Politics and Other Fun.
Please post all threads with primarily political content there from now on.
Thanks.

-- Bob
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For Jor-El so loved the Earth, he sent his only begotten son...

Use this area to explore political issues, in particular differences in political opinions. While a certain amount of vitriol is to be expected -- and higher amounts will inevitably be found in this forum than are seen in the others -- outright flaming will not be tolerated. Of course, this can be a subtle judgment call, but I trust both my members and my own subtle judgment.

-- Bob
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For Jor-El so loved the Earth, he sent his only begotten son...

Iran Plans
Military Realities of Iran
Implications
For the latter two links, I'm not sure how credible you could consider them, but they seem fairly credible. Top one by Seymour Hersh.

Because dammit, it makes a certain amount of horrible sense:

What do you think, sirs?---
Mr. Fnord
Raving blogger
http://www.jihad.net/
"when edison thinks down pipes into special Future Death Machine, in 21st Century another teenager on MySpace gets hit by a car." --Warren Ellis
Mr. Fnord interdimensional man of mystery

FenWiki - Your One-Stop Shop for Fenspace Information

"I. Drink. Your. NERDRAGE!"

Well, see, I followed a link that led to a site with more than a little bit of fan-created In Nomine materiel. My mind working the way it does, I promptly found myself struck by an Idea, despite knowing no more about the system that I'd been able to glean from online sources.
It starts with a demon. Name of Elisabeth. Not impressive enough for a demon? Add the surname 'Bathory'. Andreaphlus wanted impressive, she gave impressive. But that's not the point.
Maybe she's a Lillim, maybe not. Either way, early on in her career she took a look around and decided that this 'ambition for its own sake' thing wasn't near what it was cracked up to be - so she set her sights someplace moderate and started working towards it. Calmly, conservatively, patiently. She's immortal, after all. No need to hurry.
She took up a hobby, to kill time until she got there. Music - hey, don't laugh. It was occasionally useful on the job and it kept her working efficiently in the meantime, and that was the point. Sometimes, humming a pleasant little ditty wasn't appropriate to the situation, so she also took to keeping a little list of those who had gone to particular lengths to irritate her, and idly thinking up punishments and vengences against same.
Nothing too out of the way, especially for a demon.
Then she saw a Prince she was temping for hand out some rewards one day and noticed that Capital-'S'-Songs were, in fact, music. And she was good at music.
So she started looking into the idea of - perhaps, eventually - figuring out how to create new Songs, herself. From scratch.
Hey, it was a way to kill time, which was the point.
Then she ended up working for Belial. She refuses to talk about the experience - forcefully, if neccessary - and he likely doesn't remember at all. By the end of it all, though, she had a much bigger grudge against him than is wise for anyone to hold against a Prince - for comparison, she hates him worse than a fanatic Narn hates the Centauri. By a large margin.
Being neither stupid nor suicidal, though, she simply gritted her teeth and got clear of Infernal Fire. Working for Gluttony wasn't much better, mind, but at least Haagenti wasn't... *snarl* Never. Mind.
Serendipity struck again. One particularly stupid demon did something to irritate the Prince, and found himself slowly ripped apart and eaten one Force at a time... savoring the meal, as it were.
And Elisabeth had an Idea.
Not that anyone noticed, of course. She was careful not to let it show. After all, it's not wise to let someone know you're planning to kill them, and any Prince - even one as agressive as the title of Infernal Fire implies - has a long, long ear.
So she bounced around hell for a while, going here and there and always being careful not to become too much of a go-to girl. Then she noticed that the more studying she did on the Symphony to try and figure out how to work her Idea, the more it started looking like everything was connected. Like everything fit[.
Well, it wouldn't do to let something unexpected crop up in the way of her revenge, so she followed the thread up... and came to a conclusion.
Heaven was going to win. Sure, humans were inherently ugly and corrupt and all that, and sure, all cooperation boiled down to enlightened self-interest in the end, but the goody-goodys were, well, good at it. All that sugary pap really did seem to help them coordinate better... and coordination, as she'd had personal reason to find out, was the basic requirement for victory, and, ultimately, survival, which was the point.
Well, okay then. She definitely wanted to be on the winning side, and, since it actually wasn't an emotional question (yet), could afford to wait for the best opportunity.
Then she stopped thinking small. After all, why limit herself to just one Prince? Having them all gone would certainly benefit Heaven, and the Universe in general, truth be told, and, since she was a part of that same universe, her as well.
And that was the real point.
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A GM who wants to use Elisabeth in his campaign is going to have to make one choice right at the start: Is he or is he not going to allow her to stick a TacNuke up the collective ass of the status quo, then take her thumb off the deadman's switch?
If not, well, the Game comes sniffing around her haunts fairly regularly - no one who smiles like that can possibly be trusted - but up until this point she's either charmed her way around them (she's notably good at that, even for a Lillim) or fed them a completely logical and consistent line of reasoning that would leave someone who believed it no choice but to be loyal to Hell, so long as they accept the basic premise that strength is inherently an individual trait. The fact that they keep falling for it is one of the main justifications for her opinion that most demons are fundamentally stupid. Eventually, though, one of her interrogators is going to be very, very smart or very, very perceptive, and will try and call her on it - and she's not quite done with her Project yet.
That poor unfortunate will promptly find its component bits spread across every available wall, along with those of any unfortunate colleagues it brought along. Elisabeth's main distinguishing power is that she can create Songs - to whatever purpose she needs. If she doesn't mind being a bit random and never being able to repeat the effect, she can even improvise on the spot. To back this up, she's also got a truly stunning amount of reserve power stored, just in case of that rainy day.
Once the hunt is on, she'll trigger the deadman charge hidden under her Heart - destroying the thing - then head for the nearest Tether. Anything short of a Superior that gets in her way is likely to end up a splat mark.
Once she makes it to the corporeal world, she'll make a beeline for the nearest Angel of Flowers... and give herself up as a candidate for Redemption.
The survival rates for real independants suck, you see.
PCs might be involved in this in one of three ways - one, they're demons, charged with - somehow - stopping this unbelievably dangerous rogue. Two, they're angels assigned to getting her to Heaven with skills, knowledge, sanity and willingness to cooperate all intact. Three, they're angels assigned to make sure that the crazy demon doesn't send everything collapsing into chaos and destruction... Naturally, the difficulty of any of the above options can be adjusted by simply scaling exactly how much power she has left after shooting her way out of Hell.
The other course - the 'Let's make this Universe REAL Interesting' option, is that she's got her Project Finished. What does it do? Well, it creates a spell form that latches onto a Celestial. Permanently. Then it starts sucking them dry, force by force. Until... *pif* Did I mention that the thing is, as far as anybody short of Lucifer or The Man Upstairs is concerned, it's absolutely indestructable? If Haagenti swallows it, frex, it just shreds him from the inside out.
There is a cure, or more precisely, a vaccine, which will prevent a Celestial from ever becoming infected in the first place - after all, she's quite well aware that letting her name be associated with an unstoppable one-shot-kill Song is not likely to be conductive to her long-term survival, and has been very careful to make it easy to counter for someone who knows what they're doing and can work ahead of time. It just needs to kill the one Prince - Belial - and that's the only real point.
Elisabeth's priorities are actually fairly simple - she wants to survive, she wants to join the winning side (ie, Heaven), she want's Belial's screaming carcass rotting to death in the hot African sun (but will settle for just his death), and, if she can, she'd like to convince Mom to make the same decisions she did... and certainly would rather avoid killing her.
But she wants to survive first and foremost - that is the point of all this, after all...
Anyway, what about high-change campaigns?

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"Puripuri puripuri... Bang!"

Again, just putting up the thread, not necessarily writing it.
''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

Just starting the thread for it, not necessarily writing it.
''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

When me and my friends go out on the town
We can't sit still, we can't sit down
We don't like to fight and we don't like to scuffle
But we'll dance all night doin' the Curly Shuffle
Hey Moe, Hey Moe (Hey Moe, Hey Moe)
Well, ah Nyuk-nyuk-nyuk-nyuk (Nyuk-nyuk-nyuk-nyuk)
Lah-dee-dee, Lah-dee-dee (Lah-dee-dee, Lah-dee-dee)
Woob-woob-woob-woob-woob (Woob-woob-woob-woob-woob)
Well we never miss a chance, we get up and dance
And do the Curly Shuffle
Well, me and my friends love Larry and Moe
We love Curly's brother Shemp, and his fat clone Joe
It's such a delight to boogie and hustle
Dancing all night doin' the Curly Shuffle
Hey Moe, Hey Moe (Hey Moe, Hey Moe)
Well, ah Nyuk-nyuk-nyuk-nyuk (Nyuk-nyuk-nyuk-nyuk)
Eeb-eeb-eeb-eeb-eeb-ee (Eeb-eeb-eeb-eeb-eeb-ee)
Oh, a wise guy! (Oh, a wise guy!)
Well we never miss a chance, we get up and dance
And do the Curly Shuffle
Well me and my friends, we all love to see
Comedy classics on late night TV
Those knuckleheads love to get in a scuffle
They push and they shove doin' the Curly Shuffle
Hey Moe, Hey Moe (Hey Moe, Hey Moe)
Well, ah Nyuk-nyuk-nyuk-nyuk (Nyuk-nyuk-nyuk-nyuk)
Look at the grouse! Look at the grouse! (Look at the grouse! Look at the grouse!)
Rrruff, rrruff! (Rrruff, rrruff!)
Well we never miss a chance, we get up and dance
And do the Curly Shuffle
-- Jump 'n the Saddle, The Curly Shuffle
-- Bob
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Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.

Good Morning,
Hey Bob, I just noticed you updated IST stories page. Thank you.
Shayne
(Ps. The newest one is in Others Fanfiction)

Oh... good... lord...
I suspect this has made the rounds, but I had to share, it's just too funny. ^_^
www.youtube.com/watch?v=3UaML1dUXTU-Logan
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"This kind of thing tends invariably to devolve into the kind of "No, Nakajima, THIS is true power!!" argument that only really works if you're yelling it from the cockpit of a giant robot . . ."
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