8/03/09 [DMFA #1027] - Topiary?

[Attic Rat]

Actually, the final one may not be a weapon at all. Just a side thought that it may be related to creature creation...

Good thought. Jyrras has already created life twice, and any created life is by definition a creature...

[llearch n'n'daCorna]

Actually, the final one may not be a weapon at all. Just a side thought that it may be related to creature creation...

Good thought. Jyrras has already created life twice, and any created life is by definition a creature...

However, I think Psaakyrn may have meant "Creature creation", which is not quite the same thing.

[Zaarin]

I would posit that whatever is powering the Gryph-Mech is magical. If you have a nuclear weapon, you don't keep it a secret. If nobody knows about it, it cannot be an effective deterrent. Jyrras realizes that he is in danger, as evidenced by his behavior with Lorenda. He's smart enough to realize that being able to tell the Council exactly what city will be made uninhabitable if he dies would be a great advantage.

TL;DR, if he had a nuke then everyone would know.

[ishidan]

I would posit that whatever is powering the Gryph-Mech is magical. If you have a nuclear weapon, you don't keep it a secret. If nobody knows about it, it cannot be an effective deterrent. Jyrras realizes that he is in danger, as evidenced by his behavior with Lorenda. He's smart enough to realize that being able to tell the Council exactly what city will be made uninhabitable if he dies would be a great advantage.

TL;DR, if he had a nuke then everyone would know.

Uhh, wut?  Jyrras has no magical skills, although he has scientific skills unmatched (including the ability to synthesize effects previously only done by magic:  what are his patches except synthetic Polymorph spells?).  Why would he try to come up with a magical powerplant instead of a scientific one?

Besides, a nuclear powerplant is not a nuclear bomb.  Although you do have the possibility of a Chernobyl-style meltdown in a sufficiently poorly-designed (or intentionally fail-dangerous designed) plant, which is what you are positing.  But then, what's to say that a magical powerplant isn't also a walking bomb:  drop the warding spells, and the magical energy escapes all at once.

Likewise, if you want to build a scorched-earth suicide bomb, why build it into a big, ostentatious target like the Gryph-mech?  You quoted one wise line from Dr. Strangelove (On deadman-switched nuclear bombs:  "The value of such a weapon is lost, if you keep it a secret!  Why didn't you tell the world, huh?") , here's another:
"When you merely wish to bury bombs, there is no limit to the size."  And Jy-Corp owns a LOT of land...

[Grenn]

Are they in the Fae kingdom now? If so, shouldn't Mab's tail be rubber banded to not be fluffier then Nutmeg's :p

[Zaarin]

I would posit that whatever is powering the Gryph-Mech is magical. If you have a nuclear weapon, you don't keep it a secret. If nobody knows about it, it cannot be an effective deterrent. Jyrras realizes that he is in danger, as evidenced by his behavior with Lorenda. He's smart enough to realize that being able to tell the Council exactly what city will be made uninhabitable if he dies would be a great advantage.

TL;DR, if he had a nuke then everyone would know.

Uhh, wut?  Jyrras has no magical skills, although he has scientific skills unmatched (including the ability to synthesize effects previously only done by magic:  what are his patches except synthetic Polymorph spells?).  Why would he try to come up with a magical powerplant instead of a scientific one?

Besides, a nuclear powerplant is not a nuclear bomb.  Although you do have the possibility of a Chernobyl-style meltdown in a sufficiently poorly-designed (or intentionally fail-dangerous designed) plant, which is what you are positing.  But then, what's to say that a magical powerplant isn't also a walking bomb:  drop the warding spells, and the magical energy escapes all at once.

Likewise, if you want to build a scorched-earth suicide bomb, why build it into a big, ostentatious target like the Gryph-mech?  You quoted one wise line from Dr. Strangelove (On deadman-switched nuclear bombs:  "The value of such a weapon is lost, if you keep it a secret!  Why didn't you tell the world, huh?") , here's another:
"When you merely wish to bury bombs, there is no limit to the size."  And Jy-Corp owns a LOT of land...

If he can build a nuclear plant, he can probably build a bomb. Since he doesn't have a bomb, he probably doesn't have a power plant. We have seen spells create elemental effects, and with those effects you could generate power. If he can science up a continuous, large fire spell, he can make it steam powered.

I never said anything about putting a bomb in the Gryph-Mech. He could go Liberty Prime and start tossing them at any creatures who anger him, though.

[Attic Rat]

I just watched that old 1965 movie "Flight of the Phoenix" again. I'm not sure it'd be possible, but if Jyrras ever went "Heinrich Dorfmann" on them, the world would have reason to tremble.
In the movie, Heinrich Dorfmann saved the lives of his fellow airplane crash survivors, but I'm still not sure he was quite sane, and I would not wish to be an obstacle in the path of such a person.
The perfect "Engineer flick".

[ishidan]

If he can build a nuclear plant, he can probably build a bomb. Since he doesn't have a bomb, he probably doesn't have a power plant. We have seen spells create elemental effects, and with those effects you could generate power. If he can science up a continuous, large fire spell, he can make it steam powered.

I never said anything about putting a bomb in the Gryph-Mech. He could go Liberty Prime and start tossing them at any creatures who anger him, though.

That...still doesn't make any sense.
In fact, you've got your order of operations backwards:  nuclear reactors are useful in making nuclear bombs (plutonium breeder reactors), but not the other way around.  That's for fission, of course, fusion is a whole nother ballgame. 

He has no nuclear power plants because he has no nuclear bombs?  This would be like saying "Because Cubi can shapeshift, they can probably also turn invisible.  Because there are no invisible Cubi, they can't shapeshift." (and don't get whiny on me about this analogy and bringing in unrelated people, the point is that two similar but not identical skills can exist independently, and lack of one does not mean lack of the other)

Jyrras could very well have a reactor without also having a bomb.  Likewise, how do you KNOW he has neither?

[Scow2]

I don't think Jycorp has any intention of developing weapons beyond compensating for Jyrras' Napoleon Complex like the Gryff-Mech, or out of curiosity of what he can do that he doesn't want to be famous for. To him, invention is an artform. His "Farming and Mining Equipment" is like his "Mature portfolio": He doesn't want to be associated with what he puts in it, but can't resist the temptation to use his "artistic talent" to delve into "forbidden territory". For many artists, that "forbidden territory" is squicky erotica. For Jyrras, it's kickass weaponry.

On the concept of nuclear weaponry and power: I do not see how not demonstrating a nuclear weapon dismisses the chance of nuclear fission or even fusion reactors. Jyrras, and by extentions Jycorp,  focuses on producing domestic and novelty items (Patches, refigerators, toasters, etc), not destructive weapons. However, it is possible that in a quest for an exceptional powersource, he developed nuclear weaponry for research purposes only. Doomsday superweapons just aren't his "fetish", to continue the artistic metaphor, so he doesn't consider storing an actual weapon in his basement with his gatling guns and laser cannon. He wouldn't have any reason to present the nuclear arms to the world because JyCorp is a business only concerned with making money, not concerning itself with global non-economic politics. Therefore, they have no need for any nuclear weaponry beyond "Yep, it creates the source of power we need".

The problem I have with the "Steam-power" theory is the stuff looks more cyberpunk than steam-punk.

The reason the creature council fears Jyrass, as has been said, is because it threatens the Creature Superiority, because to them, Beings have gone mostly linear Warrior-style advancement, while they have Quadratic-Wizard advancement. But Technology/Science advancement is exponential, and Jycorp has a pretty massive multiplier value, taking them from medieval to post-modern in... less than five years? In addition, unlike magic and physical prowess, technology is seperate and transerferable transferrable from person to person and generation to generation, so killing the greatest technological threat doesn't reset the entire process unless you destroy all prototypes, plans, and backups, and even then there is the threat that the auxiliary research and knowledge used to come up with the weaponry in the first place will can still be used to remake it again.

The only thing I see that saves the "Creatures" is their acceptance of the use of the technology for themselves. However, at the rate of advancement, the immense bonus granted by technological advancement will dilute the physical and magical advantages creatures have over beings, so in the end cubi and demons would be little more than merely cosmetically different from the other races at birth (But cosmetic tech like patches would be able to change even that!)  Bye-bye creature superiority, hello egalitarianism.

[ishidan]

The problem I have with the "Steam-power" theory is the stuff looks more cyberpunk than steam-punk.

Mine is that it requires Jyrras to know how to summon a continuous fire spell.  For creatures, this is not a problem.  For Jyrras, it is.

[Naldru]

I just watched that old 1965 movie "Flight of the Phoenix" again. I'm not sure it'd be possible, but if Jyrras ever went "Heinrich Dorfmann" on them, the world would have reason to tremble.
In the movie, Heinrich Dorfmann saved the lives of his fellow airplane crash survivors, but I'm still not sure he was quite sane, and I would not wish to be an obstacle in the path of such a person.
The perfect "Engineer flick".

Ah, but you see it would have been quite logical for him to have pretended to be not quite sane.  For example, suppose that he wasn't the one who had stolen the water.  Would he have been intelligent enough to realize that the search for the water thief would have potentially torn the group apart.  Whereas by claiming to be the water thief and not appearing quite sane, he produced a situation where the others could have felt superior to him and therefore increased the cohesiveness of the group.

May I suggest that you would also like No Highway in the Sky.  If you read the Wikipedia entry, please remember that Nevil Shute was an aeronautical engineer.