Become One
~ * The doomsday machine is a robot from another galaxy, several miles long, with a conical shape; the wider end consists of a huge glowing maw, large enough to swallow a dozen starships. Its bluish-white hull is composed of solid neutronium, and phaser blasts just bounce off. The machine is propelled by a total conversion drive. It's essentially self-sustaining, acquiring energy by smashing planets to rubble and converting the debris into fuel. The machine uses a pure antiproton beam to carve up a planet, and it has an energy-dampening field that can "deactivate" antimatter and which generates heavy subspace interference. It possesses a program-defensive sphere that attacks any energy source entering that sphere. Kirk theorizes that the machine was a doomsday device used in a war "uncounted years ago."** ~
Analogies are the byproduct of a mental state. In my case, being left handed and right brain, I'm wired for qualitative interpretation and not for mathematical inference. Wondering why and asking why is also a right brain bias, whereas asking how is more a left brain function.
In many martial arts, cars and motorcycles we often name these after animals. This is specific to The Virtual Kingdom because this is a stylized kingdom: the strat is dictated by a central interest. Do you understand this?
When you see the kingdom made entirely of undead or entirely of faery, these are stylized. They celebrate a pageantry in gaming and sacrifice a degree of utility. This doesn't effect the seriousness of play but crystalizes the interpretation of its niche.
Analogy: The all faery kingdom is akin to a Mopar club, even specific to a particular model like a Challenger. While they may all look the same from where we're standing there would be significant differences to the trained eye.
When I ran a faery sage in TFC I was an assigned attacker and it became stronger than I had anticipated. Before this I had no confidence a faery built as an attacker could pose significant resistance to bottom feeders. I was wrong. It was sloppy and flawed but quite capable and I was willing to defend myself. - how does this apply to the subject?
I wanted to be an attacker and I became one, within the discipline of faery.
And why is that important; the pageantry of idealized confinement? Isn't MMA for example proving mixed non-traditional fighting is superior? Aren't new cars faster and more maneuverable than old ones.
Yes, if you're just kicking asses. But I began to notice that some of these fighters proudest moments were in achieving belts in the antiquated arts. Cars speak for themselves. This is heritage and tradition.
You see, what happens is we begin to believe what we hear without investigating it ourselves. "All old fighting styles will lose terribly to mixed martial arts". Let's turn that around and remember the initial generation of stylized fighters had never faced mixed styles. We have that advantage now, and you can face a non-traditional style with a traditional one fully aware of the disciplines at odds. How does this apply?
Because not 1 person in the Utopian community took a halfling cleric or an orc mystic, but I did. About mid-age I looked at the race/persona combinations and reset my human cleric for an orc mystic because nobody was playing one...and we have too many t/m races in kingdom. Personally I think halfling cleric has better traction but in an offense starved kingdom the choice was clearly orc. Based on player choice, this combination shouldn't work or compete. We can at least say, no one thinks there is as much value here as with warrior or even sage.
This seems juxtaposition to my tradition rant but it's because I'm making a point about inefficiencies. Is the orc mystic inefficient? Is the halfling cleric inefficient? Actually there's nothing going wrong here. The question is in the practice of the arts we've chosen. I know I'm facing a world of hyper pumped undead warrior and orc tacticians and I've done it every age. I'm aware of my competition and their forward prowess.
Do you know why I eliminated my human cleric? Because he was deemed oversized and a land drop was recommended. I can't do that in good conscience so I reset to meet the demand of my challenge idioms and kingdom. That challenge idiom includes not attacking unprovoked. I need you the reader to understand this because I'm no mechanical genius in Utopia. In fact I barely use math at all in Utopia, yet I'm achieving viable and dangerous position. This could be interpreted as a brag, but my intentions are to show you that anyone can do it.
If anyone can do what I'm doing then you shouldn't be afraid pursuing top kingdom status. I've been up there and yeah it's more competitive but I was still able to follow my challenge idioms once I learned how things worked. They can step on their own toes with micromanaging to a fault. Nobody is perfect and nobody is twice as smart as anyone else here. They are organized in ways most of us can't. And this is why I moved division array from 8 down to 5 provinces. The acceptability level that 5 people can work together should be achievable. I can even envision smaller divisions but we should aim for 5 if we consider ourselves competitive.
Thank you.
Originally Posted by Bishop
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