Comments About Piers Anthony's Incarnations
Tim Bruening
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For Love Of Evil: Lucifer's plot to overrun Europe with Mongols failed
because the Mongol leader died before the Mongols could overrun Europe,
and Parry got the news of his death to the Mongol forces in Europe,
causing them to withdraw in order to help elect a new leader. Why
couldn't Lucifer arrange for the Mongols to conquer Europe a year
earlier?
Wielding A Red Sword: Pages 97-98 of paperback. Mym learns that Rapture
is starving because the Purgatory food doesn't have enough substance to
sustain her. Thus Rapture has either to return to Earth to eat, or eat
in the Hell Annex with Lilah (who teaches her how to be independent,
thus splitting her from Mym).
And Eternity: Page 172 of paperback. Jolie tells the mortal Vita that
she doesn't need to eat in Purgatory, as her body can exist for an
indefinite time, in much the way the souls do. If that is true, why
would Rapture need to eat in Purgatory?
Pages 265-282: While Jolie, Orlene, and Vita are inhabiting the body of
Ilka, a man named Kane tries to rape and kill her. However, he instead
stabs himself in the crotch, dies, and goes to Hell. He does not bother
to ask Ilka's name.
Pages 304-309: Satan wants Orlene to persuade Kane to tell him the names
of the 12 women he killed, so that Satan can arrange for Kane to suffer
for the sins of those women. With the help of Kane's sister Laurel,
Orlene gets Kane to do so. Since Kane didn't ask for Ilka's name, how
is it that he knows the names of his 12 victims? Why would he ask for
their names, yet fail to ask for Ilka's name?
Tim Bruening
On A Pale Horse: Pag 286 of paperback. Zane realizes that with his soul
in balance during his trial period as Incarnation Of Death, he can't be
killed, since as Death, he would have to collect himself, which he can't
do if he's dead. However, couldn't a person kill Zane, become the new
Incarnation of Death, and then collect Zane's soul? (Or collect Luna's
soul as Zane had failed to do, then collect Zane's soul).
Dreamer
Bruening" <tsbr...@pop.dcn.davis.ca.us> wrote:
There is a quantum barrier in the way of his killer becoming the new Death.
By Authorial fiat, nothing can kill an Incarnation of Death whose soul is in
balance. He's still Death until he dies, he can't die until Death removes
his soul, and Death can't remove his own soul. So until Death's soul leaves
his body, the killer can't become Death, and Death's soul *can't* leave his
body. So no dice.
Zane didn't become Death until *after* the previous Death was dead and his
soul, which was in positive territory, had left his body.
D
Dreamer
Bruening" <tsbr...@pop.dcn.davis.ca.us> wrote:
Because conquering Europe, even for a Mongol horde, is not something you do
overnight. There was a plan, the plan was working, there was no reason to
try to speed it up until Fate pulled that dirty trick with the Great Khan,
at which point the plan was an irretrievable failure.
> Wielding A Red Sword: Pages 97-98 of paperback. Mym learns that Rapture
> is starving because the Purgatory food doesn't have enough substance to
> sustain her. Thus Rapture has either to return to Earth to eat, or eat
> in the Hell Annex with Lilah (who teaches her how to be independent,
> thus splitting her from Mym).
>
> And Eternity: Page 172 of paperback. Jolie tells the mortal Vita that
> she doesn't need to eat in Purgatory, as her body can exist for an
> indefinite time, in much the way the souls do. If that is true, why
> would Rapture need to eat in Purgatory?
I forget: is Rapture human?
> Pages 265-282: While Jolie, Orlene, and Vita are inhabiting the body of
> Ilka, a man named Kane tries to rape and kill her. However, he instead
> stabs himself in the crotch, dies, and goes to Hell. He does not bother
> to ask Ilka's name.
>
> Pages 304-309: Satan wants Orlene to persuade Kane to tell him the names
> of the 12 women he killed, so that Satan can arrange for Kane to suffer
> for the sins of those women. With the help of Kane's sister Laurel,
> Orlene gets Kane to do so. Since Kane didn't ask for Ilka's name, how
> is it that he knows the names of his 12 victims? Why would he ask for
> their names, yet fail to ask for Ilka's name?
Coincidence. :)
D
Tim Bruening
Bearing An Hourglass: Pages 309-310 of paperback: Norton asks Excelsia
if anyone would notice if the universe doubled in size. She says no
(since the yardsticks would double in size too), but Norton points out
that the planets would increase in mass 8 fold, and a man's mass would
also increase 8 fold due to the volume increasing 8 fold (2 cubed).
Thus the man's weight would increase 64 fold (An 8 fold mass increase x
an 8 fold gravity increase). Meanwhile, the cross section of the man's
legs would only increase 4 fold (2 squared). This is the square-cube
ratio. Thus the weight per square inch would increase 16 fold, and the
man would be crushed. However, I see an error in Norton's argument.
Although the planet's mass would increase 8 fold, its gravity would only
double, due to the inverse square law (the planet's diameter has
doubled, so the gravity would be 8/4 times greater). Thus the man's
weight would only increase 16 fold, still enough to crush him.
Pages 322-331: Norton travels back in time to the Big Bang, then far
forward in time. He is kept safe by the magic of his Hourglass. While
he is billions of years back or forward, he would be far away from any
planet. On page 343, Mars says that magic has a range of 10,000,000
meters, or a planetary diameter. How then would the Hourglass keep
Norton safe? Wouldn't it be deprived of the magic it needs to operate?
And Eternity: At the end, Orlene is elected God and ascends to Heaven.
I bet that when she gets there, she will find her former lover Norton
waiting for her, having ascended to Heaven over 40 years before when his
time as Incarnation of Time ran out. I wonder what happened to Sning at
that point?
The Senate voted to vacate the Office of God. Wouldn't that be a
violation of the Seperation of Church and State?
Tim Bruening
Dreamer wrote:
I had read that the previous Death wouldn't die until Zane collected his first
soul. This would mean that Zane wasn't yet Death, so how did he collect that
first soul?
Tim Bruening
Dreamer wrote:
> > Wielding A Red Sword: Pages 97-98 of paperback. Mym learns that Rapture
> > is starving because the Purgatory food doesn't have enough substance to
> > sustain her. Thus Rapture has either to return to Earth to eat, or eat
> > in the Hell Annex with Lilah (who teaches her how to be independent,
> > thus splitting her from Mym).
> >
> > And Eternity: Page 172 of paperback. Jolie tells the mortal Vita that
> > she doesn't need to eat in Purgatory, as her body can exist for an
> > indefinite time, in much the way the souls do. If that is true, why
> > would Rapture need to eat in Purgatory?
>
> I forget: is Rapture human?
Yes. She's a human Princess of an Indian Kingdom.
Dreamer
Bruening" <tsbr...@pop.dcn.davis.ca.us> wrote:
If that's what it says, the whole thing's inconsistent. However, that's not
how I remember it reading. I have no idea where my copy is or if I even have
it anymore, so I can't say for sure.
D
Pumpkin
news:BC8BA8D6.2F168%dre...@dreamstrike.com...
I doubt I'll make time to read my copy even though I know where it is, but
from what I remember, Zane had to decide whether or not to accept that
office and by collecting the old Death's soul, he accepted it.
Also, the way I understood it was that Death was basically invincible while
we wore the garments of his office. Regardless of trial period then, Zane
could have had a short reign as death if he'd been careless enough to not
fully garb himself in full (i.e., like the prior Death, who left his hood
down while coming to collect Zane's soul).
Pumpkin
news:4066459B...@pop.dcn.davis.ca.us...
Um... yes? :)
Actually, I'm waiting for Erin to pop back in here and comment. I've found
him to be an amazing mathematician.
> Pages 322-331: Norton travels back in time to the Big Bang, then far
> forward in time. He is kept safe by the magic of his Hourglass. While
> he is billions of years back or forward, he would be far away from any
> planet. On page 343, Mars says that magic has a range of 10,000,000
> meters, or a planetary diameter. How then would the Hourglass keep
> Norton safe? Wouldn't it be deprived of the magic it needs to operate?
Why WOULD it be deprived of it's magic? The magic of the office is contained
within each office's symbol, regardless of time or location. The range of
the magic may be 10,000,000 meters (a planetary diameter), but that doesn't
mean that a planet has to be nearby for the item to work, just that the
items magic reaches that far.
> And Eternity: At the end, Orlene is elected God and ascends to Heaven.
> I bet that when she gets there, she will find her former lover Norton
> waiting for her, having ascended to Heaven over 40 years before when his
> time as Incarnation of Time ran out. I wonder what happened to Sning at
> that point?
I thought Sning had been passed on or ended up in the hands of a young
girl...
> The Senate voted to vacate the Office of God. Wouldn't that be a
> violation of the Seperation of Church and State?
Yes. But how many times does government violate that one? :p
Chris
Dreamer
<roeszler_at_cable_1_dot_net> wrote:
Norton makes logical errors in all of his metaphysical arguments. The
explanation for this is either that Anthony doesn't do very good research
into the history of the philosophical questions that they're based on, or,
more likely, it's simply part of the characterization of Norton as a bright
and introspective but not highly educated person.
>> Pages 322-331: Norton travels back in time to the Big Bang, then far
>> forward in time. He is kept safe by the magic of his Hourglass. While
>> he is billions of years back or forward, he would be far away from any
>> planet. On page 343, Mars says that magic has a range of 10,000,000
>> meters, or a planetary diameter. How then would the Hourglass keep
>> Norton safe? Wouldn't it be deprived of the magic it needs to operate?
>
> Why WOULD it be deprived of it's magic? The magic of the office is contained
> within each office's symbol, regardless of time or location. The range of
> the magic may be 10,000,000 meters (a planetary diameter), but that doesn't
> mean that a planet has to be nearby for the item to work, just that the
> items magic reaches that far.
Magic is a force of nature in the Incarnations universe, like gravity or
electromagnetism. It's generated by the presence of matter, like all the
other forces. If you take a magic item out into space, it won't work,
because there's not enough matter nearby to generate magical particles.
Magical beings can't use their powers to jump directly between planetary
bodies.
That being said, it's quite possible that the Symbols are outside the normal
rules. They shouldn't be, but I'd be willing to live with it since they are
unique artifacts.
D
Dreamer
<roeszler_at_cable_1_dot_net> wrote:
Actually, it was not necessary to collect the previous Death's soul. He
accepted the office by putting on the stuff: he sealed the deal by
collecting the first "regularly scheduled" soul as directed by his
equipment.
> Also, the way I understood it was that Death was basically invincible while
> we wore the garments of his office.
Quite true. This is independent of the paradoxical protection he enjoys
during his trial period. The garments are proof against all physical attacks
and render the wearer impervious to environmental conditions.
I forget if Zane is wearing his robe when he's hit with the suffocation
spell. If he is, either there is a major continuity error there (remember he
could breathe quite well in the mine, where the miners were suffocating) or
the spell was powerful enough to defeat his robe... Which is a major
continuity error, because if a spell could defeat it, it wasn't proof
against all attacks. It wouldn't be very impressive if any powerful magician
could cheat death by keeping his soul in balance and trying to smother Death
every time he showed up.
> Regardless of trial period then, Zane
> could have had a short reign as death if he'd been careless enough to not
> fully garb himself in full (i.e., like the prior Death, who left his hood
> down while coming to collect Zane's soul).
At one point Zane is told that his magic has been turned off because he is
in violation of his office: dealing with this causes him some problems, but
also leads him to the intuitive flash that gives him the key to defeating
Satan.
However, even with his magical garb inoperative, he still couldn't be killed
during his trial period, because his soul was in balance. His predecessor's
soul was in positive territory and therefore could be removed from his body
without Death's direct intervention.
D
Tim Bruening
For Love Of Evil: Page 270 of paperback: Mars is confronting Satan/Parry
at the fifth and final checkpoint during the Great Infernal Uprising.
Mars threatens to phase in with Satan and thus learn all his secrets.
Satan/Parry thinks to himself that he can't allow that, since Mars would
learn of his plot to provoke martial law in the U.S. by provoking a
massive surge in violence. I'm surprised that Satan isn't also worried
that Mars would learn that his demon destruction magic is a fraud, then
pass on that information to the local demons, thus provoking a demon
uprising!
Dreamer
I don't know that Mars can do a complete download from Satan. For one thing,
Satan's centuries old at this point: Mars isn't very old and might not be
able to handle that much infodump. He may have to have some general idea of
what he's looking for (although his threat certainly implies that he'll get
anything Satan wants to keep.) For another, the very last thing Mars would
want to do would be to allow all the demons in Hell to figure out that they
have *nothing* to be afraid of from Satan, because then I think the word
you'd be looking at is "amok." And that amoking would eventually spill *out*
of Hell. He's walking a fine line between causing a revolt against Satan and
allowing all the demons to completely run out of control.
D
Schram...@aol.com
>>> Spoilers:
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>>> Excelsia if anyone would notice if the universe doubled in size.
>>> She says no (since the yardsticks would double in size too),
>>> but Norton points out that the planets would increase in mass
>>> 8 fold, and a man's mass would also increase 8 fold due to the
>>> volume increasing 8 fold (2 cubed). Thus the man's weight would
>>> increase 64 fold (An 8 fold mass increase x an 8 fold gravity
>>> increase). Meanwhile, the cross section of the man's
>>> legs would only increase 4 fold (2 squared). This is the
>>> square-cube ratio. Thus the weight per square inch would
>>> increase 16 fold, and the man would be crushed. However, I see
>>> an error in Norton's argument. Although the planet's mass would
>>> increase 8 fold, its gravity would only double, due to the
>>> inverse square law (the planet's diameter has doubled, so the
>>> gravity would be 8/4 times greater). Thus the man's weight
>>> would only increase 16 fold, still enough to crush him.
Mr. Roeszler said,
>> Um... yes? :)
>>
>> Actually, I'm waiting for to pop back in here and comment.
>> I've found him to be an amazing mathematician.
I am a mathematician, that's all. Mr. Bruening's argument is
perfectly correct. Furthermore, if the doubling of distances did
not keep density constant as Norton presumed, but instead kept
mass constant, this increase in distance between masses would
reduce weight fourfold. While not as dramatic as crushing
something under a 16-fold increase in weight, it would also
be a noticeable change contrary to Excelsia's reasoning.
Dreamer said,
> Norton makes logical errors in all of his metaphysical arguments.
> The explanation for this is either that Anthony doesn't do very
> good research into the history of the philosophical questions
> that they're based on, or, more likely, it's simply part of the
> characterization of Norton as a bright and introspective but not
> highly educated person.
I suspect that Piers Anthony decided to make Norton exactly as
smart as Anthony himself, so that Piers Anthony could simply
write up his own reasoning as Norton's. Since the purpose of the
scene described above was to test the logic-enhancing magical
alcove the party had discovered, having the enhanced Excelsia
reason less thoroughly than Norton's unenhanced reasoning was
all that was necessary for the plot. Norton merely had to be
more logical than Excelsia, not perfectly correct.
Mr. Bruening said,
>>> Pages 322-331: Norton travels back in time to the Big Bang,
>>> then far forward in time. He is kept safe by the magic of
>>> his Hourglass. While he is billions of years back or forward,
>>> he would be far away from any planet. On page 343, Mars says
>>> that magic has a range of 10,000,000 meters, or a planetary
>>> diameter. How then would the Hourglass keep Norton safe?
>>> Wouldn't it be deprived of the magic it needs to operate?
Mr. Roeszler said,
>> Why WOULD it be deprived of it's magic? The magic of the office
>> is contained within each office's symbol, regardless of time or
>> location. The range of the magic may be 10,000,000 meters (a
>> planetary diameter), but that doesn't mean that a planet has
>> to be nearby for the item to work, just that the items magic
>> reaches that far.
The range rules on magic applied to the tests made by magicians,
not Incarnations. It is plausible that the Incarnations, like
Chris Roeszler, are not restricted by those rules. The magicians
appear to draw their magic from outside sources, such as nature
or a deal with a demon. The magic of the Incarnations seems to
be inherent in their offices, so it might be from the symbols
of their office, or it might be directly from the underlying force
that created the offices in the first place.
Furthermore, since the Hourglass of Chronos travels backwards in
time, rather than being forged in the distance past like the
other symbols such as the Sword of Mars, it must have been
forged in the future. It could have all sorts of unusual abilities
not known to the ancient powers. On page 240 of "For Love
of Evil", Satan thinks, "Chronos' Hourglass was the most
powerful magical instrument known."
Dreamer said,
> Magic is a force of nature in the Incarnations universe,
> like gravity or electromagnetism. It's generated by the
> presence of matter, like all the other forces. If you take a
> magic item out into space, it won't work, because there's not
> enough matter nearby to generate magical particles. Magical
> beings can't use their powers to jump directly between planetary
> bodies.
>
> That being said, it's quite possible that the Symbols are
> outside the normal rules. They shouldn't be, but I'd be willing
> to live with it since they are unique artifacts.
Piers Anthony said in "Bearing an Hourglass" that in Norton's
future time (2002 A.D. according to Phoenix's chronology of
the series at http://www.druidstar.com/IoIChron.html) mankind had
devised a Unified Field Theory that included magic. But he did not
describe this theory. Dreamer's first paragraph above seems like a
good start at creating that theory.
Mr. Bruening said,
>>> And Eternity: At the end, Orlene is elected God and ascends
>>> to Heaven. I bet that when she gets there, she will find her
>>> former lover Norton waiting for her, having ascended to Heaven
>>> over 40 years before when his time as Incarnation of Time ran
>>> out. I wonder what happened to Sning at that point?
Chris Roeszler said,
>> I thought Sning had been passed on or ended up in the hands
>> of a young girl...
Chris, that is what happened in the "Under Cloak of Night" fan
fiction we had written in the Piers Anthony Thread, not in
the actual books. I had wondered the same thing Mr. Bruening
had and wrote my solution into the story.
The fate of Chronos at the end of his tenure is one of the details
of the series that bothers me. All the other Incarnations, if they
maintain their duties properly are rewarded by living long past
their natural lifespan. Chronos gets less than double his normal
lifespan. The eight-year-old Chronos who showed up on page 156 of
"With a Tangled Skein" cut his life short by taking the job as
Chronos.
Only, how do we know that Chronos dies at the end of his tenure?
There is no body. If Chronos disappears when his life is completely
unwound, that is ceasing to exist, not death. And why should the
soul survive this? The current Incarnations had no contact with
Heaven to ask whether the soul of Chronos arrived there--they
assumed his soul went to his just reward because it was gone too.
It is possible that Norton completely ceased to exist, body and
soul, and his soul was not in Heaven waiting for Orlene.
On the other hand, having the 80 kilograms of Chronos's body mass
simply cease to exist seems odd too. If he regressed to a baby,
a fetus, an embryo, and an egg, and then vanished, that would
avoid a large mass disappearing, but Chronos keeps a mature form
through his tenure. Of course, Chronos's mass disappears all the
time--whenever he time travels. So it is possible that Chronos,
upon releasing the Hourglass, springs forward across time to the
same moment in time that he grasped the Hourglass. Having not
aged during his tenure, the former Chronos simply resumes his life
as he had left it. The other Incarnations do not notice this
because he appears in the location where he released the Hourglass,
not the location where he grabbed the Hourglass. So when Orlene
becomes the Incarnation of Good, she could discover that Norton
is still alive and aged two more years as a mortal past his
Chronos age.
A third idea I had is that when Chronos releases the Hourglass,
he is catapulted to the beginning of time, where a congress of
former Chronoses orchestrate over the beginning of time, making
sure the universe ends up the way they like it.
As for the case of Sning, I suspect that that magic ring would
ask Norton to pass it on to another person in 1955, shortly
before Norton releases the Hourglass to end his backwards tenure.
Even if Sning knows there is no risk in remaining with Chronos,
it likes meddling in people's lives, and being passed on after
traveling 39 years into the past gives it an extra 39 years
to meddle. In the fan fiction, I presumed that Sning was passed
from parent to child until it ended up on the finger of a
two-year-old girl, as Chris Roeszler remembers, a little girl
who is fond of her uncle Norton and is destined to become an
Incarnation herself when she grows up.
Mr. Bruening said,
>>> The Senate voted to vacate the Office of God. Wouldn't that
>>> be a violation of the Separation of Church and State?
Church? I don't see any church involved in this. The United States
constitution doesn't say anything about direct negotiations between
Heaven and the United States. It just says that the government
cannot mandate nor forbid the practice of any religion.
Seriously, the U.S. constitution does not give the U.S. government
the power to re-elect God. I assumed that the Senate was really
voting on what the U.S. vote would be on a United Nations resolution
to re-elect God.
Member of the Piers Anthony Thread
Tim Bruening
Schram...@aol.com wrote:
But the Incarnations announced the election of the new God one hour
after the Senate vote. Wouldn't it take more than one hour for the UN
to vote on whether to reelect God?
Does the UN have that kind of authority? If it did, wouldn't the Muslim
nations want to elect Allah as God?
Why would our President pay any attention to what the Senate thinks
about God?
Tim Bruening
On A Pale Horse: Zane shoots Thanatos dead, hitting the center of his
face, because Thanatos had forgotten to cover his face entirely with his
cloak. If Thanatos had remembered, what would have happened to Zane
(who did not shoot himself as he had planned, so would still be alive
and well)?
Dreamer
Bruening" <tsbr...@pop.dcn.davis.ca.us> wrote:
Yes, he would. Atropos had obviously not cut his thread. (A Death on good
terms with Fate might be able to go on indefinitely, by checking with her to
see if the threads of people he was aimed at were about to run out.
Similarly with Time.)
He would simply have been right where he was before he tried to kill
himself, except that he might have some post-Thanotic-stress disorder.
Probably he'd either have taken seeing Death as a sign to straighten up, or
done it again a short time later (since his circumstances wouldn't have
changed, except that he'd also have been homeless.)
D
Dreamer
Bruening" <tsbr...@pop.dcn.davis.ca.us> wrote:
>> Mr. Bruening said,
>>>>> The Senate voted to vacate the Office of God. Wouldn't that
>>>>> be a violation of the Separation of Church and State?
>>
>> Church? I don't see any church involved in this. The United States
>> constitution doesn't say anything about direct negotiations between
>> Heaven and the United States. It just says that the government
>> cannot mandate nor forbid the practice of any religion.
>>
>> Seriously, the U.S. constitution does not give the U.S. government
>> the power to re-elect God. I assumed that the Senate was really
>> voting on what the U.S. vote would be on a United Nations resolution
>> to re-elect God.
>
> But the Incarnations announced the election of the new God one hour
> after the Senate vote. Wouldn't it take more than one hour for the UN
> to vote on whether to reelect God?
>
> Does the UN have that kind of authority? If it did, wouldn't the Muslim
> nations want to elect Allah as God?
>
> Why would our President pay any attention to what the Senate thinks
> about God?
Technically, they are not electing God. They are voting on whether they
agree that the Incarnation of Good has abandoned his office. If they so
find, they don't get to pick the new Incarnation anyway, IIRC - the other
Incarnations do.
Whether you call him Allah, God, the Father, a majority of the people who
believe in him have to vote that this is the case before he can be replaced
without his consent. As the representatives of a nation whose population
mostly believes in him, they are voting by proxy.
D
Beowulf Bolt
thread each time you make one of your stunningly insightful 'comments'?
Can you not just add them to a previous "Comments About Blah Blah Blah"
thread about the same work?
It would make killfiling the stupid things so much easier.
Ta.
Biff
--
-------------------------------------------------------------------
"Me? Lady, I'm your worst nightmare - a pumpkin with a gun.
[...] Euminides this! " - Mervyn, the Sandman #66
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Tim Bruening
Dreamer wrote:
Would it be possible to oust God on other grounds, such as excessive violence
(such as smiting Egypt with multiple disasters in Moses' time, or flooding the
entire world in Noah's time)?
Tim Bruening
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When Satan abdicated his Office for a month (end of Being a Green Mother, end
of For Love of Evil), did the 5 Incarnations opposing him take the opportunity
to advance the cause of Good?
On A Pale Horse: Page 213 of paperback. Chronos tells Zane that Luna will go
into politics if Satan doesn't succeed in taking her out. Zane protests "But
she is an artists!" Chronos replies "So was Winston Churchill, and Adolf
Hitler studied to be one. Zane then thought of Churchill and Hitler, "opposing
leaders in the great Second World War between the Allies and the Axis".
However, in For Love of Evil, Satan goads Chronos (one of Norton's successors)
into eliminating the Holocaust. How did he do that without eliminating Hitler
as leader of the Axis?
Bearing An Hourglass: Page 221 of paperback: Thanatos speculates that Luna
might become the first female President of the U.S. However, according to With
a Tangled Skein, Luna was born in Ireland, which means that she can't serve as
President, since she was born outside the U.S.
Page 84: Norton (the newly installed Chronos) is living backwards in time, and
releases a fragment of paper. He sees it fly into the wind (Norton feels the
wind blowing back towards it source, but that doesn't change its effect).
However, I believe that the paper would start going forwards in time when it
left Norton, so it should disappear from Norton's point of view.
Page 355: Norton turns the sand brown, causing Satan to live backwards. He
sees Satan walking and talking backwards. However, since Norton was moving
forward in time at that time, I believe that Satan should have disappeared from
his point of view.
Page 351: Norton goes back 18 years to reverse Luna's election defeat. He sees
that Luna's hair is bright chestnut instead of dull brown. However, "With A
Tangled Skein" gave me the impression that Luna had dyed her hair brown just
after she arrived in the U.S. and a few years before she entered politics.
Indeed, her hair is brown in "On A Pale Horse" (page 78 of paperback) just
after Zane became Death.
Dreamer
Bruening" <tsbr...@pop.dcn.davis.ca.us> wrote:
I doubt they had time to do much. Evil has a lot of inertia.
> On A Pale Horse: Page 213 of paperback. Chronos tells Zane that Luna will go
> into politics if Satan doesn't succeed in taking her out. Zane protests "But
> she is an artists!" Chronos replies "So was Winston Churchill, and Adolf
> Hitler studied to be one. Zane then thought of Churchill and Hitler,
> "opposing
> leaders in the great Second World War between the Allies and the Axis".
>
> However, in For Love of Evil, Satan goads Chronos (one of Norton's successors)
> into eliminating the Holocaust. How did he do that without eliminating Hitler
> as leader of the Axis?
Full implementation of Hitler's Final Solution did not begin until the war
was well under way, IIRC. The war, of course, started in late 1939, giving
Hitler and Churchill plenty of time to be opposing leaders without the
Holocaust occurring.
> Bearing An Hourglass: Page 221 of paperback: Thanatos speculates that Luna
> might become the first female President of the U.S. However, according to
> With
> a Tangled Skein, Luna was born in Ireland, which means that she can't serve as
> President, since she was born outside the U.S.
Lots of people forget about that requirement. And, of course, if she becomes
popular enough, they can always change the Constitution to allow her to run.
> Page 84: Norton (the newly installed Chronos) is living backwards in time, and
> releases a fragment of paper. He sees it fly into the wind (Norton feels the
> wind blowing back towards it source, but that doesn't change its effect).
> However, I believe that the paper would start going forwards in time when it
> left Norton, so it should disappear from Norton's point of view.
Good point. Although it wouldn't disappear, it would just do whatever it was
doing before he interacted with it.
> Page 355: Norton turns the sand brown, causing Satan to live backwards. He
> sees Satan walking and talking backwards. However, since Norton was moving
> forward in time at that time, I believe that Satan should have disappeared
> from
> his point of view.
Built-in chronostatic system in the Hourglass. If Time couldn't change
things, there wouldn't be much point in being Time.
> Page 351: Norton goes back 18 years to reverse Luna's election defeat. He
> sees
> that Luna's hair is bright chestnut instead of dull brown. However, "With A
> Tangled Skein" gave me the impression that Luna had dyed her hair brown just
> after she arrived in the U.S. and a few years before she entered politics.
> Indeed, her hair is brown in "On A Pale Horse" (page 78 of paperback) just
> after Zane became Death.
People change their hair color all the time. I think you're sort of reaching
now.
D
Dreamer
Bruening" <tsbr...@pop.dcn.davis.ca.us> wrote:
I would say no. You can't argue with how the Incarnations do their jobs,
only with whether they're doing them at all. Satan's bluff in _OaPH_ depends
on Zane not letting anybody die *at all,* not on the fact that he took
people he wasn't supposed to and didn't take people he was. Besides, do we
know how long the current Incarnation of Good has been in office? We don't
know he did that stuff, IIRC.
D
Duke of URL
Of course, neither of those qualifies as "excessive" violence - the first
being simple extermination of vermin (Egyptians) and the second being the
predicted punishment for continued contemptible behavior.
Tim Bruening
Dreamer wrote:
IIRC, Luna's father had told her that her hair would have to remain dyed for the
rest of her life.
Tim Bruening
Dreamer wrote:
> > Page 84: Norton (the newly installed Chronos) is living backwards in time, and
> > releases a fragment of paper. He sees it fly into the wind (Norton feels the
> > wind blowing back towards it source, but that doesn't change its effect).
> > However, I believe that the paper would start going forwards in time when it
> > left Norton, so it should disappear from Norton's point of view.
>
> Good point. Although it wouldn't disappear, it would just do whatever it was
> doing before he interacted with it.
I was saying that the paper should disappear from NORTON's point of view, since the
paper would be going forwards, and Norton was going backwards.
Tim Bruening
Duke of URL wrote:
What would qualify as excessive violence?
Dreamer
Bruening" <tsbr...@pop.dcn.davis.ca.us> wrote:
EVERYTHING is going backwards to Norton's point of view. Unless he
spontaneously created the paper, it would still exist in his future because
it was there in the past.
D
Duke of URL
Hmm... Well, smiting someone more severely than deserved or smiting someone
who really didn't deserve it (Job excluded).
--
The One-and-only Holy Moses
Tim Bruening
Dreamer wrote:
But since Norton is going into the past, while the paper is going into the future,
Norton should not be able to see the paper after he releases it, since from his
point of view, it would no longer exist!
Duke of URL
It's *magic*, not science...
Dreamer
This is true of everything in the Universe. If your logic applied, Norton
would have simply fallen into a void of nothing-exists-but-me the instant he
started moving backwards. Why is the paper different from anything else?
D
Tim Bruening
And Eternity: Page 342 of paperback: The Senate vote to declare the
Office of God vacant triggers riots in all the major western cities, and
martial law is declared in several regions.
However, the Incarnations' decision on God's replacement is to be
announced one hour after the Senate vote. During that hour, the
Incarnations' normal functions are suspended. No one is to die, or be
born, or marry, or suffer any significant change. All wars are put on
hold, and the weather is perfectly bland.
How can there be riots and martial if the Incarnations' normal functions
have been suspended, no one is to suffer any significant change, and all
wars put on hold? Wouldn't the riots cause people to suffer significant
changes and count as wars?
Tim Bruening
Unicorn Point: Adept Stile and Citizen Blue are in a sticky situation.
Their sons Bane and Mach are working for the Adverse Adept and Contrary
Citizens, exchanging information between the Magic Book and the Oracle.
Whenever Mach's son Flach visits Stile, and Bane's daughter Nepe visits
Blue, Mach and Bane read the Book of Magic and supply that information
to the Oracle so that the Oracle can analyze it for the Adverse Adepts
and Contrary Citizens. As a result, the AAs and CCs will eventually
take over Phaze and Proton. However, I offer the following suggestions
to Stile and Blue:
Stile could have Trool let him and Brown access the Magic Book (just
enough to keep his side ahead of the Adverse Adepts).
Blue could have the Oracle analyze the information Sheen got from the
Magic Book during "Juxtaposition", and could let his allies among the
Citizens access the Oracle.
Phaze Doubt: The Hectare invade Proton. The only way to save Proton is
to shift the merged frames to the magic universe, using the energy
supplied by a Magic Bomb. To chart the necessary paths for the atoms
(each atom individually), the Game Computer was moved to the South Pole,
where time runs 1,728 times faster! The Game Computer has been working
on the problem for 150 years, and is less than halfway through, with
just 5 local years left. Thus, a Hectare agent named Lysander is needed
to write an algorithm to simplify the problem. However, the leaders of
Proton/Phaze had known of the upcoming invasion for a year (since the
frames merged) before the Hectare came. Why hadn't they move the Game
Computer to under the South Pole when the frames merged so that the Game
Computer would have 1,728 years to solve the problem?
Tim Bruening
And Eternity: Paperback page 202: Hijackers try to hijack a flying
saucer which is flying from the Earth to the Moon. The saucer has a
magic spell which enables it to defy gravity and inertia. However,
since magic has a range of only 10,000 kilometers (about 6200 miles),
according to "Bearing An Hourglass (paperback page 343), and the Moon is
a lot further from Earth than that, how does the saucer's spell function
all the way to the Moon?
Tim Bruening
Juxtaposition: Paperback page 40: Stile's honeymoon party passes a
griffin nest, seeing three griffin cubs and hearing the griffin Mom.
Page 304: Merle and the Rifleman are confined in a cage made of ice,
while 4 hungry griffins pace outside, waiting for the ice to melt.
Unicorn Point: Paperback page 4: Stile sees an unfamiliar creature. He
runs through his repertoire of monsters without finding a match. It
seemed alien to Phaze. Noting that it had a body of a panther or lion,
and the head of a bird of prey, he finally recognizes it as a griffin
(Head and wings of an eagle, body of a lion).
Tim Bruening
Juxtaposition: Paperback page 40: Stile's honeymoon party passes a
griffin nest, seeing three griffin cubs and hearing the griffin Mom.
Page 304: Merle and the Rifleman are confined in a cage made of ice,
while 4 hungry griffins pace outside, waiting for the ice to melt.
Unicorn Point: Paperback page 4: Stile sees an unfamiliar creature. He
runs through his repertoire of monsters without finding a match. It
seemed alien to Phaze. Noting that it had a body of a panther or lion,
and the head of a bird of prey, he finally recognizes it as a griffin
(Head and wings of an eagle, body of a lion). He exclaims "But there
are no griffins in Phaze!". Since he definetely saw griffins in Phaze
25 years before, why would he say that Phaze doesn't have any griffins?
In fact, his reaction implies that Phaze NEVER had any griffins!
Tim Bruening
Unicorn Point: Mach and Fleta's son Flach goes into hiding so that the
Adverse Adepts cannot exchange his visits with Stile for access to the
Magic Book. Mach, Bane, Fleta, and Tania search for him among the
various groups of humans, unicorns, vampire bats, and other animals.
Why does it take them four years to begin seacrthing among the werewolf
packs? After all, werewolves are allies of Stile, so would be a logical
place for Flach to hide.
Why don't Mach or Bane make a Flach tracing spell? ("Map make a flash,
to find Flach"). Since they have agreed to provide the Adverse Adepts
and Contrary Citizens with information from the Book of Magic and the
Oracle, they would feel honor bound to use all their resources to find
Flach so that they can resume providing that information.
Sea Wasp
You're going from the first three books (Good Piers) to later books
(Bad Piers). Don't look for consistency between the two.
--
Sea Wasp
/^\
;;;
Live Journal: http://www.livejournal.com/users/seawasp/
Freezer
Both questions have the same answer: Mach and Fleta knew why Flach went
into hiding, so weren't in _that_ much of a hurry to find him. (And
Trool would've known as well and wouldn't have used the Book to help.)
And in addition, the Adverse Adepts were insistant on searching each
species in full, instead of simply the local allied groups, which
stretched the search out exponentially. Had they done the logical
thing, they would've found Flach in a matter of weeks, maximum.
--
(HTH)
My name is:
____ _
/ ___| | | http://www.geocities.com/
| |__ _ __ ___ ___ ____ ___ _ __ | | mysterysciencefreezer
| __|| '__/ _ \/ _ \/_ // _ \| '__|| | (MSTings and Assorted)
| | | | __/ __/ / /| __/| | |_| ( Fluff )
|_| |_| \___|\___||___|\___||_| (_)
And my anti-drug is porn.
Pumpkin
Rather than believing there is good/bad Piers, a better explanation would be
that in 25 years, it's possible that griffins became extinct. While his
reaction may make it sound like they were never there, it's more likely that
he meant there are none NOW.
Chris R
Tim Bruening
Pumpkin wrote:
Stile's thought processes gave me the impression that he was unfamiliar with the
form of a griffin. He didn't recognize that griffin until he recalled books on
heraldry he had read. I got the impression that he had never before seen a
griffin in the flesh, which would contradict "Juxtaposition".
Why would the griffins have become extinct anyway?
Pumpkin
> > Rather than believing there is good/bad Piers, a better explanation
would be
> > that in 25 years, it's possible that griffins became extinct. While his
> > reaction may make it sound like they were never there, it's more likely
that
> > he meant there are none NOW.
>
> Stile's thought processes gave me the impression that he was unfamiliar
with the
> form of a griffin. He didn't recognize that griffin until he recalled
books on
> heraldry he had read. I got the impression that he had never before seen
a
> griffin in the flesh, which would contradict "Juxtaposition".
>
> Why would the griffins have become extinct anyway?
Um... Natural Selection? Maybe they were hunted by people for sport, or some
wizard/adept thought they would be useful as a spells component? *Pause* OK,
that last bit is stretching. I don't remember any adept need components.
Perhaps they ran out of food, or their food got smart.
I'm sure I could really stretch, and come up with some doozies, but I'd
rather stick to what may be possible; in a fiction novel ;)
With luck, someone will drop in with a better explanation again. I don't do
any research before I post after all :)
Chris
Tim Bruening
Pumpkin wrote:
According to Stile's thought processes, the wildlife surveys of Phaze
(conducted magically and competently) did not detect any griffins.
On page 8, the griffin converts into Mach. Mach says that he had
assumed the form of a griffin because he knew that Stile would recognize
it as being alien to Phaze. Thus it appears that Phaze has NEVER had
any griffins!
Tim Bruening
Tim Bruening wrote:
I'm wondering if Sheen's spell to send dragons to rescue Merle and the Rifleman
from the griffins somehow eliminated all griffins and erased all records and
memories of griffins?
Tim Bruening
Freezer wrote:
But Mach and Bane felt honor bound to transfer information between the Book
and the Oracle for the Adverse Adepts and Contrary Citizens. Shouldn't
they also feel honor bound to use every means at their disposal to find
Flach, including magic spells such as "Map make a flash, to find Flach"?
After all, Mach felt honor bound to try his hardest to defeat Bane during
their Games in "Robot Adept" in spite of his personal feelings.
Why didn't Mach construct his own Demesnes so that he wouldn't be dependent
on Translucent for his living quarters, and also reduce the risk of
treachery on the part of the AA? Just because Mach is allied with the
Adverse Adepts doesn't mean that his family must live with one of them!
Tim Bruening
Freezer wrote:
I said nothing about Trool helping in the search. Also, Mach wouldn't need
the Book, since he has much of it memorized.
Freezer
And didn't raise an eyebrow in regards to Stile's obvious delaying
tactics in limiting the Adverse Adepts' access.
> Shouldn't they also feel honor bound to use every means
> at their disposal to find Flach, including magic spells such as "Map
> make a flash, to find Flach"?
To be fair, any of the other Adverse Adepts could have done the exact
same thing. And didn't.
> After all, Mach felt honor bound to
> try his hardest to defeat Bane during their Games in "Robot Adept"
> in spite of his personal feelings.
But don't forget that Mach was feeling righteously (and justifiably)
pissed at Stile and company for their opposition to his and Fleta's
love. (A blunder Lady Blue admits in "Unicorn Point") He calmed down a
bit in the four years between "RA" and "UP."
> Why didn't Mach construct his own Demesnes so that he wouldn't be
> dependent on Translucent for his living quarters, and also reduce
> the risk of treachery on the part of the AA? Just because Mach is
> allied with the Adverse Adepts doesn't mean that his family must
> live with one of them!
Add that to the list of "Glaring Flaws in the Last Four Aprentice
Adepts Books"
--
My name is:
____ _
/ ___| | |
| |__ _ __ ___ ___ ____ ___ _ __ | |
| __|| '__/ _ \/ _ \/_ // _ \| '__|| |
| | | | __/ __/ / /| __/| | |_|
|_| |_| \___|\___||___|\___||_| (_)
And my anti-drug is porn.
http://www.geocities.com/mysterysciencefreezer
(MSTings and other assorted brain droppings)
Tim Bruening
On the cover of Split Infinity, Neysa the unicorn is black.
On the cover of Unicorn Point, she is brown. Why has her color changed?
AmyO28
>From: Tim Bruening tsbr...@pop.dcn.davis.ca.us
>Date: 4/24/04 5:55 PM Eastern Daylight Time
>Message-id: <408AE23A...@pop.dcn.davis.ca.us>
Because the cover artist didn't read the books...........duh?
-Amy
Tim Bruening
Out Of Phaze: Paperback pages 43-44: Tilly challenges Bane to a Game.
They go to the Physical/Naked: Interactive/Gas subgrid. One of the game
options is SEX, which Tilly fills her squares with. What are the rules
of that game?
Tim Bruening
Stile and Neysa running from Mach the Griffin.
Flach's great escape.
Nepe's game with Mach
Tania attempting to seduce Mach.
Tania's change of heart during the Great Search.
Flach's First Kill.
Nepe's attempt to get Flach's body away from the Mach/Fleta/Tania search
party.
Mach and Bane attempting to get their families away from the Adverse
Adepts/Contrary Citizens after learning about the threat to their
wives. They are only able to get their wives away.
The Purple/Sheen Dragon Duel game. Purple was so enthusiastic about
dueling while riding on cyborg dragons that he volunteered the use of
his estate and dragons for the game. What will happen the next time
someone wants to play Dragon Duel?
Merle finding Troubot masquerading as her hens!
The Tan/Agape Surrogate Sex game, in which each player controls a serf.
In each of the three turns, one player tries to seduce the other
player's serf, while the other player resists. In the third round, rape
is permitted. What happens if both players are of the same gender?
Does the game become a homosexual surrogate sex game?
The flag battles between the animals.
Purple's attempted coup.
Clef piping the frames together.
Tim Bruening
Chance, and Arts along the top, and Naked, Tool, Machine, and Animal
down the side. What games would fit in the Animal Arts category?
Christopher Adams
Jackson Pollock-style scat-flinging paintings.
--
Christopher Adams
What part of "Ph'nglui mglw'nath Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn" don't you
understand?
You're not a bad person. You're a terrific person. You're my favorite person.
But every once in a while you just can be a real cunt.
- Bill
OWK
> The Primary Grid of the Games on the planet Proton has Physical, Mental,
> Chance, and Arts along the top, and Naked, Tool, Machine, and Animal
> down the side. What games would fit in the Animal Arts category?
Painting cats of course.
- Kurt
Steve
ove...@usaor.net says...
So last year, my dear.
This year we are strapping aerosol cans (in different colours obviously)
to cat's paws and then setting fire to them.
--
Peace,
Steve
Being present is so much, because everything here apparently needs us,
this fleeting world, which in some strange way keeps calling to us.
Us, the most fleeting of all.
--Rainer Maria Rilke
Jerry Friedman
> Chance, and Arts along the top, and Naked, Tool, Machine, and Animal
> down the side. What games would fit in the Animal Arts category?
Dressage. Duets with nightingales. Dances with wolves. Maybe
breeding fancy varieties of protozoa? (I seem to recall there were
time limits that were too short to allow pigeon breeding.) Maybe
bullfighting?
--
Jerry Friedman
Tim Bruening
OWK wrote:
Putting paint on the cat, or getting the cat to paint?
Tim Bruening
Steve wrote:
> In article <48986b55.04042...@posting.google.com>,
> ove...@usaor.net says...
> > Tim Bruening <tsbr...@pop.dcn.davis.ca.us> wrote in message news:<408DDD1D...@pop.dcn.davis.ca.us>...
> > > The Primary Grid of the Games on the planet Proton has Physical, Mental,
> > > Chance, and Arts along the top, and Naked, Tool, Machine, and Animal
> > > down the side. What games would fit in the Animal Arts category?
> >
> > Painting cats of course.
>
> So last year, my dear.
>
> This year we are strapping aerosol cans (in different colours obviously)
> to cat's paws and then setting fire to them.
Citizen Blue is coming to arrest you for cruelty to animals.
Steve
tsbr...@pop.dcn.davis.ca.us says...
He'll have to get past my lasercat defence forces first.
Tim Bruening
Steve wrote:
> In article <408F3D05...@pop.dcn.davis.ca.us>,
> tsbr...@pop.dcn.davis.ca.us says...
> >
> >
> > Steve wrote:
> >
> > > In article <48986b55.04042...@posting.google.com>,
> > > ove...@usaor.net says...
> > > > Tim Bruening <tsbr...@pop.dcn.davis.ca.us> wrote in message news:<408DDD1D...@pop.dcn.davis.ca.us>...
> > > > > The Primary Grid of the Games on the planet Proton has Physical, Mental,
> > > > > Chance, and Arts along the top, and Naked, Tool, Machine, and Animal
> > > > > down the side. What games would fit in the Animal Arts category?
> > > >
> > > > Painting cats of course.
> > >
> > > So last year, my dear.
> > >
> > > This year we are strapping aerosol cans (in different colours obviously)
> > > to cat's paws and then setting fire to them.
> >
> > Citizen Blue is coming to arrest you for cruelty to animals.
> >
> >
>
> He'll have to get past my lasercat defence forces first.
Since he has the memories of a Tourney Winner, he should have no difficulty.
OWK
> Chance, and Arts along the top, and Naked, Tool, Machine, and Animal
> down the side. What games would fit in the Animal Arts category?
Cue Lew Zealand and his boomerang fish.
Or the Python skit with the guy and his trained musical mice...
(though the latter might draw the wrath of certain parties)
As for painting cats... I presume either would provide potential
challenges. (paint on cats, or cats using paint)
- Kurt
Tim Bruening
OWK wrote:
Dolphin training.
pixelmeow
Bruening <tsbr...@pop.dcn.davis.ca.us> scribbled:
In my opinion, the artist is unforgivably inept. I don't see the
characters as he makes them, his "art" is awful. Other than that, and
artists usually not reading the stories (AFAIK), I can't answer that.
--
~teresa~
AFH Barwench
^..^ "Never try to outstubborn a cat." Robert A. Heinlein ^..^
http://pixelmeow.com/ http://www.heinleinsociety.org/
http://pixelmeow.com/Book_Exchange/index.htm
http://pixelmeow.com/forum/
aim: pixelmeow msn: pixe...@passport.com
Tim Bruening
pixelmeow wrote:
Why didn't Piers Anthony send descriptions of the main characters to the
artist?
Danny Sichel
>>>On the cover of Split Infinity, Neysa the unicorn is black.
>>>On the cover of Unicorn Point, she is brown. Why has her color changed?
>>In my opinion, the artist is unforgivably inept. I don't see the
>>characters as he makes them, his "art" is awful. Other than that, and
>>artists usually not reading the stories (AFAIK), I can't answer that.
> Why didn't Piers Anthony send descriptions of the main characters to the
> artist?
You appear to be under the misapprehension that authors have that kind
of control over the cover art.
Tim Bruening
Unicorn Point: Mach and Fleta's son Flach goes into hiding so that the
Adverse Adepts cannot exchange his visits with Stile for access to the
Magic Book. Mach, Bane, Fleta, and Tania search for him among the
various groups of humans, unicorns, vampire bats, and other animals.
Why does it take them four years to begin searching among the werewolf
packs? After all, werewolves are allies of Stile, so would be a logical
place for Flach to hide.
Why don't Mach or Bane make a Flach tracing spell? ("Map make a flash,
to find Flach"). Since they have agreed to provide the Adverse Adepts
and Contrary Citizens with information from the Book of Magic and the
Oracle, they would feel honor bound to use all their resources to find
Flach so that they can resume providing that information.
In fact, Bane agrees when Tania points out that he must make the most
diligent effort to recover Flach. I assume that Mach would agree with
that assessment, and I believe that "the most diligent effort" would
include magic spells such as "Map make a Flach, to find Flach".
Tim Bruening
Unicorn Point: Adept Stile and Citizen Blue are in a sticky situation.
Their sons Bane and Mach are working for the Adverse Adept and Contrary
Citizens, exchanging information between the Magic Book and the Oracle.
Whenever Mach's son Flach visits Stile, and Bane's daughter Nepe visits
Blue, Mach and Bane read the Book of Magic and supply that information
to the Oracle so that the Oracle can analyze it for the Adverse Adepts
and Contrary Citizens. As a result, the AAs and CCs will eventually
take over Phaze and Proton. However, I offer the following suggestions
to Stile and Blue:
Stile could have Trool let him and Brown access the Magic Book (just
enough to keep his side ahead of the Adverse Adepts).
Blue could have the Oracle analyze the information Sheen got from the
Magic Book during "Juxtaposition", and could let his allies among the
Citizens access the Oracle.
Phaze Doubt: The Hectare invade Proton. The only way to save Proton is
to shift the merged frames to the magic universe, using the energy
supplied by a Magic Bomb. To chart the necessary paths for the atoms
(each atom individually), the Game Computer was moved to the South Pole,
where time runs 1,728 times faster! The Game Computer has been working
on the problem for 150 years, and is less than halfway through, with
just 5 local years left. Thus, a Hectare agent named Lysander is needed
to write an algorithm to simplify the problem. However, the leaders of
Proton/Phaze had known of the upcoming invasion for a year (since the
frames merged) before the Hectare came. Why hadn't they move the Game
Computer to under the South Pole when the frames merged so that the Game
Computer would have 1,728 years to solve the problem?
Tim Bruening
And Eternity: Page 342 of paperback: The Senate vote to declare the
Office of God vacant triggers riots in all the major western cities, and
martial law is declared in several regions.
However, the Incarnations' decision on God's replacement is to be
announced one hour after the Senate vote. During that hour, the
Incarnations' normal functions are suspended. No one is to die, or be
born, or marry, or suffer any significant change. All wars are put on
hold, and the weather is perfectly bland.
How can there be riots and martial if the Incarnations' normal functions
have been suspended, no one is to suffer any significant change, and all
wars put on hold? Wouldn't the riots cause people to suffer significant
changes and count as wars?
Tim Bruening
And Eternity: Paperback page 202: Hijackers try to hijack a flying
saucer which is flying from the Earth to the Moon. The saucer has a
magic spell which enables it to defy gravity and inertia. However,
since magic has a range of only 10,000 kilometers (about 6200 miles),
according to "Bearing An Hourglass (paperback page 343), and the Moon is
a lot further from Earth than that, how does the saucer's spell function
all the way to the Moon?
Tim Bruening
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When Satan abdicated his Office for a month (end of Being a Green
Mother, end
of For Love of Evil), did the 5 Incarnations opposing him take the
opportunity
to advance the cause of Good?
On A Pale Horse: Page 213 of paperback. Chronos tells Zane that Luna
will go
into politics if Satan doesn't succeed in taking her out. Zane protests
"But
she is an artists!" Chronos replies "So was Winston Churchill, and
Adolf
Hitler studied to be one. Zane then thought of Churchill and Hitler,
"opposing
leaders in the great Second World War between the Allies and the Axis".
However, in For Love of Evil, Satan goads Chronos (one of Norton's
successors)
into eliminating the Holocaust. How did he do that without eliminating
Hitler
as leader of the Axis?
Bearing An Hourglass: Page 221 of paperback: Thanatos speculates that
Luna
might become the first female President of the U.S. However, according
to With
a Tangled Skein, Luna was born in Ireland, which means that she can't
serve as
President, since she was born outside the U.S.
Page 84: Norton (the newly installed Chronos) is living backwards in
time, and
releases a fragment of paper. He sees it fly into the wind (Norton
feels the
wind blowing back towards it source, but that doesn't change its
effect).
However, I believe that the paper would start going forwards in time
when it
left Norton, so it should disappear from Norton's point of view.
Page 355: Norton turns the sand brown, causing Satan to live backwards.
He
sees Satan walking and talking backwards. However, since Norton was
moving
forward in time at that time, I believe that Satan should have
disappeared from
his point of view.
Page 351: Norton goes back 18 years to reverse Luna's election defeat.
He sees
that Luna's hair is bright chestnut instead of dull brown. However,
"With A
Tangled Skein" gave me the impression that Luna had dyed her hair brown
just
after she arrived in the U.S. and a few years before she entered
politics.
Indeed, her hair is brown in "On A Pale Horse" (page 78 of paperback)
just
after Zane became Death.
Duke of URL
Nope. Wars are *organized* fighting; riots are *unorganized* by definition.
--
The One-and-only Holy MosesT
Duke of URL
??? But chestnut IS brown...
Tim Bruening
Satan gets Chronos to change history so as to eliminate the Holocaust
against the Jews and Gypsies. Afterwards, Lilah mentions a "Restored
Holy Roman Empire" when Satan asks about Germany. How does history
proceed in the altered timeline?
When JHVH asked Satan to stop the Nazis, why doesn't Satan simply appear
before Hitler in a ball of fire and order him to spare the Jews?
On A Pale Horse: Page 213 of paperback. Chronos tells Zane that Luna
will go into politics if Satan doesn't succeed in taking her out. Zane
protests "But she is an artist!" Chronos replies "So was Winston
Churchill, and Adolf Hitler studied to be one. Zane then thought of
Churchill and Hitler, "opposing leaders in the great Second World War
between the Allies and the Axis". How did Chronos eliminate the
Holocaust without eliminating Hitler as leader of the Axis powers?
On page 295 of the paperback "With A Tangled Skein", Satan mentions the
Nazi SS cadre as he negotiates with Niobe over the UN stink bomb caper
in the early 1980s. Since there were no Nazis in the altered timeline,
why doesn't Niobe ask "What or who were the Nazi SS cadre?"?
Tim Bruening
Bearing An Hourglass: Paperback page 84: Norton (the newly installed
Chronos) is living backwards in time, and
releases a fragment of paper. He sees it fly into the wind (Norton
feels the wind blowing back towards it source, but that doesn't change
its effect). However, I believe that the paper would start going
forwards in time when it left Norton, so it should disappear from
Norton's point of view.
Page 221 of paperback: Thanatos speculates that Luna might become the
first female President of the U.S. However, according to With a Tangled
Skein, Luna was born in Ireland, which means that she can't serve as
President, since she was born outside the U.S.
Pages 309-310 of paperback: Norton asks Excelsia if anyone would notice
if the universe doubled in size. She says no (since the yardsticks
would double in size too), but Norton points out that the planets would
increase in mass 8 fold, and a man's mass would also increase 8 fold due
to the volume increasing 8 fold (2 cubed).
Thus the man's weight would increase 64 fold (An 8 fold mass increase x
an 8 fold gravity increase). Meanwhile, the cross section of the man's
legs would only increase 4 fold (2 squared). This is the square-cube
ratio. Thus the weight per square inch would increase 16 fold, and the
man would be crushed. However, I see an error in Norton's argument.
Although the planet's mass would increase 8 fold, its gravity would only
double, due to the inverse square law (the planet's diameter has
doubled, so the gravity would be 8/4 times greater). Thus the man's
weight would only increase 16 fold, still enough to crush him.
Pages 322-331: Norton travels back in time to the Big Bang, then far
forward in time. He is kept safe by the magic of his Hourglass. While
he is billions of years back or forward, he would be far away from any
planet. On page 343, Mars says that magic has a range of 10,000,000
meters, or a planetary diameter. How then would the Hourglass keep
Norton safe? Wouldn't it be deprived of the magic it needs to operate?
Tim Bruening
Duke of URL wrote:
But wouldn't Mars' bailiwick cover unorganized violence too? I've seen him
supervise insurgencies as well as international conflicts.
There is still the matter of riots causing people to suffer significant changes
at a time when the Incarnations have decreed that no one is to suffer any
significant changes.
Tim Bruening
Duke of URL wrote:
But a lighter brown than the color hair Luna had in "With A Tangled Skein",
when Niobe used Satan's confusion over her hair color to save Luna from
Satan's interference. Luna's original color was lighter than Orb's color, but
she dyed it to be darker than Orb's hair color, so when Satan requested that
the Kaftan descendent with the darker hair be barred from politics, Niobe
agreed to bar Orb from politics instead of Luna.
Tim Bruening
aliens, androids, or cyborgs, or producing movies using human, alien,
android, or cyborg actors, or producing or managing plays, or coaching
artists in art competitions (music, painting, sewing, weaving,
sculpture, etc.)?
Would Animal Mental games include managing sports teams comprised of
humans, aliens, androids, or cyborgs?
Tim Bruening
Steve wrote:
> In article <408F3D05...@pop.dcn.davis.ca.us>,
> tsbr...@pop.dcn.davis.ca.us says...
> >
> >
> > Steve wrote:
> >
> > > In article <48986b55.04042...@posting.google.com>,
> > > ove...@usaor.net says...
> > > > Tim Bruening <tsbr...@pop.dcn.davis.ca.us> wrote in message news:<408DDD1D...@pop.dcn.davis.ca.us>...
> > > > > The Primary Grid of the Games on the planet Proton has Physical, Mental,
> > > > > Chance, and Arts along the top, and Naked, Tool, Machine, and Animal
> > > > > down the side. What games would fit in the Animal Arts category?
> > > >
> > > > Painting cats of course.
> > >
> > > So last year, my dear.
> > >
> > > This year we are strapping aerosol cans (in different colours obviously)
> > > to cat's paws and then setting fire to them.
> >
> > Citizen Blue is coming to arrest you for cruelty to animals.
> >
> >
>
> He'll have to get past my lasercat defence forces first.
Since he has the memories of a Tourney Winner, he should have no
difficulty. I am certain that he will put laser armor on his knees!
(remembering the time Stile's knees got lasered during a horse race!).
Duke of URL
Argh! I lost track of hair-color-dyings!
Why do I have the growing suspicion that you, sir, are one of those people
who claim there's a difference between "peach", "melon" & "sunrise" in cans
of yellowish-orange paint? <eyes Tim and edges back slightly>
--
The One-and-only Holy MosesT <G>
Duke of URL
Insurgencies =/= riots; again, insurgencies are organized ... at least
somewhat. And one side is the organized military force of the nation.
> There is still the matter of riots causing people to suffer significant
changes
> at a time when the Incarnations have decreed that no one is to suffer any
> significant changes.
We-elll, no one dies from the riots, do they? Further, it seems to me that
it would be simple for the combined Incarnations to "revert" anything that,
after the fact, they deemed to have been too significant a change.
Tim Bruening
Duke of URL wrote:
I've read of people dying during riots!
Tim Bruening
Bikes.
Skateboards.
Sleds.
Toboggans.
Ice Skates and Roller Skates.
Canoes, Rowboats, and Kayaks.
Sailboats.
Gliders.
Human Powered Airplanes.
Trampolines. (In Split Infinity, Trampoline flips were in the
Naked/Physical section).
Electric Drills.
Electric Saws.
Electric Rototillers.
Push Mowers.
Hand Trucks.
Floor Jacks.
Dowels.
Baby Carriages.
Wheeled Beds used in a bed pushing race.
Snowballs used in a snowball fight.
Food used in a food fight.
Ropes used to tie legs in a three legged race.
Tim Bruening
Primary Grid goes 1. Physical, 2. Mental, 3. Chance, and 4. Art across
the top, and a. Naked, B. Tool, c. Machine, and D. Animal down the
side. Thus tool-assisted physical games are 1B. However, on page 225
of the paperback Blue Adept, tool-assisted physical games are 2B.
Tim Bruening
Tool assisted physical games: Tilling soil, planting seeds, picking
fruit (These 3 could also go in Machine/Physical), running while pushing
a bed (the bed being the tool), removing animal dung from a field (Stile
would win a gold medal here, having started his serf career as a horse
dung remover), building houses and devices (could also go in
Machine/Physical), snowball fights (the snowballs being the tools),
skipping stones on water, building bonfires (also Machine/Physical),
digging and refilling holes (also Machine/Physical), mining (also
Machine/Physical), hand stuffing ads into newspapers, hot air balloon
races, glider races, skateboard races, and hand truck races.
Machine assisted physical: Playing team sports using robots, robot
combat, car demolition derby, blimp races, airplane races, and printing
newspapers.
Animal assisted physical: Cyborg team sports, hunting live game with
tranquilizer darts (since Citizen Blue won't allow any killing of
animals), dolphin races, contests involving cyborg and android versions
of Phaze animals (like Sheen and Purple's Dragon Duel), frog hopping,
and bird spotting (could also go in Animal/Mental).
Tool assisted mental: Writing essays, and designing buildings and
machines (could also go in Tool-assisted Art).
Machine assisted mental: Picking stocks in the stock market (with help
from computers and the Internet), looking up specific items on the
Internet, and finding two word combinations which get only one hit on a
search engine (Google Whacking).
Animal assisted mental: Coaching human, android, or cyborg sports teams,
as opposed to playing with them as Stile and the Rifleman did in their
android football game.
Machine/Chance: Betting on machine contests.
Animal/Chance: Betting on Phaze animal, demon, and elf Olympic games.
Naked/Art: Synchronized swimming.
Tool assisted art: Balloon animal making, drawing on balloons, crop
circles (also Machine/Art), plant sculptures, fireworks, and making
designs with stones on the ground.
Animal assisted art: Circuses, dolphin displays (also Animal/Mental),
conducting human, android, or cyborg orchestras (also Animal/Mental),
coaching artists, and getting animals to paint.
Tim Bruening
Bikes.
Skateboards.
Sleds.
Toboggans.
Ice Skates and Roller Skates.
Canoes, Rowboats, and Kayaks.
Sailboats.
Gliders.
Human Powered Airplanes.
Trampolines.
Electric Drills.
Wayne Throop
: Which of the following are tools, machines, or neither?
Easy. They are all tools (at least some of the time), and
all are also clearly machines except dowels, snowballs, food gobs,
and the rope example use.
Was there a point?
Wayne Throop thr...@sheol.org http://sheol.org/throopw
Tim Bruening
Wayne Throop wrote:
> : Tim Bruening <tsbr...@pop.dcn.davis.ca.us>
> : Which of the following are tools, machines, or neither?
>
> Easy. They are all tools (at least some of the time), and
> all are also clearly machines except dowels, snowballs, food gobs,
> and the rope example use.
>
> Was there a point?
I'm trying to catagorize games that use those items as Tool assisted,
Machine assisted, or Naked.
Wayne Throop
: I'm trying to catagorize games that use those items as Tool assisted,
: Machine assisted, or Naked.
Probably I'm not using "tool" or "machine" quite the way you are, then.
For example, I'm pressed to think of a case where a machine isn't a tool
of some sort. Arguably a motorized mobile or a windup toy or a top
mechanism or something, but even then... And then, is a crowbar a
"machine"? It's one of the "simple machines" they teach about in
elementary school, isn't it? But maybe shouldn't count for your purposes.
And most importantly, when is an object that is being used for
a purpose not a tool? I mean... given the right perspective,
a t-shirt, or a baseball cap, is a tool. Possibly even a machine.
Interesting problem, but lots of it is definitional; what counts
as "a tool" and "a machine"; my answer was generously interpreted,
which may not be what you want.
Tim Bruening
Wayne Throop wrote:
In Piers Anthony's Apprentice Adept series, games on the planet Proton can be
Naked (the players play without the aid of tools, machines, or animals), Tool
assisted, Machine assisted, or Animal assisted. I'm trying to figure out what
is a tool, and what is a machine in those games. Tools appear to be generally
hand operated devices we use to act directly on something, machines appear to
be mechanisms, often powered by electricity (but some machines are operated by
human muscles), and animals are any organic life form or androids or cyborgs
(machines that contain organic brains).
David Johnston
If you used an object powered by human muscle that was Tool. If you
competed using nothing but your body that was Naked.
If you competed using an object with its own power source,, that
was Machine.
how...@brazee.net
On 28-May-2004, Tim Bruening <tsbr...@pop.dcn.davis.ca.us> wrote:
> > Easy. They are all tools (at least some of the time), and
> > all are also clearly machines except dowels, snowballs, food gobs,
> > and the rope example use.
> >
> > Was there a point?
>
> I'm trying to catagorize games that use those items as Tool assisted,
> Machine assisted, or Naked.
I don't get the point either.
Lee DeRaud
There's some ambiguity on that list then, especially for things like
skateboards, sleds, etc: no power source of their own, not always
powered by human muscle (i.e. when using gravity).
Lee
Michael Grosberg
Never mind the point, what's it got to do with RASFW? Or Pierce Anthony
for that matter?
I know there's probably no NG where it is on topic but Tim could at
least mark this as OT.
David Johnston
<inv...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>how...@brazee.net wrote:
>> On 28-May-2004, Tim Bruening <tsbr...@pop.dcn.davis.ca.us> wrote:
>>
>>
>>>>Easy. They are all tools (at least some of the time), and
>>>>all are also clearly machines except dowels, snowballs, food gobs,
>>>>and the rope example use.
>>>>
>>>>Was there a point?
>>>
>>>I'm trying to catagorize games that use those items as Tool assisted,
>>>Machine assisted, or Naked.
>>
>>
>> I don't get the point either.
>
>Never mind the point, what's it got to do with RASFW? Or Pierce Anthony
>for that matter?
The Adept series
>I know there's probably no NG where it is on topic but Tim could at
>least mark this as OT.
Except it isn't.
Wayne Throop
: If you used an object powered by human muscle that was Tool.
So, a hand-pumped air rifle is not a machine?
Nor a bicycle? Nor a mechanical adding ... um ... machine?
Nor a typewriter?
Seems an odd way to look at it.
Or maybe you meant "at least a tool".
But then... "you used an object" is "tool"... isn't it?
How powered is irrelevant... isn't it?
Perhaps the only way to resolve this is to make "tool" and "machine"
into technical terms of a context-specific jargon. Noting that
"technical term" is a technical term for a word or phrase the meaning
of which in some contexts is distorted beyond all recognition.
On the other hand, "naked" seems less of a conceptual puzzlement.
Wayne Throop
: In Piers Anthony's Apprentice Adept series, games on the planet Proton
: can be Naked (the players play without the aid of tools, machines, or
: animals), Tool assisted, Machine assisted, or Animal assisted. I'm
: trying to figure out what is a tool, and what is a machine in those
: games. Tools appear to be generally hand operated devices we use to
: act directly on something, machines appear to be mechanisms, often
: powered by electricity (but some machines are operated by human
: muscles), and animals are any organic life form or androids or cyborgs
: (machines that contain organic brains).
So the difference between "tool" and "machine" seems fundamentally fuzzy;
the other distinctions seem more sharp. Probably the difference between,
say, a crowbar and a hydraulic jack (assuming for a moment that the
former is a tool and the latter a machine) is how many interrelated
moving parts or somesuch. Which reinforces that the distinction is
*fundamentally* fuzzy; I don't see a way to make it clear other
than ruling on specific cases.
Well... not quite. If no part of the object moves relative to the rest,
it's a tool; otherwise it's a machine. That's a sharp cutof... but that
would make a knife a tool and scissors a machine, and still leaves a
swiss army knife in limbo. Point being, one can find a fairly sharp
cutoff alright, but it's not close to where one would normally put it.
Tim Bruening
Michael Grosberg wrote:
Piers Anthony's Apprentice Adept series concerns parallel frames called
Proton and Phaze. On Proton, the residents like to play games, and choose
them by going to a Game Console and choosing rows and columns on a Game
Grid. The Primary Game Grid goes 1. Physical, 2. Mental, 3. Chance, and 4
.Arts across the top. Down the left side it goes A. Naked, B. Tool, C.
Machine, and D. Animal. Therefore, I have been trying to figure out which
devices are tools and which are machines for the purposes of the Proton
Game Grid, and this discussion is indeed on topic for alt.fan.piers-anthony
and rec.arts.sf.written, since the Apprentice Adept series is a science
fiction series written by Piers Anthony.
Tim Bruening
1
1
1
Unicorn Point: Mach and Fleta's son Flach goes into hiding so that the
Adverse Adepts cannot exchange his visits with Stile for access to the
Magic Book. Mach, Bane, Fleta, and Tania search for him among the
various groups of humans, unicorns, vampire bats, and other animals.
Why does it take them four years to begin searching among the werewolf
packs? After all, werewolves are allies of Stile, so would be a logical
place for Flach to hide.
Why don't Mach or Bane make a Flach tracing spell? ("Map make a flash,
to find Flach"). Since they have agreed to provide the Adverse Adepts
and Contrary Citizens with information from the Book of Magic and the
Oracle, they would feel honor bound to use all their resources to find
Flach so that they can resume providing that information.
In fact, Bane agrees when Tania points out that he must make the most
diligent effort to recover Flach. I assume that Mach would agree with
that assessment, and I believe that "the most diligent effort" would
include magic spells such as "Map make a Flach, to find Flach".