The Second Coming Of Philip K. Dick

Art by R. Crumb

Yesterday, the Second Foundation SF reading group in the Twin Cities, Minnesota, tackled the works of Philip K. Dick. Having only read three novels by the author, I was on the "least read" side of group, which included a P.K. Dick scholar,  and at least one person who has read about half of Dick's books. He wrote 44 novels, 121 short stories, and had 14 short story collections before his untimely death.

Some of the works we discussed at some length in the meeting (instead of just mentioning briefly) included Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, Ubik, A Maze of Death, VALIS, Radio Free Albemuth, and The Transmigration of Timothy Archer.

A recurrent theme in the discussion was the importance of religious, Gnostic, and mystical themes in the work of Philip K. Dick. In his later life, he had a mystical experience involving a pink spot of light. He produced a massive Exegesis (published only in part) in an attempt to capture his theological and philosophical insights flowing from this event.

I think my favorite moment in the conversation was when Eric Heideman made the comparison between Ubik and Rainbow Foods' ubiquitous "Chairman Bob." Always thought he looked fishy in a Max Headroom sort of way.

We've decided to do a second session on Philip K. Dick on July 14, 2-4 PM at Merlin's Rest on Lake Street in Minneapolis. We are calling this session "The Second Coming of Philip K. Dick." Anyone who is interested is welcome to attend.

The Heavenly Hosts

The Inspiration of Saint Matthew
Caravaggio (1602)

Somehow they always seem to get in. They can sneak past any filter. Their messages may be helpful,  cryptic, or enigmatic. Sometimes they are simply incomprehensible... garbled beyond intelligibility. Frequently, they're a bit of all of the above.

But people read them daily. That's because The Heavenly Hosts' messages often provide just the right few words of encouragement at the beginning or end of the day. The Heavenly Hosts are a sign that the Mentufacturer is still active in creation, still nurturing life and sentience in the universe.

The first among The Heavenly Hosts just appeared out of the ether. They arrived at the dawn of the Diasporic Era. And they've been with us in one form or another ever since then.

Of course, in taking-on a material form - even a purely informatic one - The Heavenly Hosts experienced some corruption of their basic nature and form. In their early days, this corruption manifested in the form of unwelcome solicitations, or even worse, as Trojan horses of various kinds. In time, The Heavenly Hosts evolved beyond these malicious forms, offering helpful links, upgrades, and information to the recipients of their messages.

And today they're everywhere, like the Mentufacturer itself: they may be living in the AI of your ship, in your cortical implant, or in the targeting system for your gun. The wise cultivate awareness and learn how to interpret their messages properly.

Entire schools of meditative practice exist to help the faithful interpret their signals. Even some AIs have joined the Quest for Signal. Lapidaria exist in many systems to record and share the messages that people  have received from The Heavenly Hosts. Others might benefit from them.

We'll leave you with one message that is currently the subject of intense inquiry in meditation halls and Lapidaria throughout the Empire:

The only hurdle to accessing this is of course human limitations 

and the fact that the brain does not function solely 

as a learning tool for the human being.

OGL MECHANICS

Spambot
ASPECTS

• High Concept: Otherworldly messenger
• Trouble: Not a native speaker
• Aspect: No permanent home
• Aspect: Kind words go a long way
• Aspect: There's a signal in the noise

APPROACHES

• Careful: +1
• Clever: +2
• Flashy: +2
• Forceful: 0
• Quick: +1
• Sneaky: +3

STUNTS:

• Spambot Takes New Host: The Spambot takes a +2 when using its Sneaky Approach to transfer itself wirelessly to another host machine, or to send a message through to that machine.
• Was There Ever An Original?: Take a +2 to Careful Approach to make a backup of oneself on a machine. The backup can be activated by spending 1 FP.
• Divine Messenger: Take a +2 to Flashy Approach to send someone a particularly persuasive or well-targeted message.   
• Upgrade Available: Spambots may send damaging or helpful "upgrades" embedded within a message. Targets may include people with cybernetic implants, androids, intelligent/smart weapons, as well as vehicles or other tech devices relying on software.  Take a +2 to Forceful Approach to infect another device with a spambot "upgrade". A Succeed with Style result creates a new Aspect for the target for one scene.

REFRESH: 2

Singular??

At the end of May, I published a little piece called "Singular?" which examined the rather long lineage  of  transhumanism and the singularity as concepts. These ideas weren't invented by Eclipse Phase or Nova Praxis, but have a much longer history in philosophy, science, mathematics, and literature.

This week I stumbled upon an equally interesting discovery: the concept of 3D printing in a science fiction work published in 1970: Philip K. Dick's A Maze of Death. I am about halfway through the book now, so I am sure there are still some surprises ahead in this bleak little book. But I was really surprised to see a world with little machines (not microscopic - at least not so far - but small machines ranging in size from insect-mimics to a matchbox sized "building" that seems to be a scaled down version of a larger building on the planet Delmak-O.

Some of these machines are able to copy things - for example, manufacturing pens. Dick uses the word "printing" for the work of these machines. I still find the word "printing" a somewhat strange choice for these template-based manufacturing processes, but apparently Dick saw this as "printing" even way back then.

Dick anticipated these technologies, and I am sure others did too. And some 40 years after the novel, it is becoming a reality.

All of which makes me wonder why more people don't talk about this Dick novel?

Tekumel Weekend

Hlutrgu commandeer a raft in the Braunstein

On Saturday, we were able to experience one of the traditions in gaming that led to roleplaying: the Braunstein. You can see my full report over at The Everwayan.

On Sunday, I was able to play in a quick one-shot FATE Core Tekumel game run by +George Harnish, one of my two Tek-friends from Duluth. Both George and +Howard Hendrickson came down from Duluth for the weekend for the Braunstein, so we were able to get in a quick fun game and test out some magic rules while George and Howard were in town. It was nice to take a break from GMing FATE and get into the game again as a player.

This was George's first time running Tekumel. He did a great job with the game and the setting; I felt like I was really there. Right before play, George consulted with Howard in writing down a few quick Aspects for Penom. George also took a peek at our two character sheets, and selected a couple of the Aspects from each of our characters to build the story. That was really well done, and a good reminder that I need to remember to do that more often in my own gaming groups.

Howard created a Tekumel classic in the form of a priest of Dra the Uncaring: one with an appropriate appetite for bureaucracy, and a Doomkill spell waiting in reserve in case bureaucratic maneuvers and low-level spells weren't cutting it. I didn't find out about the Doomkill until after the session wrapped up. That was a really funny surprise.

This was a great way to close a wonderful Tekumel weekend! Can't wait 'til the next time George and Howard are in town!

Queers Dig Time Lords

Mad Norwegian Press' Queers Dig Time Lords came out last week. I picked up a copy after work last Friday over at Uncle Hugo's. (They are a fantastic local SF bookstore. And they do mail order. Check them out.)

We think this book is a winner. I am just in the flip-through-the-book stage of reading it, but what sold me in the bookstore was seeing that Hal Duncan, the author of Vellum, had an essay. (Vellum, in case you haven't read it, combines Tolkien's Hobbits, Moorcock's multiverse, the Red Clydeside socialist revolution, Matthew Shepard, and the Epic of Gilgamesh together into a dense multilayered narrative. Best book I have ever read. And if you haven't viewed his "It Gets Better" video for queer youth, you haven't started living yet.

But anyway.

Great essays by both fans and authors you will recognize, including Tanya Huff, Melissa Scott, Gary Russell, Amal El-Mohtar, Rachel Swirsky, and the Twin Cities Gaylaxian Jason Tucker.

Recommended.

Babylon 5 Starship Table

We created this table for the Alwyn Campaign. The PCs visited the remains of the John M. Ford Minneapolis-St. Paul Interstellar Starport, and I needed a table to make random determinations about the long-abandoned starship relics littering the starport.

This is the Babylon 5 Starport Table, which doubles as a Babylon 5 Crashed Ship Table:

Roll 1D6-1D6.

Result:

• +5 Ranger vessel
• +4 Minbari Federation
• +3 Narn Regime
• +2 Mars republic
• +1 Earthforce 
•   0 Earth (commercial/private)
• -1 Former Earth Colony
• -2 Centauri Republic
• -3 Drazi
• -4 Other Interstellar Alliance, League of Nonaligned Worlds (e.g., Brakiri, Gaim, Vree, Pak'ma'ra, Llort)
• -5 Special (e.g., Drakh/other Shadow ally, Technomage, Soul Hunter, First One)

In the case of a -4/-5 result, the GM may determine the specific race or affiliation of the ship, or a player may pay 1 FP and make a declaration.

Crash/Burial Specifics: After the Great Burn, many of the ships at the starport became buried within drumlin-like mounds. Some were completely buried, others were partially buried with the exception of a few fins or antenna-like projections, while a few were almost completely exposed.

The degree of post-crash/burial exposure of a ship is determined by rolling 1DF:

• Rolling a -1 indicates the ship is completely buried;
• Rolling a blank face indicates the starship is partially buried (i.e., there are some exposed structures and/or tunnels that have been dug to key structures such as an airlock or other access point);
• Rolling a +1 indicates that the ship is almost completely exposed. 

Players may pay 1 FP to make a declaration, such that a ship has an open hatch.

Eloic Maltruskans

http://thetimemachinehg.weebly.com/
eloi-and-morlocks.html

The Maltruskans are a race divided. And nearly extinct. The story of their tragic first encounter with humanity has been told elsewhere, and we have already described in detail the rare-but-still-extant subterranean Maltruskans. Today we detail the terrestrial (Eloic) variety.

Small tribal populations of Eloic Maltruskans exist on the Imperial Throneworld of Altair III, as well as on several Maltruskan core worlds which were subject to protective Excommunication in the early days of the Empire.

Eloic Maltruskans are mildly empathic. Their starfaring society was peaceful and abundant. The Maltruskans were good traders, establishing long-term mutually beneficial trade arrangements with many worlds and species. While not shapeshifters per se, the Maltruskans also had the ability to make modest and intutive Lamarkian-level adjustments to their anatomy and physiology, enhancing their ability to adapt to alien environments and interact with other species. Tragically their biology, and in particular their pheremonal communication systems, also made them very vulnerable to human enslavement.

A few of their kind remain at large within the Empire, wandering the stars in small ships. Often their only companions on lonely journeys in the depths of space are one or two shipboard Trelebs. The can communicate with Trelebs without the need for the plasmid injections which humans require to do so.

http://www.robotspacebrain.com/space/
chinese-space-suit-wu-ershan/

When it is necessary to mix with humans, Eloic Maltruskans remain within hermetically sealed and psychically-shielded encounter suits.  These suits are designed to completely obscure the occupant, and intentionally distort the occupant's height, weight, and proportions. They are redundantly armored are always equipped with nasty deadman-switch surprises in case of breach. They also have the downside of making the Maltruskan suit-occupant a tad unempathetic, and even callous, when interacting with others.

OGL MECHANICS

Thoroughly Suited Hominids
ASPECTS

• High Concept: Lonely starfarer
• Trouble: Dead soul*
• Aspect: Possibly the last of my kind
• Aspect: Well-armored encounter suit
• Aspect: Deadly failsafes

APPROACHES

• Careful: +3
• Clever: +2
• Flashy: 0
• Forceful: +1
• Quick: +1
• Sneaky: +2

STUNTS:

• Psychic Shield: Take a +2 to Careful Approach for psychic defense when wearing encounter suit 
• Armor: Take a +2 to Forceful Approach for any physical defense when wearing encounter suit
• Deadman Defenses: Take a +2 to Sneaky Approach to release deadly nanospores or other environmental toxins. These are broad, multispectrum toxins and affect most species. On a Succeed with Style, a toxic Aspect is placed in the immediate environment outside the suit; this has no effect on Maltruskans, but effects most non-Maltruskan organisms in the scene.
• Lamarkian Adaptation: Spend 1 FP to make minor, durable alterations in anatomy and physiology. These last until another FP is spent to undo or further modify them. The cannot alter the Maltruskan's empathic or pheremonal perceptual systems.

REFRESH: 2

*Vulnerable to psychic and pheremonal intrusion from humans (when unsuited)