From: mxr@neptune.dsc.com (Max "Detestable Lamia" Rible)
Subject: Re: SR: Non-animal totems
Organization: Digital Sound Corporation
Date: Wed, 9 Sep 1992 17:10:23 GMT

ins769v@lindblat.cc.monash.edu.au (Veltyen) writes:
>John M. Scheibeler (uplink@cwis.unomaha.edu) wrote:
>: mxr@neptune.dsc.com (Max "Vicious Audacious Melon" Rible) writes:

>: >(I wouldn't permit turning a modern rigged vehicle with lots of fancy
>: >high-tech materials into an Ally, but having an antique-style hand-built
>: >car has *style*!)  

>:    Why not?  I think having your hand-built Eurocar Westwind 2000 (with 
>: Turbo option) would be a neat idea.  But why a Rolls-Royce?  The 
>: traditional symbol of freedom of the open road, the Pink Cadillac or the
>: T-bird, would be even more stylish.

> _American_ symbols of freedom.
>In Australia if you want a car with style you get a Commodore HSV.
>But thats just my opinion.
>Anyway, ever seen a Cadi or T-Bird built by hand?
>Get a Ferari, some of those are still handbuilt.

The point is that there are too many high-tech materials involved in
modern cars.  Something forged by a blacksmith is not going to be as
good at holding together under stress as modern materials would allow,
but those modern materials are too highly processed to enchant
something out of.  You need more than just hand-assembled, you need
to make sure the parts didn't even come out of a factory.  Mass
production kills the telesma quality.

>On a related <<<munchkin possibly>>> topic what would people think
>of a handbuilt computer focus.
><Its not so stupid, it's virtually what is in my course at the moment>
>The ultimate in file protection if you have an ally on board 8-)

If you can refine raw silicon and appropriate doping materials and
etch the chips without having to use a computer to fabricate things, I
wouldn't have any objections.

One possibility for the Virgin Telesma notion is to start out
fabricating things by hand, and build each successive stage using
tools that were fabricated from raw materials by hand or using things
that had been through that process.  Lots of manipulation by magic
here, as well as blacksmithing and so on.  I don't know enough about
what's in the process of fabricating transistors and so on, but a
well-planned effort by a major corporation that employs hermetic mages
could, over many years, take modern technical knowledge and bootstrap
chip-fabrication setups from scratch.  (We already know how to do it,
it's just a matter of figuring out the most efficient way to do it all
over again.)  That might produce kinder, gentler hi-tech materials.
There'd still have to be a strong human element in there, I think---
mass production certainly is going to screw things up--- but it's
certainly worthy of an expensive experiment to see what you can do
when you have orichalcum conductors on those PC boards and processors
that were fabricated as close to "by hand" as magically possible.
(I'm not at all sure that this would work, and would be dubious; it's
obviously a multi-meganuyen if not giganuyen effort, involving many
mages and much time, and the security on something like this is going
to be truly incredible.  However, a successful run to acquire one of
those magedecks that allow the use of spellcasting symbolism to run
programs in the Matrix might be worth it...)
/-------------v-----------------------v---------------------------------------\
| Max Rible   | mxr@dsc.com           | "Powerful big rats, gentlemen."       |
|             | rible@vorpal.ucsb.edu |                         - Neil Gaiman |
\-------------^-----------------------^---------------------------------------/
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