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Maryring
2014-09-09, 05:04 PM
Recently, I found myself put in a situation in a role play game which I never thought I'd find myself, a position that is essentially a variation of the trolley problem. A difficult problem, with no easy solutions, and though I did make my choice in this situation, it made me start to wonder, what would others choose to do in such a situation.

And why? Before we continue, I want to make it explicitly clear that this is *not* an instance of a terrible jerk DM trying to make my paladin fall (it's not DnD, and I'm not playing a Paladin in anything but personality). The scenario itself is intense and difficult, but I find such things enjoyable, so please. No bad-mouthing the DM.

With that aside, I want to prod and poke and see how others would act in this situation, and why. There is a *lot* written down to give a proper timeline on all he has experienced up until now, so I'm keeping it in some separate spoilers for those who just want to glance at the question and give an answer without reading it all.

First, a bit of backstory. The game in question is Mutants and Masterminds, set in comicsverse. That is, the modern day with caped crusaders and flying bricks and batmen. And chimeras. Chimeras are intelligent and strong, usually animalistic, (though sometimes not even that) humanoids developed as companions, pets and servants for the ridiculously wealthy. Chimeras are born with an adult body, starting out intellectually as teens, but emotionally as their actual age. So a three year old could happily try to learn seventh-grader math, but she'd still have a hard time grasping the concept of lying. A minor, if somewhat relevant digression.

Anyway, the character I'm playing in this game is Ricardo, a twelve year old monster chimera. His owner was a wealthy American fashion magnate who had him trained in all sorts of martial arts to make a suitable and flashy bodyguard for him. Unfortunately, or fortunately, one of Ricardo's trainers recognized that Ricardo wasn't just really strong, but also quite soft-hearted. During their discussions, she learned about his interests in electro-engineering, and his distaste for hurting others. And he learned that there might be more to life than follow the whims of a rich guy with enough arrogance and self-indulgent pride to make a lion blush. Inevitably, Ricardo had enough, and he and Leonardo parted on somewhat strenuous terms. There was gunfire involved.

His first week of freedom was... complicated. It's a real long story, and the details aren't overly relevant, but in brief terms, he fights and befriends a local vigilante. Together they learn that someone's planning a theft on Leonardo's place, and they move in to stop it. He manages to stop the theft and recover the stolen sceptre, but *she* gets shot by one of the security guards for her trouble. Ricardo manages to get her some first aid and deliver her to the paramedics, who get her to the hospital. She survives, barely. Meanwhile, Ricardo is rewarded for his good deed by Leonardo promising a ten million dollar reward for whomever can recover him. He learns about this shortly after he visits the hospital to check up on the vigilante, and they lock him up in the same room as her. A quick roof top escape, followed by escaping a mob later, and he's just about lost. So he contacts a couple friends of the vigilante, and together they plan out how to get rid of the bounty on his head by having those friends claim the reward money, and then bust him out afterwards.

Of course, things ain't so easy. Almost immediately after he's returned to Leonardo, he's sold to a frenchman, Ducard, stuffed in a steel crate and shipped to Libya. On the way there he does at least learn that the Ducard person seems to be a decent man, as he and Ricardo spend a long time discussing the idea of killing Hitler by time-travel, and Ricardo being adamant that he wouldn't kill him as long as there was the potential for a solution that wouldn't involve murder. But maybe... if that was the only way to save lives, but only then! Either way, in Libya, he's dragged off to stay in some kind of weird underground bunker. He doesn't understand the language, but the locals seem to warm up to him quickly enough. Unfortunately he only stays in the bunker for three days before he's woken up one night by the sound of explosions. The bunker is under attack by what he'd end up calling the "American Hero Factory", and while he may be a trained martial artist and a chimera, he still ain't properly equipped to take on eight supers and win. Luckily, they aren't all together. He separates two of them, an ice woman, and a guy with a ton of trick boomerangs. The ice girl takes out captain boomerang with a misfired ice-blast, while he nails her in the face with one punch. Unfortunately, the ice-blast also froze up Ducard. Doubly unfortunately, everything suddenly goes completely dark, and he can hear that more people are coming for them. He takes a moment to try and hold them off, but in the complete darkness, it's a difficult fight, because he's got a crazy strong wrestler in his face, and some kind of psion hitting him from afar. He manages to score a critical hit on the wrestler, stunning her and breaking her night-vision glasses before he dashes back towards where the statue of Ducard should be, only to be barely able to make out a figure by the door. An enemy figure who has killed several of the men Ricardo has been trying to protect thus far. He knocks the man into a wall to stun him.

And then they throw a bomb at him and the man he's grappling. He manages to avoid the blast and shield the one he's grappling, but the roof caves in on them. The two are kept stuck under rubble for a while. Ricky tries to get them out, by digging, but before he can finish, the psion from before starts to remove the rubble. He gets the man he just saved to promise not to mention him, to no avail as they're found a brief second later. Ricardo dashes off in the dark, chased by bombs and even more psionic blasts. He tries to take cover behind some rubble, at which point the only clear solution is to throw more bombs at random. Through the noise he hears the crazy bomber get yelled at because her bombs ended up killing the frost woman, and Ricardo takes this opportunity to run into a nearby room. He gets in, closes the door, and gets blasted by the telepath again. At this point he's so bruised and in so much pain that he can barely even look straight. Not that it matters in complete darkness. But he musters up all the rage he can. The psion spoke out loud, so he managed to pinpoint where the psion is, before giving him a vicious punch in the face, followed by smashing him to the floor, where he tries to strangle him. For all of one round before he realizes what he's doing and lets go, standing up all shocked with himself.

It's at this point that he gets the first good news of the night. He hears Farouk, the bodyguard of Ducard, groan and push himself up. A survivor. And then the wrestler chick from before gets teleported in, and slams him into the wall, and if it weren't for the luck of the dice providing him with a lucky crit, he would probably be taken out then and there. As is, he somehow manages to slam the wrestler back into a wall and knock her out, before in a desperate attempt to save anyone, he helps Farouk out of the bunker. There were a good amount of people there. But he only managed to save one life.

With nowhere else to go, Ricardo and Farouk decide to travel to Egypt to rendevouz with some of Ducard's other men. But on the way they're accosted by Amazons who kidnap Ricardo's entire group. However, due to his looks, they're convinced that he's a demon, so they refuse to attack him. Ricardo is considering attacking them back, but they're thirty, armed with guns, and the guns are aimed at the other men he's travelling with, so he decides to only follow them for now. If he attacks, then people might get killed in the cross-fire.

Following them, he ends up discovering a whole city. The men are dragged off somewhere, while he is taken to a temple/palace structure of sorts. While there he meets an archaeologist whose entire group was kidnapped by these amazons, and she explains to him in simple and plain terms that the men are kidnapped in order to facilitate the city remaining women only. Or in plainer terms, a city that survives on institutionalized rape, where anyone unfortunate enough to be born male is thrown into the sandstorms. He's then taken to see the Queen. Armed with this newfound knowledge, and the archaeologist as an interpreter, he does his best to convince the Queen that this is needless barbarism. Unfortunately, he fails to get through to her. The only thing he manages to get done is ensure that Farouk get slightly better living conditions.

After the meeting, he ends up searching around the palace, but before he finds anything really useful, he meets a couple guards. Since he has no idea what language they're speaking, he also has no idea why they suddenly start shooting at him. He disarms and pins both. One faints immediately. He didn't plan on this, as he releases both immediately. He just wanted them to stop shooting, so he allows the guard to take her unconscious comrade to their medic. But since they shot at him, he does confiscate one of their guns. He takes a moment to figure out how the gun works, and empties it of bullets before tossing it aside. Then he resumes his little search, unaware that by the end of it, he gets attacked once more. First, he ends up fighting their champion in a close quarters match that takes extremely long. She keeps taking hits that she somehow manages to tough out, while he keeps on managing to writhe out of her better grapples. After a long and difficult match, he manages to finally beat her down. He allows himself a brief rest, at which point the champion manages to regain enough strength to try one last time. Ricardo manages to fight her off, tells her that he has already won and refuses to fight her any more. He's tired of fighting, so when he walks out of the room they fought in, and he spots twentyone soldiers with guns aimed at him, he raises his hands up, unwilling to keep on fighting.

Then they shoot him down... a bad idea. Thanks to his thick skin, he manages to survive, but heavily wounded and bleeding. It's at this point that he snaps and viciously attacks the soldiers, not holding back in the slightest. He throws them aside, smashes them into walls, lashes into them with blunt claws and scorpion tail, but he's still not completely lost to his murderous rage, and when he notices that he's taken it too far, and he hears the resounding "snap" of what he worries is someone's broken neck, he regains his senses enough to hold back against the final few soldiers. He succeeds. Exhausted, bleeding, and surrounded by broken bodies. Having absolutely no idea what else to do, he grabs the woman he thought he killed and staggers with her back to the archaeologist. There, he breaks down, thinking he has killed someone, not even noticing that there's another one of the amazons there. An elderly woman. Thankfully, the archaeologist is trained in medicine, and can confirm that though it was a very close call, the woman will survive with proper care.

At this point, the elderly woman introduces herself, and a long conversation made short, Ricardo ends up drawn into a mindmeld with her, where he learns that there are many others among the amazons who agrees that what they're doing is barbarism. He also learns that the woman is willing to help him and the doctor to escape, along with Farouk and one of the doctor's group. The car that Ricardo drove here won't accommodate more than that. He is asked that when they return to the outside world, that they let the world know about this hidden city, so that they will be forced to relate to the outside world once more.

And he is told to kill the Queen because she would declare war on the outside world.

And so, armed with nothing but a gun, still bleeding and in partial shock from everything, Ricardo staggers off to the Queen's chambers to confront her. He sneaks past her honour guard, but when he finds the Queen, he notices that one of the Queen's two personal guards is one whom he knows from earlier to be able to understand English. So, desperate for one last final solution, he all but begs the Queen to abdicate. Something that would've solved the problem. Removed the Queen from her position, so she won't send her entire nation into a suicide attack on the outside world when their crimes inevitably become clear to the world. Unfortunately, she refuses.

And that's the end of the issue, though not the end of the story. At this point, he is left with two choices. Either he pulls the trigger and kills the Queen, or he throws the gun away and flees.

In his mind, if he kills the Queen, then he might stop the war that will follow if the Queen remains in rule. He won't be able to save all the prisoners they've enslaved, but if one of the more progressive-minded individuals the old woman spoke of assumes leadership, then at least they will end up being treated better. And if nothing else, they won't be able to kidnap anyone else while the city is in uproar over having their Queen assassinated by a demon.

But that will also mean that he'll have killed someone. That this one person is never gonna get to laugh or cry, smile or hope ever again. It's an utterly irreversible act. An utterly despicable act in itself. And who is he to decide who lives and dies.

In the end, can he pull the trigger, and kill one person to potentially save hundreds of lives?

Tengu_temp
2014-09-09, 05:41 PM
Kill the tyrant of an evil society (the part that the Amazons rape and then kill all the men they meet should be put in the final spoiler, it's important for the decision) to stop a war from breaking out, and potentially result in a more progressive ruler emerging and reforming her people?

I really don't see this as a moral dilemma. Not for someone who's not a pacifist, anyway.

NowhereMan583
2014-09-09, 06:10 PM
Sic semper tyrannis.

But then again, as a strict utilitarian, I never really saw the Trolley Problem as an ethical dilemma either, so take that as you will.

veti
2014-09-09, 09:19 PM
I really don't see this as a moral dilemma. Not for someone who's not a pacifist, anyway.

But the character as described is, pretty much, a pacifist. Or trying to be. I note that emotionally speaking he's only 12 years old, which is very young to be having this sort of thing laid on him.

I think, in his position, I'd spend more time looking for an out clause. For instance, how confident is he that the information he's been fed (about the queen being about to launch a war) is accurate? Have you tried asking her for her side of the story? And what would follow if she was assassinated by a (male) chimera - what are the odds that the new ruler who eventually rose from the chaos would be any more enlightened? Not great, I'd guess.

Having said that... I couldn't bring myself to just let her go, at least not unless she puts on a very good show of injured innocence. Is it feasible to take her hostage, and demand the release of prisoners in exchange for her?

Coidzor
2014-09-09, 09:43 PM
I don't see how "just running away" is an option at this point since he's not only clued in the Queen to his presence but also alerted at least one of her honor guard and drawn her away from her post.

Naturally he should kill her and set about escaping.

Also, that is a horrible idea for the design of Chimeras and I hope you go on to bring their creator and designer to justice for it.

So... he thinks this person is decent despite trading in slaves, slapping him in a steel crate for a long boat ride to Africa, and then keeping him prisoner in a bunker for no apparent reason... And then immediately leaps to his defense when a bunch of supers attack the place, possibly for seeming like a really obvious bad guy hideout?

Admittedly, they seemed a bit incompetent...

So... Where'd they get a whole bunch of guys if it was just Ricardo and Farouk, then?

...You'd think even a twelve year old would be able to grasp that there are bad guys out there by now, though, just given the bodycount and being the mental equivalent of a child soldier. :smallconfused:

I think you might be over-playing the naivete just a little bit that your character wouldn't possibly think that he might get attacked or accosted again after getting attacked by armed guards for wandering around the palace and then letting them go. :smallyuk:

Kid Jake
2014-09-09, 11:38 PM
I don't see it so much as a question of Morality, but of characterization. This is the point where you decide if Ricardo is going to hold onto his optimism and try to save EVERYBODY; even those who don't deserve to be saved, or if he's going to harden his heart and make hard choices for the greater good. Is Ricardo going to turn into a Captain Marvel or an Ozymandias? Which character's story would you rather play?

Personally, I don't see anything wrong with striking down the queen; but then I'm of the opinion that if a problem can be solved with an afternoon of leisurely, superhuman bloodshed then it wasn't much of a problem to begin with.

Coidzor
2014-09-10, 12:37 AM
I don't see it so much as a question of Morality, but of characterization.

Yeah... Probably right about that. Which adds in the complication of what would being exposed to this sort of child soldiery and slavery do to a twelve year old who has been trained to be a weapon unwillingly for the past 8-9 years.

Granted, I have no earthly idea what a teenage intellect in the body of an adult with the emotional maturity of a newborn would be. Other than a horribly bad idea. I suppose if he were still in his Terrible Twos, then there'd be no question, but he'd have probably just have killed several people by now "accidentally" by "playing" with them too hard.

Twelve though... That should also be fairly selfish and self-absorbed if I recall tweens and pre-teens correctly.


This is the point where you decide if Ricardo is going to hold onto his optimism and try to save EVERYBODY; even those who don't deserve to be saved, or if he's going to harden his heart and make hard choices for the greater good. Is Ricardo going to turn into a Captain Marvel or an Ozymandias? Which character's story would you rather play?

Part of the issue I'm having here is that I don't really see a way for him to narratively do that. :smallconfused:

Trying to hold the queen for ransom doesn't really do that, and mostly just bogs him down... Sorta missed the boat on spiriting the queen away and faking her having gone into seclusion to rethink her ways with the cooperation of a sympathetic faction of amazonians...


Personally, I don't see anything wrong with striking down the queen; but then I'm of the opinion that if a problem can be solved with an afternoon of leisurely, superhuman bloodshed then it wasn't much of a problem to begin with.

There is that, yeah.

Kid Jake
2014-09-10, 12:51 AM
Part of the issue I'm having here is that I don't really see a way for him to narratively do that. :smallconfused:

Trying to hold the queen for ransom doesn't really do that, and mostly just bogs him down... Sorta missed the boat on spiriting the queen away and faking her having gone into seclusion to rethink her ways with the cooperation of a sympathetic faction of amazonians...


Sometimes, the only thing you can do is walk away and hope that things turn out better than you expect. With a little luck, maybe he can find an alternate way of getting through to the queen once he's healed up and had time to mull it over. Otherwise he could just leave her with a warning that he COULD have killed her easily if he'd wanted to despite all her guards and that where he comes from he's nothing special; if she presses a war, she'll lose not only her kingdom, but her life.

golentan
2014-09-10, 12:57 AM
Sic semper tyrannis.

But then again, as a strict utilitarian, I never really saw the Trolley Problem as an ethical dilemma either, so take that as you will.

Honestly, I'm in an odd space between Deontology and Utilitarianism, and can't seem to convince anyone that my viewpoint is coherent. But the thing that bugged me about the trolley problem was always that refusing to choose, refusing to act, is itself both a choice and an act, at which point what matters is the consequences.

Coidzor
2014-09-10, 02:36 AM
Honestly, I'm in an odd space between Deontology and Utilitarianism, and can't seem to convince anyone that my viewpoint is coherent. But the thing that bugged me about the trolley problem was always that refusing to choose, refusing to act, is itself both a choice and an act, at which point what matters is the consequences.

Well, here refusing to act would seem to have the consequence of getting our erstwhile Manimal killed and those he has taken it upon himself to protect, either directly for being associated with him or indirectly because of the whole rape>murder paradigm of the borked up little micronation he finds himself in.

I'd imagine it would be quite the notable exception where refusing to act would not count as a choice and act, really, even if that refusal to act is in not getting out of bed today. :smallconfused:


Sometimes, the only thing you can do is walk away and hope that things turn out better than you expect.

I doubt that's really a viable plan given the established precedent of this GM/narrative/character arc, though. Doesn't quite seem to fit with the character, either.

And, as I partially noted, just walking away is going to draw down more pursuit that he would otherwise had to have dealt with, sooner. There's a very real chance that he'll be unable to get out with the people he's decided are his charges in such a case.


With a little luck, maybe he can find an alternate way of getting through to the queen once he's healed up and had time to mull it over. Otherwise he could just leave her with a warning that he COULD have killed her easily if he'd wanted to despite all her guards and that where he comes from he's nothing special; if she presses a war, she'll lose not only her kingdom, but her life.

Generally a given in that sort of curbstomp of a war, aye. Or at least situations where one would be losing a kingdom as a result of losing the war. But maybe these Amazons have some kind of secret weapon. Maybe some kind of deadly Amazonified Africanized Bees?

Maybe he'll be able to think of a way to do that, the whole "we have a bunch of supers and you don't even seem to have something capable of beating an exotic pet," might work on persuading someone of the potential dangers, but, from my reading, the character himself is the only real risk of drawing the attention of the outside world to this micro/pocket/secret/hidden nation of Amazonians.

So by sticking around without securing a way to get word to the outside world or getting the others out in order to corroborate his presumably not-completely-valid testimony as a piece of misplaced property seems problematic and like it would just escalate attempts at taking his life if what's happened previously and ending up armed and dangerous in the queen's bedchambers didn't already put him at top priority...

Maryring
2014-09-10, 08:36 AM
But the character as described is, pretty much, a pacifist. Or trying to be. I note that emotionally speaking he's only 12 years old, which is very young to be having this sort of thing laid on him.

I think, in his position, I'd spend more time looking for an out clause. For instance, how confident is he that the information he's been fed (about the queen being about to launch a war) is accurate? Have you tried asking her for her side of the story? And what would follow if she was assassinated by a (male) chimera - what are the odds that the new ruler who eventually rose from the chaos would be any more enlightened? Not great, I'd guess.

Having said that... I couldn't bring myself to just let her go, at least not unless she puts on a very good show of injured innocence. Is it feasible to take her hostage, and demand the release of prisoners in exchange for her?

Yeah, I suppose I didn't make it quite clear. While his situation has never been one where pacifism is accepted, he'd make a pretty poor bodyguard if he couldn't rough up some thugs, but he has never ever killed anyone before. He came close, a brief moment while choking out the psion who has been smashing his head with psionic base-ball bats, and he barely held back after being shot at. But both these instances were situations where he was in a lot of pain, hyped up on adrenaline and absolutely terrified.

This instance is pretty different, because he's not defending himself. He is going out of his way to kill someone, in the hopes that it will save the lives of others. That's what makes this a difficult choice. As mentioned.


I don't see it so much as a question of Morality, but of characterization. This is the point where you decide if Ricardo is going to hold onto his optimism and try to save EVERYBODY; even those who don't deserve to be saved, or if he's going to harden his heart and make hard choices for the greater good. Is Ricardo going to turn into a Captain Marvel or an Ozymandias? Which character's story would you rather play?

Anyway, to clarify a few more things.


How confident is he in the information he's been fed?
Very confident. During his original meeting with the Queen she refused every peace suggestion he gave, proclaiming that it's kinder to kill the boys, than let them grow up in the world of Man. The archaeologist has been cheerfully informing Ricardo that the queen is "a raging xenophobic sociopath". The amazon he managed to have a mind to mind talk with in private was a bit more subdued in her condemnation, but she was pretty clear that if the Queen remains, then she will refuse any and all motions for peace, because she's obsessed with the idea that the Amazons must not go extinct, and thus her only consideration for the outside world is "can I win a war with them?". Now, she did offer to help the archaeologist, Farouk and one more escape, even if he refused to kill the Queen, but she was clear that the current Queen is very likely to cause ruination for the Amazons when the outside world learns about them.


The Queen's side of the story?
The Queen is convinced that what he's doing is the best for her nation. He spent a whole afternoon trying to convince her that nothing could possibly justify throwing kids into the desert for the crime of being born male (by interpreter mind you), but she still refused. He also apparently managed to scare her, to the point that he promised that he'd refuse to hurt anyone as long as no one attacked him.


Assassinated by a (male) chimera?
Most are convinced that he is a demon. He's recognized more as an "it" than a "he" by the Amazons, and this is also why this assassination might pan out. Since the Queen is killed by a "demon" there won't be anyone for them to take revenge on, unless they try to declare war on hell which... is extremely stupid when they know that one single demon could beat their strongest warrior, and then defeat a whole platoon. But the fact that a more benevolent queen might not rise up is true. It's part of why this is difficult. There's no guarantee that things will improve as a result of his assassination. Just a chance.


I don't see how "just running away" is an option at this point since he's not only clued in the Queen to his presence but also alerted at least one of her honor guard and drawn her away from her post.

Naturally he should kill her and set about escaping.

Also, that is a horrible idea for the design of Chimeras and I hope you go on to bring their creator and designer to justice for it.

So... he thinks this person is decent despite trading in slaves, slapping him in a steel crate for a long boat ride to Africa, and then keeping him prisoner in a bunker for no apparent reason... And then immediately leaps to his defense when a bunch of supers attack the place, possibly for seeming like a really obvious bad guy hideout?

Admittedly, they seemed a bit incompetent...

So... Where'd they get a whole bunch of guys if it was just Ricardo and Farouk, then?

...You'd think even a twelve year old would be able to grasp that there are bad guys out there by now, though, just given the bodycount and being the mental equivalent of a child soldier. :smallconfused:

I think you might be over-playing the naivete just a little bit that your character wouldn't possibly think that he might get attacked or accosted again after getting attacked by armed guards for wandering around the palace and then letting them go. :smallyuk:

Running away is an option because he'll use the same path regardless of if he kills her or not. And he has already fought of twenty guards, so what are twenty more? (Pain, but the sound of the gunshot is gonna draw even more immediate immediate attention than running. But since he has a car and they have horses, and the ones he's saving should already be at the car, escaping back to civilization will happen, with or without him.)

They were originally born as kids, but it was more economically efficient to make them physically an adult. And yes, it is still a terrible thing to do to them. But keeping them impressionable is important. Otherwise they might get ideas. Ideas about being more than property, and that's bad for business and their designation as artificial intelligences.

He did spend the latter half of the journey in relative freedom, once it was clear that he wasn't a danger, and Ducard showed a genuine interest for him as a person. For him, that's plenty, as Leonardo set the bar pretty low.

And sure, it did seem a bit weird to be kept in a bunker, but when on one hand you have weird people in a bunker, and on the other hand you have weird hero factory throwing bombs like they were going out of style, it's pretty easy for him to take sides. The heroes were also essentially the Suicide Squad, so teamwork was very optional.

Ah, didn't mention that since it wasn't too relevant, but chimeras are very much not liked in Egypt, so they were being smuggled across the border. So in addition to himself and Farouk, there were three smugglers.

And he has grasped that bad guys exist, but you'd be surprised at what you could justify. For him, his meeting with the amazons went

"Okay, so they feel a need to protect their area or something. I'm sure I can talk to their leader and explain things." (Kidnapping of Farouk)

"Okay, so the Queen feels that it's important to kidnap people because otherwise her own people will die out. Pretty iffy, but I can't overturn an entire culture and centuries of tradition in an afternoon, and they're scared of me so I'll promise not to hurt them." (Meeting with the Queen)

"Okay... I mean, they are probably scared of me... and I suppose it's weird to see me and they weren't part of the guards I saw during the meeting so they probably didn't hear about the promise." (Attacked in the hallways)

"Okay... so they called in the champion, but now I beat her. But I didn't kill her. By now they surely realize that I don't mean them any harm." (After defeating the champion, shortly before getting shot in the hallways)

After that, it's pretty much a blur with little chance to take a moment to gather his thoughts and think. But yeah, I might be overplaying it a bit. It's a difficult character to play properly.


But maybe these Amazons have some kind of secret weapon. Maybe some kind of deadly Amazonified Africanized Bees?

My DM has some crazy ideas about a couple things, but I don't think even he'd want an Amazons Attack Sequel.

Deffers
2014-09-10, 10:23 AM
The amazon he managed to have a mind to mind talk with in private was a bit more subdued in her condemnation, but she was pretty clear that if the Queen remains, then she will refuse any and all motions for peace, because she's obsessed with the idea that the Amazons must not go extinct, and thus her only consideration for the outside world is "can I win a war with them?".

To me, this is probably crucial to finding a third option. Make it blindingly clear that the answer is "no," because Ricardo's not the only "demon" there is and many of them are in the service of the rich and powerful. And one of Ricardo was already able to own their greatest champion and then a platoon immediately afterwards, in your own words-- that's ONE demon. If Queen Amazon here decided to wage war on the rest of the world, she'd be fighting HUNDREDS, not all of which are quite so scrupulous about taking life. If her true obsession is keeping the Amazons alive, she's gonna have to back down, because defeat is assured. If she doesn't believe him, just maim her honor guard in front of her immediately. "Third fight in a row today. Beat 'em all. You still sure about this?"

Anonymouswizard
2014-09-10, 11:43 AM
Another idea is to try to work around the queen?. How fanatical is her army, and how intelligent? Because if you can find enough intelligent non-fanatical officers to realise how hopeless a war with the outside is (especially as child soldiers with superhuman capabilities could theoretically be deployed in a month or less, if I understand chimera correctly), although this may backfire in that they would try to avoid anyone leaving under any circumstances.

Also, how large a proportion of their military strength is a platoon? Because if Ricardo cares more about saving others than saving himself, it might be better to wait until fully healed, and then let the others escape by going on a rampage right in the middle of their infrastructure. When they capture you, ask them how much more damage the rest of the "demons" that the outside has access to could do.

In this situation, I don't see Ricardo as described being able to pull the trigger, but I do see him trying to make them realise just how outgunned they are, because he seems smart.

Sartharina
2014-09-10, 12:26 PM
Or, the ethical way to design Artificial Intelligence is to not live in a world where it spontaneously and inexplicably gains the same value as Human intelligence. Life and Liberty are privileges, not rights, earned by Humans over hundreds of thousands of years. Any species we create would have whatever privileges we see fit to bestow them. Humans, however, are not a human-created species, so do not have creator privileges over each other. (And yes, I hate Blade Runner, AI and the Animatrix because of their idiotic and ignorant depictions of manufactured intelligence. Sapience is not a binary quality.) That said, even a bootlegged human intellect still owes a life-debt to the creator. Also - I have never heard of a 3-year-old having problems with lying (People start being dishonest within days of being born - at least not the telling lies part. They may have trouble with understanding lies they're told.

Morality aside, though - I'd continue with "Kick ass and take names, and force the queen to surrender in recognition that war will destroy her people, not save them."

Segev
2014-09-10, 12:44 PM
While I can see why your character would struggle with this, morally, my view is that his struggle is because he's an emotional 12-year-old with a heart of gold and a lack of experience. He struggles with it much as a 12-year-old might struggle with playing high school football or performing high school calculus.

That is to say, this isn't a moral dilemma; it simply is not a problem to which he's yet mature enough to know and understand the solution. Not intellectually. Perhaps unfortunately, his instincts lean towards the "every life, no matter how evil, is precious" more than towards they "good guys vs. bad guys" paradigm. Both are immature paradigms which refine into a single non-contradictory whole when fully and maturely examined, but currently - to Ricardo - the former contradicts the latter.

The correct answer - which I can say much as I could easily tell a 12-year-old what the derivative of f(x) = x*x is - is to kill her and possibly stick around long enough to make sure the people taking power are more "good-aligned." I can also go into detail and explain why, again much as I could explain the limit theorem of calculus and how it relates to derivatives. But that doesn't mean it'd be easy for Ricardo to accept.

So, that brings us back to the point that it's easy to see why this is a dilemma for Ricardo, but would not be one for a mature and philosophical character who shares Ricardo's apparent ideals. Or at least the ideals he's growing to develop.

golentan
2014-09-10, 01:36 PM
Or, the ethical way to design Artificial Intelligence is to not live in a world where it spontaneously and inexplicably gains the same value as Human intelligence. Life and Liberty are privileges, not rights, earned by Humans over hundreds of thousands of years. Any species we create would have whatever privileges we see fit to bestow them. Humans, however, are not a human-created species, so do not have creator privileges over each other. (And yes, I hate Blade Runner, AI and the Animatrix because of their idiotic and ignorant depictions of manufactured intelligence. Sapience is not a binary quality.) That said, even a bootlegged human intellect still owes a life-debt to the creator. Also - I have never heard of a 3-year-old having problems with lying (People start being dishonest within days of being born - at least not the telling lies part. They may have trouble with understanding lies they're told.

Morality aside, though - I'd continue with "Kick ass and take names, and force the queen to surrender in recognition that war will destroy her people, not save them."

Yes, humans are a human created species. Every human has a mother and father who took action to create them. Does that give the parents the right to beat the child?

Because from my point of view, you're basically advocating child abuse. :smallfurious:

Sartharina
2014-09-10, 02:10 PM
Yes, humans are a human created species. Every human has a mother and father who took action to create them. Does that give the parents the right to beat the child?

Because from my point of view, you're basically advocating child abuse. :smallfurious:Humans are not human created. Humans reproduce new humans, but do not make them. Cars are a human creation, not an Automated Assembly Line creation. Furthermore, humans, even in the absence of a higher creator, are created not just by the parents, but by the society that creates, protects, and governs those people as well - Parents don't have the right to beat their child because the Social Contract revokes that right (Otherwise, yes, yes they would. And thus we have a Social Contract to say they can't)

From my point of view, you're advocating "Free the Waffle Irons"

golentan
2014-09-10, 02:14 PM
Humans are not human created. Humans reproduce new humans, but do not make them. Cars are a human creation, not an Automated Assembly Line creation. Furthermore, humans, even in the absence of a higher creator, are created not just by the parents, but by the society that creates, protects, and governs those people as well - Parents don't have the right to beat their child because the Social Contract revokes that right (Otherwise, yes, yes they would. And thus we have a Social Contract to say they can't)

From my point of view, you're advocating "Free the Waffle Irons"

Creating a living, thinking being does NOT give you rights to do with it as you will, it gives you a responsibility to care for its wellbeing until it can do that for itself. Can you not see that the ability to reason and feel is what makes a person, and what makes this different from talking about rights for inanimate objects? Are you that morally myopic?

Kid Jake
2014-09-10, 02:29 PM
I have to agree with Sartharina, if I created some sort of sentient gremlin and it refused to pick up after me I'd feel perfectly justified in squishing it and trying again. I made it, I have no biological or emotional reason to care about it beyond its ability to reach places that a roomba can't and if it can't or won't fulfill it's purpose in life then it can feed those that will.

Atanvarno
2014-09-10, 02:45 PM
Creating a living, thinking being does NOT give you rights to do with it as you will, it gives you a responsibility to care for its wellbeing until it can do that for itself. Can you not see that the ability to reason and feel is what makes a person, and what makes this different from talking about rights for inanimate objects? Are you that morally myopic?

The problem, when discussing artificial inteligence, is that they don't *have* to have the same parameters as human intelligence.

Clearly, if you design an AI that behaves like a human intelligence in every way, you should probably treat it like a human.

You don't have to do that though.

You could instead design your AI such that it has no sense of self preservation, no ability to be upset about anything, and its only driving desire is to be as helpful as it possibly can to humans. At that point, treating it like a person may be a bit excessive.

However, that doesn't mean that just because you've created something, you know exactly what it is. If you screw up you could accidentally make something that does have its own emotions, goals, and desires. This is where a lot of the science fiction around artifical intelligences focuses, but it is (ideally) an exception to the norm.


That said, even a bootlegged human intellect still owes a life-debt to the creator.

Why? What property of an artifical inteligence that is made in the image of a human mind makes it inferior? Does the same apply if a human mind is downloaded into a computer framework? If so, exactly what parts of a human's original body must remain for it to retain its value?

Food for thought :smallwink:

Maryring
2014-09-10, 02:50 PM
Trying to talk to the Queen and build up an alliance and but diplomatic pressure on the Queen are great ideas. But unfortunately not possible. Ricardo only knows English and a smattering of French, but no Arabic, so he can't communicate directly with the Queen. So any compelling argument he could made would first have to be interpreted.

As for probing the society for potential allies, there's no time. Even if he hadn't already gone to challenge the Queen, he wouldn't be given time and opportunity to linger about after the fights he's just been through. And while he may be able to fight off a small platoon, 20 soldiers is less than 1% of all able-bodied women. He can't fight an army alone, and if he doesn't get out, he won't be able to bring anyone back with him. The average chimera might be a lot tougher than an ordinary man, but they're not bulletproof. Besides, who'd listen to a demon over the Queen herself?

Sartharina
2014-09-10, 03:12 PM
Why? What property of an artifical inteligence that is made in the image of a human mind makes it inferior? Does the same apply if a human mind is downloaded into a computer framework? If so, exactly what parts of a human's original body must remain for it to retain its value?

Food for thought :smallwink:Frankly, everyone owes an unrepayable debt to those who give them life. There is no state of living worse than nonexistence, and it's only because someone else bothered to make you and keep you alive that you have a life at all. I am not one so overentitled as to take for granted the privileges that my parents and ancestors fought so hard to provide for me. In the case of humans, that debt is not only to the parents, but also the parent's parents (back forever), siblings, acquaintences, and society as well.

And a person who's downloaded into a computer framework owes the person who made such a download possible (Unless it was forced, in which case the person's owed for deprivation of their body). Usually that debt's paid off - but even then, it's not the same. Downloading a person into a computer isn't the same as creating a new person - you're not giving them anything new, as would giving something life would do.

hamishspence
2014-09-10, 03:15 PM
Frankly, everyone owes an unrepayable debt to those who give them life. There is no state of living worse than nonexistence, and it's only because someone else bothered to make you and keep you alive that you have a life at all. I am not one so overentitled as to take for granted the privileges that my parents and ancestors fought so hard to provide for me. In the case of humans, that debt is not only to the parents, but also the parent's parents (back forever), siblings, acquaintences, and society as well.

"You're in debt from the second you are born" is an unusual way of looking at things.

Metahuman1
2014-09-10, 03:42 PM
Step 1: Knock her out. Sleeper Hold, Pistol Whip her in the temple, what ever, just get her no longer awake and do it quietly as possible.

Step 2: Leave, with her. When she wakes up make sure she'd bound, gagged, has a weapon trained on her face, and a translator handy to explain "Don't move, we've got a little something to show you that's just a bit important if you want to keep your amazon's form getting wiped off the map."

Step 3: Show her. Show her what Nukes can do. Show her what Higher caliber Supers (those flying bricks you mentioned in the OP and the like.) can do. Show her how many Chimera's are out there. And then through a translator explain to her she can stop doing the horrible things she's doing and abdicate to someone else, whom you will designate, or all of this insurmountable power will be brought to bear on her Amazon's with no quarter asked or given. There won't even be memory left of them by the time it's done, they'll even fill in the hole in the ground, put down training expenses in the finance books, and no one will know about it in a few generations. It will be as if they never existed if she fails to follow your instructions, precisely.

Then go back with some people observing form a distance and one or two of those flying brick types as insurance to make sure she does it.

Atanvarno
2014-09-10, 03:52 PM
Frankly, everyone owes an unrepayable debt to those who give them life. There is no state of living worse than nonexistence, and it's only because someone else bothered to make you and keep you alive that you have a life at all. I am not one so overentitled as to take for granted the privileges that my parents and ancestors fought so hard to provide for me. In the case of humans, that debt is not only to the parents, but also the parent's parents (back forever), siblings, acquaintences, and society as well.

While I don't find this line of reasoning entirely unreasonable, I would expect issues to arise in a situation where someone attempts to collect on that unrepayable debt.

edit:
More specifically, this is fine as a one way feeling of indebtedness towards those who made one's life possible, but can become monstrous should the progenitor look at the beings to whom they have gifted existence and demand restitution.


And a person who's downloaded into a computer framework owes the person who made such a download possible (Unless it was forced, in which case the person's owed for deprivation of their body). Usually that debt's paid off - but even then, it's not the same. Downloading a person into a computer isn't the same as creating a new person - you're not giving them anything new, as would giving something life would do.

Not necessarily, one could download a mind into a new form without destroying the old one, in fact I'd think this would be the more common event. This gets into the question of copies though: if you create a perfect copy of yourself, do you expect to have absolute authority over your copy? Personally, I might expect gratitude, friendship, and perhaps even willing assistance from such an entity, but would not feel justified in compelling servitude, nor in terminating its existence should it become inconvenient.

hamishspence
2014-09-10, 04:19 PM
Doesn't "debt" only really apply when you've bought something but haven't paid for it yet?

Life is not something you buy - it's something you're given. Nobody asks to "be born".

golentan
2014-09-10, 04:21 PM
The problem, when discussing artificial inteligence, is that they don't *have* to have the same parameters as human intelligence.

Clearly, if you design an AI that behaves like a human intelligence in every way, you should probably treat it like a human.

You don't have to do that though.

You could instead design your AI such that it has no sense of self preservation, no ability to be upset about anything, and its only driving desire is to be as helpful as it possibly can to humans. At that point, treating it like a person may be a bit excessive.

However, that doesn't mean that just because you've created something, you know exactly what it is. If you screw up you could accidentally make something that does have its own emotions, goals, and desires. This is where a lot of the science fiction around artifical intelligences focuses, but it is (ideally) an exception to the norm.



Why? What property of an artifical inteligence that is made in the image of a human mind makes it inferior? Does the same apply if a human mind is downloaded into a computer framework? If so, exactly what parts of a human's original body must remain for it to retain its value?

Food for thought :smallwink:

I didn't say treat it like a human being, I said look out for its wellbeing. You wouldn't treat a kid with autism like a neurotypical child, and doing so would be cruel, but you do treat them with as much love and care as you can, or you're a monster by most lights.

Metahuman1
2014-09-10, 04:22 PM
Am I the only one who feels just a bit like this is getting off track?

Segev
2014-09-10, 04:28 PM
Speaking as a Ph.D. in computational intelligence (my dissertation is on spiking neural networks), I can say that it is highly unlikely that anybody will accidentally create human-like intelligences.

Stepping away from hard science and into predictions based on where I see technology going, I don't think we'll ever achieve A.I. in the sense of Data from Star Trek, or even Rosy from the Jettsons. Long before we get there, the expert systems we're already developing will be integrated to our own, human intelligence. First, through more and more well-developed human-machine interfaces that make use of technology more and more instinctive, and eventually through neural interfacing (which is, sadly, a very long way off).

We won't have A.I.s running our computers. We'll be running them ourselves. Computers will become subconscious processes running at the behest of our human directives, and the A.I.-desired behaviors - intuition, understanding of human requests, etc. - will be something we can just do as easily as we use our own bodies.

And no, I'm not talking "uploading ourselves" or any such thing. I'm talking about having machines just be natural extensions of our own consciousness. Still firmly rooted in our brains, but interfacing with machines that aid our cognition.

Atanvarno
2014-09-10, 04:29 PM
Am I the only one who feels just a bit like this is getting off track?

Fair enough.

On the original subject (on which I have twice now forgotten to post :smallredface:): I rather like the idea of abducting the Queen and taking her to the outside world. She gets to meet all the people she's so xenophobic about, and possibly get better, and the tribe gets to have a (hopefully) less crazy person in charge when the rest of the world meets them.

Would probably cause all kinds of other problems, but they might be interesting story problems, so thats a good thing! :smallwink:

Coidzor
2014-09-10, 04:29 PM
Yeah, I suppose I didn't make it quite clear. While his situation has never been one where pacifism is accepted, he'd make a pretty poor bodyguard if he couldn't rough up some thugs, but he has never ever killed anyone before.

He's already a pretty poor bodyguard and it was a mistake to insist that he be one even after he demonstrated a lack of temperament for it, but, well, that sorta fits with the stupidity of his owners in his backstory.


He came close, a brief moment while choking out the psion who has been smashing his head with psionic base-ball bats, and he barely held back after being shot at. But both these instances were situations where he was in a lot of pain, hyped up on adrenaline and absolutely terrified.

Well, yes, fight or flight and all that jazz. The weird thing is the whole willpower to go from that to "oh dear me I almost killed someone, I must run away now" like flipping a light-switch.


Running away is an option because he'll use the same path regardless of if he kills her or not. And he has already fought of twenty guards, so what are twenty more? (Pain, but the sound of the gunshot is gonna draw even more immediate immediate attention than running. But since he has a car and they have horses, and the ones he's saving should already be at the car, escaping back to civilization will happen, with or without him.)

I don't buy it, narratively that's too easy for something for the GM to really offer you as an out. How's he this badly injured if their weapons are so ineffective against him? How on earth would having an organized pursuit not make things more difficult for him?

I mean, sure, they seem to have a silly anachronistic level of technology where they have guns and the ability to capture people randomly without ever being noticed or discovered but despite having psychic powers they can't coordinate over distances without having someone run to talk to people?

At the very least they need some way to seal up their enclave, which sounding the right sort of general alarm would do and then they wouldn't exactly be able to drive away if they're sealed up nice and tight. Unless they're in some kind of honeycomb where this is just simply not an option, but that raises further questions about how they've been able to evade discovery.


They were originally born as kids, but it was more economically efficient to make them physically an adult. And yes, it is still a terrible thing to do to them. But keeping them impressionable is important. Otherwise they might get ideas. Ideas about being more than property, and that's bad for business and their designation as artificial intelligences.

Oh, brother. Your DM needs a good smack for that one. So, what, they're killed after they reach the age of 13? 15? Or are they permanently oversized children with all of the disadvantages to them being useful for any serious work? ...I suppose that'd explain why he hadn't experienced the artificial maturity that he should have from effectively being a child soldier, since he literally can't mature or react to that trauma...


He did spend the latter half of the journey in relative freedom, once it was clear that he wasn't a danger, and Ducard showed a genuine interest for him as a person. For him, that's plenty, as Leonardo set the bar pretty low.

And sure, it did seem a bit weird to be kept in a bunker, but when on one hand you have weird people in a bunker, and on the other hand you have weird hero factory throwing bombs like they were going out of style, it's pretty easy for him to take sides. The heroes were also essentially the Suicide Squad, so teamwork was very optional.

What do you mean "weird people?" They literally were some two-bit Cobra wannabes then? :smallconfused:

I have to wonder at your DM's narrative here... :smallconfused:


Ah, didn't mention that since it wasn't too relevant, but chimeras are very much not liked in Egypt, so they were being smuggled across the border. So in addition to himself and Farouk, there were three smugglers.

And he has grasped that bad guys exist, but you'd be surprised at what you could justify. For him, his meeting with the amazons went

"Okay, so they feel a need to protect their area or something. I'm sure I can talk to their leader and explain things." (Kidnapping of Farouk)

"Okay, so the Queen feels that it's important to kidnap people because otherwise her own people will die out. Pretty iffy, but I can't overturn an entire culture and centuries of tradition in an afternoon, and they're scared of me so I'll promise not to hurt them." (Meeting with the Queen)

"Okay... I mean, they are probably scared of me... and I suppose it's weird to see me and they weren't part of the guards I saw during the meeting so they probably didn't hear about the promise." (Attacked in the hallways)

"Okay... so they called in the champion, but now I beat her. But I didn't kill her. By now they surely realize that I don't mean them any harm." (After defeating the champion, shortly before getting shot in the hallways)

After that, it's pretty much a blur with little chance to take a moment to gather his thoughts and think. But yeah, I might be overplaying it a bit. It's a difficult character to play properly.

...They're rich people's play-things/slaves and there's a roaring Chimera smuggling trade into a country that hates them utterly? :smallconfused:

Wow. How low are your character's mental abilities? :smallconfused: I mean, I guess Awareness is probably around -2, -3 for having a child-like awareness of the world around him and his Presence and social skills sound pretty abysmal, to the point where I've been wondering why you've been trying to play him as a social character when he doesn't seem to have any skills or abilities in that area.

Just... That thought process seems more overplaying it after hearing the explanation for it. That or he's as dumb as a sack of rocks. :smalleek:


My DM has some crazy ideas about a couple things, but I don't think even he'd want an Amazons Attack Sequel.

Thank goodness for that, then. As a player, though, I'd kill all of the Amazons just to make sure. <_<

Metahuman1
2014-09-10, 04:43 PM
Segev: So, closer to Ghost in the Shell but with a bit less mental interfacing to upload to the net/casually moving from one cyber body to another?


Atanvarno: So do I. Even if she decides she doesn't like the outside world or all the good things it might have to offer her to open up to them and cut the crap, then she can still be made to understand that short of what ever gods they worship dropping out of the sky to aid them directly, there gonna loose in the worst possible way if they start and armed conflict.


Coidzor: Forget in character if he did that, I'd be across the table beating my GM with the rule books, any of my GM's, if they said "Hey, I liked this thing form Amazon's Attack so much I'm using it.", or even let me figure out that's what they did! O.O

Coidzor
2014-09-10, 04:57 PM
"You're in debt from the second you are born" is an unusual way of looking at things.

Indeed.

Humans are not Discworld Dwarfs.

Unless they're Captain Carrot.


I have to agree with Sartharina, if I created some sort of sentient gremlin and it refused to pick up after me I'd feel perfectly justified in squishing it and trying again. I made it, I have no biological or emotional reason to care about it beyond its ability to reach places that a roomba can't and if it can't or won't fulfill it's purpose in life then it can feed those that will.

Is that because you can't see the ethical problems with taking a human genome and then altering it to give it superhuman abilities and then shrugging and declaring that's enough of a difference to make it property(which is what seems to be the case in the example we're reacting to) or because you recognize them and just don't care?

Sartharina is obligated to call Chimeras "Waffle Irons" in order to hold her position and make it appear tenable by obfuscating the irresponsible and ethically bankrupt method of creating these "artificial" intelligences.

Sort of the difference between developing an artificial womb from the parts on up and developing an artificial womb by taking a person and lobotomizing them and tweaking them further and further until everything is vestigial that isn't life support for the womb and the womb itself.

If you're starting from a computer and making it more clever, you can stop well before you've created a person, though it's possible to overshoot if you really want to toe the line like the Quarians. Don't toe the line like the Quarians. And if you do, certainly don't react as they would by immediately attempting to destroy it and not taking the hint after having this happen or almost happen several times before.

If you're starting with a person and crippling them mentally and emotionally, well, you have to go pretty far to make them no longer a person, and there should really be no question that the Chimeras have not been lobotomized enough to no longer count as people.

Also, totally shouldn't feed gremlins to other gremlins, you remember what happened when we tried that with cows and chickens, right? :smalltongue:

Sartharina
2014-09-10, 11:21 PM
I probably should have used Roombas instead of Waffle Irons... Or cattle/chickens... but if the Chimeras actually use human genetics, then there is a bigger problem, because it's misappropriation of resources they don't own - "Get your own Dirt", as the joke's punchline goes. As for the maturity thing - I assume that they mature at a normal rate. They just need the first 12-25 years to let their mind emotionally develop into something more or less 'healthy' and socialized (And "abuse" is often used to mean "Socialization I don't agree with").

As for 'stopping' before creating a person - That implies you need to 'stop', or that the development will converge into something that's a "Person" as we know it. It's very possible to create something that develops in a way radically different way so it can have a similar sophistication of reasoning and mental processing as a human without being recognizable as a person as we know it (I also hate the way it had the Geth develop, as though Personhood is a quantitative instead of qualitative difference in intellectual capacity. But Mass Effect was a fail on Artificial Intelligence all around.)

hamishspence
2014-09-11, 02:20 AM
but if the Chimeras actually use human genetics, then there is a bigger problem, because it's misappropriation of resources they don't own.

The chimeras are "Misappropriating resources they don't own"? How are you getting that?

Maryring
2014-09-11, 12:10 PM
He's already a pretty poor bodyguard and it was a mistake to insist that he be one even after he demonstrated a lack of temperament for it, but, well, that sorta fits with the stupidity of his owners in his backstory.

You don't need to be willing to kill to make a decent bodyguard. This isn't Secret Service. It's a rich guy squeezing some extra benefit out of his purchase.

Well, yes, fight or flight and all that jazz. The weird thing is the whole willpower to go from that to "oh dear me I almost killed someone, I must run away now" like flipping a light-switch.

That one you'll have to explain to me, because I've no idea what gave you that impression.

I don't buy it, narratively that's too easy for something for the GM to really offer you as an out. How's he this badly injured if their weapons are so ineffective against him? How on earth would having an organized pursuit not make things more difficult for him?

Who said their weapons are ineffective? He managed to take out a good twenty guards, and in the process got three injuries and a bruise. Typical hero fare as such, but he's still just a lucky shot away from dying. And the pursuit being organized or not isn't gonna change the fact that horses won't catch up with an all-terrain jeep.

I mean, sure, they seem to have a silly anachronistic level of technology where they have guns and the ability to capture people randomly without ever being noticed or discovered but despite having psychic powers they can't coordinate over distances without having someone run to talk to people?

Yes, they have anachronistic tech levels. Yes their city is protected by magic. I did mention that this is Mutants and Masterminds, right? The mind speak was done using an artifact, so there's no psionics involved as such.

At the very least they need some way to seal up their enclave, which sounding the right sort of general alarm would do and then they wouldn't exactly be able to drive away if they're sealed up nice and tight. Unless they're in some kind of honeycomb where this is just simply not an option, but that raises further questions about how they've been able to evade discovery.

So far, the answer seems to be simply "magic". But I trust that behind the "magic" there'll be an answer I can understand and accept.


Oh, brother. Your DM needs a good smack for that one. So, what, they're killed after they reach the age of 13? 15? Or are they permanently oversized children with all of the disadvantages to them being useful for any serious work? ...I suppose that'd explain why he hadn't experienced the artificial maturity that he should have from effectively being a child soldier, since he literally can't mature or react to that trauma...
They're not. They are "put down" if they don't pass a psych screening, but that's only theoretical, and a safe-guard to make sure that you don't sell chimeras liable to go aggressive and start killing people. The original point is that they're as capable of absorbing new information as an actual adult, they don't need to spend their first six years learning not to drink bleach, walk or poke forks into electrical outlets, but there's no way to teach them social norms except as you would any other person. So intellectually a teen, emotionally a child. He can mature and react to trauma, but the timeline between being shipped to Africa and now standing before the Queen is far too compressed for him to have any proper chance to develop thus far.


What do you mean "weird people?" They literally were some two-bit Cobra wannabes then? :smallconfused:

I have to wonder at your DM's narrative here... :smallconfused:

Weird in that they're living in a bunker. He has no way to determine if these guys are terrorists or freedom-fighters, but since Ducard is there with him, and Ducard appears as one of the more decent people Ricardo has met, he's inclined to think of them as freedom-fighters until proven otherwise. Even without Ducard, he still *wants* to believe the best in people.

...They're rich people's play-things/slaves and there's a roaring Chimera smuggling trade into a country that hates them utterly? :smallconfused:

Wow. How low are your character's mental abilities? :smallconfused: I mean, I guess Awareness is probably around -2, -3 for having a child-like awareness of the world around him and his Presence and social skills sound pretty abysmal, to the point where I've been wondering why you've been trying to play him as a social character when he doesn't seem to have any skills or abilities in that area.

Just... That thought process seems more overplaying it after hearing the explanation for it. That or he's as dumb as a sack of rocks. :smalleek:

No. Just plain old regular person smuggling across the border.

The thought process is just a shadow of the actual thought process, but I wanted to emphasise his desire to believe the best in people. Even if everything he has experienced tells him the opposite, that the people about him are bad, and that the smart thing to do is cut your losses, kick everyone's ass and haul out of there. He is naive, and I may be overplaying that slightly, but he is also willfully idealistic.

Thank goodness for that, then. As a player, though, I'd kill all of the Amazons just to make sure. <_<
Also the AI discussion's really cool, but a bit distracting from the main topic I had hoped to address. Might join in myself if it's taken to another thread.

Sartharina
2014-09-11, 01:28 PM
Alas, he's still too many years young for the optimal solution to the problem with the Queen of the Amazons.

Segev
2014-09-11, 02:39 PM
Segev: So, closer to Ghost in the Shell but with a bit less mental interfacing to upload to the net/casually moving from one cyber body to another?

I don't envision any uploading of human consciousness to the 'net, per se. The parts of a human consciousness which would be offloaded from the biological brain would do so into hardware. Actually "uploading" would still result in effective brain damage, as you'd be separating yourself from the biological brain that makes up a singificant chunk of your neural network.

Whether what remains is still sentient would be an interesting question.

More likely, at first, it wouldn't be, and would be more akin to the "ghosting" shown in the Doctor Who episode "Silence in the Library." But it WOULD allow us to augment our mental faculties with external electronics and to interface with them for control purposes.

veti
2014-09-11, 06:54 PM
I don't envision any uploading of human consciousness to the 'net, per se. The parts of a human consciousness which would be offloaded from the biological brain would do so into hardware. Actually "uploading" would still result in effective brain damage, as you'd be separating yourself from the biological brain that makes up a singificant chunk of your neural network.

Not just the "brain", per se, but the whole body. Almost everything the brain does, it does in response to stimulus coming from elsewhere in the body. Every time you eat a cookie, you get a sugar rush that swamps the brain with a certain type of energy. Every time you drink a cup of coffee, that's a different kind of stimulus. Take all those away, and what would be left? - I'm not sure, but I am sure it would be very different from the "brain" we think we know about.

If you were incapable of feeling pain or discomfort, cold or heat, hunger or thirst, lust, tiredness - what would your "consciousness" think about, all day? Would it still be "human"?

Sith_Happens
2014-09-11, 11:02 PM
The chimeras are "Misappropriating resources they don't own"? How are you getting that?

I'm pretty sure she meant the creators of the chimeras.

hamishspence
2014-09-12, 01:22 AM
I'm pretty sure she meant the creators of the chimeras.

Might depend how the creators of the chimeras are getting the DNA. If they are using their own body cells and growing chimeras from them, then the resources are their own - but the wrong done becomes greater, rather than worse - because these are, to all intents and purposes, their own children, only more so.

Just as a parent owes a duty to their child not to abuse them - so the creator of a being owes it a duty not to abuse it.

golentan
2014-09-12, 01:31 AM
Just as a parent owes a duty to their child not to abuse them - so the creator of a being owes it a duty not to abuse it.

Ah liek u. Sometimes I'm tempted to burn this godforsaken lump of dirt down to the mantle, but other times I am asleep. Still, as long as there are good people in the world, I will restrain myself.

Segev
2014-09-13, 12:43 AM
Not just the "brain", per se, but the whole body. Almost everything the brain does, it does in response to stimulus coming from elsewhere in the body. Every time you eat a cookie, you get a sugar rush that swamps the brain with a certain type of energy. Every time you drink a cup of coffee, that's a different kind of stimulus. Take all those away, and what would be left? - I'm not sure, but I am sure it would be very different from the "brain" we think we know about.

If you were incapable of feeling pain or discomfort, cold or heat, hunger or thirst, lust, tiredness - what would your "consciousness" think about, all day? Would it still be "human"?

That's just it; I'm not really envisioning that much removal from being human. I'm envisioning an augmentation of the existing human being.

At the very least, I see that as the prior step to any of the more "ghost in the shell" type stuff, and I am not convinced the "ghost in the shell" stuff will ever happen. But that's so far into speculative tech as to be really just guessing.