactic would have been employed from he very start.

It's written as if they were put in, in secret and developed in secret.

And that the CS had some sort of "Help" To do so. What kinda help. Archie, The Republicans, Some Extra Dimensional Tech experts, The Vanguard, Whatever.. helped them to develop it. It's left open so that the GM can decide what it was, or 'not' decide if he doesn't want to.

Some people get up set and go "Well, how come the CS has something that noone else in the universe has??" To that, again, the easiest answer is 'Many probably do, they just don't talk about it." The same "Lets get one mage, give him a back pack with a nuke in it, have him teleport into our enemy's _______ and blow them up" is a tactic that's likely..... pretty easy to think up, if you're a mage trying to blow the CS, or someone in the Transgalactic empire trying to blow up whatever it is they wanna blow up.

Stuff is created by the writers, as they go along, and added to the "Rifts Universe" The RMB didn't actually have "All that much" to play with all said and done. 10 or 20 OOCs. About that many guns if not less. Etc. So every book adds new stuff to the universe. Now all the stuff "Added" was created --in universe-- in between the books. Some of it had been there for years, decades or 100s of years. It was just brought to us, the Out of character reader, when the book was published.


So yeah. The Rings explain why the CS wasn't bombed into the stone age 1000 times over by now, due to a retaliative simple tactic of "Teleport-in-boom". It's not an ad hock answer.

It's an explanation of why the Rifts Setting is what it is, as we know it. It takes "out" the glaring mistake/overlook written into the setting.

[Akashic Soldier]

I figured that they just didn't do that because when they appear there are a bunch of people there who kill that guy and take the bomb than throw it in a pile with the others.

After all, the CS has psychics and psychics have Clairvoyance and the collapse of their empire would certainly trigger SOMEONE'S clairvoyance. Then its a simple matter of having someone with telemechanics (which they do have) and some nega-psychics or a bunch of people who are really good at killing things (which is pretty much what their military is built around) and a couple of EOD specialists to defuse it after they kill the suicide bomber.

That said, Anti-Teleport Rings should be canon in my opinion because most people don't think that deep and "can't port in because of magic rings" makes more sense to the average gamer.

But I also agree with Snuzzles. Less things that change things, more things that add exciting new things.

[flatline]

I figured that they just didn't do that because when they appear there are a bunch of people there who kill that guy and take the bomb than throw it in a pile with the others.

After all, the CS has psychics and psychics have Clairvoyance and the collapse of their empire would certainly trigger SOMEONE'S clairvoyance.

You may certainly use it in your game if you want to, but realize that some of us are more resistant to the idea of Clairvoyance-Net than we are to the anti-teleport rings.

Then its a simple matter of having someone with telemechanics (which they do have) and some nega-psychics or a bunch of people who are really good at killing things (which is pretty much what their military is built around) and a couple of EOD specialists to defuse it after they kill the suicide bomber.

An attack that involves nukes exploding milliseconds after the teleport (easily accomplished by a radio-based deadman trigger) would be impossible to stop in the way you've described. The people waiting for the nuke wouldn't even register that it has appeared before it detonates.

That said, Anti-Teleport Rings should be canon in my opinion because most people don't think that deep and "can't port in because of magic rings" makes more sense to the average gamer.

I disagree. The CS and all other powers in the game should be vulnerable to PC-scale actions. By taking away PC options, you reduce player empowerment and, quite frankly, make the setting a less interesting place. It's more interesting to think that the CS *IS* vulnerable, but has thus far survived these types of attacks through luck, grit, and ruthless proactive use of force against perceived enemies. Maybe the fortress cities are compartmentalized such that it a nuke could hurt maybe 1% of the city. Imagine the campaign required to actually destroy 50% of Chi-town if that were the case!

I'd rather play in a setting where there's a real potential for change.

But I also agree with Snuzzles. Less things that change things, more things that add exciting new things.

This. More neat ideas. Less things that attempt to enforce some arbitrary balance of power.

--flatline

[Akashic Soldier]

They have Psi-Net Flatline... and an army of psychic Dog Boys and Psi-Stalkers who are specialists in Sensitive psi-powers. Clairvoyance is probably a very common power within the Coalition. I'm not even including the psychic human population.

An attack that involves nukes exploding milliseconds after the teleport (easily accomplished by a radio-based deadman trigger) would be impossible to stop in the way you've described. The people waiting for the nuke wouldn't even register that it has appeared before it detonates.

Radio Scramblers. The Electronic Countermeasures skill is almost CERTAINLY going to be employed by multiple different people throughout Chi-Town. They're going to have communications officers on the security teams that specialize in jamming enemy transmissions.

Alternatively, if they used a psychic or TW trigger in the bomb the CS could be easily shutdown with Nega-Psychics or Null-Psychics. So, captured and contained within a psychic energy dome when it was teleported in (as per the Super Psionic power). If it was as easy as teleporting a nuke into Prosek's throne room than someone would've done it by now. Their resources are more extensive than most other people and they have the ability to know anything you're going to do that could hurt the empire of man and then plan for it (because they're a highly organized military!). That is a big part of the Coalition's power. You can choose to ignore that in your game but it is blatantly ignoring the abilities of the CS Psi-Operatives and their Psi-Stalkers and Dog Boys.

Can the players bring down the Coalition in their own game? Sure!

I just don't think they can do it with such a lazy tactic or by taking them off guard. Defeating the entire C.S. should take military action or some grand scheme. Death Star-ing Chi Town just isn't going to work, at least not with extenuating circumstances. Neither will disease, that is made clear in the opening of the R:UE.

[flatline]

An attack that involves nukes exploding milliseconds after the teleport (easily accomplished by a radio-based deadman trigger) would be impossible to stop in the way you've described. The people waiting for the nuke wouldn't even register that it has appeared before it detonates.

Radio Scramblers. The Electronic Countermeasures skill is almost CERTAINLY going to be employed by multiple different people throughout Chi-Town. They're going to have communications officers on the security teams that specialize in jamming enemy transmissions.

You misunderstand what I meant when I said a radio-based deadman trigger. It's a trigger that activates when the signal it is tuned to disappears. The transmitter of the signal is present at the origin location of the nuke, but not present at the target location, so once the nuke arrives at the target location, it detonates since the "calming" signal is no longer present. A jammer at the origin location could cause the nuke to trigger prematurely assuming there was no other safety mechanism engaged. Even better to use extremely high frequencies that are easily absorbed by air so that any jammers would have to be within line of sight and extremely close to the nuke.

Similarly, you could use an optical deadman trigger. Shine a light with a specific frequency on a photo-eye sensitive to that frequency. Choose a frequency (or combination of frequencies) that is unlikely to be present at the target location in sufficient magnitudes and/or orient the photo-eye in an unusual direction (like straight down). When the nuke is teleported to the destination, the photo-eye is no longer the target of the required radiation and so the nuke detonates.

In both cases, the detonation would happen before the nervous systems present at the target location would even register the presence of the bomb.Since it is the absence of the calming signal that triggers detonation, jamming is impossible at the destination since there is no signal to jam. Mimicking the calming signal would take such precise information that I doubt even the strongest interpretation of Clairvoyance-Net would allow it ("in my vision, I saw a 31% clipped triangle wave at 33.764MHz and a square wave at 48.2GHz..." or "A cryptographic challenge was issued by the nuke on 742.4GHz every microsecond and the correct response must be received within half a micro-second. The cryptographic key used is 0x08af3dc82687a31736648d63e25fda637465367487...").

I don't care how many psychics have Clairvoyance. The information required to foil such a trigger is too detailed to be discoverable by Clairvoyance as described in the books.

--flatline

[Pepsi Jedi]

Not letting the PC's take out an entire fortress city with one minor spell and a nuke doesn't ruin the game for the PC's. It just prevents them from dramaticly messing up the setting with one goober act, that, lets give the CS credit, they might not be everyone's fave, but they did dig back out of the dark ages and form the largest society in the US, a technological giant... they're not 100% morons. If we can think it up talking about an RPG, then the CS had to have said somewhere along the way "All this is well and good, but what do we do if some smelly DBee uses magic to teleport into the throne room with a bomb?"

The rings prevent the 'I win button'. Just like Tolkeens hand of god "Nuke swallower defense field' stopped the CS's "I win button" in that war.

[Pepsi Jedi]

Edit: NM.

[Akashic Soldier]

An attack that involves nukes exploding milliseconds after the teleport (easily accomplished by a radio-based deadman trigger) would be impossible to stop in the way you've described. The people waiting for the nuke wouldn't even register that it has appeared before it detonates.

Radio Scramblers. The Electronic Countermeasures skill is almost CERTAINLY going to be employed by multiple different people throughout Chi-Town. They're going to have communications officers on the security teams that specialize in jamming enemy transmissions.

You misunderstand what I meant when I said a radio-based deadman trigger. It's a trigger that activates when the signal it is tuned to disappears. The transmitter of the signal is present at the origin location of the nuke, but not present at the target location, so once the nuke arrives at the target location, it detonates since the "calming" signal is no longer present. A jammer at the origin location could cause the nuke to trigger prematurely assuming there was no other safety mechanism engaged. Even better to use extremely high frequencies that are easily absorbed by air so that any jammers would have to be within line of sight and extremely close to the nuke.

Similarly, you could use an optical deadman trigger. Shine a light with a specific frequency on a photo-eye sensitive to that frequency. Choose a frequency (or combination of frequencies) that is unlikely to be present at the target location in sufficient magnitudes and/or orient the photo-eye in an unusual direction (like straight down). When the nuke is teleported to the destination, the photo-eye is no longer the target of the required radiation and so the nuke detonates.

In both cases, the detonation would happen before the nervous systems present at the target location would even register the presence of the bomb.Since it is the absence of the calming signal that triggers detonation, jamming is impossible at the destination since there is no signal to jam. Mimicking the calming signal would take such precise information that I doubt even the strongest interpretation of Clairvoyance-Net would allow it ("in my vision, I saw a 31% clipped triangle wave at 33.764MHz and a square wave at 48.2GHz..." or "A cryptographic challenge was issued by the nuke on 742.4GHz every microsecond and the correct response must be received within half a micro-second. The cryptographic key used is 0x08af3dc82687a31736648d63e25fda637465367487...").

I don't care how many psychics have Clairvoyance. The information required to foil such a trigger is too detailed to be discoverable by Clairvoyance as described in the books.

--flatline

You're talking about primitive/out-dated 20th century technologies. They've had counters for that for over 300 years. What are they? No idea! But with the accelerated technological advances from 10 years ago to today its easy to imagine that even the best technology from today would be a joke to technology 300 to 400 years more advanced and sophisticated. As for Clairvoyance giving them the answers, it doesnt NEED to. All it needs to do is show the event happening in flashes and for the people to see it to report it to the CS who will then take the appropriate countermeasures.

Again, at the very least...

Bomb appears!
Telemechanics "Bomb Off."
Bomb does not detonate.
Dead Boys open fire.
Dead Boys throw the bomb in the pile and execute whatever nut-job screwed up in the first place and let a terrorist get their hands on a nuclear warhead.

On top of that, short of Techno-Wizardry MOST practitioners of magic would see a bomb as clumsy, lame, or ineffective and would RATHER come up with a magical solution. For more information on the mentality of practitioners of magic, there is an amazing write up at the start of the Book of Magic. They're much more likely to try to get Prosek or important government officials snagged when traveling too near a ley line or secretly orchestrating a ritual casting of Sanctuary over the bounds of Chi-Town.

That said, if nothing else there are the Vanguard. Yes, whether you like them or not they're canon and would NEVER allow such a travesty to occur. Plus, since many of them automatically start with clairvoyance (the Mystic variant at the very least) than they see it coming ahead of time and have plenty of time to counteract it.

Your plan is akin to saying that Dunskin isn't much of a threat because he is an S.D.C. human and you could just walk up to him in his sleep and shank him with a Vibro-Knife. There is NO WAY its going to be THAT easy and making such a monumental task DIFFICULT is reflective of the setting and the material. The players can be heroes and do these things. Its just it should not be EASY to destroy an entire empire with some crackpot scheme you dreamed up over coffee and donuts. Maybe a small kingdom, but not the Coalition or the other Megastates. I just can't suspend my disbelief to think that is possible. It'd be like asking me to believe Obama was killed by terrorists because someone mailed him a bomb. It doesn't work that way. There are strict protocols in place.

[flatline]

An attack that involves nukes exploding milliseconds after the teleport (easily accomplished by a radio-based deadman trigger) would be impossible to stop in the way you've described. The people waiting for the nuke wouldn't even register that it has appeared before it detonates.

Radio Scramblers. The Electronic Countermeasures skill is almost CERTAINLY going to be employed by multiple different people throughout Chi-Town. They're going to have communications officers on the security teams that specialize in jamming enemy transmissions.

You misunderstand what I meant when I said a radio-based deadman trigger. It's a trigger that activates when the signal it is tuned to disappears. The transmitter of the signal is present at the origin location of the nuke, but not present at the target location, so once the nuke arrives at the target location, it detonates since the "calming" signal is no longer present. A jammer at the origin location could cause the nuke to trigger prematurely assuming there was no other safety mechanism engaged. Even better to use extremely high frequencies that are easily absorbed by air so that any jammers would have to be within line of sight and extremely close to the nuke.

Similarly, you could use an optical deadman trigger. Shine a light with a specific frequency on a photo-eye sensitive to that frequency. Choose a frequency (or combination of frequencies) that is unlikely to be present at the target location in sufficient magnitudes and/or orient the photo-eye in an unusual direction (like straight down). When the nuke is teleported to the destination, the photo-eye is no longer the target of the required radiation and so the nuke detonates.

In both cases, the detonation would happen before the nervous systems present at the target location would even register the presence of the bomb.Since it is the absence of the calming signal that triggers detonation, jamming is impossible at the destination since there is no signal to jam. Mimicking the calming signal would take such precise information that I doubt even the strongest interpretation of Clairvoyance-Net would allow it ("in my vision, I saw a 31% clipped triangle wave at 33.764MHz and a square wave at 48.2GHz..." or "A cryptographic challenge was issued by the nuke on 742.4GHz every microsecond and the correct response must be received within half a micro-second. The cryptographic key used is 0x08af3dc82687a31736648d63e25fda637465367487...").

I don't care how many psychics have Clairvoyance. The information required to foil such a trigger is too detailed to be discoverable by Clairvoyance as described in the books.

--flatline

You're talking about primitive/out-dated 20th century technologies. They've had counters for that for over 300 years. What are they? No idea! But with the accelerated technological advances from 10 years ago to today its easy to imagine that even the best technology from today would be a joke to technology 300 to 400 years more advanced and sophisticated. As for Clairvoyance giving them the answers, it doesnt NEED to. All it needs to do is show the event happening in flashes and for the people to see it to report it to the CS who will then take the appropriate countermeasures.

Again, at the very least...

Bomb appears!
Telemechanics "Bomb Off."
Bomb does not detonate.
Dead Boys open fire.
Dead Boys throw the bomb in the pile and execute whatever nut-job screwed up in the first place and let a terrorist get their hands on a nuclear warhead.

I must be doing a terrible job explaining myself and I apologize for that. The issue that I've failed to make you recognize is that the time scale involved in the triggering mechanism makes a psionic based response, like what you've described above with Telemechanics, impossible. Human nerves fire and reset on the scale of milliseconds. In order to make the decision to use Telemechanics, enough milliseconds will have to pass for the psychic's optic nerve to process and transmit the image of the nuke to the brain, the psychic's brain to analyze and recognize the image, decide on the proper course of action, and then activate their psionic ability. Cognitive studies have shown that the human brain (which, since this is the CS, we know that's the kind of brain we're dealing with) can't do this kind of information processing on any time scale smaller than a tenth of a second.

So what does this mean? It means that once the nuke appears, the image of the nuke will have just begun to be processed by the psychic's optic nerve when the nuke detonates. The signal will not have even gotten to the psychic's brain yet, so there is no chance for the psychic yet to use his Telemechanic ability to do anything to the nuke.

Rather than stopping the nuke from detonating by reacting to it, if the CS has some sort of suppression field that prevents runaway nuclear reactions within the fortress city, then even though they can't prevent the nuke from detonating, it would fizzle rather than explode. I find this to be a far more reasonable supposition than the anti-teleport rings and it would provide the same amount of immunity you desire for the fortress cities. Of course, you'd have to come up with a reason that the ability to suppress nuclear reactions hasn't been weaponized so that the CS can simply shut down their enemy's vehicles and power armor with it. I think this ability would be dangerous to add to the setting, but with some careful design, you could add it without ruining the setting.

On top of that, short of Techno-Wizardry MOST practitioners of magic would see a bomb as clumsy, lame, or ineffective and would RATHER come up with a magical solution. For more information on the mentality of practitioners of magic, there is an amazing write up at the start of the Book of Magic. They're much more likely to try to get Prosek or important government officials snagged when traveling too near a ley line or secretly orchestrating a ritual casting of Sanctuary over the bounds of Chi-Town.

You're painting magic users with an awfully broad brush. Even if what you say is true of most magic users, it only takes one to not fit your generalization for this type of scenario to be viable.

That said, if nothing else there are the Vanguard. Yes, whether you like them or not they're canon and would NEVER allow such a travesty to occur. Plus, since many of them automatically start with clairvoyance (the Mystic variant at the very least) than they see it coming ahead of time and have plenty of time to counteract it.

Perhaps the Vanguard would have an easier time stopping the scheme before the nuke can be teleported, but if they wait until the nuke is teleported, then I can't think of anything even the all-powerful Vanguard could do.

Also, you should consider that as an optional setting element, it is inaccurate to consider the Vanguard as a canon element of the setting.

Your plan is akin to saying that Dunskin isn't much of a threat because he is an S.D.C. human and you could just walk up to him in his sleep and shank him with a Vibro-Knife. There is NO WAY its going to be THAT easy and making such a monumental task DIFFICULT is reflective of the setting and the material. The players can be heroes and do these things. Its just it should not be EASY to destroy an entire empire with some crackpot scheme you dreamed up over coffee and donuts. Maybe a small kingdom, but not the Coalition or the other Megastates. I just can't suspend my disbelief to think that is possible. It'd be like asking me to believe Obama was killed by terrorists because someone mailed him a bomb. It doesn't work that way. There are strict protocols in place.

I'm not saying that any of this should be easy for the PCs to pull off, just that it should be possible.

--flatline

[Akashic Soldier]

I'm not going to continue to argue the point because there's not going to be a compromise and its wasting both our time. However, the Chi-Town Burbs book is not only canon, the Vangard are a trademarked property of Palladium Books. In fact, though perhaps this was a waste of my time I went through the entire book and found no mention of the Vangard being an optional part of the setting. Meaning, that unless the G.M. expressly says "There are no Vangard!" than they're out there doing their Vangard thing.

The exact same way the Republicans are. It doesn't matter that everyone wants to confuse A.R.C.H.I.E. Three with Ultron, he's not and the Republicans are canon and not doing exactly what it says they are in the books as written.

[Prysus]

Greetings and Salutations. I had a random idea, and I didn't want to further derail the thread discussing it (though it's related to the teleporting a nuke idea). For those interested:

viewtopic.php?f=8&t=140290

Enjoy. Farewell and safe journeys for now.

[Dead Boy]

Hey guys!

I'm not going to jump into the fray here because my personal biases on this are very well established. That said, I would like to point out that, as of my author's note on pg. 80 of Rifter #63, the much-loathed Anti-Magic Incursion Rings have been retconned into oblivion, officially (well, as official as the optional material in The Rifter gets), and has been replaced with a more multilayered solution to this age-old problem; a system that is inarguably well within the Coalition's technological purview and more in keeping with their philosophies.

~M~

[jaymz]

Hey guys!

I'm not going to jump into the fray here because my personal biases on this are very well established. That said, I would like to point out that, as of my author's note on pg. 80 of Rifter #63, the much-loathed Anti-Magic Incursion Rings have been retconned into oblivion, officially (well, as official as the optional material in The Rifter gets), and has been replaced with a more multilayered solution to this age-old problem; a system that is inarguably well within the Coalition's technological purview and more in keeping with their philosophies.

~M~

Aw man...I LIKED the anti-incursion rings......as well as the rest of that article and the article on artillery/pseudo GPS and the article on New Chillicothe.....as well as the article on the new vehicles/weapons.

[jaymz]

As for everything else.....there has to be some unknown reason that a Player Character isn't able to just teleport in and Nuke Chi-Town. As per the rules of the game canon there is nothing stopping a player from doing that. Personally that goes WELL beyond players being able to affect the setting into the realm of destroying the setting.

Psychic warnings only work if you HAPPEN to be in the vicinity of the nuke being ported in. If you are going to do it you do it to terrorize and eliminate as many civilians as you can and that means going to large common areas not military HQs. There is REASON Al Queada attack the twin towers and other symbolic targets and NOT military targets.

EDit - Also who cares about the fortress cities anyway? Port in dirty nukes to the burbs.....Citizens don't just live in the fortress cities after all...convince the people the Mighty CS Military can't protect them and the regime falls.

So yeah in the need I am not for allowing players the ability to do something THIS big that would essentially destroy the setting.

Edit 2 - Allowing players the ability to do something like this would be like allowing the players in a Star Wars RPG campaign the ability to take down the Empire on their own.

[Pepsi Jedi]

The new article actually goes into 'Premtive measures" as well as the new "No tele-porty-inny' thing.

I happened to like the Rings. This one works 'as well' and as DB pointed out, the new thing is more in line with the CS point of view.

[jaymz]

All the more reason to get caught up with my Rifter collection then

[Akashic Soldier]

I'm not going to be able to get mine for at least the next two weeks because of postage, etc. So can I get a quick summation of the basic concept?

I'm very interested. Does it have grounds in real science, is it a technology, or a common sense solution... or???

Any clarification at all would be muchly appreciated.

[Dead Boy]

Aw man...I LIKED the anti-incursion rings...

I happened to like the Rings.

Thanks for the love, brothas (and I mean that, too), but based off the feedback I was getting (some from @$&#©\3 trolls, some from actual human beings who are not as easily blown off or discounted), your opinions are in the very, very, VERY small minority. It had to go, but I'm quite happy with its replacement network of other systems.

[Pepsi Jedi]

I've read over the new stuff. I like where you're going with some of it. One of the ideas I'd had a fledgling glimmer of myself in the past. You took that same idea and ran with it.

The other stuff seems a nice solid foundation for the 'rest' of the article. I'll be curious to see the next two installments.

I still think Kevin should get all of your stuff together and get you to do a CS Sourcebook. Make the stuff official.

[Tor]

there is a issue (can't think of which one) in which the CS has developed huge underground metal rings of some kind that surround their cities and prevent mages from teleporting inside. This kind of technology, designed to deliberately counter a primary advantage of magic, really limits the scope of how magic can be used and dramaticlly reduces its effectiveness as combatant against tech. Very unfairly, I think.

That's the idea. CS would be working on stuff like this. If they've already managed Psi-Implants and Psi-Devices (Psyscape) I imagine a lot is on their plate.

While the ability to block teleporting mimics the effects of a spell from Library of Bletherad, let's keep in mind that in Lone Star we had Desmond Bradford working on how to create his very own Dimensional Portal.

I bet on this anti-porting ring he got some help from the RCSG guys though.

Another example is a TW device (Rifter #59, pg. 57) that allows you to adapt your weapon to any type of dimensional energy matrix. This completely negates the point of having a different energy matrix and effectively takes it out of the game as a plot device.

It only takes it out of the game so long as your TW device functions to compensate for it.

Next up: TW breath-without-air device removes need to bring air tanks underwater, sadness ensues.

Rifter material is optional content.

Usually, but not always

Carl Gleba worked incredibly hard in the writing of Megaverse Builder. The dimensional physics described in it are logical & well-reasoned, and quite complex. I have always admired Gleba for his creative writing, but here he demonstrates that he also possesses a kean and formidable ability to write analytically. The work he put into Creativing A Dimension, pg. 10-19 is very thorough in describing complex phenomena in layman's terms in a way that also makes sense. A lot of work was put into this and Megaverse Builder is one of PB's unsung heros.

But then, some guy comes along and casually negates Gleba's work to make some just-add-water TW device. There is no explanation of how it works: it's "magic". That is just too easy, and personally, I think its disrespectful to the published concept originator.

With the example set in Dark Conversions regarding what Nightbane are, it feels wrong to criticize Rifter writers for not respecting previous authors' canon when Kev essentially did that to CJ's creation by flipping around what a Bane is. One might say they're just following by example.

in Star Trek games, you can't transport through someone's shields. But say some writer comes along and says, "I don't like that rule, so I'm going to make a device that allows people to transport through shields" and publishes it. Now, because the tech exists (and is cannon by virtue of its publication), it completely unballances the game in principle because the existing 'rule' (eg. no transporting through shields) has been broken.

I could've sworn in one episode or another of a Trek series they were able to go through shields without taking them down if they could decode the access code and match its wavelength, so seeing as how the game deviated from the universe canon, and the universe managed to survive, I don't see the problem.

teleport a nuke into chi-town. The anti teleportation rings give a nice reason of how the CS has been able to exist despite the massive trump card that is teleport superior. Without some sort of limiter on it, magic kingdoms would overrun everything in days.

Clairvoyance + Psi Nullifier is a pretty good defense against this using already-existing content. The rings aren't really needed. Both defenses can co-exist and both provide different roleplaying opportunities though.

one could go "Well, why hasn't one of the Magic groups simply gotten smart and saved up their cash, instead of throwing money away hand over fist at the CS. Saved up. Bought a few nuclear bombs. Then used the rather simple teleport spell to teleport into Chi town.. Right into the throne room. One suicide bomber, goes in. BOOM takes out the CS high command. Why hasn't someone done that?

The difficulty of locating the throne room being 1 limitation. The idea that the CS High Command actually resides there being another.

Assuming there were a widely-known public throneroom, how do we know it isn't just a holographic projection of Prosek that speaks there?

Another explanation could be that members of the Vanguard make it clear that there is one of them close to the emperor willing to Death Curse whoever orders the nuke sent.

The transmitter of the signal is present at the origin location of the nuke, but not present at the target location, so once the nuke arrives at the target location, it detonates since the "calming" signal is no longer present.

Are we sure teleportation is instantaneous enough that mid-teleport the lack of radiowaves won't initiate the port prematurely and damage both the origin and destination?

I know Nightcrawler-style interdimensional BAMFing would sure have a problem with this tactic.

It doesn't matter that everyone wants to confuse A.R.C.H.I.E. Three with Ultron, he's not and the Republicans are canon and not doing exactly what it says they are in the books as written.

All the more reason I need to figure out every book that has a reference to them so I can read about them because I keep overlooking their presence =/

I could be wrong but I think collectors have a worldbook bias compared to sourcebooks and we may tend to ignore SB material compared to WB.

Or at least in regard to SB 1-2 or wherever these guys are. Nobody forgets Mindwerks!

Anti-Magic Incursion Rings have been retconned into oblivion, officially (well, as official as the optional material in The Rifter gets), and has been replaced with a more multilayered solution to this age-old problem; a system that is inarguably well within the Coalition's technological purview and more in keeping with their philosophies.

Which is... ? Is this solution described in a new issue/page of a Rifter?

Psychic warnings only work if you HAPPEN to be in the vicinity of the nuke being ported in.

Untrue. 6th sense requires closeness, clairvoyance doesn't.

(some from @$&#©\3 trolls, some from actual human beings who are not as easily blown off or discounted

Being that you are a Dead Boy and commenting on the CS, I will take this literally, but would wager that it is harder to blow off or discount your average Troll compared to your average human.

Perhaps you should save your insults for the Gnomes.

[jaymz]

Tor - and Clairvoyance does necessarily warn you about anything nor is 100% accurate either IIRC

[Dead Boy]

Anti-Magic Incursion Rings have been retconned into oblivion, officially (well, as official as the optional material in The Rifter gets), and has been replaced with a more multilayered solution to this age-old problem; a system that is inarguably well within the Coalition's technological purview and more in keeping with their philosophies.

Which is... ? Is this solution described in a new issue/page of a Rifter?

Rifter #63, pg#: lots of 'em. There will be elaborations on some of the technical side of it all in the forthcoming Rifter #64, shipping this month! (I'm such a shill)

(some from @$&#©\3 trolls, some from actual human beings who are not as easily blown off or discounted

Being that you are a Dead Boy and commenting on the CS, I will take this literally, but would wager that it is harder to blow off or discount your average Troll compared to your average human.

Hmmmm... Blow off a troll?... Well, a little wine... a little romantic music... a horse-drawn handsome-cab through the park under the glow of a full moon... Ya never know where the night will take you.

Perhaps you should save your insults for the Gnomes.

Racist!

[Tor]

Tor - and Clairvoyance does necessarily warn you about anything nor is 100% accurate either IIRC

True, but theories about it being a reliable asset for the CS depend on brute-forcing it because they would have huge amounts of clairvoyants, and Psi-Net would know their abilities and co-ordinate a warning response system to best exploit any hints they get.

a little wine... a little romantic music... a horse-drawn handsome-cab through the park under the glow of a full moon... Ya never know where the night will take you.

Hopefully sharing a cozy tunnel underneath a bridge