The Old Hack

I suspected a scenario of this kind might be possible. I did mention that one reason for being as apparently heartless as Arthur could be the case of the disillusioned and badly burned out law enforcement officer, such as Warden Morgan from the Dresden Files.

Thank you all for the vote of confidence. I'll continue to do my best. I do think that an assistant mod might be a good idea.

I submit to you the magnificent Backstroke of the West as an example of the many, many things that can go wrong when attempting to translate into a not very well understood language. (Page is from the Wayback Machine and may take a little time to load.)

The attitude itself is a leftover from the days when the forums basically remained unmoderated and other experiences in similar electronic gathering places where the Law of the Jungle would have been a significant improvement on what we had. It is not a very productive attitude, I grant, but it is born from a great deal of cynicism and bitterness and the conviction that certain people are just not worth the trouble to waste civilised behavior on. And whenever I politely disagree with someone only to be met with unthinking insults and stacked arguments, all those bad memories come back to life. The unfortunate truth is that you are stuck with a scarred and bitter cynic for a moderator and that every once in a while the veneer of politeness I have erected to simulate a civilised being will slip. It is possible that you would be better off with a different moderator and if asked for one I would without hesitation name one or two posters here I deem able to do a superior job. I am certain that the admins would be happy to set a new moderator up. And in all honesty being moderator can be exhausting and thankless. If the regular posters here should ever wish me to step down I would do so with more relief than anything else.

Possible, I suppose. Given that family trees can grow impressively large in just a couple of centuries. But it seems to me that it is highly likely that there are other half-immortals out there as well so it is by no means guaranteed.

Not everyone. Unless everyone begins at the level where they show no respect for others, in which case there is no lowest level to go down to from there. You are a more kindly person than I am. I, being a fundamentally harsh and mean person, believe firmly in tit for tat. I do not take well to attempts to feed me taurine ordure; I normally respond to them by shoving said ordure right down the throat of the original poster.

I suppose it is a relief that you have chosen to make bad jokes rather than continuing those tedious stacked arguments of yours because you cannot bear the notion of someone disagreeing with you and actually having a point. Carry on.

Good! Keep us posted.

Stop using stacked arguments and I will treat you respectfully. As long as you talk to me as if you think I am an idiot, I will show you exactly the same respect back. Ho hum. You are really fond of stacked arguments. I suppose that next you will ask me if I have stopped molesting dachshunds.

Indeed. There is normally a fine distinction between unsympathetic and outright villainous. If the authority figure is like that sadistic woman in the fifth Harry Potter book (her name escapes me just now) who is clearly abusing her power, there is not much doubt that she is a villain. On the other hand, merely being distant and authoritarian along with similar 'unsympathetic' traits might indicate that there is more to the character. For example, in the Harry Dresden books the Warden Morgan is constantly cast as an enemy of Harry out to get him. But he gradually shows traits that indicate that he had suffered so much trauma and betrayal that he had become embittered and burned out. Finally, in the book Turn Coat, we get to see a more human side of him. Sweetikins, if we accept that logic, we also have to accept that we can't find out whether he is wrong, either. I reject it as well as your contrived argument that we have to go into the Vault. Adding a ludicrous consequence to something you disagree with does not strengthen your case; it merely implies that you are so unsure of your position that you have to stack your argument in order to make it stand up. Isn't it? Please give me examples that will support this claim of yours. Personally I would claim that they are very much the same with the only difference being that a writer's universe must be internally logically consistent. But that is not 'logic'. That is merely you making a grand speech about logic and then adding a claim of yours, hoping that in the confusion it would be taken for logic. If we look at the 'story logic' definition of a good guy or 'right', we enter the exact same set of problems that we have in the real world, namely ethics and morals -- and neither of these two are constructed purely from logic. In fact, many a moral dilemma that is constructed through apparent logic is actually so contrived as to merely be apologia for a particular philosophical standpoint, for example utilitarism or pragmatism. If we look more closely at Arthur, his standpoint in the situation above is similar to that of a military commander who must decide how to act on incoming intelligence. If he acts, he can save a few lives short term but runs a large risk of giving away to the enemy that their secrecy has been compromised, potentially losing his intelligence source. If he chooses deliberate inaction, people die but he retains the long term advantage of his intelligence source remaining unnoticed in place. Arthur, here, deliberately chooses not to commit mages against the bulldragon because ordinary cops with guns will do just as well (or poorly) as mages. Sending in police mages would be confirmation to everybody that magic is real and would add to the suspicion that it is possible to learn. And he does that because he fears the long-term consequences of committing mages. He makes this clear the moment that he states that he refuses to deliberately create an incident that might cause the change because Magic might see it as an attempt to swindle it. He has chosen a course of action that involves deliberate nonaction, not out of malice but because he does not wish to make matters worse than they are -- and perhaps because he genuinely believes that matters will be worse if he acts rashly. This does not make him a 'good guy' or 'right', but it does make him a man caught between a number of bad choices and not seeing a good choice attempting to choose the least of the available evils. And I would hardly call him evil for that.

I am afraid that I have to disagree in almost every particular with the above. One, a magic change will not automatically 'blow up' EGS. What has always made this story good to me is the characterisation. Hypothetically, magic changing might even be a good thing for the storyline. In fact I would say that both outcomes could be fascinating. Severe changes and hidden magic might lead to new stories and different character dynamics due to power shifting around and perhaps new spells or even new ways of casting spells. Minor changes and public magic leads to a different challenge -- an entirely new world situation as everybody on Earth will have to come to terms with the existence of magic. Of the two above, I personally would consider option two by far the more daunting challenge. I would not blame Dan if he preferred option one; it would mean less work for him and more focus on his main characters. Consider: How would the various religions of the world react to magic? (Hint: read history.) How would the various governments cope? Dictatorships everywhere might seek to forcibly recruit mages and weaponise them as would certain of the dodgier democracies. How would society at large cope? And so forth. The relationship between Van and Tedd might be interesting but it will barely be touched in a sub-chapter like this one. And nonetheless Van is here. I do not think he has nothing to contribute in this discussion merely because he isn't very old. In fact, he might well have a perspective most adults lack. So many adults automatically ignore the perspective of children and consider them unimportant. This is a bias that I do not think the Will of Magic is subject to. Finally, you missed an important option. We should look forward to finding out if Arthur is wrong, deluded, downright evil or right. Yes, he has not been portrayed as very sympathetic. That doesn't mean he is automatically wrong.

It keeps going, and going, and going...

Most likely a security screwup somewhere. These days it seems that barely a handful of months passes between instances of some big company having all their customer information stolen.

I am not a bad guy! I do my ill-advised openings for SCIENCE!

Maybe they'll all move to Illinois. I hear there's a good college in Indiana.

At that the guy got lucky. I remember a story of a goo entity that got its body blown up and it got stepped on before it could find a new host.

Not that guy again. I just had the most annoying time with him when he was trying to steal my time machine using the dumbest justification ever. He said, "It's going to belong in a museum!"

Fair enough, fair enough. I'd just heard good things about the new plasma-armed TVs. Apparently they are so powerful that when the news cover conflict zones, they can bring the battlefield right into your living room. No no, that's the new Draculavision line from Philips. But according to all the reviews, it sucks.

His excuse is always the same. Alligators, hippos and pyramids.

It isn't? I have been fibbed to

Look, I've been low on ammo and I insist on making my drive-bys totally over the top with bullets going everywhere and not an intact window left in the whole block near my target. If I can't do that, it just isn't worth it.

I thought your preferences went towards deadfalls, pit traps, huge rolling balls and ancient curses.

Can it fire plasma beams?

How many pins can dance on the head of an angel?

Hey all. I've been travelling and have had SO much trouble finding time for the forums. I apologise. But I am back now and will get back in swing after I've slept some. Hope all is well. ~tOH.