Drunkard's Walk Forums

Was talking with Rob Kelk earlier this evening, want to make sure the powers Lisa has matches both canon and what he's writing her as having in the future.
As I'm not planning anything really major (aside from her purely magical ability already demonstrated to absorb energy and pitch it back in "final
strike" moments), what I was wondering was when she meets Sailor Jupiter in the canon?

The reason I'm wondering is I'm seriously considering having someone from Crystal Tokyo come back to explore the strangeness that Megatokyo is
becoming. Hiroe's immigration, and the development of a powerful magical girl in Megatokyo who wears the Senshi outfit and generally behaves like one would
attract their attention. I could easily run with Jupiter, but if that's already scripted elsewhere, is there another Sailor you could recommend? Rob also
mentioned that part of the canon is that Lisa goes to Crystal Tokyo eventually, so I can see my story ending with that concept, especially if a Senshi came to
Megatokyo to evaluate and train her beforehand.

The plot wall I ran into a while back wasn't as much a wall as a life event, when Dell downsized me out, so I've been picking up the pieces lately.

As for the story, it progresses. I'm just juggling the Mackie/metagift thing, and determining just how far his ability goes without going too far... But
for reference, that sequence refers to the moment Doug wakes up in the GENOM tower, and is being taunted by Quincy how he's going to reverse engineer super
powers from Doug's DNA. There's a line where he explains he's already sent samples, he just wants Doug on ice to keep more material around. That
was the reference I was talking about. Could they develop sufficient metagift RNA injections based on limited material? Probably not. But they'd get a
*few*. And probably a lot of latents for later generations. Anyway, I'm still poking away at it, in my off time.

DNA sequences are easy to clone more of, even today. Simply insert them in the proper sort of bacteria, culture for a few days, and you'll have all you could possibly need. This would be the first thing a professional genetic engineer did with a valuable but limited sample. Depending whether or not the BGCverse is up to landing their modifications in particular spots in the genome (it's about an order of magnitude or more finer than the sort of things Leontophus and Sylia's father's work did), the 'back to human' stage may even be safe rather than fraught with the risk of terminal cancers the way modern technologies are.
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===============================================
"V, did you do something foolish?"
"Yes, and it was glorious."

Valles has it right -- as long as you have one sample and a proper lab, there is no such thing as a scarcity of samples when it comes to DNA. Doug was going to
be more of an emergency backup and an "oh, we just thought of something, let's go check it out" resource.

As for when Lisa meets Makoto... That's pretty much up in the air. After Skuld joins, but before they meet up with Legion and Minerva in DW10. I as yet
have no vested interest in them meeting happening at any specific point in between those two events.
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.

Quote: Bob Schroeck wrote:

---

Valles has it right -- as long as you have one sample and a proper lab, there is no such thing as a scarcity of samples when it comes to DNA. Doug was going
to be more of an emergency backup and an "oh, we just thought of something, let's go check it out" resource.

That may be true for ordinarly DNA, but metagene DNA may be another thing entirely (and Doug's DNA in particular may be difficult to work with if his
chaos field operates on a cellular level).

I enjoyed the recent bit over at Marvel comics where it was revealed that, while cloning human beings is easy, cloning superhumans ALWAYS seems to have
problems.
This is why the Nazi scientist working for The Initiative was thrilled when he discovered that one of the project's deceased
'superhuman' operatives was in fact a normal human who had merely been raised under a medically advanced course of diet and exercise. He could be
cloned without difficulty and all of his clones would have his ubermensch physique.
----------------------------------------------------

"Anyone can be a winner if their definition of victory is flexible enough." - The DM of the Rings XXXV

Wasn't Doug's metagift somewhat damaged?

Was that a result of his genes or Would that have an effect on his genes?

If only parts of the dna have the meta-gene could mean a different kind of limit. (range of powers, disadvantages)

Quote:That may be true for ordinarly DNA, but metagene DNA may be another
thing entirely (and Doug's DNA in particular may be difficult to work
with if his
chaos field operates on a cellular level).

This is about like asking if there really is a particular frequency of gamma rays that will turn people exposed to them big and green. There might be complications from their interaction with other genes, like the telepathy complex in Catharine Asaro's Skolian books, but all a DNA segment does is produce a particular protein or enzyme. Macrobiotic effects come when the relative levels of that target protein 'snowball' into differences in overall tissues.
If you have the gene, you can clone it. Period. The tricky part is putting it into something more complicated than a bacterium.
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"V, did you do something foolish?"
"Yes, and it was glorious."

DNA is DNA. Period. Even magical alien super-power-providing DNA.

And the damage was in the expression, not in the genes themselves. They are not in any way capable of determining what is a "beneficial" mutation according to human wants and desires. The Seeder Genes were supposed to affect a pre-sentient race, throwing all kinds of crap at it and letting natural selection sort out what power worked best for it; having them activate in a sentient race that's more or less lifted itself out of natural selection throws a huge monkey wrench into the process. I've never explored this even in random musing, but Warriors' World must have a much larger percentage of miscarriages, stillbirths and birth defects ("jokers", to use the Wild Cards terminology) than our world that can be directly attributed to the Seeder Genes.

Doug got a lot of beneficial stuff from the Seeder Genes, and one mid-sized pile of crap, basically.
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.

Well...

I can think of a few of the specific complications that would prevent them from getting the metagene into anything about a bacterium as Valles said.

Is the metahuman gene a single gene or a complex of genes? i.e., does superstrength come from one gene (or gene set), while magic comes from another? This
could slow things down as they look at 48 different genes that they KNOW are involved with meta-gifts, but which ones do what... that might take awhile.

Does the metahuman gene interact with other genes? For example, in embryonic development, genes have to be turned on and off at very specific times, and often
in specific ratios or areas - for example, some of the developmental genes for humans express in a gradient from head to tail - highest concentration at one
end, lowest at the other - if the concentrations are messed with, it screws things up. There are other genes that specifically regulate those genes to keep
those gradients as they are - and there are genes that are only expressed embryonically that AREN'T expressed after birth - they may still be in the
genome, but they are turned off.

DNA doesn't just go to the RNA then to the protein - there are some modifications and processing that can occur to alter things after you get your gene.
Does the DNA have variant splicing? Genes have subcomponents (exons) that can be variably spliced to give different versions of the protein. Perhaps only one
version acts as a metahuman gene?

RNA processing - there's a whole host of things that can be done to the RNA after it's been copied from the DNA - and all of those processing elements
have multiple regulators that may have to be determined before the metagene works properly.

siRNA is another idea - this was only discovered about 10 years ago. Basically, there are tiny segments of RNA (about 25 base pairs long) that bind to
transcribed RNA (copied from the metagene DNA) which effectively turns that gene off. If you don't find the siRNA when you try to clone your metahuman,
they may express the metagene, but get no effect from it because their body has turned it off.

RMH

Well, the idea was that while GENGenTech has the data (and presumably they would have deep-frozen reproduced samples, so it's a good bet Madigan's
still got her own copies of the biotic. Question is what she'd do with them...), and the secret cabal engineering a conflict between humans and boomers has
it as well, the cabal is aware that after a mere six months, the odds of them being able to predict and control metagifts is about a billion to one against.

So what they've done is create about two or three dozen variant injections, and arranged for them to be substituted for antibiotic injections in hospitals
around the world. Which is how Mackie wound up getting an injection of the "most promising" batch. This is largely because the Knight Sabers are so
high-profile, and Mackie is also high-profile working on second generation Boomer AI. Anything he develops (even if kept carefully under wraps) would show up
to people who were expecting unusual capabilities from him down the road.

Aside from his metagift, he's still going to rebuild his battlemover at some point. He just has to own up to the fact that it's too massive to be
effective at the power-armor level. Mobility matters at that level, as the Knights prove time and time again. So he has to swallow his pride and rebuild a new
MADOX-variant suit that has boosted mobility. The fact that his latest sketch seems to be running around Megatokyo on its own will be of some concern down the
road...

Madigan will probably find out soon that this has been distributed to a variety of medical locations, and she'll be quietly furious. But I expect
she'll also start evaluating how well they work. In some ways, she's still very much a GENOM exec, but the fun part is the growing friendship she's
developing with Linna. Which I find important because i"ve always felt Linna was under-represented in the anime. She's got so much *potential*, and
she generally just plays second stringer to Priss on the battlefield. So that's one of the big reasons why Linna gets so much air time in Dead Bang. Nene
also rarely gets to show more than the candy-sweet bubblegum personality on screen, which is why she and Mackie are getting a lot of the screen time as well.

But if there's no preferences about when Jupiter shows up in Lisa's life, I suspect I'll introduce her this chapter. Hiroe's apartment is still
paid up, so that gives Leda (sp?) a natural place to crash. It also gives me some opportunities for creative insanity when the IDEC crew learns that one of
Hiroe's friends is now living at her apartment....

Dragonflight

(ps: Anyone know why that ".skindex" thing keeps getting appended to my name? It doesn't seem to be anything I can control on the parent site,
and it's annoying...)

Quote:the "most promising" batch.

Was animal testing performed before this involuntary human testing?
(with animal's with 'defective genes'/disadvantages being killed, autopsied and the ones with power ( + less debilitating disadvantages ) escaping )
So are there super powered mice out there?

Quote: Leda (sp?)

Makoto. ^.^

--Sam

"This is graveness."

If you must use the dub name, it's "Lita" with a "T". But "canonically", when Doug goes to the SM world, I'll be using Japanese names exclusively, so you might want to follow my usage.

In fact, I have a little passage written for DW13 that touches on this:

"Ohmygod!" Dawn screeched. "That's... That's Serena!"

"Usagi," I corrected absently. "Her name is Tsukino Usagi."

"But..." Dawn began, and at that moment the image's eyes snapped
open. It looked straight ahead, as if into some unseen camera,
and did not seem to acknowledge either of us.

"Hello, Doug-Sensei," the image of Usagi said in faintly-
accented English, and I smiled fondly at the sound of it. Usagi
could speak English perfectly without an accent -- I'd taught her
well -- but she loved the idea of sounding "exotic" to native
speakers, even ones who knew better (like yours truly). It was
one of her few concessions to a minor streak of vanity she
normally kept well suppressed. "I'm not entirely sure this will
work, but if it does, yay me." She grinned without quite looking
at me, and I suddenly felt a pang of loss. Usagi and the other
Sailor Senshi -- Makoto especially -- had been like daughters to
me.

...

Dawn looked at me with wide eyes. "You went to the Negaverse
with them!"

"Dark Kingdom. Yeah," I said.

Hm. That got heavily redacted to remove spoilers, but you see what I mean.
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.

Quote:If you must use the dub name, it's "Lita" with a "T".

Hmmmmm... "Lita," not "Leda"... and I'm writing that Girls^3 stagger into Fenspace... and they're currently in Senshi country...

As they walked past, one of the locals squealed and said, "Ohmigod! She looks just like Lita!"

Makoto turned to Leda. "Do I look that much like you?"

"She said 'Lita,' not 'Leda.' She was referring to you."

"That isn't my name."

"It was in the English dub. And, yes, you look like me, except for skin colour. And around the bustline."

Makoto noticed the undertone in Leda's voice when she said that last sentence. "Are you jealous of a simple physical attribute?"

Leda thought for a moment. "Yes. Yes, damn it, I am jealous, Makoto-sensei."

This just might end up in the current chapter...

 
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."

- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012

<chuckle>
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.

Leda actually makes a certain amount of sense, since in greek mythlogy she's got a 'relationship' with Zeus. Though, not exactly one of a pleasant
sort. And I think it's the spelling used for one of the first epic sailormoon fics also. Dark Adventures or something. I remember reading bits of it years
and years ago.

It may well have been what was intended, but "Lita" is the official spelling. Why should dubbers be any more on the ball than the usual fic writer
when it comes to names, eh?
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.

Quote: s3yang wrote:

---

And I think it's the spelling used for one of the first epic sailormoon fics also. Dark Adventures or something. I remember reading bits of it years and
years ago.

You are correct Sir. Leda is the mispelling of Lita used by Troy "Silver" Stanton in his epic Sailor Moon V, or Dark adventures of the Sailor
Scouts.
Which, though mostly offscreen does include various lime to lemon bits, a growning number of refugees from the 'dark side', and Amy as a
Vampire.
Hear that thunder rolling till it seems to split the sky?
That's every ship in Grayson's Navy taking up the cry-
NO QUARTER!!!
-- "No Quarter", by Echo's Children

Okay, that snippet made my head hurt.

Anyway, I'm already arranging to borrow a couple of Rob's seasons, so I can get a better understanding of Makoto's behavior and speech style.
I'm going to take a little time to review them though, not like Rob suggested, and freebase the series in one shot...

That would have roughly the same effect as watching Ranma and Vampire Princess Miyu, every episode in alternation until one of them finished. @_@

Dragonflight
---
Those who fear the darkness have never seen what the light can do.

You think that's bad? I shotgunned Evangelion once. ;_; Full Series, THEN the Movies.
''We don't just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat
them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary.''

-- James Nicoll

Pfft. Watch the entire Serial Experiments Lain series in one sitting, starting at 11pm.

Offsides and Valles can tell you about the time they, Peggy and I did the Utena movie and End of Evangelion together in one sitting. Then followed it up with all of Steel Angel Kurumi.
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.

Quote:Okay, that snippet made my head hurt.

What, my snippet? My innocent, wouldn't-harm-a-fly snippet?

Oooh, you should see all the stuff I redacted from within and around it. "Hurt" would not be the verb in use.
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.

Quote: Pfft. Watch the entire Serial Experiments Lain series in one sitting, starting at 11pm.

Been there, attempted that, Got the brain damage... possibly literally.

If I wanted to warp myself badly, I'd take the Live action Cutie Honey and watch the episodes in random order while only watching 3-4 30 second clips from
each episode... that or watch a season of Farscape and Excel Saga in random DVD order.

On a base topic note... Won't random escaped lab animals with Doug's mutant gene only end up with random not-Pokemon attacks and/or magical girl
mascots running wild in cyberpunk Tokyo?

You know, I don't think I'm going to get involved with that idea at all.

Nope nope nope.
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.

Quote:On a base topic note... Won't random escaped lab animals with Doug's mutant gene only end up with random not-Pokemon attacks and/or magical girl mascots running wild in cyberpunk Tokyo?

"Okay. That is officially weird."

"What is?"

"That stray cat we picked up outside GENGenTech yesterday."

"What about it?"

"The golden-oldies station I like listening to played Walk Like a Man, and the cat stood up on its hindlegs."

"That is weird."

 
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."

- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012