What is your God-Machine

[Arkandel]

@HelloRaptor said:

Though the Architect sequence in Matrix was fine with me too, so. >_>

You are literally Satan.

[Coin]

@Arkandel said:

@HelloRaptor said:

Though the Architect sequence in Matrix was fine with me too, so. >_>

You are literally Satan.

... duh?

[tragedyjones]

[Ergo! Vis-a-vis!] (https://youtu.be/aGgBjAR3lys)

[Coin]

@tragedyjones said:

Ergo! Vis-a-vis!

FTFY.

[Ganymede]

@HelloRaptor

Unsurprisingly, I concur with both you and @Apollonius. Unfortunately, ME3 was the designated end to the series. The designers sought finality, and produced it, however unsatisfying it might have been.

I guess my point is that a "final reveal" is exactly that. Revealing the definition of something -- or even setting one -- is useful to show people where you are going with a story, but inappropriate, pointless, and misleading if you want people to determine where the story goes.

If I could have written the MR trilogy's ending, it would have been easier to decide: (1) suicide; or (2) obliterating the Citadel's control mechanism. If you pick the former, everyone dies; if you pick the latter, the Reapers power down and just sit there like ominous reminders that some fucked up idiot (Cerberus or otherwise) may find a way to reactivate them again.

Or, maybe, like the Geth, they just wake up some day.

Or, maybe, the Leviathans decide, fuck it, let's eliminate everyone.

To me, the best part about sex is engaging in it. When it's all over, I may be happy and satisfied, but I'm just going to want it again.

[Wizz]

@Thenomain said:

@HelloRaptor said:

@Thenomain

Except that it's literally a machine.

In reading her comment back over I'd guess she means that if she had her way she'd strip the 'it is literally a machine' from it? Maybe.

You've got to stop flipping between super-literal and being forgiving of context. But yes, I agree. I was offering a gentle tweaking that she is basically re-writing the idea.

I'm coming back with page references and all that later (...probably), but I'm actually like 87% certain @Ganymede is right. I remember reading through a chapter in Demon that explained the God Machine isn't like a literal physical machine somewhere in the bowels of the earth or deep space or whatever, but basically the sum of all of the output from all the occult matrices running across the face of the planet.

Like 87% certain.

[Derp]

@Wizz said:

@Thenomain said:

@HelloRaptor said:

@Thenomain

Except that it's literally a machine.

In reading her comment back over I'd guess she means that if she had her way she'd strip the 'it is literally a machine' from it? Maybe.

You've got to stop flipping between super-literal and being forgiving of context. But yes, I agree. I was offering a gentle tweaking that she is basically re-writing the idea.

I'm coming back with page references and all that later (...probably), but I'm actually like 87% certain @Ganymede is right. I remember reading through a chapter in Demon that explained the God Machine isn't like a literal physical machine somewhere in the bowels of the earth or deep space or whatever, but basically the sum of all of the output from all the occult matrices running across the face of the planet.

Like 87% certain.

It's somewhat contradictory. It does make reference to the fact that the God Machine is really a machine that is embeddd into all of reality, complete with gears and the whole nine yards and so big it can enfold space into itself. I don't think it really ever gives a complete definition that isn't contradictory, but they often do that on purpose to give the St something to use as mystery fodder.

[Thenomain]

I should lightly clarify. I don't deeply care what people think the God-Machine is as long as it isn't killing chances for RP or wildly off what the core book says (not because I'm married to any of the WoD books, but because this is the common ground for all of us).

I think it is not a philosophy, a bureaucracy, anything grounded in belief. It uses these as tools, but at its core I see the God-Machine as a machine, a thing. After that it can be a gigantic interstellar AI or a planet-sized spirit that is integrated or fused to the Command Installations. I prefer the Iteration-X/60s Technophobia view for reasons already stated: Mysteries all the way down.

I do prefer that it not be responsible for the modern monotheistic religions that feature angels and demons, but for reasons that my Atheist ass cannot immediately explain, probably having to do with free will.

[DamnitJim]

The God Machine is the Old God of the 21st century.

[Derp]

Mecha-Cthulhu?!

[HelloRaptor]

@Thenomain

I do prefer that it not be responsible for the modern monotheistic religions that feature angels and demons, but for reasons that my Atheist ass cannot immediately explain, probably having to do with free will.

For me it smacks of the same irritating bullshit that came about with Changeling in owod: Yes, there's already a fae realm, there's already fae, there's already rules for interacting with it. But we're going to ignore the shit that already exists because FAERIES.

Whatever people think about it, there's already info, playable characters, etc tied to demons in Possessed. Angels and Demons already had an (admittedly shitty) entry in books for the system.

"Play our new game, featuring fallen ANGELS as DEMONS! Except not the demons we've already covered. And not really angels or demons at all, except that we'll call them that and they totally act like it and look like it but it's not that other set of demonic things, it's totes different."

They could have called it pretty much anything else at all and saved me about fifty pounds of derision any time it gets brought up.

[Derp]

@HelloRaptor said:

@Thenomain

I do prefer that it not be responsible for the modern monotheistic religions that feature angels and demons, but for reasons that my Atheist ass cannot immediately explain, probably having to do with free will.

For me it smacks of the same irritating bullshit that came about with Changeling in owod: Yes, there's already a fae realm, there's already fae, there's already rules for interacting with it. But we're going to ignore the shit that already exists because FAERIES.

Whatever people think about it, there's already info, playable characters, etc tied to demons in Possessed. Angels and Demons already had an (admittedly shitty) entry in books for the system.

"Play our new game, featuring fallen ANGELS as DEMONS! Except not the demons we've already covered. And not really angels or demons at all, except that we'll call them that and they totally act like it and look like it but it's not that other set of demonic things, it's totes different."

They could have called it pretty much anything else at all and saved me about fifty pounds of derision any time it gets brought up.

I can kind of see this, but then again, they're really just another kind of spirit. Spirit is a word that gets tossed around at random, and when they come from different realms and have slightly different traits, you need a way to distinguish them. Abyssal Demons are not Lower Depths Demons are not Astral Demons are not Pandaemonium Demons are not God-Machine Demons. They have some traits that they share, mythology-wise, which is enough to create a loose category of thing. All are called demons. All are technically spirits. All have different game rules. This isn't something new. This is, if anything, just limited human understanding trying to explain something that it can't possibly classify using the traits that they can perceive. I don't see this as a new conflict.

[HelloRaptor]

@Derp said:

@Wizz said:

@Thenomain said:

@HelloRaptor said:

@Thenomain

Except that it's literally a machine.

In reading her comment back over I'd guess she means that if she had her way she'd strip the 'it is literally a machine' from it? Maybe.

You've got to stop flipping between super-literal and being forgiving of context. But yes, I agree. I was offering a gentle tweaking that she is basically re-writing the idea.

I'm coming back with page references and all that later (...probably), but I'm actually like 87% certain @Ganymede is right. I remember reading through a chapter in Demon that explained the God Machine isn't like a literal physical machine somewhere in the bowels of the earth or deep space or whatever, but basically the sum of all of the output from all the occult matrices running across the face of the planet.

Like 87% certain.

It's somewhat contradictory. It does make reference to the fact that the God Machine is really a machine that is embeddd into all of reality, complete with gears and the whole nine yards and so big it can enfold space into itself. I don't think it really ever gives a complete definition that isn't contradictory, but they often do that on purpose to give the St something to use as mystery fodder.

There's also this, which I was reminded of at talk of Angels, after mentioning that the God-Machine is entirely native to the material world, built from mechanisms, blah blah blah:

GMC pg 217
When angels are reused, they spend the downtime “resting,” dormant, in storage facilities hidden by the very deepest Infrastructure. Sometimes, cultists and prying outsiders who witness the gears catch glimpses of these facilities — cavernous chambers folded neatly into impossible spaces, filled with hydraulics, gears, and the hissing of machines surrounding the angels while keeping them fed with Essence. They’re always guarded.

Just to add to the pile.

[Olsson]

@HelloRaptor said:

For me it smacks of the same irritating bullshit that came about with Changeling in owod: Yes, there's already a fae realm, there's already fae, there's already rules for interacting with it. But we're going to ignore the shit that already exists because FAERIES.

Whatever people think about it, there's already info, playable characters, etc tied to demons in Possessed. Angels and Demons already had an (admittedly shitty) entry in books for the system.

"Play our new game, featuring fallen ANGELS as DEMONS! Except not the demons we've already covered. And not really angels or demons at all, except that we'll call them that and they totally act like it and look like it but it's not that other set of demonic things, it's totes different."

They could have called it pretty much anything else at all and saved me about fifty pounds of derision any time it gets brought up.

To be fair, that is what Possessed was to me and why I dislike it. We already had angels and demons explained, they were spirits. A demon would be a spirit of something we'd view negative and they were fully capable of possessing people and do demonic stuff. And then they introduce Possessed which doesn't really add anything.

[Arkandel]

The God-Machine is the Storyteller.

[Thenomain]

@Arkandel said:

The God-Machine is the Storyteller.

So weak. Much lame. Wow.

[DamnitJim]

Also possible: The God Machine is the DemiUrge.

From wikipeida:

"In the Platonic, Neopythagorean, Middle Platonic, and Neoplatonic schools of philosophy, the demiurge (/ˈdɛmiˌɜrdʒ/) is an artisan-like figure responsible for the fashioning and maintenance of the physical universe. The term was subsequently adopted by the Gnostics. Although a fashioner, the demiurge is not necessarily the same as the creator figure in the familiar monotheistic sense, because both the demiurge itself plus the material from which the demiurge fashions the universe are considered either uncreated and eternal, or the product of some other being, depending on the system."

The God-Machine is God's Machine. His robotic smarthome management system. Except it's run amok.

[Derp]

@DamnitJim said:

Also possible: The God Machine is the DemiUrge.

From wikipeida:

"In the Platonic, Neopythagorean, Middle Platonic, and Neoplatonic schools of philosophy, the demiurge (/ˈdɛmiˌɜrdʒ/) is an artisan-like figure responsible for the fashioning and maintenance of the physical universe. The term was subsequently adopted by the Gnostics. Although a fashioner, the demiurge is not necessarily the same as the creator figure in the familiar monotheistic sense, because both the demiurge itself plus the material from which the demiurge fashions the universe are considered either uncreated and eternal, or the product of some other being, depending on the system."

The God-Machine is God's Machine. His robotic smarthome management system. Except it's run amok.

I like this. A lot.