Ironik

I'm drawing a blank on where the reference to the "divine is natural" is in game. In War Witch's commentary in the Origin of Power arc, she specifically states that Tielekku is the source of all magic in the world, saying that it's separate from the divine, but as far as I can recall that's the only mention of it. I had assumed that meant there was "god magic" (divine) and "human magic" (magic). The whole Circle of Thorns background involves their god warring against other gods, so the CoT aligned with demons, which introduced "demon magic." As far as I can recall (and at this point I just blow past the text so maybe I've forgotten it) there is no mention of the divine in those CoT arcs -- it's all about dark magic.

Hero-1 became an Incarnate after the Lady of the Lake gave him Excalibur, and he was chosen to lead the all-magic Omega team because he was the most powerful magic user. To me, that pretty much says that Excalibur is magic, so by extension the Girdle of Hera would be, too, since they come from the same group of gods.

Since everything else the gods give to humans is magic, then inferring that Excalibur, etc., are magic seems relatively straightforward.

See, it's this part that smells of retcon to me, and I don't buy it. Every other time the Well of Furies has been mentioned, it's in relation to bestowing magical properties upon people or items. It's only recently the Well has transformed from a literal water well to a metaphorical source of power. But even then its effects are described as magical. I believe in the Cannon Fodder thread it was stated that the Greek gods still exist, they just choose not to manifest directly, instead imparting their powers upon Incarnates. I haven't seen any mention that is being changed now.

Again, this is a departure from established lore, because it is explicitly stated that the Well is a repository for power, altering those who drink from it into Incarnates. Hero-1 is the sole exception to this in official cannon, getting his abilities from Excalibur and the Lady of the Lake, who has some connection to the Well. I don't think they clarified whether she's a conduit or a god herself. If they're using Hero-1's backstory to say that the Well is but one of many conduits of magic, that's fine, but it doesn't change my basic stance that Incarnate stuff is magic.

Something like Space Battleship Yamato?

We need a phrase like "rose-colored glasses" for hearing.

Fixed the link.

Funny ad.

If you mean this moment right here, then there must be something wrong with your sound card. That's definitely the metal-on-metal drawing-the-sword zing sound.

I see what you mean, but I actually started doing that with the Origin of Power nonsense since it instantly invalidated at least a dozen character backstories, especially my 117-year-old mutant who was told that no mutants existed before 1938.

Call it what you will, it's still magic. Despite not coming right out and saying that the Well is magic, there's still a lot of hints that something supernatural is going on. Until they put in something that convinces me the Well's ability to give you a boost through what is essentially wish-fulfillment is actually some sort of cosmological constant like gravity, then all of the talk about magical items (Excalibur, Hera's Girdle, the power of Zeus, etc.) is something I'm going to take at face value.

There is a Magic origin in the game, Mu is a magic-based gene pool, Omega team was specifically comprised of magic users, the Rikti are now seeking magic... on and on. If they're going to switch gears and start saying that what we call "magic" is actually technologically manipulated dark energy or something, then come out and do it. But that's going to make a lot of people unhappy. "Magic" as a generic concept is pretty well understood and is accepted to be part of this universe. Everything regarding the Well of Furies has been about mythological gods and the supernatural magic powers they possessed, and how the most powerful NPCs are likewise incarnates of those mythic gods.

No matter how much they "character develop" the Well of Furies to not be a physical well, there is still a ton of lore about how it's magic.

Regardless of how the boost is given, whether it's by magical means of "Power Spirits Activate!" or some form of nanotechnology rewriting a character's DNA, some of my characters aren't going to participate in that. Because I want them to have the story arc of *my* choosing, not have one forced upon them.

It's there. The movies are terrible, but not because of that.

Handy!

Well, you're the one who keeps banging his head into those low pipes.

That's not how I read it. All of the lore on the GR site and Ramiel's arc indicates that you get some sort of magic turbo boost. That's why you can just walk all over those ubermenschen in that "Ouroboros in flames" mission. Some of my characters I've created with the game's backstory in mind, so it's not a big deal. For some of them, though, getting magical steroids doesn't sit well with their concepts.

It's similar to the "evil clone" arc in Talos (I forget the contact's name) -- he's not cloning my robots, so I just ignore it. I've actually become quite adroit at doing that throughout the game, to the point where it's second nature now and I just mentally edit things out on the fly.

My anal-retentive math-centric bother crunched the numbers and says those pictures aren't quite accurate. Still, it's gigantic and scary nonetheless.

On a similar subject, here's the Storm of the Century from 1993. I remember this one vividly; it was quite a doozy.

Exactly. The game mechanics aren't varied enough to show what some of my characters are doing, like my Natural Dual Blades guy is essentially doing a combination of gymnastics and parkour to get to a Titan's vulnerable spot to slice and dice control cables and hydraulic hoses. On the other hand, my Martial Arts guy wears homebuilt armor enhanced with alien technology to basically just punch Titans in the robotic nads.

...and about an hour ago. With the bright sunshine, it's gorgeous here today.



The thing I love about New Hampshire (as opposed to my native Ohio) is that clouds only last a couple days. I don't think I've ever gone an entire week without seeing the sun here, whereas in Ohio you can go months without seeing the sun, because there's nothing to divert weather from rolling in off the Great Plains.