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Message no. 1
From: Avenger <Avenger@*******.DEMON.CO.UK>
Subject: Ehran's Speech - as requested
Date: Tue, 22 Jul 1997 04:06:17 +0100
This is the article that got me thinking about the possibilities that
Atlanteans had travelled from there to influence the major civilisations
of the world, including maybe teaching them magic to achieve certain
things, like construction for instance. Working from this, I decided to
start an argument between a couple of my characters based on this
speech.


Hope it helps to clear up where my idea came from. :)

----------- ( include ) -----------

Humans & the Cycle of Magic

Speech given by Keynote speaker, Ehran "The Scribe"
at the YET (Young Elven Technologists) fund-raising dinner.

The Humans are confused.

This is their normal state of being. Their lives are so short, they
never have time to think things through. I know this is a gross over-
simplification, that there have been many brilliant Human scholars
throughout the ages. Even the Da Vincis and the Einsteins, while
brilliant enough to see a glimpse of the larger pattern, and imaginative
enough to visualize a complex and interconnected world, still did not
have the time to analyze their own thoughts. It takes years, sometimes
hundreds of years, to get the correct perspective on ideas, even your
own ideas. Humans just do not have the luxury of that time. They are
also limited by their devout belief in not believing.

Since the earliest recorded Human history they have had stories of
magic, great unexplained ancient civilizations, and other mysteries. The
Humans chose not to believe these and thus, when the mother returned the
magic to us, they became disoriented and confused, their normal state of
being.

In all fairness, I must admit that most of humanity was not very
advanced when the great mother took the magic away the last time, so it
must be hard for them to deal with its return. What I am about to tell
you must remain an elven secret. I know that the Humans will eventually
discover it, but it should be delayed as long as possible.

All things that the great mother gives us, she also takes away. Nature,
as the Humans call it, moves in cycles: the rising and setting of the
sun, the seasons of the year, the flowing of the tide, it is always a
cycle. Magic also runs in a cycle, it comes and goes from the earth, as
does the warmth of the summer sun. Its cycle is measured not in hours,
as the sun's is, but in thousands of years.

From a scientific viewpoint, magic, when charted, is a semi- regular
wave form moving through the history of the earth. There are slight
fluctuations throughout the wave, and the wave itself is not completely
uniform.

The point in the cycle at which the world becomes magically alive or
magic falls dormant is called the Threshold Level. Every magical race
and, in some cases, each individual within a race, has its own specific
magical trigger point for metamorphosis to occur, thus the
transformation of the world takes place over a period of time.
Traditionally, the Threshold Level has been set as the date of the
awakening of the first Great Dragon on the upswing and the hibernation
of the last Great Dragon on the down swing. The average time between
Threshold Levels is approximately 5,200 years.

As the last age of magic came to a close, Atlantis was readying itself
for disaster. The isle of Atlantis was protected from the forces of
nature by the magic of its inhabitants, and thus it could not exist
after the magic dropped below the Threshold Level. The Atlantian culture
was a racial hybrid that had achieved both scientific and magical
wonders, but in its later years, it turned against itself by fighting
nature to maintain the island. As the end came near, a migration of
technology and culture spread from the isle to the rest of the world.
This is the reason mankind's ancient calendars all start within 100
years of each other. The Hebrew, Egyptian, Chinese, and most
importantly, Mayan calendars all show the direct influence of Atlantian
culture.

The Mayan calendar is the most amazing, as it contains a complete
description of the magic cycles, including this current crossing of the
Threshold. The Mayan calendar was created in the year 3372 BC (using the
Christian calendar), just at the end of the last cycle. The Mayans
described the cycles as "worlds", and stated that only certain life
forms made the transition from one world to the next. The calendar,
written over 5,000 years ago, predicted the exact day the Threshold
Level would be passed. If we convert the Mayan dates to the current
Christian calendar, it correctly states that the Threshold would be
passed on December 24, 2011. On that day, the first Great Dragon was
seen in Japan. The precision is amazing.

Atlantis sank on August 12, 3113 BC, thus marking the end of the Fourth
World and the beginning of the Fifth. The Sixth World began on December
12, 2011 AD, and will end, according to the Mayan calendar, on April 4,
7137 AD.

We have the intervening time to enjoy what the Great Mother gives us and
to use responsibly the double-edged sword of technology that our Human
cousins have created. We must use both the energy of nature and the
power of technology to try to fix the damage done by our short-lived
relatives.


--
Dark Avenger - A Dark Shadow in a Dark World
--------------------------------------------------------
| Web page at: http://www.shalako.demon.co.uk containing |
| the Alternative UK Sourcebook & Newcomers Guide to Stk.|
| (Microsoft Site Builder/Web Developer - Level 2.) |
| I'm not a Geek - I'm a Bill Gates extra-terrestrial |
--------------------------------------------------------
Reality is an illusion caused by a lack of e-mail
Message no. 2
From: Mike Goldberg <michael.goldberg@*******.COM>
Subject: Re: Ehran's Speech - as requested
Date: Tue, 22 Jul 1997 08:30:52 MST
Odd tidbit:

Orion Scott Card presents an interesting view on Atlantis in his book:
"Pastwatch." While it doesn't fall into FASA cannon, it certainly
gives food for thought.


______________________________ Reply Separator _________________________________
Subject: Ehran's Speech - as requested
Author: ShadowTk Plot and Administrative Discussion
<PLOTD@********.ITRIBE.NET> at SMTP-PO
Date: 7/21/97 10:02 PM


This is the article that got me thinking about the possibilities that
Atlanteans had travelled from there to influence the major civilisations
of the world, including maybe teaching them magic to achieve certain
things, like construction for instance. Working from this, I decided to
start an argument between a couple of my characters based on this
speech.


Hope it helps to clear up where my idea came from. :)
Message no. 3
From: Mike Goldberg <michael.goldberg@*******.COM>
Subject: Re[2]: Ehran's Speech - as requested
Date: Tue, 22 Jul 1997 09:13:35 MST
Hmmm... I must not be awake today.... it's Orson Scott Card. *ponder*
Must be seriously not awake.

Later.


______________________________ Reply Separator _________________________________
Subject: Re: Ehran's Speech - as requested
Author: ShadowTk Plot and Administrative Discussion
<PLOTD@********.ITRIBE.NET> at SMTP-PO
Date: 7/22/97 8:39 AM


Odd tidbit:

Orion Scott Card presents an interesting view on Atlantis in his book:
"Pastwatch." While it doesn't fall into FASA cannon, it certainly
gives food for thought.
Message no. 4
From: Jeffrey Mach <mach@****.CALTECH.EDU>
Subject: Re: Ehran's Speech - as requested
Date: Tue, 22 Jul 1997 14:42:29 -0700
On Tue, 22 Jul 1997, Avenger wrote:

> Hope it helps to clear up where my idea came from. :)

It does, greatly. It also shows Ehran to be a real pompus arse, but I
think most of us know that already. =) But since Ehran, according to
numerous hints here and in other bits of ShadowRun literature is well more
than 5000 years old, perhaps they feel he has a right to be.

> >From a scientific viewpoint, magic, when charted, is a semi- regular
> wave form moving through the history of the earth. There are slight
> fluctuations throughout the wave, and the wave itself is not completely
> uniform.

> The point in the cycle at which the world becomes magically alive or
> magic falls dormant is called the Threshold Level. Every magical race
> and, in some cases, each individual within a race, has its own specific
> magical trigger point for metamorphosis to occur, thus the
> transformation of the world takes place over a period of time.
> Traditionally, the Threshold Level has been set as the date of the
> awakening of the first Great Dragon on the upswing and the hibernation
> of the last Great Dragon on the down swing. The average time between
> Threshold Levels is approximately 5,200 years.

I guess this is where it bugs me. Using words like: "when charted,"
"traditionally...has been set as...," and "the average time
between..."
This _must_ imply knowledge from the previous age, if not _ages_--in order
to chart, take averages, or have some form of tradition develop--has been
passed into Ehran's lap, if not been compiled himself. Unless, of course,
he is pulling these figures out of his behind, but with the awe and
reverence the FASA writers have shown him, I somehow doubt it.

> As the last age of magic came to a close, Atlantis was readying itself
> for disaster. The isle of Atlantis was protected from the forces of
> nature by the magic of its inhabitants, and thus it could not exist
> after the magic dropped below the Threshold Level. The Atlantian culture
> was a racial hybrid that had achieved both scientific and magical
> wonders, but in its later years, it turned against itself by fighting
> nature to maintain the island. As the end came near, a migration of
> technology and culture spread from the isle to the rest of the world.
> This is the reason mankind's ancient calendars all start within 100
> years of each other. The Hebrew, Egyptian, Chinese, and most
> importantly, Mayan calendars all show the direct influence of Atlantian
> culture.

Hmmm.... Anyone happen to know if the writer is pulling that last little
factoid out of his bum? Or else, will we say that that happens to be a
little artifact of the ShadowRun universe's Earth. I was under the
impression that the Chinese calender reflected Dynastic foundings. And
the Mayans, approximating the year that they actually became a
civilization instead of wandering nomads. There is also an interesting
point to consider: recent archaelogical evidence that the Great Pyramids
an the Sphinx at Giza are actually approaching 10,000 years old. While
not unquestionable, the evidence seems rather strong. On a different
topic, the pyramids of Egypt (especially the supposedly earlier stepped
forms), the zigarats of the Indus valey, and the pyramids of Central
America having a similar shape can be relatively easily explained by the
fact that if you are building with unmortared stone, you cannot build
something that tall without using a pyramidal shape.

> The Mayan calendar is the most amazing, as it contains a complete
> description of the magic cycles, including this current crossing of the
> Threshold. The Mayan calendar was created in the year 3372 BC (using the
> Christian calendar), just at the end of the last cycle. The Mayans
> described the cycles as "worlds", and stated that only certain life
> forms made the transition from one world to the next. The calendar,
> written over 5,000 years ago, predicted the exact day the Threshold
> Level would be passed. If we convert the Mayan dates to the current
> Christian calendar, it correctly states that the Threshold would be
> passed on December 24, 2011. On that day, the first Great Dragon was
> seen in Japan. The precision is amazing.

20/20 hindsight on the part of the author can do that, you know. But that
being the case, writer fiat that the Mayans were right, I suppose I can
let that one stand without further comment. On the other hand it begs a
different question: If the first world, then, began roughly 24,000 years
ago, what happened before that? Homo sapiens, from archeological
evidence, have been around for almost 2 million years. Of course for much
of that time, it is assumed we had no written language, and even our oral
communication for much of that time was probably too primative to pass on
much of what a person could learn over a lifetime, and hence, little
development occured in terms of science and civilization. In fact, it is
the advent of farming which allowed cities to develop and after that
written language (on the order of 10,000 to 5,000 years ago, depending on
geographic location) where humanity really took off, so to speak, with
occasional fits and starts and stagnant periods (Ancient Egypt, the Dark
Ages, Imperial China, etc.) and got us to where we are today. I guess
what I am getting at was that if the third age (supposedly EarthDawn) was
from circa 8300 BC to 8/12/3113 BC there must have been a hell of a
stagnation or loss of technology at the mana-cycle change for them to
assume the rest of the ShadowRun world's development mirrored our own.
Also, given human population growth, there must have either been an
amazing loss of life, or some form of serious population control to
prevent our world from being hip-deep in people by now. If supposedly,
advanced civilizations existed before 3113, are we to assume that most if
not all of those people perished? And what exactly was goin on in the
first or second world for that matter? Now there's a thought: a bunch of
elves living in trees wearing animal skins and living in small bands.
But, if they happen to be as immortal as they say they are, and have
unrestricted breeding patterns like humans, and potentially plenty of time
to have dozens of immortal children, why do they only make up 10% or so of
the population? Why not 75%? I guess I just have problems with the math
on their worldview.

> Atlantis sank on August 12, 3113 BC, thus marking the end of the Fourth
> World and the beginning of the Fifth. The Sixth World began on December
> 12, 2011 AD, and will end, according to the Mayan calendar, on April 4,
> 7137 AD.

> We have the intervening time to enjoy what the Great Mother gives us and
> to use responsibly the double-edged sword of technology that our Human
> cousins have created. We must use both the energy of nature and the
> power of technology to try to fix the damage done by our short-lived
> relatives.

>>Please excuse me while I roll on the floor laughing.<<

Ehem...the intervening time...THAT'S OVER 5000 YEARS AWAY!!!!!

Okay, we can speculate on what the ShadowRun earth was in the past, given
what can be extrapolated from the "present." But does anybody want to
dare venture a guess as to what humanity will be like in 5000 years???
Given the exponential growth in science and technology, which shows little
sign of slowing (despite occasional setbacks in one field or another), and
I assume with the near yearly updates in what has been (re)discovered in
the field of magic, it too is undergrowing growth, does Ehran actually
think he has the foggiest idea of what is to come? That's why I get such
a laugh out of FASA's claim that Harliquin banished the Horrors for 3000
years. I'm sorry, but while they may have terrorized the people of the
EarthDawn, I don't think they will quite be ready for what awaits them in
505X when they can finally resurface. Not to mention, that if word gets
out that the big boys are comming, that we'll have a while to prepare.

In the past 5000 years, man has discovered, and mastered the atom. He has
discovered and is very close to mastering the cell, and the building
blocks of life itself. He is currently peering within the atom and is
approaching a fundamental understanding of matter, if not space and time
itself (Grand Unification Theory Rah! Rah! Rah!). In less than 100 years
has created a logical machine of silicon, plastic and metal, and is
pursuing a machine with a mind of the complexity of his own. He has
learned how to fly, has mastered the skies, and is begining to journey off
of his home planet. "...try to fix the damage done by our short-lived
relatives"??? Okay, so a few of our ideas haven't been the best or
brightest, and a few have them have hurt the Earth, but Mother Nature's a
tough bitch, and we're learning from our mistakes. To quote that paragon
of superhumanity, The Tick, when asked the question, "Do you have the
power to destroy the planet?": "Egad! I hope not. That's where I put
all my stuff." For all the "evil" of megacorporations current, or future,
even they understand this simple fact.

Overall, I just find his statement an act of unbelievable hubris.

--My two yen

Jeff
Message no. 5
From: Avenger <Avenger@*******.DEMON.CO.UK>
Subject: Re: Ehran's Speech - as requested
Date: Wed, 23 Jul 1997 03:15:02 +0100
In article <Pine.SGI.3.95.970722131519.1155B-
100000@****.ugcs.caltech.edu>, Jeffrey Mach <mach@****.CALTECH.EDU>
rambled on endlessly about Ehran's Speech - as requested
>On Tue, 22 Jul 1997, Avenger wrote:
>
>> Hope it helps to clear up where my idea came from. :)
>
>It does, greatly. It also shows Ehran to be a real pompus arse,

<grin> funny that, I figured he was from the small encounters with the
twit in the modules. :)

>but I
>think most of us know that already. =) But since Ehran, according to
>numerous hints here and in other bits of ShadowRun literature is well more
>than 5000 years old, perhaps they feel he has a right to be.

Who knows. Ehran was created and "crafted" during FASA's "IE" period.

>> of the last Great Dragon on the down swing. The average time between
>> Threshold Levels is approximately 5,200 years.
>
>I guess this is where it bugs me. Using words like: "when charted,"
>"traditionally...has been set as...," and "the average time
between..."
>This _must_ imply knowledge from the previous age, if not _ages_--in order
>to chart, take averages, or have some form of tradition develop--has been
>passed into Ehran's lap, if not been compiled himself.

Well, if you assume that Ehran was around in ED, as is strongly hinted
at in FASA literature, then it is safe to assume that he does have
knowledge from the previous age. However, the speech is an Elven thing,
and as you will probably notice as you read through it, there are
certain discerepencies that make very little sense, and the math is
slightly screwed concerning the "ages".

>Unless, of course,
>he is pulling these figures out of his behind, but with the awe and
>reverence the FASA writers have shown him, I somehow doubt it.

The figures, facts and logic used in the speech don't add up when viewed
as a whole, which seems to me, that the speech was written to "sound
cool" rather than refelct real time, knowledge or fact.

The only explanation I can think of to cover this, is that Shadowrun is
not actually the future of our world, but a mirror reflection of it,
with a slightly different time line. Something along the "multiverse"
theory that so many people hate. :) Taking that little ditty allows
some severe creative licence that is required to follow through on the
"Previous Age" stuff.

By logical time line, Earthdawn couldn't have happened when it is
supposed to have happened. It must have been considerably earlier.

>> years of each other. The Hebrew, Egyptian, Chinese, and most
>> importantly, Mayan calendars all show the direct influence of Atlantian
>> culture.
>
>Hmmm.... Anyone happen to know if the writer is pulling that last little
>factoid out of his bum?

Not as such. What I think is being implied here is that Atlantean
surivors made it to several different continents and taught the
indigenous peoples little tricks that make constructions and knowledge
similar in development.

There are certain logical things regarding construction of buildings, in
as much as stone work is limited to the creativity of the builders and
the type of structure that it is possible to create without mortar. If
it is taken as a "fantastic" setting, then it is easier to suggest that
Atlanteans made it to other civilisations, and although these peoples
were highly variant in culture and language, they developed in a sort of
parallel thanks to the teachings of the Atlantis scholars. Of course
this begs the question - why hadn't they talked to them before, and how
come these civilisations survived so well while ED died, and ... a large
number of other questions.

Artistic or creative licence is a usefull explanation to cover things
like this. ;)

>Or else, will we say that that happens to be a
>little artifact of the ShadowRun universe's Earth.

That wouldbe a better way to look at it. FASA have taken some liberty
with earth/human development and have used some artistic licence in
hteir timelines. It makes life easier for them, rather than having to
check times, facts, ages and other data which is horribly time consuming
as I'm sure you are aware. Make it up as you go, keep it within the
bounds of reality and hey presto, instant history. :)

>forms), the zigarats of the Indus valey, and the pyramids of Central
>America having a similar shape can be relatively easily explained by the
>fact that if you are building with unmortared stone, you cannot build
>something that tall without using a pyramidal shape.

The shapes of buildings, as you state can be reasonably explained using
logic, but there are certain discrepencies that still can't. Drill
marks in stone, that modern tools couldn't replicate, auger marks that
use high speed drills rather than the manual bits they should have been
using, astronomical knowledge that is surprisingly similar in its format
and reverence, ie. the fascination with Orion and a couple of the
planets. Other things like mathematics and calendars, civilisations can
develop in parallel, but shouldn't logically have the great similarities
that earthen ones seem to follow. If you take some of this Danikenesque
thought into consideration, it's possible to explain a lot of things
just by making some jumps in logic. I would suggest that all FASA did,
was to make this jump in logic so that they could concentrate on
creating a game world rather than getting bogged down in factual world
creation.

>> Christian calendar, it correctly states that the Threshold would be
>> passed on December 24, 2011. On that day, the first Great Dragon was
>> seen in Japan. The precision is amazing.
>
>20/20 hindsight on the part of the author can do that, you know.

It certainly can. but the truly incredible thing is that the calendar
mentioned is unbelievably accurate. I forget the tolerance off hand, but
beieve me, its quite staggering, especially for a stone age race.

>But that
>being the case, writer fiat that the Mayans were right, I suppose I can
>let that one stand without further comment. On the other hand it begs a
>different question: If the first world, then, began roughly 24,000 years
>ago, what happened before that?

Ah, now there's the rub. As I mentioned above, there are certain
discrepencies in the logical time line of FASA's world, which is why
it's less harsh to them to explain it as a mirror, rather than this
planet. :)

<snip>
>Ages, Imperial China, etc.) and got us to where we are today. I guess
>what I am getting at was that if the third age (supposedly EarthDawn) was
>from circa 8300 BC to 8/12/3113 BC there must have been a hell of a
>stagnation or loss of technology at the mana-cycle change for them to
>assume the rest of the ShadowRun world's development mirrored our own.

Yep, I'd agree with you here. This is part of the reason why I['ve had
to rewrite some of the history of Shadowrun for my RL game, but in most
circumstances this sort of thing can be safely ignored with impunity.
The rumours of previous "ages" exist in certain circles of thought
today, so it may be that there was a glorious age of mankind before this
one, one that self destructed at a certain level of
technology/knowledge. Mother nature gave up for a while and played with
Dinosaurs, then decided OK we'll get back to mankind now. Maybe after
crawling around in gloop for a few millenia has taught them a lesson and
they'll get it right this time... <g>

Of course it's always possible that Douglas Adams is right, and we are
in fact all descended from teplephone sanitisers, hair stylists and
second hand car salesmen. :)

Which would help to explain the problem that has recently occured with
Darwin's theory. especially regarding the deescendants of man, where
there is now a "we weren't descended from cavemen" thing happening after
DNA results from a Neanderthal man taken by German scientists.

I personally go for the "We came from Mars as the sun cooled and Mars
died. Earth would have been just about perfect around the time of the
final days of Mars, which in my opinion may have been earthlike in the
past. Which is helped a tad by FASA's non-commital remarks regarding
the red planet, and those rather silly photogs.

>Also, given human population growth, there must have either been an
>amazing loss of life,

Flood, plague, take your pick, the bible has several, legend in many
nations/civilisations also have several "global disaster" theories, so
it's possible

>or some form of serious population control to
>prevent our world from being hip-deep in people by now.

Yep. I think you may be right. :)

>If supposedly,
>advanced civilizations existed before 3113, are we to assume that most if
>not all of those people perished?

That's a good question. There's been a conversation on Shadowrn
regarding what happens to the races and what have you when mana drops
below a sustainable level. So far the general consensus is that the
races simply die out, and humankind continues, waiting for the cycle to
renew and release the trapped genetic data.

>And what exactly was goin on in the
>first or second world for that matter?

That, so far is unkown. it depends if you follow the theory that when a
civilisation finally collapses, all of the survivors of that
civilisation return to barbarism. The Mayan indians are an example,
wher they lost the knowledge and teachings of their ancestors, yet kept
the language. They exist quite happily on the Yucutan, but possess none
of the assumed qualities, teachings and knowledge of their ancestors. In
a way the same can be applied to the Roman, Babylonian, Greek and
Egyptian civilisations, they decayed and lost all their knowledge.

The fact that we haven't found anything of any note from a massive "age"
of knowledge - whether technological or otherwise is not really
surprising, as we've hardly even scratched the surface of this planet,
and only just recently broken out of our own atmosphere to begin
stumbling around in the solar system.

Who knows, maybe we _are_ the lost tenth tribe or something.

>Now there's a thought: a bunch of
>elves living in trees wearing animal skins and living in small bands.

<grin> No comment...

>But, if they happen to be as immortal as they say they are, and have
>unrestricted breeding patterns like humans, and potentially plenty of time
>to have dozens of immortal children, why do they only make up 10% or so of
>the population? Why not 75%? I guess I just have problems with the math
>on their worldview.

If you follow the immortal theme, and use just a tiny bit of "fantasy"
assumption, then it can be assumed that immortality brings a high price
with it. A lack of ability to produce children rapidly, (in comparisonm
humans breed like rabbits - remember FASA's reference to humans as
"breeders") Also, after millenia of life, I guess the urge to get laid
on a regular basis dies out with time. After all ther are a finite
number of things one can get up to when it comes to sex, and over
thousands of years, it likely to get boring, especially where there are
more important things to do, like banishing horrors, growing spikes and
saving the world singlehandedly. :)

Hmmm. I wonder if the IE are based on the Man From Uncle. <grin>

>> We have the intervening time to enjoy what the Great Mother gives us and
>> to use responsibly the double-edged sword of technology that our Human
>> cousins have created. We must use both the energy of nature and the
>> power of technology to try to fix the damage done by our short-lived
>> relatives.
>
>>>Please excuse me while I roll on the floor laughing.<<

OK, you're excused.

>Ehem...the intervening time...THAT'S OVER 5000 YEARS AWAY!!!!!

To an immortal, one who has lived for many thousands of years, 5,000
might be a very short time, whereas we are short lived and view it as a
long time.

>Okay, we can speculate on what the ShadowRun earth was in the past, given
>what can be extrapolated from the "present." But does anybody want to
>dare venture a guess as to what humanity will be like in 5000 years???

Nope. I have doubts as to whether we;ll still be around in 5,000 years,
but if you use the way things have developed over the last five thousand
years, It would be safe to assume that it will be quite incredible, and
totally beyond our comprehension. To a person from 5,000 years in our
future, we will appear much as ancient civilisations appear to us

"How did they do that, and what was their fascintation with **insert
subject** It couldn't possibly have been done with technology available
to them in their time, we can't replicate it with our technology...."
etc etc.

>Given the exponential growth in science and technology, which shows little
>sign of slowing (despite occasional setbacks in one field or another), and
>I assume with the near yearly updates in what has been (re)discovered in
>the field of magic, it too is undergrowing growth, does Ehran actually
>think he has the foggiest idea of what is to come?

This is something that cropped up in one of my game sessions, and one
bright person decided to perk up with

"Yes, he does. He came from a time of high magic, he knows only too
well what will come.

As magic becomes more and more powerful, and more things can be achieved
by magic - like building the incredible cities that Earthdawn had, and
all the things that come with that, technology is going to take a
backseat, and maybe fade out all together (unlikely but...) This would
then result in 5,000 years time a civilisation totally dependant on
magic, that suddenly loses it again,a nd returns to the way things were
5,000 years in _our_ past. Where mankind starts again. Magic is a
cycle, it comes and goes, who's to say that the intention isn't that
technology also comes and goes. What is technology, other than a
replacement for magic?

For instance, wired reflexes.. merely imitates something that can be
achieved by magic... etc."

<snip Harly and horrors - to void ranting>

>learned how to fly, has mastered the skies, and is begining to journey off
>of his home planet.

Yes mankind has achieved things that in many ways are miraculous, and if
you follow the conspiracist theories research technology in certain
areas of - shall we say "hidden research" is ten years ahead of anything
we see at the moment.

>"...try to fix the damage done by our short-lived
>relatives"??? Okay, so a few of our ideas haven't been the best or
>brightest, and a few have them have hurt the Earth, but Mother Nature's a
>tough bitch, and we're learning from our mistakes. To quote that paragon
>of superhumanity, The Tick, when asked the question, "Do you have the
>power to destroy the planet?": "Egad! I hope not. That's where I put
>all my stuff." For all the "evil" of megacorporations current, or
future,
>even they understand this simple fact.

Ahh, a like minded person. This is one of the things that I have had a
severe problem with in the FASA world. The complete and illogical
destruction of vast tracts of land and large portions of thhe world with
toxic/nuclear "problems"

Evil megacorps going out of their way to destroy even more of the same
planet that they must exist on, killing mankind in droves "just because
they can" and going fast forward to global destruction. Corps, mega's
or otherwise may be greedy, and suffer from all the worst forms of
avarice and other sins, but they are most certainly not stupid.
Destroying this planet, wrecking economies and ecologies in their rabid
serach for power is not logical not sensible. If they destory the
resources they need to survive they are destroying their own existence.

I agree with you that Mother Nature is one tough person. However, even
she needs a helping hand against us. She has that hand in the form of
the environmentalists, and I can't see them just deciding "Oh well, it's
205* and megacorps rule, so we might as well all go home.

The problems reflected by you with Ehran's speech can be used in may
other facets of FASA's world that are in some ways illogical, but then
it's a game world, and anything can happen in Science Fantasy. :)

I guess the only way to deal with it is to do what feels the most
comfortable with your own game world. Mine is vastly different from
that of others, which is something that I have to be very careful of in
this list, because I have changed much of FASA's world into one I feel
more comfortable with.

That's also part of the reason I placed the question in the first place.
Although you have no longer any objections to the "argument" I intended
to have between a couple of characters, I still feel that there are
things I need to be very careful about, so don't expect to see that post
for a little while :)

>Overall, I just find his statement an act of unbelievable hubris.

But then, it is Ehran. (the immortal - or just incredibly long lived -
elf)

:)


--
__ \ | \ __
| | _` | __| | / _ \ \ / _ \ __ \ _` | _ \ __|
| | ( | | < ___ \ \ / __/ | | ( | __/ |
____/ \__,_|_| _|\_\ _/ _\ \_/ \___|_| _|\__, |\___|_|
A Dark Shadow in a Dark World |___/
Web page at: http://www.shalako.demon.co.uk
Message no. 6
From: Avenger <Avenger@*******.DEMON.CO.UK>
Subject: Re: Ehran's Speech - as requested
Date: Wed, 23 Jul 1997 02:22:28 +0100
In article <9706228695.AA869582897@*********.comm.twcable.com>, Mike
Goldberg <michael.goldberg@*******.COM> rambled on endlessly :) about
Ehran's Speech - as requested
> Odd tidbit:
>
> Orion Scott Card presents an interesting view on Atlantis in his book:
> "Pastwatch." While it doesn't fall into FASA cannon, it certainly
> gives food for thought.
>
You wouldn't happen to have the ISBN handy would you Mike?

That would make life a bit eaasier in tracking the book down.


--
__ \ | \ __
| | _` | __| | / _ \ \ / _ \ __ \ _` | _ \ __|
| | ( | | < ___ \ \ / __/ | | ( | __/ |
____/ \__,_|_| _|\_\ _/ _\ \_/ \___|_| _|\__, |\___|_|
A Dark Shadow in a Dark World |___/
Web page at: http://www.shalako.demon.co.uk
Message no. 7
From: Justin Fang <justinf@****.CALTECH.EDU>
Subject: Re: Ehran's Speech - as requested
Date: Wed, 23 Jul 1997 00:21:09 -0700
Avenger wrote:

>The shapes of buildings, as you state can be reasonably explained using
>logic, but there are certain discrepencies that still can't. Drill
>marks in stone, that modern tools couldn't replicate, auger marks that
>use high speed drills rather than the manual bits they should have been
>using, astronomical knowledge that is surprisingly similar in its format
>and reverence, ie. the fascination with Orion and a couple of the
>planets. Other things like mathematics and calendars, civilisations can
>develop in parallel, but shouldn't logically have the great similarities
>that earthen ones seem to follow.

Er, "shouldn't logically have the great similarities"? All those calenders are
trying to measure the same thing, after all, so you should expect them to be
similar, especially when you've got obvious things to measure time like the
Moon, and seasons, and so forth. As for number systems, they don't even all
follow the same base, which is certainly a major difference between them.
Sure, they all agree on 2 + 2 = 4, but that's sort of required...

>If you take some of this Danikenesque
>thought into consideration, it's possible to explain a lot of things
>just by making some jumps in logic.

Oops, you've triggered a pet peeve of mine, which is the attitude (I'm not
accusing *you* of holding it!) that because ancient people were able to do
[nifty thing x] they must necessarily have had help from Atlanteans, or
aliens, or spirits, or whatever. I think these people greatly underestimate
human ingenuity and cleverness. I mean, they came up with writing, and
agriculture, and numbers, and metalworking, and domesticated animals, and
weaving, and... well, you get the idea: a whole bunch of things that seem
obvious *now* but were not then. Once you undererstand that, then ancient
civilizations being able to build Pyramids and the rest doesn't seem nearly
so unlikely. What they didn't have was what science has given us: a
systematic method of finding and inventing new and useful things. Um, end pet
peeve.

>Which would help to explain the problem that has recently occured with
>Darwin's theory. especially regarding the deescendants of man, where
>there is now a "we weren't descended from cavemen" thing happening after
>DNA results from a Neanderthal man taken by German scientists.

Nitpick: what problems? You're misinterpreting the research you're talking
about. It's been known for a while that Neanderthals (H. sapiens neanderthal)
existed at the same time as "anatomically modern" humans (H. sapiens
sapiens). What wasn't known was whether the two varieties of humans interbred.
The new results seem to show that they did not, implying that our ancestors
eventually displaced or wiped out the Neanderthals. Both types of human
lived in caves (where there were caves), BTW.

Random speculation: Neanderthals = orcs? Just because the elves are the
longest lived variety doesn't mean they were the first... But I don't think
that really works.

>I personally go for the "We came from Mars as the sun cooled and Mars
>died. Earth would have been just about perfect around the time of the
>final days of Mars, which in my opinion may have been earthlike in the
>past. Which is helped a tad by FASA's non-commital remarks regarding
>the red planet, and those rather silly photogs.

Main problem with that is that Mars has been too cold for humans since long
before humans existed.

>>Also, given human population growth, there must have either been an
>>amazing loss of life,

>Flood, plague, take your pick, the bible has several, legend in many
>nations/civilisations also have several "global disaster" theories, so
>it's possible

My question is, where did all the stuff they made go? All those stone
buildings and metal tools and pottery and stuff? Are we supposed to assume it
was all somehow magical and crumbled to dust when the mana went away?

>a way the same can be applied to the Roman, Babylonian, Greek and
>Egyptian civilisations, they decayed and lost all their knowledge.

Well, but they didn't. The Romans picked up a lot of stuff from the Greeks,
and a lot of the Roman stuff was preserved, even in Dark Ages Europe, and by
Byzantines and the Arabs, the upshot being that quite a lot of it is sitting
around in our libaries today.

>The fact that we haven't found anything of any note from a massive "age"
>of knowledge - whether technological or otherwise is not really
>surprising, as we've hardly even scratched the surface of this planet,

Um, while there's hefty chunks of the planet that we haven't done much with,
I'd say we've done much more than "hardly even scratched the surface".

>>Ehem...the intervening time...THAT'S OVER 5000 YEARS AWAY!!!!!

>To an immortal, one who has lived for many thousands of years, 5,000
>might be a very short time, whereas we are short lived and view it as a
>long time.

Look at that again. Unless Ehran is a relic of the 2nd age, he's only 5000 to
10000 years old himself, so another 5000 years is at least half his life.
Is 40 years "a very short time" to an 80-year-old human?

>>Given the exponential growth in science and technology, which shows little
>>sign of slowing (despite occasional setbacks in one field or another), and
>>I assume with the near yearly updates in what has been (re)discovered in
>>the field of magic, it too is undergrowing growth, does Ehran actually
>>think he has the foggiest idea of what is to come?

>This is something that cropped up in one of my game sessions, and one
>bright person decided to perk up with

>"Yes, he does. He came from a time of high magic, he knows only too
>well what will come.

No, he can't. There can't ever have been a high-technological civilization
similar to our own on this planet. (Well, at least not within the last 10
million years or so.) We would have noticed the depletion of fossil fuels
and metal ores, the remnants of cities (aluminum and some plastics can stick
around for 10000 years easily), the enviromental degredation and mass
extinctions, the list goes on and on.

>As magic becomes more and more powerful, and more things can be achieved
>by magic - like building the incredible cities that Earthdawn had, and
>all the things that come with that, technology is going to take a
>backseat, and maybe fade out all together (unlikely but...) This would

Well, except that technological development goes a lot faster than magical
development. It isn't constrained by the mana available at that point in the
cycle. Now, if you develop magic first, then there's not much reason to bother
with the early, difficult stages of science and technology. And then you get
caught by the trap described below, which presumably caught the previous
civilizations.

>then result in 5,000 years time a civilisation totally dependant on
>magic, that suddenly loses it again,a nd returns to the way things were
>5,000 years in _our_ past. Where mankind starts again. Magic is a
>cycle, it comes and goes, who's to say that the intention isn't that
>technology also comes and goes. What is technology, other than a
>replacement for magic?

>For instance, wired reflexes.. merely imitates something that can be
>achieved by magic... etc."

There's a few crucial differences between magic and technology, though. For
starters, you can mass-produce technology. Magic (at least at the Earthdawn
level) is cruciually dependent on the individual doing the magic.

On the other hand, it may be that if if both scientific and magical
development proceeds far enough, they converge and you get the best of both
worlds. Clarke's Third Law, literally, and humans (or, more likely, human-
derived entities) with godlike power. Who is to say that at that point it
won't be possible to control the mana cycles themselves? But this is
speculating pretty far afield from anything usable in an RPG...

>Yes mankind has achieved things that in many ways are miraculous, and if
>you follow the conspiracist theories research technology in certain
>areas of - shall we say "hidden research" is ten years ahead of anything
>we see at the moment.

Yeah, well, I think those theories are complete bunk from people who have no
idea how technological research actually works.

>>all my stuff." For all the "evil" of megacorporations current, or
future,
>>even they understand this simple fact.

>Ahh, a like minded person. This is one of the things that I have had a
>severe problem with in the FASA world.

>Destroying this planet, wrecking economies and ecologies in their rabid
>serach for power is not logical not sensible. If they destory the
>resources they need to survive they are destroying their own existence.

From one perspective, you could see the megacorps as "meta-organisms"
which are symbiotes/parasites on humanity. What happens to one of those
that kills all its hosts? It goes extinct.

--
Justin Fang (justinf@****.caltech.edu)
This space intentionally left blank.
Message no. 8
From: Spike <u5a77@*****.CS.KEELE.AC.UK>
Subject: Re: Ehran's Speech - as requested
Date: Wed, 23 Jul 1997 11:48:01 +0100
|> importantly, Mayan calendars all show the direct influence of Atlantian
|> culture.
|
|Hmmm.... Anyone happen to know if the writer is pulling that last little
|factoid out of his bum?

Perhaps Ehran IS a Theran.... Thera == Atlantis....

Or else, will we say that that happens to be a
|little artifact of the ShadowRun universe's Earth. I was under the
|impression that the Chinese calender reflected Dynastic foundings. And
|the Mayans, approximating the year that they actually became a
|civilization instead of wandering nomads.

And again, who's to say that the Mayans WEREN'T the wondering nomads?
A bunch of evacuees from Thera/Atlandis who decided to start afresh....

|20/20 hindsight on the part of the author can do that, you know.

SO? If it's there, why NOT use it?
It makes a nice tie in with Earth history!

|different question: If the first world, then, began roughly 24,000 years
|ago, what happened before that? Homo sapiens, from archeological
|evidence, have been around for almost 2 million years. Of course for much
|of that time, it is assumed we had no written language, and even our oral
|communication for much of that time was probably too primative to pass on
|much of what a person could learn over a lifetime, and hence, little
|development occured in terms of science and civilization.

We've been through this just last week... (Or was it two).

0th world... Magic arrives.People eventually start to experiment with it,
but in this case, they DON'T find any books offering advice.
The horrors come, totally wipe out all civilisation. Very few survive.

1st world. Mankind rebuilds. Nothing but a few myths exist from the last
world. (Maybe the survivors write it down as a flood to explain it away???)
As no-one remembers anything from the previous world, THIS ONE becomes names
the 1st....

2nd world... Magic arrives. People eventually start to experiment with it,
They become very adept at it's uses and are powerfull enough to protect (at
least some of) thier people from the scourge. The survivors write a book
about protecting onesself from the horrors.

3rd World. No magic.

4th world. Magic. The Therans find the book. Horrors start to arrive in
small numbers. This prompts them to take the book seriously. They sell their
info to everyone. All magical resources that were used in the last world on
research into new spells and items is diverted to protection.

The rest, as they say, is Earthdawn and History....

As for the rest. Hey, he's immortal, remember.
He's already seen man do the last 5000 years. He's just being an arrogant
SOB. Also remember that NORMAL elves have a lifespan of several hundred
years.....
--
______________________________________________________________________________
|u5a77@*****.cs.keele.ac.uk| "Are you pondering what I'm pondering Pinky?" |
|Andrew Halliwell | |
|Principal subjects in:- | "I think so brain, but this time, you control |
|Comp Sci & Electronics | the Encounter suit, and I'll do the voice..." |
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
|GCv3.1 GCS/EL>$ d---(dpu) s+/- a- C++ U N++ o+ K- w-- M+/++ PS+++ PE- Y t+ |
|5++ X+/++ R+ tv+ b+ D G e>PhD h/h+ !r! !y-|I can't say F**K either now! :( |
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Message no. 9
From: Spike <u5a77@*****.CS.KEELE.AC.UK>
Subject: Re: Ehran's Speech - as requested
Date: Wed, 23 Jul 1997 12:16:52 +0100
|
||> importantly, Mayan calendars all show the direct influence of Atlantian
||> culture.
||
||Hmmm.... Anyone happen to know if the writer is pulling that last little
||factoid out of his bum?
|
|Perhaps Ehran IS a Theran.... Thera == Atlantis....

You know.... It only just struck me......

ehran
|
/
|
Theran

Did anyone else notice that? It'd certainly explain why Harly hates him so
much.....
--
______________________________________________________________________________
|u5a77@*****.cs.keele.ac.uk| "Are you pondering what I'm pondering Pinky?" |
|Andrew Halliwell | |
|Principal subjects in:- | "I think so brain, but this time, you control |
|Comp Sci & Electronics | the Encounter suit, and I'll do the voice..." |
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
|GCv3.1 GCS/EL>$ d---(dpu) s+/- a- C++ U N++ o+ K- w-- M+/++ PS+++ PE- Y t+ |
|5++ X+/++ R+ tv+ b+ D G e>PhD h/h+ !r! !y-|I can't say F**K either now! :( |
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Message no. 10
From: Mike Goldberg <michael.goldberg@*******.COM>
Subject: Re[2]: Ehran's Speech - as requested
Date: Wed, 23 Jul 1997 08:01:03 MST
According to the www (don't have the book handy) the ISBN is:
0-812-50864-5

Later,
Mike


______________________________ Reply Separator _________________________________
Subject: Re: Ehran's Speech - as requested
Author: ShadowTk Plot and Administrative Discussion
<PLOTD@********.ITRIBE.NET> at SMTP-PO
Date: 7/22/97 8:31 PM


In article <9706228695.AA869582897@*********.comm.twcable.com>, Mike
Goldberg <michael.goldberg@*******.COM> rambled on endlessly :) about
Ehran's Speech - as requested
> Odd tidbit:
>
> Orion Scott Card presents an interesting view on Atlantis in his book:
> "Pastwatch." While it doesn't fall into FASA cannon, it certainly
> gives food for thought.
>
You wouldn't happen to have the ISBN handy would you Mike?

That would make life a bit eaasier in tracking the book down.


--
__ \ | \ __
| | _` | __| | / _ \ \ / _ \ __ \ _` | _ \ __|
| | ( | | < ___ \ \ / __/ | | ( | __/ |
____/ \__,_|_| _|\_\ _/ _\ \_/ \___|_| _|\__, |\___|_|
A Dark Shadow in a Dark World |___/
Web page at: http://www.shalako.demon.co.uk
Message no. 11
From: Jeffrey Mach <mach@****.CALTECH.EDU>
Subject: Re: Ehran's Speech - as requested
Date: Wed, 23 Jul 1997 10:43:38 -0700
On Wed, 23 Jul 1997, Avenger wrote:

> >Or else, will we say that that happens to be a
> >little artifact of the ShadowRun universe's Earth.
>
> That wouldbe a better way to look at it. FASA have taken some liberty
> with earth/human development and have used some artistic licence in
> hteir timelines. It makes life easier for them, rather than having to
> check times, facts, ages and other data which is horribly time consuming
> as I'm sure you are aware. Make it up as you go, keep it within the
> bounds of reality and hey presto, instant history. :)

I guess I can agree with that (other than the "bounds of reality" bit ^_^)
on the whole. It is a fantasy setting so taking a few libralities with
the past probably shouldn't bother me, other than how they reflect on the
ShadowRun future.

> >forms), the zigarats of the Indus valey, and the pyramids of Central
> >America having a similar shape can be relatively easily explained by the
> >fact that if you are building with unmortared stone, you cannot build
> >something that tall without using a pyramidal shape.
>
> The shapes of buildings, as you state can be reasonably explained using
> logic, but there are certain discrepencies that still can't. Drill
> marks in stone, that modern tools couldn't replicate, auger marks that
> use high speed drills rather than the manual bits they should have been
> using, astronomical knowledge that is surprisingly similar in its format
> and reverence, ie. the fascination with Orion and a couple of the
> planets. Other things like mathematics and calendars, civilisations can
> develop in parallel, but shouldn't logically have the great similarities
> that earthen ones seem to follow. If you take some of this Danikenesque
> thought into consideration, it's possible to explain a lot of things
> just by making some jumps in logic. I would suggest that all FASA did,
> was to make this jump in logic so that they could concentrate on
> creating a game world rather than getting bogged down in factual world
> creation.

Well some of those have already been explained or are in the process of
being explained. Unfortunately, the case is always that archaeolgists are
left to explain the past with what little evidence remains. The rest just
has to be extrapolated from what we know now, so of course there will
remain many mysteries. Kind of like investigating a hundred year old
crime. The fascination with Orion seems pretty reasonable. It is one of,
if not _the_ most easily recognized constilations, and is to all accounts
vaguely in the shape of a man. Combine that with most early cultures
desire to make sure they plant crops etc at the right time and the
reliance on the position of recognizable stars and planets to tell them
when to do so makes sense.

Daniken is the guy who smudged up a painting from a Mayan burial chamber,
took a poor photograph of it, and then tried to say it was a picture of a
man in a spaceship. The book he wrote, _Chariots of the Gods_ is
recognized among archaeological circles as one of the worst cases of gross
misrepresentation and charlatanism that have been seen. The only thing I
will agree with him is that the Nasca plain drawings, some hundreds of
meters long, but having lines nearly perfectly straight are quite amazing
feats, given when they were constructed, but I disagree, from what I have
seen of recreation efforts that the task would have been impossible. And,
unlike the UFO landing strips that he saw, most people recognize the
shapes as being creatures from their mythos, drawn so large that their sky
god(s) could appreciate it, even if the people could not. But then cases
of people working hard and toiling for perfection for the sake of their
God(s) abound throughout history.

But I guess that if FASA wants to claim these things to be the wonders of
Atlantean art and science, I guess I have no right to disagree with them,
as long as they are talking about their world.

> It certainly can. but the truly incredible thing is that the calendar
> mentioned is unbelievably accurate. I forget the tolerance off hand, but
> beieve me, its quite staggering, especially for a stone age race.

A stone age race that lived and died by its crops and had several hundred
years to study the stars, which happen to run with either truely
staggering precision, or simple eliptical orbits, depending on how you
look at it. A lot of these things are a matter of perspective.

I'd write more, but Justin F. seems to have taken the words out of my
mouth on this.

> <snip>
> >Ages, Imperial China, etc.) and got us to where we are today. I guess
> >what I am getting at was that if the third age (supposedly EarthDawn) was
> >from circa 8300 BC to 8/12/3113 BC there must have been a hell of a
> >stagnation or loss of technology at the mana-cycle change for them to
> >assume the rest of the ShadowRun world's development mirrored our own.
>
> Yep, I'd agree with you here. This is part of the reason why I['ve had
> to rewrite some of the history of Shadowrun for my RL game, but in most
> circumstances this sort of thing can be safely ignored with impunity.
> The rumours of previous "ages" exist in certain circles of thought
> today, so it may be that there was a glorious age of mankind before this
> one, one that self destructed at a certain level of
> technology/knowledge. Mother nature gave up for a while and played with
> Dinosaurs, then decided OK we'll get back to mankind now. Maybe after
> crawling around in gloop for a few millenia has taught them a lesson and
> they'll get it right this time... <g>

??? Humanity _before_ the dinos? I think I'll leave that as a mostly
self-evident "Not bloody likely." And as Justin F. pointed out: If there
was a previous high-tech civilization that was anywhere near as successful
as ours, where's the remnants?

> Which would help to explain the problem that has recently occured with
> Darwin's theory. especially regarding the deescendants of man, where
> there is now a "we weren't descended from cavemen" thing happening after
> DNA results from a Neanderthal man taken by German scientists.

Justin covered this. There was some talk that the reason you have big
brutish looking humans around (Celtic heritage, etc) was that the H.
Sapiens Sapiens that were concurrent interbred the H. Sapiens Neandertalis
out of existance, but new DNA evidence suggests that our ancestors simply
wiped them out with their superior technology, skills, and numbers despite
a physical disadvantage. In other words, the stone age version of the
Trail of Tears.

Although Justin does have an interesting point. Given FASA's already
skewed world view, they might just see H. S. Neandertalis as de-manified
remains of orks.

> I personally go for the "We came from Mars as the sun cooled and Mars
> died. Earth would have been just about perfect around the time of the
> final days of Mars, which in my opinion may have been earthlike in the
> past. Which is helped a tad by FASA's non-commital remarks regarding
> the red planet, and those rather silly photogs.

In that case I'd rather go for the "We were originally one species, only
female (genetically plausable, you know), but that another alien species
that we were fighting decided to end the war by designing a genetic
crossbreed, the male, that would propagate and unite the two species into
one, but that prototype male, and one female were forced to crash-land on
earth and became our ancestors." (This is a quite obscure reference. My
kudos and apologies to those that recognize it.) However fond I am, it is
still ridiculously implausible, given the fossil record.

> >Also, given human population growth, there must have either been an
> >amazing loss of life,
>
> Flood, plague, take your pick, the bible has several, legend in many
> nations/civilisations also have several "global disaster" theories, so
> it's possible

Hmmm. Jaime N. brought up a valid point regarding FASA and the Horrors.
I guess so, if those buggers are supposed to be so Bad (with a capital
"B"). But then how was Harliquin supposed to hold them off for three
millenia again? The other question, more a matter off ecology, if they
feed off human suffering, wouldn't they want to encourage there being
_more_ humans (the more the merrier and all?)

If anyone has the FASA answer to the first queston and not an
anti-Harli-the-munchkin-elf rant, I'd like to hear it.

As for the multi-cultural "great flood" theories. I have heard two
interesting theories. One, the simplistic theory: there are floods all
around the world all the time and they are always a pretty nasty way to
go, so it kind of gets engrained on the psyche and makes a useful plot
point for a story of the vengence of God(s). In fact, if India didn't
have a great flood story in their mythos, I'd be highly surprised (see the
near yearly Bangladesh flood that kills thousands). The other is somewhat
unique. The Mediterranean Sea hasn't always been there. Some point,
within the last 2 millon years, and hence after the dawn of man, the
Atlantic tipped over the edge of the Gibraltar range into the
Mediterranian valley which had sunk below sea level. That would have been
one mondo serious flood. Given that early man was in the area at the
time, you'd think that much water would leave a lasting impression on the
survivors and be passed down through the ages.

> That's a good question. There's been a conversation on Shadowrn
> regarding what happens to the races and what have you when mana drops
> below a sustainable level. So far the general consensus is that the
> races simply die out, and humankind continues, waiting for the cycle to
> renew and release the trapped genetic data.

Speculation on ShadowRun, I thought was that many, but not all die. Much
like the Goblinization which killed many during their transformation, many
could not survive the "de-Goblinization" and died. Which leads to another
question: Given that plain-old mundane humans have a greater chance to
survive both of these, it makes sense that the meta-human population at
the end of the 3rd age would by necessity be a lot greater of a percentage
than it would be at the begining of the 5th. However, given their lack of
consideration of what five millenia of interbreeding would do to genetic
stock, I may be the first person to wonder about this.

> >And what exactly was goin on in the
> >first or second world for that matter?
>
> That, so far is unkown. it depends if you follow the theory that when a
> civilisation finally collapses, all of the survivors of that
> civilisation return to barbarism. The Mayan indians are an example,
> wher they lost the knowledge and teachings of their ancestors, yet kept
> the language. They exist quite happily on the Yucutan, but possess none
> of the assumed qualities, teachings and knowledge of their ancestors. In
> a way the same can be applied to the Roman, Babylonian, Greek and
> Egyptian civilisations, they decayed and lost all their knowledge.

Well, like Justin said with a lot more words: No. From archaeological
evidence, it seems that the Mayans grew way too big for their
infrastructure to support. So to avoid starving to death or catching
something in the plague ridden cities with no sanitation, the people
basically walked off into the forest to fend for themselves and left their
bureacrats and religious who held the reins on their science and
technology to starve or rot.

As for the Mediterranean civilizations you mention, they may have decayed,
but they were swept away by an invading force before they died of old age,
and their knowledge was by no means lost. The Greeks took over the
Egyptians (hence the Ptolemaic pharohs and Alexandria) and learned from
them. The Romans took over the Greeks and Egytians, (hence Greek
gods==Roman gods as well as Julius Caesar and Cleopatra [who from her
Greek heritage may have acutally looked vaguely like Elizabeth Taylor =)
and later Mark Antony]. Then the Roman empire bloated and became content
with its own decadence until it was chewed upon and torn apart by
Byzantium, the Moors and Muslims, the various barbarian tribes, etc. All
of which held onto what they gained, even if some of them chose to not
develop from where they were (the Dark Ages of Europe). But not all were
so unwise. Much of the fabled Moorish magic was simply technology held
onto or advanced beyond from what the Muslims gained with the taking of
the Eastern Roman Empire (Byzantium), like the trebuchet and knowledge of
medicine.

> The fact that we haven't found anything of any note from a massive "age"
> of knowledge - whether technological or otherwise is not really
> surprising, as we've hardly even scratched the surface of this planet,
> and only just recently broken out of our own atmosphere to begin
> stumbling around in the solar system.

Humanity has this strange tendency of being sensible when taken in large
enough groups. Most of the time we tend to build cities where the it
makes the most sense (L.A. and Los Vegas seem to be exceptions to this...
:) ) and humans also tend to have an insatiable curiosity about our own
past and natural resources, so we have in many places, and at many times,
have scratched the surface of the planet looking for something from the
past, or something good to make something out of. And seem to have a
pretty good idea of where to look.

I am a firm believer in Occam's Razor. Should I believe a steady, logical
progression from the past to the present? Or should I believe in a
fabulously advanced culture of which there is no evidence yet, that
somehow disappeared without a trace and made no other effect on the world
that cannot be explained some other way? I guess I'm one of those
confused humans that is limited by his devout belief in not believing.

> Who knows, maybe we _are_ the lost tenth tribe or something.

As much as I like Glen Larson or Dykstra, I sincerely doubt it.

> If you follow the immortal theme, and use just a tiny bit of "fantasy"
> assumption, then it can be assumed that immortality brings a high price
> with it. A lack of ability to produce children rapidly, (in comparisonm
> humans breed like rabbits - remember FASA's reference to humans as
> "breeders") Also, after millenia of life, I guess the urge to get laid
> on a regular basis dies out with time. After all ther are a finite
> number of things one can get up to when it comes to sex, and over
> thousands of years, it likely to get boring, especially where there are
> more important things to do, like banishing horrors, growing spikes and
> saving the world singlehandedly. :)

Harumph. The above comments only suggest that you lack imagination. :P
The changeling character that I mentioned a while ago might have something
to say about this, but since she is only a figment of my imagination, I
will have to let the matter go. -_0

> "How did they do that, and what was their fascintation with **insert
> subject** It couldn't possibly have been done with technology available
> to them in their time, we can't replicate it with our technology...."
> etc etc.

Read _Motel of the Mysteries_ if you want a hilarious account of just what
that might be like. Their excuse for not finding us earlier is that our
civilization was buried under a layer of junk-mail or something like that.

Then, I have more of a doubt on the last statement. One thing that humans
have become, as of late, are meticulous record keepers. While I doubt all
of it, like the ShadowTk web-page, will survive the next five millenia, a
lot will. And with the advance of technology, I doubt that we will able
to do something that they cannot (other than watch vacuuous American TV
without vomiting), but if enough clues are lost, they may be surprised
that we could do something that they _could_, but without their level of
technology, as is the case in some puzzles of current archaeology. EX.
"My God! Look at how many breeds of dog they had! The variant shapes and
sizes, all in one species. And they did this without a Genotronic
Recombinator? Incredible!" When it wouldn't occur to them that it took
thousands of years of selective breeding to come up with the Great Dane
and the Shitzu, because they were used to doing something like that in
minutes and underestimate the bizarre fancies of man lasting for so long.

> This is something that cropped up in one of my game sessions, and one
> bright person decided to perk up with

> "Yes, he does. He came from a time of high magic, he knows only too
> well what will come.

I don't believe I will dignify that with a remark. :P

> As magic becomes more and more powerful, and more things can be achieved
> by magic - like building the incredible cities that Earthdawn had, and
> all the things that come with that, technology is going to take a
> backseat, and maybe fade out all together (unlikely but...) This would
> then result in 5,000 years time a civilisation totally dependant on
> magic, that suddenly loses it again,a nd returns to the way things were
> 5,000 years in _our_ past. Where mankind starts again. Magic is a
> cycle, it comes and goes, who's to say that the intention isn't that
> technology also comes and goes. What is technology, other than a
> replacement for magic?

Again, I have to concur with Justin on this. Other than breaking the laws
of phyics, there are some things technology is good at that magic isn't.
Currently. But then I've always been the one to say that I think that man
will be able to get around the light-speed barrier for the simple reason
that humanity has lawyers, and if that is good for anything, then it means
that we can find a loophole.

Who knows, ShadowRun 2558 might have ManaEngines and Wyrding Modules? And
if we already have cosmologists looking into a way to create another
universe as a lifeboat if ours happens to go into the Big Crunch,
something tells me that some of the best minds will go into preventing the
mana-cycle from ending.

> Yes mankind has achieved things that in many ways are miraculous, and if
> you follow the conspiracist theories research technology in certain
> areas of - shall we say "hidden research" is ten years ahead of anything
> we see at the moment.

Most research is ten years ahead of anything you see at the moment.
Mostly because it takes ten years to work all the bugs out and get it to
the point where you can call the thing safe and make money off of it. And
then there's Microsoft.

But no, I don't believe in Perpetual Motion machines and the like: the
Water Engine, zero-point energy, etc.

> Ahh, a like minded person. This is one of the things that I have had a
> severe problem with in the FASA world. The complete and illogical
> destruction of vast tracts of land and large portions of thhe world with
> toxic/nuclear "problems"

I could understand some of the nuclear problem if there was some sort of
mini-WW3 nuclear exchange, but there wasn't. I could see third world
nations in an energy crisis demanding that the UN allow them access to
nuclear power, but modern reactor design is safe enough that I can't see a
world of nuclear accidents.

But like you said, this is science fantasy. So what's a guy to do?

--My two yen

Jeff
Message no. 12
From: Avenger <Avenger@*******.DEMON.CO.UK>
Subject: Re: Ehran's Speech - as requested
Date: Thu, 24 Jul 1997 04:18:16 +0100
In article <9706238696.AA869667522@*********.comm.twcable.com>, Mike
Goldberg <michael.goldberg@*******.COM> rambled on about Ehran's Speech
- as requested
> According to the www (don't have the book handy) the ISBN is:
> 0-812-50864-5
>
> Later,
> Mike

Thanks Mike, I'll dig around in the bookshop and beat up their 'pooter
tomorrow.


--
__ \ | \ __
| | _` | __| | / _ \ \ / _ \ __ \ _` | _ \ __|
| | ( | | < ___ \ \ / __/ | | ( | __/ |
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A Dark Shadow in a Dark World |___/
Web page at: http://www.shalako.demon.co.uk
Message no. 13
From: Avenger <Avenger@*******.DEMON.CO.UK>
Subject: Re: Ehran's Speech - as requested
Date: Thu, 24 Jul 1997 04:11:58 +0100
In article <Pine.SGI.3.95.970723001650.29261B-100000@********.ugcs.calte
ch.edu>, Jeffrey Mach <mach@****.CALTECH.EDU> rambled on endlessly about
Ehran's Speech - as requested
>On Wed, 23 Jul 1997, Avenger wrote:
>
>> check times, facts, ages and other data which is horribly time consuming
>> as I'm sure you are aware. Make it up as you go, keep it within the
>> bounds of reality and hey presto, instant history. :)
>
>I guess I can agree with that (other than the "bounds of reality" bit ^_^)
>on the whole.

<grin> OK, maybe it stretches the bounds a teeny bit, well, maybe more
than a teeny bit :)

>It is a fantasy setting so taking a few libralities with
>the past probably shouldn't bother me, other than how they reflect on the
>ShadowRun future.

Unfortunately FASA had a passionate affair with ED and IE for a while
which still has yet to fully work it's way out of the Shadowrun world.
The long term repurcussions, are, if Mike isn't careful, likely to be
rather dramatic. Jak has been touting his Dragon trilogy as revealing
all the things you wanted to know, including explaining the links with
Earthdawn and Dunky. He's been hinting that what he has written is
canon for the FASA universe, which is part of the reason I went so
ballistic a while back. I don't feel that novels can be canon in the
Shadowrun universe. The writers of the London sourcebook contradicted
themselves horribly in the two novels they wrote, and other things
happen that in my opinion shouldn't. :)

However, I can see that things are going to go one of two ways, a denial
of Earthdawn as Shadowrun past, or a complete crossover, that introduces
the ED world in a very solid form as "history". In which case we all
know what that means.

>> just by making some jumps in logic. I would suggest that all FASA did,
>> was to make this jump in logic so that they could concentrate on
>> creating a game world rather than getting bogged down in factual world
>> creation.
>
>Well some of those have already been explained or are in the process of
>being explained. Unfortunately, the case is always that archaeolgists are
>left to explain the past with what little evidence remains.

And more than a little guesswork. After all how many years did they
believe that all dinosaurs were drab grey in colour? And that's just
one rather poor example.

>Daniken is the guy who smudged up a painting from a Mayan burial chamber,
>took a poor photograph of it, and then tried to say it was a picture of a
>man in a spaceship.

He also took a very clear picture of the Tomb of Pacal, the lid of the
coffin shows in intricate detail a man at the controls of a spaceship.
however, if you view it another way, it allows the superimposing of
several of the Mayan scrolls regarding star scapes and suchlike and
happily joins these "maps" into seasonal positions. it also matches, in
some designs the calendar they use. So, whether it is a space ship or
an elaborat storyboard is still a matter of debate depending on which
view you take.

>The book he wrote, _Chariots of the Gods_ is
>recognized among archaeological circles as one of the worst cases of gross
>misrepresentation and charlatanism that have been seen.

And I shall not disagree with that view. i've read the book, and still
laugh at some of the theories he puts forward.

>The only thing I
>will agree with him is that the Nasca plain drawings, some hundreds of
>meters long, but having lines nearly perfectly straight are quite amazing
>feats, given when they were constructed, but I disagree, from what I have
>seen of recreation efforts that the task would have been impossible.

Not impossible, just incredibly difficult. But no more so that than the
construction of the Giza pyramids, or Stonehenge, or any other ancient
thingy.

>And,
>unlike the UFO landing strips that he saw, most people recognize the
>shapes as being creatures from their mythos, drawn so large that their sky
>god(s) could appreciate it, even if the people could not. But then cases
>of people working hard and toiling for perfection for the sake of their
>God(s) abound throughout history.

However, you have to admit, the similarity to an airport, sorry,
spaceport... is quite astounding. <grin>

>But I guess that if FASA wants to claim these things to be the wonders of
>Atlantean art and science, I guess I have no right to disagree with them,
>as long as they are talking about their world.

I don't think that FASA are trying to explain the mysteries of the real
world, just find an easy excuse for their existence in the Shadowrun
world.

>> crawling around in gloop for a few millenia has taught them a lesson and
>> they'll get it right this time... <g>
>
>??? Humanity _before_ the dinos? I think I'll leave that as a mostly
>self-evident "Not bloody likely."

Hence the grin :)

>And as Justin F. pointed out: If there
>was a previous high-tech civilization that was anywhere near as successful
>as ours, where's the remnants?

Ask FASA. ED was not exactly a failure. As far as I can ascertain from
other conversations, it all conveniently crumbled into dust. :( Not
acceptable in my opinion, but who am I to disagree with the masses :)

>a physical disadvantage. In other words, the stone age version of the
>Trail of Tears.
>
>Although Justin does have an interesting point. Given FASA's already
>skewed world view, they might just see H. S. Neandertalis as de-manified
>remains of orks.

Well, juding by some of the things present in their material, it
wouldn't come as any surprise.

>> past. Which is helped a tad by FASA's non-commital remarks regarding
>> the red planet, and those rather silly photogs.
>
<snip interplanetary crossbreeding>
>earth and became our ancestors." (This is a quite obscure reference. My
>kudos and apologies to those that recognize it.) However fond I am, it is
>still ridiculously implausible, given the fossil record.

If you say so. :)

>> Flood, plague, take your pick, the bible has several, legend in many
>> nations/civilisations also have several "global disaster" theories, so
>> it's possible
>
>Hmmm. Jaime N. brought up a valid point regarding FASA and the Horrors.
>I guess so, if those buggers are supposed to be so Bad (with a capital
>"B"). But then how was Harliquin supposed to hold them off for three
>millenia again?

Oh by waving his hands around a little bit, farting dilligently on the
great bridge and doing something meodramatic.

>The other question, more a matter off ecology, if they
>feed off human suffering, wouldn't they want to encourage there being
>_more_ humans (the more the merrier and all?)

That is the sensible view is it not? As Justin said, a parasite is not
likely to kill it's host, unless it is sensible to do so. As you
mention if the horrors feed off pain and suffering, then the more the
better, the greater the feeding. I don't understand it myself, and will
do everything to encourage Mr. Mulvihill to lose this particular ED/SR
linkage. As I've stated many times on the Srn list, the two games
should be and remain as totally seperate game worlds. Same planet if
they must, but different dimensions. Anything, but not the same planet.

>If anyone has the FASA answer to the first queston and not an
>anti-Harli-the-munchkin-elf rant, I'd like to hear it.

I don't think there is an answer as such from FASA. The line developer
at the time of Harly et al, was a fan of Earthdawn, and considered it
"cool" to intermingle the two worlds/games. Mike, the latest line
developer is more anti IE and, according to him won't be exploring the
links any further than they have been done. Whether he slowly works
this linkage out of the game has yet to be seen.

>As for the multi-cultural "great flood" theories. I have heard two
>interesting theories. One, the simplistic theory: there are floods all
>around the world all the time and they are always a pretty nasty way to
>go, so it kind of gets engrained on the psyche and makes a useful plot
>point for a story of the vengence of God(s).

Yes, a flood to a group of people is disastrous in anyone's view. And
it is possible that the "global flood" theory was taken from these
reports and exagerated.

>In fact, if India didn't
>have a great flood story in their mythos, I'd be highly surprised (see the
>near yearly Bangladesh flood that kills thousands). The other is somewhat
>unique. The Mediterranean Sea hasn't always been there. Some point,
>within the last 2 millon years, and hence after the dawn of man, the
>Atlantic tipped over the edge of the Gibraltar range into the
>Mediterranian valley which had sunk below sea level. That would have been
>one mondo serious flood. Given that early man was in the area at the
>time, you'd think that much water would leave a lasting impression on the
>survivors and be passed down through the ages.

I've heard that put forward as an official theory, and in many ways, it
works. It makes a lot of sense. An entire ocean gushing over into the
mediterranean basin must have been catastrophic to the nations that
inhabited the area. And certainly that sort of thing would certainly
have been interpreted as the gods being mightily pissed off.

>> races simply die out, and humankind continues, waiting for the cycle to
>> renew and release the trapped genetic data.
>
>Speculation on ShadowRun, I thought was that many, but not all die. Much
>like the Goblinization which killed many during their transformation, many
>could not survive the "de-Goblinization" and died.

The consencus was that eventually they all died out. Some survived the
process and continued for a short while but started producing human
babies, eventually resulting int he temporary extinction of the race.

>Which leads to another
>question: Given that plain-old mundane humans have a greater chance to
>survive both of these, it makes sense that the meta-human population at
>the end of the 3rd age would by necessity be a lot greater of a percentage
>than it would be at the begining of the 5th. However, given their lack of
>consideration of what five millenia of interbreeding would do to genetic
>stock, I may be the first person to wonder about this.

I cannot even begin to comment on this. There are so many variables
that it's very difficult. I suppose if one follows the Tolkien theory,
then yes elves would be the dominant race, but, as in the Rings series,
they are dying out and fading from the land. (although I seem to recall
in LOR they were actually leaving middle earth for their home lands -
but it equates to the same thing).

>> a way the same can be applied to the Roman, Babylonian, Greek and
>> Egyptian civilisations, they decayed and lost all their knowledge.
>
>Well, like Justin said with a lot more words: No. From archaeological
>evidence, it seems that the Mayans grew way too big for their
>infrastructure to support.

That's the most logical explanation for the entire civilisation dying
out so quickly. But is a little simplistic, though probably very close
to the facts.

>As for the Mediterranean civilizations you mention, they may have decayed,
>but they were swept away by an invading force before they died of old age,
>and their knowledge was by no means lost.

I've already suggested a view on this in answer to Justin's post, so I
won't bore you by repeating it. :)

>> and only just recently broken out of our own atmosphere to begin
>> stumbling around in the solar system.
>
>Humanity has this strange tendency of being sensible when taken in large
>enough groups. Most of the time we tend to build cities where the it
>makes the most sense (L.A. and Los Vegas seem to be exceptions to this...
>:) )

But at the time they were sensible places. Los Angeles is a deep water
port, and useful in that respect for international trade. The fact that
it sits on an earthquake fault wouldn't have been immediately apparent
to the people at the time. And once they did realsie it, most likely
decided "Oh what the heck". mankind can be incredibly stubborn and
optimistic at times.

Las Vegas, well. Whether that's a gold town, or some nutters idea of a
neat place, I'm afraid only the person who built the place could answer.
:)

>and humans also tend to have an insatiable curiosity about our own
>past and natural resources, so we have in many places, and at many times,
>have scratched the surface of the planet looking for something from the
>past, or something good to make something out of. And seem to have a
>pretty good idea of where to look.

Agreed, and as has been evidence over the years, the advent of sattelite
photography has revealed more, including old archaeological sites.

> am a firm believer in Occam's Razor. Should I believe a steady, logical
>progression from the past to the present? Or should I believe in a
>fabulously advanced culture of which there is no evidence yet, that
>somehow disappeared without a trace and made no other effect on the world
>that cannot be explained some other way? I guess I'm one of those
>confused humans that is limited by his devout belief in not believing.

For the sake of clarrification, I personally believe in a steady logical
development. I don't hold with the idea of an advanced pre-
civilisation. it's too difficult a concept to grasp, and even allowing
for the fact that this planet could be concealing some incredible
secrets. We _do_, as you state have a damn good idea of the place.

OK, maybe the ice around the north pole wasn't there before, and a
maritime civilsation existed there. Maybe a civilsation did once
inhabit antarctica, and maybe, just maybe Atlantis did exist and was a
fabulous island containing a race of advanced peoples. Until these
"theories are proven, I'll go with the evolution thing. :)

ED makes to great a jump in logic for me to be involved int he SR world,
no evidence of Parlainth or other fabulous cities has been found, no
evidence of that civilisation has been found, not even a hint of it, at
least FASA haven't actually released an archaeology sourcebook that I'm
aware of to explain what happened, yet anyway.

>> Who knows, maybe we _are_ the lost tenth tribe or something.
>
>As much as I like Glen Larson or Dykstra, I sincerely doubt it.

Me too, but hell. :)

>> thousands of years, it likely to get boring, especially where there are
>> more important things to do, like banishing horrors, growing spikes and
>> saving the world singlehandedly. :)
>
>Harumph. The above comments only suggest that you lack imagination. :P

Thanks a bunch. ;-P

>The changeling character that I mentioned a while ago might have something
>to say about this, but since she is only a figment of my imagination, I
>will have to let the matter go. -_0

Awww.. I could always start the thread in the Stk list if you want.

No don't all scream at once. :)

>Read _Motel of the Mysteries_ if you want a hilarious account of just what
>that might be like. Their excuse for not finding us earlier is that our
>civilization was buried under a layer of junk-mail or something like that.

And that is not entirely unfeasible either. :)

>Then, I have more of a doubt on the last statement. One thing that humans
>have become, as of late, are meticulous record keepers. While I doubt all
>of it, like the ShadowTk web-page, will survive the next five millenia, a
>lot will.

Why not? I keep a dilligent record of the logs, as I'm sure others do.
For curiosity as well as reference. Who's to say that in a couple of
thousand years some bright spark somewhere won't turn up an archive of
this list, and then seriously wonder what we were all smoking :) The one
thing I've discovered in my conversations with people and in ploughing
through literature, is that one can't afford to assume anything. :)

>And with the advance of technology, I doubt that we will able
>to do something that they cannot (other than watch vacuuous American TV
>without vomiting),

or Australian soaps.

<snip>
>thousands of years of selective breeding to come up with the Great Dane
>and the Shitzu, because they were used to doing something like that in
>minutes and underestimate the bizarre fancies of man lasting for so long.

A rather simplistic concept, much like the ones I've put forward. There
are some things that ancient man achieved that are beyond comprehension.
Partially because we can only guess at the types of tools they use, but
also because soem of their achievements are quite staggering in their
sheer scale, if not craftsmanship.

>> "Yes, he does. He came from a time of high magic, he knows only too
>> well what will come.
>
>I don't believe I will dignify that with a remark. :P

<grin> I don't blame you. :)

And I refuse point blank to accept any responsibility for that view
whatsoever. :)

>> technology also comes and goes. What is technology, other than a
>> replacement for magic?
>
>Again, I have to concur with Justin on this. Other than breaking the laws
>of phyics, there are some things technology is good at that magic isn't.

No argument at all from me. It was put forward as a possible view. But
magic's influence on the world is a difficult subject, and may yet, have
some drastic effects on the way mankind develops as a civilisation.

>Currently. But then I've always been the one to say that I think that man
>will be able to get around the light-speed barrier for the simple reason
>that humanity has lawyers, and if that is good for anything, then it means
>that we can find a loophole.

Other theories have been broken, including some well established ones
from people like Einstein, so to state categorically that we'll never
break that particular barrier is to invite ridicule at a later date.

No different to man flying or floating around the world or breathing
underwater, or flying to another planet. All of which at one time or
another were considered impossible.

>Who knows, ShadowRun 2558 might have ManaEngines and Wyrding Modules? And
>if we already have cosmologists looking into a way to create another
>universe as a lifeboat if ours happens to go into the Big Crunch,
>something tells me that some of the best minds will go into preventing the
>mana-cycle from ending.

That's highly likely, but stopping the mana cycle and maintaining a
level of magic would imply tinkering with time itself. Not an easy thing
to do. And I am not going to get into a debate about that, as it will
take up too much time :)

>Most research is ten years ahead of anything you see at the moment.
>Mostly because it takes ten years to work all the bugs out and get it to
>the point where you can call the thing safe and make money off of it. And
>then there's Microsoft.

Ah, and has been speculated many times, was it really their software
that crashed the Matrix. :)

I'm not an MS basher, I'm sorry to say, and usually end up defending
them against rabid people like Spike, but I have to agree, their way of
doing things is "entertaining" to say the least.

>But no, I don't believe in Perpetual Motion machines and the like: the
>Water Engine, zero-point energy, etc.

I must admit to some curioisty on the definition of perpetual motion.
In some schools of thought everything has a beginning and an end, even
time, in others there is infinity. So surely infinity itself is a form
of perpetual motion, seeing as things are always moving within it. That
being the case, then perpetual motion machines are a matter of
interpretation and once theorised are possible to construct. For what
ever purpose they could be used for. Highly unlikely, but no more so
that some of the other things we have achieved.

I mean who would have thought we would have discovered atomic power by
splitting the beer atom

(And for those that understand that reference - I apologise profusely)
<grin>

>> destruction of vast tracts of land and large portions of thhe world with
>> toxic/nuclear "problems"
>
>I could understand some of the nuclear problem if there was some sort of
>mini-WW3 nuclear exchange, but there wasn't. I could see third world
>nations in an energy crisis demanding that the UN allow them access to
>nuclear power, but modern reactor design is safe enough that I can't see a
>world of nuclear accidents.

The same applies to the massive toxic zones. Though we do have problems
disposing of toxic materials today, well, not problems exactly, we're
disposing of them with modern technology that is not guaranteed to
outlast the toxicity of the contents. But even so, the scale of
Shadowrun "accidents" is staggering. Far beyond logical belief.

>But like you said, this is science fantasy. So what's a guy to do?

Two things I guess. Deal with it, or change it.


--
__ \ | \ __
| | _` | __| | / _ \ \ / _ \ __ \ _` | _ \ __|
| | ( | | < ___ \ \ / __/ | | ( | __/ |
____/ \__,_|_| _|\_\ _/ _\ \_/ \___|_| _|\__, |\___|_|
A Dark Shadow in a Dark World |___/
Web page at: http://www.shalako.demon.co.uk
Message no. 14
From: Avenger <Avenger@*******.DEMON.CO.UK>
Subject: Re: Ehran's Speech - as requested
Date: Thu, 24 Jul 1997 03:23:17 +0100
In article <199707230721.AAA29807@***********.ugcs.caltech.edu>, Justin
Fang <justinf@****.CALTECH.EDU> rambled about Ehran's Speech - as
requested
>Avenger wrote:
>
>>planets. Other things like mathematics and calendars, civilisations can
>>develop in parallel, but shouldn't logically have the great similarities
>>that earthen ones seem to follow.
>
>Er, "shouldn't logically have the great similarities"? All those calenders
are
>trying to measure the same thing, after all,

The calendars are trying to measure the same thing in the interpretation
of the people doing the measuring. The Chinese year still exists, but
is different from the western year, the Mayan measurement of time is
again different from that. Although yes, you are right they measure the
same thing, they do it in different ways. But I digress. Discoveries
are strange things, and I still find it interesting, even for the logic
of the argument that so many things develop in parallel.

>>If you take some of this Danikenesque
>>thought into consideration, it's possible to explain a lot of things
>>just by making some jumps in logic.
>
>Oops, you've triggered a pet peeve of mine, which is the attitude (I'm not
>accusing *you* of holding it!)

Thankyou. Although the views of people like Robert Bauval contain a
great deal of sense and he has obviously gone out of his way to research
the subject using "knowledgable people, Daniken really gets up my nose.
:)

>that because ancient people were able to do
>[nifty thing x] they must necessarily have had help from Atlanteans, or
>aliens, or spirits, or whatever. I think these people greatly underestimate
>human ingenuity and cleverness.

Agreed, but then, who's to say they didn't have such help. Without
actually being there, we are never really going to know. OK, common
sense and logic dictates that it is incredibly unlikely, but, not
totally beyond all reason.

>>Which would help to explain the problem that has recently occured with
>>Darwin's theory. especially regarding the deescendants of man, where
>>there is now a "we weren't descended from cavemen" thing happening after
>>DNA results from a Neanderthal man taken by German scientists.
>
>Nitpick: what problems? You're misinterpreting the research you're talking
>about.

Possibly, I only caught a quick blast of it on the news, but as far as I
was aware, mankind supposedly followed an evolutionary path, and we
haven't found anything that links mankind to anything of any sense.
Logically, there must have been something that we evolved from "if" you
follow the theory of evolution, if not, then we just suddenly happened.
Which seems a little strange, does it not?

>It's been known for a while that Neanderthals (H. sapiens neanderthal)
>existed at the same time as "anatomically modern" humans (H. sapiens
>sapiens). What wasn't known was whether the two varieties of humans interbred.
>The new results seem to show that they did not, implying that our ancestors
>eventually displaced or wiped out the Neanderthals. Both types of human
>lived in caves (where there were caves), BTW.

OK, but where did HSS come from? Where did mankind originate from and
from what did we evolve? I find it hard to follow the "creation"
theory. Refugees from another planet is more acceptable.

>Random speculation: Neanderthals = orcs? Just because the elves are the
>longest lived variety doesn't mean they were the first... But I don't think
>that really works.

Not really. But then, there is much in fantasy and science fiction that
doesn't work.

>>past. Which is helped a tad by FASA's non-commital remarks regarding
>>the red planet, and those rather silly photogs.
>
>Main problem with that is that Mars has been too cold for humans since long
>before humans existed.

Before humans existed on this planet? Maybe, but it's possible we
emigrated. One never knows you know.

>>>Also, given human population growth, there must have either been an
>>>amazing loss of life,
>
>>Flood, plague, take your pick, the bible has several, legend in many
>>nations/civilisations also have several "global disaster" theories, so
>>it's possible
>
>My question is, where did all the stuff they made go? All those stone
>buildings and metal tools and pottery and stuff? Are we supposed to assume it
>was all somehow magical and crumbled to dust when the mana went away?

That's something I argued about a while back on the Shadowrn list, and I
was finally outnumbered by the number of people who believe exactly
that. Yes the cities, artefacts and other devices all crumbled into
convenient dust and blewe away in the wind. One other argument is that
some of the stuff is buried under the deserts and things in that area of
the world.

>>a way the same can be applied to the Roman, Babylonian, Greek and
>>Egyptian civilisations, they decayed and lost all their knowledge.
>
>Well, but they didn't.

In many ways yes they did. Greek/Roman architecture was lost for some
time, as was the Roman methods of road building, After the civilisation
collapsed, amny of the skills were lost, although some were kept as a
matter of record, you have to remember that Christianity went a long way
to keeping the people ignorant, and preventing these skills from
continuing.

>The Romans picked up a lot of stuff from the Greeks,
>and a lot of the Roman stuff was preserved,

Roman stuff being preserved is a bit different to keeping the knowledge
and skills of that nation. We have a large number of ancient things
that are preserved, but the essential skills for their construction were
lost a _long_ time ago.

I've been using examples from the better known civilisations, but there
are many others. For example, (though I forget the name off-hand) a
Pirate base in South America constructed of tubular rock, taken from a
quarry many miles away, even with todays technology it is difficult to
cut the rock and transport it to the location it is found, in the time
of the builders it must have been a gargantuan task, yet there is no
record of how they did it. That knowledge is lost. Stonehenge, etc
etc.. There are so many examples.

>even in Dark Ages Europe, and by
>Byzantines and the Arabs, the upshot being that quite a lot of it is sitting
>around in our libaries today.

A lot is sitting around in our libraries, through the dilligent research
of scientists and archaeologists, some of it has been surrendered by the
church and returned to those it belongs to - the people. But even with
the wealth of information we have, there is so much we don't know.

>>of knowledge - whether technological or otherwise is not really
>>surprising, as we've hardly even scratched the surface of this planet,
>
>Um, while there's hefty chunks of the planet that we haven't done much with,
>I'd say we've done much more than "hardly even scratched the surface".

Not really. We've dug around in Egypt turning over ancient graves, the
US, South America, Australia, Africa.. etc. Yes mankind has been
dilligently scratching away at his past, but we have in all fairness
only scratched the surface. We are still finding new artefacts, new
creatures new constructions, new things that hadn't been found before.
We have not extensively researched the surface of this planet, it's well
mapped, observed studied, but what secrets it still holds, is anybody's
guess.

>>>Ehem...the intervening time...THAT'S OVER 5000 YEARS AWAY!!!!!
>
>>To an immortal, one who has lived for many thousands of years, 5,000
>>might be a very short time, whereas we are short lived and view it as a
>>long time.
>
>Look at that again. Unless Ehran is a relic of the 2nd age, he's only 5000 to
>10000 years old himself, so another 5000 years is at least half his life.
>Is 40 years "a very short time" to an 80-year-old human?

In all fairness, and I don't want to argue with you, because in nearly
everything I agree. But we don't know how old Ehran is, or his fellows.
There is a suggestion that immortality was "discovered" (whatever)
during ED. But that hasn't - as far as I know - been confirmed. So
Ehran and his kind could be older. Note I say "could be". :)

>>This is something that cropped up in one of my game sessions, and one
>>bright person decided to perk up with
>
>>"Yes, he does. He came from a time of high magic, he knows only too
>>well what will come.
>
>No, he can't. There can't ever have been a high-technological civilization
>similar to our own on this planet.

Not a high technology one no, I have to agree with you, unless they
utilised a completely different way of doing things, of course, evidence
of this technological civilisation may well be hidden beneath the last
frontier - the oceans. Who the heck knows. :)

>(Well, at least not within the last 10
>million years or so.) We would have noticed the depletion of fossil fuels
>and metal ores, the remnants of cities (aluminum and some plastics can stick
>around for 10000 years easily), the enviromental degredation and mass
>extinctions, the list goes on and on.

That is the logical argument, yes, and I have no problem at all agreeing
with you, but we are talking about high fantasy here. :)

Take the civilisation of Earthdawn. Why is that - if it existed in the
Shadowrun universe, that _no_ evidence has yet been found over the
intervening 5,000 years of it's existence. This is not sensible, and
was the main reason I had such a problem accepting it in the first
place, and the reason for several arguments on Srn. However, there is
no evidence, in all the exploration of man, none. At least none that
FASA has seen fit to reveal yet.

But it did exist (supposedly). If so, it used massive amounts of rock
and stone to build cities like Parlainth etc. Which means evidence of
quarried rock must exist somewhere, as well as traces of the cities
themselves. In all the discoveries man has made there has been no
evidence of this previous civilisation, except for the hints in the
books about "survivors".

So, in effect everything you mention has occured, we've just been to
stupid thusfar to have noticed it. :)

>>As magic becomes more and more powerful, and more things can be achieved
>>by magic - like building the incredible cities that Earthdawn had, and
>>all the things that come with that, technology is going to take a
>>backseat, and maybe fade out all together (unlikely but...) This would
>
>Well, except that technological development goes a lot faster than magical
>development.

No argument here, yes they do. Magic takes hundreds of years to come
into it's own, and takes hundreds more to fade. Technology, if we use
current rates of development would outpace magic to a ludicrous degree
until technology can reproduce pretty much anything magic can do, and
then some. Yet, that isn't the way ED developed. That civilisation,
although capable of building incredible cities, was magic dependant. I
can't even begin to speculate how FASA see this interaction of magic and
technology, and whether they ever intend to allow magic and technology
to combine in one person without penalty, which would be a long term
logical step, especially if as the mana level grows more and more people
become magically aware. But, it would also stunt the growth of
technology to a certain extent.

FASA haven't produced a coherent accounting of mankinds space
development beyond a couple of "orbitals". Yet we make steps in ability
and technological achievement in space flight every year. OK, there was
a crash and technological breakdown, aside from research into cyberware
etc. If millions of dollars were poured into that, then why not space
as well? Aside from the fact that users of magic are unable to use
their skills in space without a biosphere. Magic itself lays down
limitations on what can be achieved, so it seems relatively logical to
suppose it would place constraints upon technological advancements.
Maybe not to the extreme measures that my player suggested, but it is a
difficult subject to speculate upon.

>It isn't constrained by the mana available at that point in the
>cycle. Now, if you develop magic first, then there's not much reason to bother
>with the early, difficult stages of science and technology. And then you get
>caught by the trap described below, which presumably caught the previous
>civilizations.

Presumably, yet there technological abilities were quite astounding.
yes magic played a great part in the building of cities, but still stone
masons, metal workers and carpenters were extremely skilled and
accomplished people, indicating that there was some technological base.

>>For instance, wired reflexes.. merely imitates something that can be
>>achieved by magic... etc."
>
>There's a few crucial differences between magic and technology, though.

Yes. The above example was over simplified, but is relatively logical
in its concept.

>For
>starters, you can mass-produce technology. Magic (at least at the Earthdawn
>level) is cruciually dependent on the individual doing the magic.

Yes.

>derived entities) with godlike power. Who is to say that at that point it
>won't be possible to control the mana cycles themselves? But this is
>speculating pretty far afield from anything usable in an RPG...

Now we get into the realms of pure speculation, and as you state later,
it's just not possible to imagine what is possible in a couple of
thousand years time.

Civilisation as we know it, is collapsing today, it has been decaying
for a while now, and sometime in the future will completely crumble - as
we know it. What it will trasnform into nobody can know. Mankind as
godlike beings? Hell, anything is possible isn't it? After all, once
upon a time people were burned at the stake for believing the world was
round.

>>areas of - shall we say "hidden research" is ten years ahead of anything
>>we see at the moment.
>
>Yeah, well, I think those theories are complete bunk from people who have no
>idea how technological research actually works.

Not entirely. We have situations where research is beyond present
utility. For example take the difference between the SR71 and Lokheed
F-117. Massive differences in technology and application. Yet each one
was developed ahead of utilised civilian equipment. Who knows what the
various laboratories/research palnts around the world have locked in the
vaults. I can quite happily accept that what we see is ten years behind
what they are working on. Not in all walks of life and technology, no.
But certainly in some areas.

>>Destroying this planet, wrecking economies and ecologies in their rabid
>>serach for power is not logical not sensible. If they destory the
>>resources they need to survive they are destroying their own existence.
>
>From one perspective, you could see the megacorps as "meta-organisms"
>which are symbiotes/parasites on humanity. What happens to one of those
>that kills all its hosts? It goes extinct.

Agreed. And on that note. :)


--
__ \ | \ __
| | _` | __| | / _ \ \ / _ \ __ \ _` | _ \ __|
| | ( | | < ___ \ \ / __/ | | ( | __/ |
____/ \__,_|_| _|\_\ _/ _\ \_/ \___|_| _|\__, |\___|_|
A Dark Shadow in a Dark World |___/
Web page at: http://www.shalako.demon.co.uk
Message no. 15
From: "Mark L. Neidengard" <mneideng@****.CALTECH.EDU>
Subject: Re: Ehran's Speech - as requested
Date: Wed, 23 Jul 1997 21:44:36 -0700
According to Avenger:
>In article <199707230721.AAA29807@***********.ugcs.caltech.edu>, Justin
>Fang <justinf@****.CALTECH.EDU> rambled about Ehran's Speech - as
>requested
>>Avenger wrote:
>>
>>that because ancient people were able to do
>>[nifty thing x] they must necessarily have had help from Atlanteans, or
>>aliens, or spirits, or whatever. I think these people greatly underestimate
>>human ingenuity and cleverness.
>
>Agreed, but then, who's to say they didn't have such help. Without
>actually being there, we are never really going to know. OK, common
>sense and logic dictates that it is incredibly unlikely, but, not
>totally beyond all reason.

Occam could say so. =) If FASA really wants to claim that aliens/Atlanteans/
Horrors/Munchkin Imoortal Elves(tm) helped all these ancient peoples build
pyramids, raise obelisks, fit stones without mortar, and all that stuff we
can't really stop them, but is it _really_ necessary to stick all that into
a _cyberpunk_ game?

>>It's been known for a while that Neanderthals (H. sapiens neanderthal)
>>existed at the same time as "anatomically modern" humans (H. sapiens
>>sapiens). What wasn't known was whether the two varieties of humans interbred.
>>The new results seem to show that they did not, implying that our ancestors
>>eventually displaced or wiped out the Neanderthals. Both types of human
>>lived in caves (where there were caves), BTW.
>
>OK, but where did HSS come from? Where did mankind originate from and
>from what did we evolve? I find it hard to follow the "creation"
>theory. Refugees from another planet is more acceptable.

Say what? Homo sapiens sapiens _presumably_ (if evolution is correct) evolved
out of some lower-order hominid. Nature had a long time to experiment with
the genetics...

>>Main problem with that is that Mars has been too cold for humans since long
>>before humans existed.
>
>Before humans existed on this planet? Maybe, but it's possible we
>emigrated. One never knows you know.

Where's the evidence? Unless we credit the Horrors with sanitizing
_everything_ (which, given FASA's power inflation of late, might not be _that_
far-fetched in their minds), there should be some sort of record. And, in fact
the Horrors aren't supposed to have killed _everyone_ off, making the existence
of some record more and more likely, if there was one. Plus, anthropologists
seem to have made reasonable headway on tracking down paleolithic remains of
various hominids below humans; if humans came from Somewhere Else, why were
there neanderthals et. al. floating around?

>>>Flood, plague, take your pick, the bible has several, legend in many
>>>nations/civilisations also have several "global disaster" theories,
so
>>>it's possible
>>
>>My question is, where did all the stuff they made go? All those stone
>>buildings and metal tools and pottery and stuff? Are we supposed to assume it
>>was all somehow magical and crumbled to dust when the mana went away?
>
>That's something I argued about a while back on the Shadowrn list, and I
>was finally outnumbered by the number of people who believe exactly
>that. Yes the cities, artefacts and other devices all crumbled into
>convenient dust and blewe away in the wind. One other argument is that
>some of the stuff is buried under the deserts and things in that area of
>the world.

The crumbled into dust theory is singularly uninteresting. Buried under
deserts or sunk to the bottom of the sea isn't necessarily _entirely_
intractable, but space-based SAR imagery is letting us peer deeper into the
desert sands all the time and hasn't found any eldritch societies yet. The
seismologists can presumably tell what parts of the current ocean were once
dry land, and when...

>>>a way the same can be applied to the Roman, Babylonian, Greek and
>>>Egyptian civilisations, they decayed and lost all their knowledge.
>>
>>Well, but they didn't.
>
>In many ways yes they did. Greek/Roman architecture was lost for some
>time, as was the Roman methods of road building, After the civilisation
>collapsed, amny of the skills were lost, although some were kept as a
>matter of record, you have to remember that Christianity went a long way
>to keeping the people ignorant, and preventing these skills from
>continuing.

The evidence (in the form of the roads, the buildings, etc.) was still there,
even if the common people didn't know about it. Given the revival of
archaeology after the Dark Ages these things are all patent. *shrug*

>>The Romans picked up a lot of stuff from the Greeks,
>>and a lot of the Roman stuff was preserved,
>
>Roman stuff being preserved is a bit different to keeping the knowledge
>and skills of that nation. We have a large number of ancient things
>that are preserved, but the essential skills for their construction were
>lost a _long_ time ago.

OTOH, there are all sorts of wacky people at work trying to "rediscover" those
skills, and I can't think of any ancient relic that modern science can't
make using our new tools...

>>even in Dark Ages Europe, and by
>>Byzantines and the Arabs, the upshot being that quite a lot of it is sitting
>>around in our libaries today.
>
>A lot is sitting around in our libraries, through the dilligent research
>of scientists and archaeologists, some of it has been surrendered by the
>church and returned to those it belongs to - the people. But even with
>the wealth of information we have, there is so much we don't know.

That may or may not be true, but I would find it very tenuous to use the
perceived holes in our historical record to insert a whole pre-pre-history...

>>>of knowledge - whether technological or otherwise is not really
>>>surprising, as we've hardly even scratched the surface of this planet,
>>
>>Um, while there's hefty chunks of the planet that we haven't done much with,
>>I'd say we've done much more than "hardly even scratched the surface".
>
>Not really. We've dug around in Egypt turning over ancient graves, the
>US, South America, Australia, Africa.. etc. Yes mankind has been
>dilligently scratching away at his past, but we have in all fairness
>only scratched the surface. We are still finding new artefacts, new
>creatures new constructions, new things that hadn't been found before.

At what rate? I'm under the impression that the golden age of archaeological
finds is already over.

>We have not extensively researched the surface of this planet, it's well
>mapped, observed studied, but what secrets it still holds, is anybody's
>guess.

Wait, wait. You admit that we've mapped, observed, and studied the surface of
the planet, but yet claim we don't know what secrets it holds. Don't you
think that all that scruitiny and observation should have turned up the vast
majority of those secrets by now?

>>(Well, at least not within the last 10
>>million years or so.) We would have noticed the depletion of fossil fuels
>>and metal ores, the remnants of cities (aluminum and some plastics can stick
>>around for 10000 years easily), the enviromental degredation and mass
>>extinctions, the list goes on and on.
>
>That is the logical argument, yes, and I have no problem at all agreeing
>with you, but we are talking about high fantasy here. :)
>
>Take the civilisation of Earthdawn. Why is that - if it existed in the
>Shadowrun universe, that _no_ evidence has yet been found over the
>intervening 5,000 years of it's existence.

Because FASA is _lame_ sometimes? Sorry, but it's the observation that most
directly fits the facts....

>This is not sensible, and
>was the main reason I had such a problem accepting it in the first
>place, and the reason for several arguments on Srn. However, there is
>no evidence, in all the exploration of man, none. At least none that
>FASA has seen fit to reveal yet.

In the final analysis, FASA is a bunch of people writing RPGs and fiction
novels; it regularly evidences ignorance of the finer (and sometimes coarser)
points of the technical fields it bases its worldview on. I consider it a
mark of quality of FASA that the system hasn't _totally_ diverged from reality
as of yet. Nevertheless, if we are to be reduced to "because the FASA canon
says so", I'm afraid I'll have to vote for abandoning that part of the canon
(already been done in some of the tabletop sessions around here).

>But it did exist (supposedly). If so, it used massive amounts of rock
>and stone to build cities like Parlainth etc. Which means evidence of
>quarried rock must exist somewhere, as well as traces of the cities
>themselves. In all the discoveries man has made there has been no
>evidence of this previous civilisation, except for the hints in the
>books about "survivors".
>
>So, in effect everything you mention has occured, we've just been to
>stupid thusfar to have noticed it. :)

Heh...while I'm a firm believer in the lack of enlightenment of the masses,
I'd like to think that as a species humans aren't entire blockheads. =|

>Civilisation as we know it, is collapsing today, it has been decaying
>for a while now, and sometime in the future will completely crumble - as
>we know it. What it will trasnform into nobody can know. Mankind as
>godlike beings? Hell, anything is possible isn't it? After all, once
>upon a time people were burned at the stake for believing the world was
>round.

Inventing religous persecution is a lot easier than reinventing onesself as
a god. Bastard!! has one of the few versions of this that doesn't completely
fail to hold water...
--
/!\/!ark /!\!eidengard, CS Grad, VLSI http://www.cacr.caltech.edu/~mneideng
"Fairy of sleep, controller of illusions" Operator/Jack-of-all-Trades, CACR
"Control the person for my own purpose." "Don't mess with the Dark
Elves!"
-Pirotess, _Record_of_Lodoss_War_ Shadowrunner and Anime Addict
Message no. 16
From: Jeffrey Mach <mach@****.CALTECH.EDU>
Subject: Re: Ehran's Speech - as requested
Date: Thu, 24 Jul 1997 00:23:16 -0700
On Thu, 24 Jul 1997, Avenger wrote:

> In article <Pine.SGI.3.95.970723001650.29261B-100000@********.ugcs.calte
> ch.edu>, Jeffrey Mach <mach@****.CALTECH.EDU> rambled on endlessly about
> Ehran's Speech - as requested
> >On Wed, 23 Jul 1997, Avenger wrote:
> Unfortunately FASA had a passionate affair with ED and IE for a while
> which still has yet to fully work it's way out of the Shadowrun world.
> The long term repurcussions, are, if Mike isn't careful, likely to be
> rather dramatic. Jak has been touting his Dragon trilogy as revealing
> all the things you wanted to know, including explaining the links with
> Earthdawn and Dunky. He's been hinting that what he has written is
> canon for the FASA universe, which is part of the reason I went so
> ballistic a while back. I don't feel that novels can be canon in the
> Shadowrun universe. The writers of the London sourcebook contradicted
> themselves horribly in the two novels they wrote, and other things
> happen that in my opinion shouldn't. :)

Does this Jak have anything to do with FASA? Or is he just a fanboy
blowing smoke? While I disagree with several of FASA's cannon "shape of
things to come," I don't really have room to complain on the list (but
would make changes to a paper and dice RPG.

> >Well some of those have already been explained or are in the process of
> >being explained. Unfortunately, the case is always that archaeolgists are
> >left to explain the past with what little evidence remains.
>
> And more than a little guesswork. After all how many years did they
> believe that all dinosaurs were drab grey in colour? And that's just
> one rather poor example.

Yes, but one of the fine things about the scientific method is that all
theories must be left open to question by new evidence. Although, I have
yet to hear why all dinosaurs weren't drab grey in color? No evidence on
skin color remains. But speculation is now, looking at current reptiles,
is that they weren't. One cannot for sure say until we actually do make a
Jurassic Park.

> >Daniken is the guy who smudged up a painting from a Mayan burial chamber,
> >took a poor photograph of it, and then tried to say it was a picture of a
> >man in a spaceship.
>
> He also took a very clear picture of the Tomb of Pacal, the lid of the
> coffin shows in intricate detail a man at the controls of a spaceship.
> however, if you view it another way, it allows the superimposing of
> several of the Mayan scrolls regarding star scapes and suchlike and
> happily joins these "maps" into seasonal positions. it also matches, in
> some designs the calendar they use. So, whether it is a space ship or
> an elaborat storyboard is still a matter of debate depending on which
> view you take.

Actually the image of the tomb lid is the very picture I was refering to.
His "clear" picture, as it appeared in the book, suffered from a few
additions by the author which obscured some of the artwork which made its
meaning more open to his interpretation and destroyed some of the more
obvious references to the afterlife. The original image is quite clearly
that of the story of Pacal going to meet the gods after his death. Among
other "little" problems with Daniken's interpretation is why is his
astronaut sticking his head _out_ of the spaceship, and why does his chair
look like a sacraficial bowl? But I digress. Pseudoscientists tend to
raise my hackles. While it may be separate from EarthDawn, similar
thinking raises my hackles in a similar way.

> However, you have to admit, the similarity to an airport, sorry,
> spaceport... is quite astounding. <grin>

Actually, I find the similarity of that particular drawing to a stylized
hummingbird, an animal important in those people's mythos, much more
astounding.

> >Speculation on ShadowRun, I thought was that many, but not all die. Much
> >like the Goblinization which killed many during their transformation, many
> >could not survive the "de-Goblinization" and died.
>
> The consencus was that eventually they all died out. Some survived the
> process and continued for a short while but started producing human
> babies, eventually resulting int he temporary extinction of the race.

Transformation doesn't count as death in my book. It is the genetic
heritage that counts for anything, anyway. I was just pointing out that
if all metas died at the turn of the mana-cycle, then there wouldn't be
any genes left to make the next batch of metas in the sixth world.

> >The changeling character that I mentioned a while ago might have something
> >to say about this, but since she is only a figment of my imagination, I
> >will have to let the matter go. -_0
>
> Awww.. I could always start the thread in the Stk list if you want.

Wouldn't be that useful. Currently said changeling lacks matrix acess.
And since she really doesn't know what she is, it might be uninteresting.
On the other hand, a related note is that her former significant other was
killed by his father without too much thought because the father assumed,
as a long lived elf, he could make another. (The man was a right cold
bastard.) On the other hand, I was considering a post regarding some
forensic evidence on a deceased changeling to be found by my aspiring
matrix-jockey when the right questions were asked and the right newyen
passed.

> >Most research is ten years ahead of anything you see at the moment.
> >Mostly because it takes ten years to work all the bugs out and get it to
> >the point where you can call the thing safe and make money off of it. And
> >then there's Microsoft.

> Ah, and has been speculated many times, was it really their software
> that crashed the Matrix. :)

For that, I can only refer you to the opinions of Vernier expressed
several months ago when it came up. The short form is: No way.

The joke was refering to their tendency of releasing products before they
are finished in the interest of making more money through designed
obsolescence and not bothering to catch bugs (that's what version 2.0 on
are for, aren't they?) as well as a severe case of creeping featuritis.
And in general placing profit before product, then making sure nobody can
use anything other than their product.

> >But no, I don't believe in Perpetual Motion machines and the like: the
> >Water Engine, zero-point energy, etc.
>
> I must admit to some curioisty on the definition of perpetual motion.
> In some schools of thought everything has a beginning and an end, even
> time, in others there is infinity. So surely infinity itself is a form
> of perpetual motion, seeing as things are always moving within it. That
> being the case, then perpetual motion machines are a matter of
> interpretation and once theorised are possible to construct. For what
> ever purpose they could be used for. Highly unlikely, but no more so
> that some of the other things we have achieved.

I guess you misunderstand what I mean by a perpetual motion machine.
Perpetual stagnation is easy (toss a rock into deep space). The most
basic definition of a perpetual motion machine is a device or process that
purports to violate any of the three laws of motion. Most of them claim
to produce energy from nowhere or in some other way claim to run in
violation of the second law (Law of increase of entropy). The infamous
water engine supposedly was an internal combustion engine that ran on
water, converting it to hydrogen and oxygen and then burning it.
Unfortunately, the energy required to dissasociate the water is by
necessity the same or larger than the energy acquired by burning it and
using it to do mechanical work. So, in other words, you don't gain
anything, and usually lose something, but that's how the universe works.

And it won't be any time soon before someone can convince me that the laws
of motion have been found to be wrong (no, I already allow for quantum
and/or relativistic corrections).

--My two yen

Jeff
Message no. 17
From: Michael Broadwater <mbroadwa@*******.GLENAYRE.COM>
Subject: Re: Ehran's Speech - as requested
Date: Thu, 24 Jul 1997 10:30:18 -0500
At 12:23 AM 7/24/97 -0700, Jeffrey Mach wrote:
>Does this Jak have anything to do with FASA? Or is he just a fanboy
>blowing smoke?

Jak as in Jak Koke. The guy who wrote _Dead_Air_ and helped with Cal Free.
The one who's writing the "Dragon Heart" Trilogy mentioned in the post.
Not quite a fanboy, and probably privy to a thing or two at FASA :)
Message no. 18
From: Justin Fang <justinf@****.CALTECH.EDU>
Subject: Re: Ehran's Speech - as requested
Date: Thu, 24 Jul 1997 11:53:47 -0700
Mark L. Neidengard wrote:
>According to Avenger:
>>In article <199707230721.AAA29807@***********.ugcs.caltech.edu>, Justin
>>Fang <justinf@****.CALTECH.EDU> rambled about Ehran's Speech - as
>>requested

Mark and Jeff already made most of the points I would, so I'll just add a
comment.

>>OK, but where did HSS come from? Where did mankind originate from and
>>from what did we evolve? I find it hard to follow the "creation"
>>theory. Refugees from another planet is more acceptable.

>Say what? Homo sapiens sapiens _presumably_ (if evolution is correct) evolved
>out of some lower-order hominid. Nature had a long time to experiment with
>the genetics...

To be more specific, Modern H.s.s. comes from "archaic" H.s.s dervives
from Homo erectus; there things get more complicated. There's a lot of
disagreement in the paleoanthropological community about what should go
where on the human family tree, but there's no disagreement that there
*is* one. I'm not going into greater detail unless someone wants it, but
take my word for it that there are a *whole* *bunch* of fossil hominids
out there (H. habilis, Australopithicus africanus, A. afarensis, etc.)

--
Justin Fang (justinf@****.caltech.edu)
This space intentionally left blank.
Message no. 19
From: Jeffrey Mach <mach@****.CALTECH.EDU>
Subject: Re: Ehran's Speech - as requested
Date: Thu, 24 Jul 1997 12:05:15 -0700
On Thu, 24 Jul 1997, Avenger wrote:

> In article <199707230721.AAA29807@***********.ugcs.caltech.edu>, Justin
> Fang <justinf@****.CALTECH.EDU> rambled about Ehran's Speech - as
> requested
> >Avenger wrote:

> Thankyou. Although the views of people like Robert Bauval contain a
> great deal of sense and he has obviously gone out of his way to research
> the subject using "knowledgable people, Daniken really gets up my nose.

Glad we agree on that.

> Possibly, I only caught a quick blast of it on the news, but as far as I
> was aware, mankind supposedly followed an evolutionary path, and we
> haven't found anything that links mankind to anything of any sense.
> Logically, there must have been something that we evolved from "if" you
> follow the theory of evolution, if not, then we just suddenly happened.
> Which seems a little strange, does it not?

I'd suggest a trip to the library and any one of innumerable texts on the
evolution of man. When you finished that first sentence, some
Australopithicine roled over in his grave. There is a fossile trail
that is becoming more complete all the time and is the subject of
considerable study.

> >>a way the same can be applied to the Roman, Babylonian, Greek and
> >>Egyptian civilisations, they decayed and lost all their knowledge.
> >
> >Well, but they didn't.
>
> In many ways yes they did. Greek/Roman architecture was lost for some
> time, as was the Roman methods of road building, After the civilisation
> collapsed, amny of the skills were lost, although some were kept as a
> matter of record, you have to remember that Christianity went a long way
> to keeping the people ignorant, and preventing these skills from
> continuing.

I don't suppose you are familiar with the flying buttress? That little
innovation that allowed cathedrals that dwarfed any temple the Romans
built, based on the concept of the Roman arch. And there is a difference
from knowledge being lost to knowledge not being used.

And, to take offense at a broadly misleading statement, Christianity did
not keep people ignorant. A lot of people did it all by themselves or
were prompted to be so by their secular leadership (an illiterate serf is
a serf that doesn't think too much and cause trouble), and where
Christendom was involved, it was select memebers of the Church hierarchy
that felt threatened by science that seemed to counter things they took as
faith to be true. Fearing doubt among the people that would make them
turn away from the Church, and possibly cast doubt upon other matters of
faith, and as a matter of those men's own power, yes, there was some
repression of science by the Church heirarchy in the Dark Ages of Europe.
To them, the scientific method that requires everything be questioned was
a worrysome threat. While the Dark Ages was unquestionably unfortunate
for the progress of western Europe, to generalize it to say "Christianity
went a long way to keeping the people ignorant" is, I believe, a
misstatement. Was Torqumada an evil person for pursuing The Inquisition?
I have little doubt. Is Christianity, or more particularly the Roman
Catholic Church, evil for having Torqumada be a member of its hierarchy?
That statement is about as valid as saying all Germans throughout time are
evil because they produced Hitler and Nazism. (In other words, no.)

I am always wary of discussing politics or religion among
friends, but I am not one to idly allow my faith to be disparaged
inappropriately. Nor for that matter, anyone else's faith, whether or not
I happen to agree. Let's try to keep this discussion above board, if at
all. With my desire to bring in a character to whom faith is a central
theme, you have caught me at a time where I am unusually sensitive to this
sort of thing.

> >The Romans picked up a lot of stuff from the Greeks,
> >and a lot of the Roman stuff was preserved,
>
> Roman stuff being preserved is a bit different to keeping the knowledge
> and skills of that nation. We have a large number of ancient things
> that are preserved, but the essential skills for their construction were
> lost a _long_ time ago.

On what basis do you make this claim? A roman arch is a roman arch. Its
stucture holds its design. Construction technique is a matter of your
technology level and access to labor. Roman tomes were translated and
taken to Byzantium (a.k.a. Constantinople, a.k.a. Istanbul) and were not
lost. The exact nature of pyramid construction is a matter of some debate
because the Egyptians that built them didn't keep durable records of their
construction. Which is not to say that plausible construction methods
haven't been proposed, nor more research being made. Several other cases
exist, like the ones you mentioned, were the exact hows of certain things
remain a mystery, but none of them have yet to be proven impossible,
especially with current technology. The real question is how did they do
it with what they had.

> A lot is sitting around in our libraries, through the dilligent research
> of scientists and archaeologists, some of it has been surrendered by the
> church and returned to those it belongs to - the people. But even with
> the wealth of information we have, there is so much we don't know.

Er...not to take offense (again) if none was intended, but you do realize
that at the time and place you refer to "the people" were illiterate and
"the church" (or more accurately the clergy, since the church refers also
to the community) happened to be the largest collection of literate
people. The books were not only there, but elsewhere, and I am not so sure
the word "surrendered" fits when you decribe renaisance scholars and
scientists gaining access to what the had been preserved by the Church.
Try not to be too eurocentric in your thinking too, because there was also
a lot happening in the middle and far east at this time.

> Civilisation as we know it, is collapsing today, it has been decaying
> for a while now, and sometime in the future will completely crumble - as
> we know it. What it will trasnform into nobody can know. Mankind as
> godlike beings? Hell, anything is possible isn't it? After all, once
> upon a time people were burned at the stake for believing the world was
> round.

Hate to disagree with you again, especially since we have ventured so far
off the original topic. But I don't feal it is that practical for
civilization to collapse. Evolve, yes, transform, surely. Die? The
reason why civilizations died was that they were taken over by another
civilization or decayed in isolation. With global telecommunications,
isolation is impossible and there seems no sufficiently different to be
declared a wholy new civilization out there that could take over and
eradicate the one we have. There are no Visigoths to come trampling down
our gates. In regards to societal decay bringing an end to civilization,
that was a worry that Aristotle had. Or, to misquote someone else: one
man's decay is another man's progress. And any reversal of such trends is
often seen as puritanical or fundamentalist and equally decried. So, be
careful what you wish for. Or, there's just no pleasing people.

As for man turning into a godlike being? Frankly, my views on God make
that seem highly unlikely to me. And given man's capricious nature,
currently, my best hope for the future is that mankind's power only
proceed apace with his wisdom, which is perhaps unreachable, but a worthy
goal.

(BTW: They were burned at the stake [rarely] for being witches. They
were excommunicated for believing the earth was round or in a heliocentric
system.)

--My two yen

Jeff
Message no. 20
From: Jeffrey Mach <mach@****.CALTECH.EDU>
Subject: Re: Ehran's Speech - as requested
Date: Thu, 24 Jul 1997 12:17:26 -0700
On Thu, 24 Jul 1997, Michael Broadwater wrote:

> At 12:23 AM 7/24/97 -0700, Jeffrey Mach wrote:
> >Does this Jak have anything to do with FASA? Or is he just a fanboy
> >blowing smoke?
>
> Jak as in Jak Koke. The guy who wrote _Dead_Air_ and helped with Cal Free.
> The one who's writing the "Dragon Heart" Trilogy mentioned in the post.
> Not quite a fanboy, and probably privy to a thing or two at FASA :)

Damn...damn...damn. This, as they say, does not bode well.

CalFree was the most hackle raising sourcebook, yet. Especially since I
grew up in California and know its length and bredth intimately. My early
years were spent in Northern California, my undergraduate college years in
Southern California, and for vacations as a child, we would often travel
the length of the state visiting the various cities and attractions. I
have to somehow deal with my pissant home town miraculously turning into a
metroplex. And Mark N. has to worry about the Pirate Kingdoms (now
there's a real stinker of an idea) in his home town. >>Sigh<<

And the man responsible for that wants to monkey with the future of
ShadowRun, turning the stated magical worldview on its ear? I can yell I
don't like it from the rooftops, but what's a guy to do?

--My two yen

Jeff
Message no. 21
From: Michael Broadwater <mbroadwa@*******.GLENAYRE.COM>
Subject: Re: Ehran's Speech - as requested
Date: Thu, 24 Jul 1997 14:36:17 -0500
At 12:17 PM 7/24/97 -0700, Jeffrey Mach wrote:
>On Thu, 24 Jul 1997, Michael Broadwater wrote:
>
>> At 12:23 AM 7/24/97 -0700, Jeffrey Mach wrote:
>> >Does this Jak have anything to do with FASA? Or is he just a fanboy
>> >blowing smoke?
>>
>> Jak as in Jak Koke. The guy who wrote _Dead_Air_ and helped with Cal Free.
>> The one who's writing the "Dragon Heart" Trilogy mentioned in the
post.
>> Not quite a fanboy, and probably privy to a thing or two at FASA :)
>
>Damn...damn...damn. This, as they say, does not bode well.
>
Well, as I said "helped with" not "wrote". Jak gave some ideas for
how the
media world would be, but not a lot of other source stuff. And seeing as
he lives in California, perhaps he has some idea what he was talking about.


Rasputin-the-going-to-GenCon-for-free-magekin
http://www.bcl.net/~rasputin
http://www.blackhand.org/

The dumber people think you are, the more surprised they're going to be
when you kill them. -- William Clayton

Gencon count down: 13 days
Message no. 22
From: Justin Fang <justinf@****.CALTECH.EDU>
Subject: Re: Ehran's Speech - as requested
Date: Thu, 24 Jul 1997 16:18:08 -0700
Just wanted to respond to a couple of points:

Avenger wrote:
>Justin wrote:

>>Main problem with that is that Mars has been too cold for humans since long
>>before humans existed.

>Before humans existed on this planet? Maybe, but it's possible we
>emigrated. One never knows you know.

Yes, before humans existed, period. Estimates I've seen are that Mars has
been inhospitable to humans (no oxygen in air, too cold, etc.) for at
least the last couple of billion years. Now, maybe I'm out of date and
they've revisted their estimate to just a hundred miilion years, but
that's still a very very very long time.

It's not very likely we emigrated (or were moved) from anywhere else,
either. Everything from DNA comparision to biochemistry to anatomical
similarity firmly connects us to all other life on this planet.

>>derived entities) with godlike power. Who is to say that at that point it
>>won't be possible to control the mana cycles themselves? But this is
>>speculating pretty far afield from anything usable in an RPG...

I didn't mean that "godlike power" bit literally, BTW. Just that they
would probably have technology as hard for us to comprehend as ours would
be to an ancient Sumerian. Post-Singularity, if you've read any Vernor
Vinge.

>Now we get into the realms of pure speculation, and as you state later,
>it's just not possible to imagine what is possible in a couple of
>thousand years time.

Well, we can imagine it, we're just going to get it wrong. :)

>Not entirely. We have situations where research is beyond present
>utility. For example take the difference between the SR71 and Lokheed
>F-117. Massive differences in technology and application. Yet each one
>was developed ahead of utilised civilian equipment. Who knows what the
>various laboratories/research palnts around the world have locked in the
>vaults. I can quite happily accept that what we see is ten years behind
>what they are working on. Not in all walks of life and technology, no.
>But certainly in some areas.

Oh, if you meant "in commercial use" or "available to the general
public"
then sure, what's in the labs is generally several years ahead of what's
hit the streets. But, except for a couple areas like military aerospace,
it's not being hidden or anything, people publish papers on the stuff,
that's how they get grants. You just need to be able to read the
appropriate technical literature to keep up. Okay, most people can't or
won't, but I try to at least have a vague idea of what's new.

--
Justin Fang (justinf@****.caltech.edu)
This space intentionally left blank.

Further Reading

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