[UA] The metal eaters.

[Royal Minister of Stuff]

--- Michael Price <nini_pad at yahoo.com> wrote:
>   There are several ways to get rid of geometrical
> increasing numbers of lunchboxes.  1)  Area effect
> weawponry that destroys every lunchbox in an area,
> applied to the entire radius the lunchboxs could
> have
> affected.  The weaponry need not be lethal to humans
> or animals

(Personally, I think the weaponry SHOULD be lethal to
children and animals, if not adults.  The risk of
hurting other always adds some tasty edge.)

>   The trouble is that only the first one is likely
> to
> be fast, "safe" and surepitous enough for the
> sleepers.  The sleepers don't neccesarily have
> access
> to hyper-magnetic cyclotrons, wide sweep sonics,
> etc,
> but they can mix up several tons of diesal and
> fertiliser easy.  The PC's may have to work fast to
> save several city blocks from going up and hundreds
> of
> people dying.   
> 

Even if the sleepers did get access to high tech or
magitech, there's a problem your solution skips over
and that's one of spread.  If you've ever tried to
control roaches in your home, you'll get an idea of
what I mean.  Heck Beetles or slower-reproducing bugs
are also a problem.  Anything that creates other
versions of itself at a rapid pace is simply adapted
to survive.  Sweeping attacks don't work.  They do a
lot of damage, but there's always, Always a bug or two
that gets away.

This is a vitally important principle and one that so
often gets overlooked in gaming. You CAN'T get them
all because, if they can move, they won't be all there
to get, but that doesn't mean there isn't a solution. 
Those who have suggested an inherent curtailing or
imperfection in the lunchboxes are on the right track.
 The way scuttling insect populations are controlled
is by attacking their reproductive process itself. 
Grabbing a lunchbox and fiddling with its commands
would be more effective than a hundred Nukes from
Orbit and much more desireable.  Getting ahold of a
mechanomancer would be worth a game session or two in
itself.  Maybe there's a sleeper mechanomancer, but
that's unlikely to me because the two ideologies just
don't seem to mesh.

Anyway, I think it's wrong to assume that populations
of living things can be controlled by violence anyway
(they can be quieted, but not controlled.)  Even the
altering-the-babies solution is an imperfect approach
and one that becomes less useful as each generation
passes.  Other solutions for dealing with the
lunchboxes are much more attractive, like trying to
find a way to communicate (perhaps by amping their
intelligence, somehow, or feeding one a computer - you
never now, random inheritance might kick in
miraculously strong since they are magic to begin
with- ) or leaving a trail of metal for them to
follow, etc.

Roleplaying often runs into this problem, like when a
bunch of guys find a way to time travel, load up on
advanced weaponry and attempt to make like pharoahs in
the "primitive past."  If anyone ever tries a stunt
like this in your games, I recommend Howard Waldrop's
"Dem Bones" for some rather nifty consequences.

But, having said all that, in the end, I'd probably
end up shooting the things, too.

=====
-- Rp Bowman, Royal Minister of Stuff
The Electronic Nation of Yokeltania:
http://www.geocities.com/yokeltania/

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