From: uplink@cwis.unomaha.edu (John M. Scheibeler)
Subject: Re: SR: Non-animal totems
Organization: University of Nebraska at Omaha
Date: Thu, 10 Sep 1992 02:14:15 GMT

mxr@neptune.dsc.com (Max "Detestable Lamia" Rible) writes:

>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.

   So build a '57 DeSoto.  Or a '48 Roadster.  Or any car from those bygone
days of yesteryear that were built from steel and iron, and had very
little in the way of electronics.

>>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.
   
   Isn't there already a statement in SRUN that computers and magic
just don't mix?

>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,

   What comes to my mind is this image of a group of Renraku mages using 
a lightning bolt to scratch patterns onto a chip.  Kind of like
painting the Mona Lisa with a roller.

>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.

   And "No New Geasa"?  Sorry, just trying to be funny.

>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...)

   Nope.  Sorry.   The creators of Shadowrun have stated that it is
Canon; the matrix is the matrix, magic is magic, and never the two
shall meet.

>/-------------v-----------------------v---------------------------------------\
>| Max Rible   | mxr@dsc.com           | "Powerful big rats, gentlemen."       |
>|             | rible@vorpal.ucsb.edu |                         - Neil Gaiman |
>\-------------^-----------------------^---------------------------------------/

/-------------v-------------------------v------------------------------------\
| uplink      | uplink@cwis.unomaha.edu | "BIG Breasts, BIG Breasts,         |
|             | yes, I'm trying to be   |    LANDING on my face!"            |
|             |  funny                  |       - Grant Susman               |
\-------------^-------------------------^------------------------------------/

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