From: malloy@nprdc.navy.mil (Sean Malloy)
Newsgroups: alt.games.torg
Subject: Re: Axioms
Date: 14 Apr 92 20:28:27 GMT
Organization: University of North Texas
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X-Gated-From: torg mailing list
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>>>All of their beliefs rule. The universe actually differs for each culture.
>>>Axiom levels can be variable within a cosm.
>> 
>>They're all occupying the same cosm; there can be only one accurate
>>description of the cosm. 
> 
> Not according to WEG. ;-)  In Haiti, the Magic Axiom is higher than
> most other CE places because the people believe in VooDoo.

But does this change the _universe_? If the Haitians believed that the
world was flat, or that the Sun orbited the Earth, would that make it
true in Haiti? Would the world become flat if you travelled from the
US to Haiti?

>> Or does the universe transform itself as you
>> travel from culture to culture, the sun, moon and planets doing some
>> spastic gavotte to rearrange themselves into the patterns of the new
>> culture as you meet them? 
> 
> Of course not: Does Cyberware cease to exist when YOU walk into
> France?  Does the second sun cease to rise when YOU enter Cairo?  The
> local reality exerts its influence on you.  BUT, if there are enough
> local folx who believe differently, the local reality reshapes to fit
> their belief.  It's the ultimate democracy. ;-)

Non sequitur. Your facts are uncoordinated.

You are speaking of entering an area governed by the laws of a
different _cosm_, not an area of the same cosm with a different
culture. Rip up all the stelae of the Nile Empire, and will the Second
Sun rise in Cairo?

>> And why should _you_ be the magic focus
>> that determines the rearrangement of the cosm, instead of some other
>> traveller? 

> It is NOT a single traveller.  It is the vast majority of people.  No
> single traveller can change an axiom, unless she's VERY powerful!

Again, you are misunderstanding what I am saying. Suppose you are in
Madrid in 1600. It is known there that the Earth is a sphere orbiting
the Sun. You travel to India, where it is likewise 'known' that the
Earth is a flat disk supported on the backs of four elephants standing
on a turtle (and "it's turtles all the way down!"). Has the Earth
changed because you made this journey, and if it has, why were _you_
the focus for it changing? Why wouldn't some other traveller arriving
in India have already transformed the Earth into a flat disk, and why
haven't the people in Madrid noticed this?

> Sean, it seems (as others have said) that you are trying to apply YOUR
> understanding of how reality does/should work to the Torg cosmverse.
> Why?  They are explicitly saying that THIS place looks like us, but
> the world(s) is(are) a very different place than we think.  Noite:
> DIFFERENT THAN WE THINK.

The point I am trying to make is that the Tech axiom levels do not
make sense in and of themselves; for the technology limits as stated,
something _outside_ the Tech axiom must actively limit the working of
technology, because there are too many dependent consequences of an
arbitrary prohibition for it to be embedded in the physical laws of a
cosm.

For example, in the Living Land, there are enough physical
consequences of there being a change in the way materials work for a
shortbow to function, but not a longbow; but if you add Lanala's
desire not to have Her people become dependent on nonliving things,
then she can tap the energy from such things to keep them no better
than what Her people could do for themselves.

But the imposition of arbitrary limits on what is _possible_ requires
the active intervention of an outside force; by itself, the limits of
the Tech axiom track are trash.

-- 
random sig #128:
Sean Malloy                                  | 
Navy Personnel Research & Development Center | You cannot oppress an armed man;
San Diego, CA 92152-6800                     | you can only kill him.
malloy@nprdc.navy.mil                        | 

> 
> get with the genre! ;-)
> 
> 
> jas
> 
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