[Crimsondude]

I see no hard evidence that blood magic is bringing the Horrors any sooner.

Aside from that being the whole plot of The Dragonheart Saga and why Dunkelzahn offed himself to empower the Dragonheart.

[Mirikon]

I see no hard evidence that blood magic is bringing the Horrors any sooner.  If I'm going to bitch about AZT it will be about the ridiculous amount of quantifiable pollution they are doing rather than the 1 in a hundred thousand people that use sacrifice magic.  Of course, they might be the misunderstood good guys and their pollution strategy is a tactic to make manaspace so polluted that the Horrors can't survive in it.

1) Read Harlequin's Back, House of the Sun, Worlds Without End, and the Dragonheart Trilogy. Then we'll talk.
2) The Blood Elves tried something like that, too. The medicine was worse than the disease.

[CitizenJoe]

Hearsay.  That isn't proof.  That is one dragon's opinion. 

But here's the thing.  It is coming.  Some people are just delaying it.  But what are they doing to prepare for it?  How are they preparing the World?  They say we're not ready, and we probably aren't.  But unless we get concrete proof of this 'Enemy' we're not going to anything but write it off as tabloid bunk.  You want to prepare the world for a threat?  Create the threat to show them.  You want to hold back the Scourge until the big Horrors show up, or do you want to inoculate people with the lesser horrors first?

AZT pollution can be seen as a way to make the world unpalatable in the Astral plane.  BTL addiction can make people less palatable to the emotion eating horrors.  Drugs that let you see the astral will allow people to see the threats.  Evil trees that eat people teaches the world that things are not always as safe as they seem and you must always keep your guard up.  Double crosses train the elite soldiers that will face the horrors how to account for the corruption of the horrors.  Research into sacrifice magic is the same empowerment needed to defend against the Horrors.  All of that prepares the World for the inevitable coming of the Enemy.

Everything you guys are saying, and everything in print, on the face of it, makes Aztechnology seem like the bad guy.  That is exactly the sort of hype that makes the big Heel/Face Turn so awesome when it does happen. 

1) Read Harlequin's Back, House of the Sun, Worlds Without End, and the Dragonheart Trilogy. Then we'll talk.
2) The Blood Elves tried something like that, too. The medicine was worse than the disease.

But the Blood Elves survived didn't they?  And why did they have to go through the Ritual?  Because they refused the perfectly suitable Rites of Passage the Therans offered.  Those books were written from the perspective or bias of renegades.  Thera was founded on the notion of surviving the Scourge.  Yes, they charged a lot for their Rites, but the people that paid did survive. 

[jonathanc]

Joe, this is getting pretty tangential to the topic of this thread; if you really want to White Knight for Aztechnology, this might not be the ideal place.

[CanRay]

Despite how twisted he is, I listen when Harley talks.

Especially when he's been in his cups!

EDIT:  Trying to White Knight any of the Megas isn't going to go along well here.  We play 'Runners after all! 

[CitizenJoe]

Well then, what if Dunkelzahn was actually behind Aztechnology this whole time so that he could play the adversary and also the savior.  Lead everyone up to the edge so that they can see the danger, then pull them away so they think you're helping.

[jonathanc]

Well then, what if Dunkelzahn was actually behind Aztechnology this whole time so that he could play the adversary and also the savior.  Lead everyone up to the edge so that they can see the danger, then pull them away so they think you're helping.

Got any evidence?

[CitizenJoe]

How about the ritual D used at the Watergate was blood magic and the only people studying that intensively are the Azzies?  Dunkelzahn first came into the 6th World out of Cherry Creek Lake in Denver... in what became the Aztlan Sector... and yet he didn't kick them out?  Dunkelzahn would have known full well that a nuke wouldn't take out bugs, and yet he let Knight set it off in Chicago when he had a significant pull in the board room.  The Draco foundation bounty on Blood Mages is for LIVING blood mages only, i.e. they might not be killing them.

[jonathanc]

How about the ritual D used at the Watergate was blood magic and the only people studying that intensively are the Azzies?

This is not true. They're the most obvious about it, but they're hardly alone.

Dunkelzahn first came into the 6th World out of Cherry Creek Lake in Denver... in what became the Aztlan Sector... and yet he didn't kick them out?

He was never much for overt shows of force.

Dunkelzahn would have known full well that a nuke wouldn't take out bugs, and yet he let Knight set it off in Chicago when he had a significant pull in the board room.

How would he have known that? It's not like he had done extensive tests of Ares nuclear weapons.

The Draco foundation bounty on Blood Mages is for LIVING blood mages only, i.e. they might not be killing them.

You can't put a bounty on dead blood mages, because people would just start killing random dudes and saying "hey, I caught this guy doing blood magic".

[Nath]

Well then, what if Dunkelzahn was actually behind Aztechnology this whole time so that he could play the adversary and also the savior.  Lead everyone up to the edge so that they can see the danger, then pull them away so they think you're helping.

Got any evidence?

Dunkelzahn openly admitted owning shares and having a seat on Aztechnology board : "To Oliver McClure of Québec City, I leave my voting stock in Aztechnology and the board seat to which that entitles you."
Since Dunkelzahn expects McClure to be able to exercice those rights, it suggests he was able to do so as well. Aztechnology is not likely to release board meeting archives anytime soon (moreover undoctored archives...) so how Dunkelzahn voted on board decisions shall remain a mystery. But his seat would have nonetheless allowed him to know about Aztechnology operations.

Once a corporation wrongdoings get public, it's a pretty timely line of defense for board member to claim they didn't know anything and were kept in darkness on purpose by the rest of the board.

[CitizenJoe]

You got those two quotes attributed backwards.

[CitizenJoe]

Anyway, this section of the board is for crazy conspiracy theories and such.  So as they go, you can't get much more tin foil hat than that.

Bad guys that do good sometimes and good guys that turn out to be the villain the whole time are part and parcel to the genre.  It makes for an interesting story and can be quite a roller coaster.  If you cast Aztechnology as the Devil and Dunkelzahn as the Second Coming (and there is a game religion based on that) I think you're doing yourself a disservice by making the game too simplistic.

[Mirikon]

Giving someone bread in return for making them your slave doesn't count as doing good. AZT is evil. Maybe not absolute evil (that honor is reserved for Shedim, Bugs, and Horrors), but evil nonetheless. They certainly aren't the only evil in the world (MCT is right up there with them), but don't for a minute think that they are good. The villain who does good and the good guy who turns out to be the villain sound like nice storytelling aspects, because they are cliches pulled straight from the pages of manga and other stories. Sometimes, however, people are just plain evil. That's not simplistic. That's simply how it is.

An evil person can save the kid from the kidnappers just like the good person can. The difference is why. Does it still count as a good act if you only acted to gain an advantage over the kid's father, or to wreck the plans of a rival who was behind the kidnapping out of petty spite?

[CanRay]

More like pulled straight from the pages of real life.  Very few people think of themselves as doing evil or wrong, they think the ends justify the means.  It's the ends that matter.

A good example of someone that does think he's a monster, and is done RIGHT is The Operative from Serenity.  He knows he's a monster, and has no place in a world he would like to create, but is willing to do whatever is required to make that world for everyone else.

[jonathanc]

If we're speaking of "realistic" evil, then neither cliche is accurate. Most people who do evil things to not do them for the sake of wallowing in evilness, nor do they think that they are good people.

For most people, they really don't think about it at all. It's just their job, they're just following orders, or they're just doing what is expected of them, or what is "normal". They pass any responsibility for their actions to the next person down the line, because being responsible for your actions is hard.


Let's take an environmental disaster. The worker who was driving the truck full of chemicals that spilled will say he's a scapegoat, he was over-worked and it isn't his fault. His manager will claim that he's doing the best he can with the budget he has, so of course he has to overwork his drivers. That guy's manager will say that the orders came from above. The CEO will say that he's just cutting costs to please the stockholders, and of course the stockholders have no direct input on the decision that cut the safety funding; they just want their stock to increase in value, and who can blame them for that?

Realistic evil is banal, and generally pretty worthless for heroic storytelling. Sometimes it's okay to just have a matinee villain, when it's well done. Aztechnology is a matinee villain, and Dunk...well, the fact that the closest thing the Sixth World had to a benevolent, Gandalf-esque wise man was a manipulative dragon whose master plan continues to unfold long after his death is how you know we're playing in a dystopia.