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Message no. 1
From: Gurth@******.nl (Gurth)
Subject: Lone Star mages
Date: Sun, 13 Oct 2002 19:20:48 +0200
Here's something that came up during my group's game last Friday: how many
magicians would Lone Star have working for it (and, by extension, others in
Seattle)? Going by New Seattle, Lone Star's first response to a call from
anywhere except a D-rated or lower area, is to send an astral magician over
to scout things out.

OK, sounds fine. But think it through: Seattle has about 3 million people
(legal ones, anyway, but it'll do for the sake of argument). Of these, 1 in
1000 is a magician capable of astral projection, so that's 3000 full
magicians in Seattle. How many of these would work for Lone Star? To be
honest, I have no idea about the amount of cops needed to patrol a city
like Seattle in the 2060s, but I have a feeling it'll be more than a few
thousand -- call it 10,000. Should the "standard" magician ratio apply,
Lone Star would be lucky to employ more than ten full magicians, then.
However, it can be assumed they put effort into recruiting more magicians
than that, but it still wouldn't give them very many if you ask me -- a
hundred or so, maybe? I still don't think that's enough to astrally scout
out every call for police in the metroplex, as well as provide all kinds of
other magical services for the cops.

This problem gets bigger still when you consider they'd probably be working
in at least three shifts so effective strength is roughly a third of the
actual manpower...

Or am I missing something?

--
Gurth@******.nl - http://www.xs4all.nl/~gurth/index.html
I know all this and more
-> Probably NAGEE Editor * ShadowRN GridSec * Triangle Virtuoso <-
-> The Plastic Warriors Page: http://plastic.dumpshock.com <-

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Incubated into the First Church of the Sqooshy Ball, 21-05-1998
Message no. 2
From: 520074903613-0001@********.de (Thorger_SÃŒnert)
Subject: Lone Star mages
Date: Sun, 13 Oct 2002 20:02:20 +0200
----- Original Message -----
From: "Gurth" <Gurth@******.nl>
>OK, sounds fine. But think it through: Seattle has about 3 million people
>(legal ones, anyway, but it'll do for the sake of argument). Of these, 1 in
>1000 is a magician capable of astral projection, so that's 3000 full
>magicians in Seattle.

Since MitS the rate is 1 in 100 is awakened and the majority is capeable of
astral projection.

Greetings
Thorger Sünert
Message no. 3
From: loneeagle@********.co.uk (Lone Eagle)
Subject: Lone Star mages
Date: Sun, 13 Oct 2002 19:32:42 +0100
At 07:20 PM 13/10/2002 +0200, Gurth wrote:
>Here's something that came up during my group's game last Friday: how many
>magicians would Lone Star have working for it (and, by extension, others in
>Seattle)? Going by New Seattle, Lone Star's first response to a call from
>anywhere except a D-rated or lower area, is to send an astral magician over
>to scout things out.
>
>Or am I missing something?

I have assumed that Lone Star maintain approximately half a dozen (at most)
forensic mages (meaning mages or shaman) plus maybe twice as many of
"response" mages (four on duty at any one time) I don't think that that
causes a vast problem, each mage taking a number of calls at a time,
zipping away across the city without paying attention to their surroundings
(allowing them to travel the astral faster) and doing a quick scout for
major emotional content.

That only gives them around double the average.


BTW, this is coming from my new addy and via a new mailer so if there are
any formatting problems let me know (and anyone with knowledge of Eudora
could tell me how to fix them.)


--
Lone Eagle
"Hold up lads, I got an idea."

www.wyrmtalk.co.uk - Please be patient, this site is under construction
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"Someone wants to see me at four in the morning; what is he a giant Lark?"
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(Money)
Message no. 4
From: korishinzo@*****.com (Ice Heart)
Subject: Lone Star mages
Date: Sun, 13 Oct 2002 12:18:11 -0700 (PDT)
--- Gurth <Gurth@******.nl> wrote:
> Here's something that came up during my group's game
> last Friday: how many
> magicians would Lone Star have working for it (and,
> by extension, others in
> Seattle)? Going by New Seattle, Lone Star's first
> response to a call from
> anywhere except a D-rated or lower area, is to send
> an astral magician over
> to scout things out.
>
> OK, sounds fine. But think it through: Seattle has
> about 3 million people
> (legal ones, anyway, but it'll do for the sake of
> argument). Of these, 1 in
> 1000 is a magician capable of astral projection, so
> that's 3000 full
> magicians in Seattle. How many of these would work
> for Lone Star? To be
> honest, I have no idea about the amount of cops
> needed to patrol a city
> like Seattle in the 2060s, but I have a feeling
> it'll be more than a few
> thousand -- call it 10,000. Should the "standard"
> magician ratio apply,
> Lone Star would be lucky to employ more than ten
> full magicians, then.
> However, it can be assumed they put effort into
> recruiting more magicians
> than that, but it still wouldn't give them very many
> if you ask me -- a
> hundred or so, maybe? I still don't think that's
> enough to astrally scout
> out every call for police in the metroplex, as well
> as provide all kinds of
> other magical services for the cops.
>
> This problem gets bigger still when you consider
> they'd probably be working
> in at least three shifts so effective strength is
> roughly a third of the
> actual manpower...
>
> Or am I missing something?

I break the Awakened demographic down a little
differently. I rule that 1 out of every hundred
metahumans is Awakened to some degree. So every
thousand metahumans contains 10 Awakened. These
Awakened I then seperate into sub-categories as
follows.

1. Full Hermetic Magician
2. Full Shamanic Magician
3. Aspected Hermetic Magician
4. Aspected Shamanic Magician
5. Adept
6. Adept
7. Burned Out Magician
8. Un-Awakened Potential Magician (usually children)
9. Odd/Special Full Magician (Voudun, Wujen, etc.)
10. Odd/Special Aspected Magician (Magical Way Adept)

This give a few more than 1 in a 1000 metahumans who
can astrally project. Say 3 in 1000. Furth, Lone
Star recruits heavily from Universities and Academies
all over North America, and could pad their ranks out
of proportion to the population density for an
important contract like Seattle (wich is, by far,
their largest). Say that Lone Star has 5 officers
capable of astral projection per 1000 employees. If
your figure of 10,000 employees is accurate, they now
have 50 officers who can astrally project. 10,000
employees seems low, IMO, for Seattle. I actually
estimate Lone Star's work in Seattle at closer to
50,000. They really do not want the Metroplex Guard,
Knight Errant, or anyone else snatching that contract
away from them. that gives us 250 astrally projecting
LS employees. Considering that a mage can astrally
travel to anywhere in Seattle in about 3-6 seconds;
they have plenty of time to scout the scene, return,
report, and still take a coffee break occasionally.
Now, the mage has to get back and give a report before
the response team gets on site (in the case of high
sec rating neighborhoods), and before the team is even
scrambled in lower scale neighborhoods. So no
dallying, obviously. Let's say that the mage spends 1
full minute, rounds trip. Let's say further that a
PANIC-Button gets tapped in a Sec rating D (or higher)
neighborhood every minute on average, city-wide. On a
shift with 60 mages working, any one mage will have to
respond to only 1 call. Just 1. Let's say Lone Star
keeps 30 mages per shift on astral surveillance duty.
In an 6 hour shift, each one will perform an average
of 12 surveillance sweeps. A pretty laid back rota,
IMO. At 4 shifts per day, 30 mages per shift, we
still have 130 mages free to back up response teams
with magic, monitor wards, handle watchers, or follow
up initial surveillance up with more meticulous
sweeps. All in all, I'd say they would have Seattle
pretty well covered. Even if you drop their
astral-capable staff to half that, with only 125
mages, they can still run pretty relaxed schedules.
Say three shifts of 15 mages on surveillance. That is
32 surveillance sweeps per shift. And LS still has 80
mages free to handle other duties. Still more than
adequate to make your players think twice about
running in nicer neighborhoods. :)

======Korishinzo
--note that when I say "mage", I mean "astrally
capable" ;)

__________________________________________________
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Message no. 5
From: Gurth@******.nl (Gurth)
Subject: Lone Star mages
Date: Mon, 14 Oct 2002 11:52:00 +0200
According to Thorger Sünert, on Sun, 13 Oct 2002 the word on the street was...

> Since MitS the rate is 1 in 100 is awakened and the majority is capeable
> of astral projection.

The generally-quoted figure is that 1 person in 100 is a magician; 1 in 10 of
those is a full magician: mage or shaman rather than adept or aspected
magician. Most of the latter can only perceive, not project.

--
Gurth@******.nl - http://www.xs4all.nl/~gurth/index.html
I know all this and more
-> Probably NAGEE Editor * ShadowRN GridSec * Triangle Virtuoso <-
-> The Plastic Warriors Page: http://plastic.dumpshock.com <-

GC3.12: GAT/! d- s:- !a>? C++(---) UL+ P(+) L++ E W--(++) N o? K w(--)
O V? PS+ PE@ Y PGP- t- 5++ X(+) R+++$ tv+(++) b++@ DI- D+ G+ e h! !r y?
Incubated into the First Church of the Sqooshy Ball, 21-05-1998
Message no. 6
From: Gurth@******.nl (Gurth)
Subject: Lone Star mages
Date: Mon, 14 Oct 2002 11:54:09 +0200
According to Lone Eagle, on Sun, 13 Oct 2002 the word on the street was...

> zipping away across the city without paying attention to their
> surroundings (allowing them to travel the astral faster)

So how do they find their way? Or would they have to learn something like
The Knowledge of London taxi drivers? I mean, the problems my players run
into when they want to astrally check out, say, a specific apartment in a
building when all they have is the number would indicate Lone Star mages
have the same difficulties.

> BTW, this is coming from my new addy and via a new mailer so if there are
> any formatting problems let me know (and anyone with knowledge of Eudora
> could tell me how to fix them.)

Nothing wrong as far as I can see so far. No HTML or anything, at least.

--
Gurth@******.nl - http://www.xs4all.nl/~gurth/index.html
I know all this and more
-> Probably NAGEE Editor * ShadowRN GridSec * Triangle Virtuoso <-
-> The Plastic Warriors Page: http://plastic.dumpshock.com <-

GC3.12: GAT/! d- s:- !a>? C++(---) UL+ P(+) L++ E W--(++) N o? K w(--)
O V? PS+ PE@ Y PGP- t- 5++ X(+) R+++$ tv+(++) b++@ DI- D+ G+ e h! !r y?
Incubated into the First Church of the Sqooshy Ball, 21-05-1998
Message no. 7
From: davidb@****.imcprint.com (Graht)
Subject: Lone Star mages
Date: Mon, 14 Oct 2002 09:33:34 -0600
At 07:20 PM 10/13/2002 +0200, Gurth wrote:
>Here's something that came up during my group's game last Friday: how many
>magicians would Lone Star have working for it (and, by extension, others in
>Seattle)? Going by New Seattle, Lone Star's first response to a call from
>anywhere except a D-rated or lower area, is to send an astral magician over
>to scout things out.
>
>OK, sounds fine. But think it through: Seattle has about 3 million people
>(legal ones, anyway, but it'll do for the sake of argument). Of these, 1 in
>1000 is a magician capable of astral projection, so that's 3000 full
>magicians in Seattle. How many of these would work for Lone Star? To be
>honest, I have no idea about the amount of cops needed to patrol a city
>like Seattle in the 2060s, but I have a feeling it'll be more than a few
>thousand -- call it 10,000. Should the "standard" magician ratio apply,
>Lone Star would be lucky to employ more than ten full magicians, then.
>However, it can be assumed they put effort into recruiting more magicians
>than that, but it still wouldn't give them very many if you ask me -- a
>hundred or so, maybe? I still don't think that's enough to astrally scout
>out every call for police in the metroplex, as well as provide all kinds of
>other magical services for the cops.
>
>This problem gets bigger still when you consider they'd probably be working
>in at least three shifts so effective strength is roughly a third of the
>actual manpower...
>
>Or am I missing something?

All the mages who were born out in the boondocks who come to the big city
looking for a job :)

To Life,
-Graht
ShadowRN Assistant Fearless Leader II
http://www.graht.com
--
Message no. 8
From: loneeagle@********.co.uk (Lone Eagle)
Subject: Lone Star mages
Date: Mon, 14 Oct 2002 21:45:38 +0100
At 11:54 AM 14/10/2002 +0200, Gurth wrote:
>According to Lone Eagle, on Sun, 13 Oct 2002 the word on the street was...
>
> > zipping away across the city without paying attention to their
> > surroundings (allowing them to travel the astral faster)
>
>So how do they find their way? Or would they have to learn something like
>The Knowledge of London taxi drivers? I mean, the problems my players run
>into when they want to astrally check out, say, a specific apartment in a
>building when all they have is the number would indicate Lone Star mages
>have the same difficulties.

I would guess that's not far from the best way, they know the area they zip
to that area then follow either astral landmarks or watchers to the actual
address.

> > BTW, this is coming from my new addy and via a new mailer so if there are
> > any formatting problems let me know (and anyone with knowledge of Eudora
> > could tell me how to fix them.)
>
>Nothing wrong as far as I can see so far. No HTML or anything, at least.

Cool :-)


--
Lone Eagle
"Hold up lads, I got an idea."

www.wyrmtalk.co.uk - Please be patient, this site is under construction

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(Born to be a king)

Further Reading

If you enjoyed reading about Lone Star mages, you may also be interested in:

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