I just looked at the stats. Carter, Cody, Courier and Morgan would be well suited to gambling. Morgan is the only one that actually has dots in the skill, but the four of them could make millions in Vegas very quickly with their mega's alone. Carter will be particularly devastating, but I think Cody and Courier will win out via luck. The hardest part will be not angering the casinos with all the winning they will do.

So then, what's the plan?

Not to mention the mischief Cody can pull telepathy...it doesn't matter if its not surrepititious, as I was recently reminded of the ability to alter memories. Carter is the suave frontman though. Cody is the one you do not want to be interrogated by...

Better still to have Carter talk you up while Cody probes your thoughts no?

The hardest part will be not angering the casinos with all the winning they will do.

Casinos will kick people out for winning too much, or being too good at gamboling. This is especially true in Blackjack where you can card count and the like. They also share information so being kicked out by one is being kicked out by all of them.

However, I’d think it’s possible to win via Luck or Cyber-K (Is Carter a cyber-k?) for a long time before they catch on. They are used to long strings of wild luck simply because with enough people over enough time, long strings of wild luck do happen. So in some games while they’ll watch very hard for cheating, or “excessive” skill, they grit their teeth and tolerate luck.

Further, in some situations they wouldn’t care. For example, *someone* has to win at the Texas Hold’em tournament, and the Casino doesn’t make or lose any more money if it’s a specific person. That BTW is one of the real secrets of why Novas get so much money. In a winner take all environment, being the top dog or having the top dog working for you can be worth millions or even billions.

The Plan:

Basically we spread out, look for opportunities, and use the link to alert each other about good/bad things. While I don’t think Casinos are still into organized crime deep enough to try to rough up winners, I might be wrong about this timeline, or we might look “soft” to someone. Hopefully Omar won’t have to step in, but it is possible.

Steve will win at, well, everything, but ideally he’d enter in a high pay out tourney of something like Texas Hold’em.

If Carter is a cyber-k, then just figure out what the highest paying slot machine is and win at it.

Questions:

Can Isabel create light illusions? Say to change what dice/cards/etc look like?

I guess Omar can take up modeling and/or product endorsement. Also of possibility is pro wrestling, or another athletic pursuit.

He could also provide private security, at a price, to the PC when they gamble. If the casinos or broke poker players decide to rip the player's off, Omar can rip their arms off.

I suppose Omar could walk into a bank and rip the door off the vault and take what he wants.

ooh! Are we going to become Time-Bandits?!?!

And Steve should masquerade as a Highe roller type to get into the big stakes game, and every high high roller needs a menacing and mysterious bodyguard....Cody, who also has an others-affecting intuition to warn of danger to the group...

We could pose as a group of models, we've got the looks for it. Omar would make a good body guard.

With Mega-App, Omar could be a modeling bodyguard.

Also, we could rob Ft. Knox, and then use the billions of dollars in gold to fund our activities in the other timelines. Of course, we would have to take on a brigade of soldiers and their Tanks, but hey..who wants to live forever.

ooh! Are we going to become Time-Bandits?!?!

That's a path that leads us to killing anyone who gets in our way, and trying to conquor the world. Unlimited power => Absolute Corruption.

IC, even ignoring the ethics of this, which as a high willpower type I don't think I can, there is the problem of the ship. I find it hard to believe we aren't being monitored somewhere along the line by our "benifactors".

...you obviously haven't seen the Terry Gilliam movie...

It ended with God stepping in and claiming he'd been delibrately letting them run wild.

Oh! Well you have seen it...so then why do you assume becomming Time Bandits will lead to Conquering the world and becomming evil murderous villains???

We might all just become midgets! ;0P

Because to a first approximation (at least without training) the situation can make the man, it’s just the way we are wired. The prison guards abusing the inmates at (take your pick) can be, would be, and probably are normal people in a different setting.

I seem to remember a psych experiment were someone took two dozen people or so people, and randomly made half of them prisoners and the other half prison guards. The Prof had to stop the experiment because the guards were starting to abuse the prisoners. For a lesser experiment take a job at a used car dealership and see what happens to your ethics.

This BTW is one of the really scary parts of the Teragen, their social set up is basically designed to create monsters.

Our current situation is dangerously close to being one that would encourage us to degenerate morally. We are cut off from our friends and family and will probably bond into a tight unit pretty quick. Fine so far.

We are also cut off from society, because we are novas, some of us have taint, all of us have secrets that we probably can’t share. Because of our powers and the ship, we are also pretty much above societies rules and laws. For an extreme example we could nuke a modern city, and have nothing worse happen to us than having to flee the timeline. No possibility of pursuit or consequences. We are in a situation designed to encourage us to think that we are superior to the normals out there (worse, we actually are superior).

You are talking about the Stanford Prison Exeriment conducted by Philip Zimbardo in 1971. It is a fascinating and horrifying example of human nature in action.

Omar has no taint. He has no secrets, other than being a Nova. He would love to be worshipped as a god...it would fit with his nature as a Gallant. Conceivably, it could become difficult to remove him from this timeline if he became the center of attention. This could go for the rest of the party as well.

Nothing is more attractive than to be seen as gods.

Well, you guys just hit right on one of the challenges of the game. You've been given near absolute power, one of the greatest tests is how you will use it. I won't say whether or not the Watchers will jump in to interfere though. Infact, they may or may not even be watching. Consider that they didn't interfere to stop Ghengis Khan Nero, or Hitler, I doubt you have to worry much anytime soon even IF they are watching.

However, what you do will have consequences, and no matter what you do you will make enemies. Some will hate you just because you have powers they don't, some will hate you because they fear the unknown and you are unknown. No matter what you do or which timeline you do it in, you will have those that fear and hate you, and depending on your actions perhaps those that love you as well.

There are issues with being seen as gods, especially in a world that is over crowded with them already, and whose followers are willing to kill others just because they don't believe like they do.

If you wanna take on that kind of persona, you need to go back at least to the Roman empire before Christianity and Islam existed, or specify some really exotic changes in the timeline and jump to a world that is more religiously tolerant. (that's a hard one to imagine)

Courier:

Its precisely *because* of my ethics that I wouldn't go work in a used car lot. All of those prison guards...they all made their individual choices. You say the setting can make the man. I would argue thats true only if the individual abdicates their own personal responsibility. We all make our choices.

As for being Gods...um...what if we travel back in time and become heroic figures....

then leave with prohpesies that we shall return h unduplicatable "signs"

then travel to the future and reap what we have sewn.


How are them for some ethics?!? :oP

(Im not totally serious here guys and gals. The idea is fascinating, though it would have to be an extreme case for me to roleplay such deception (But Mahster Luke, Its against my programming to impersonate a Deity... ^.^)

Be cooler to tell them the truth...We are time traveling aliens from the future, come to bring (whatever)

Also something to think about...If we use our quantum powers alot we will slowly be increasing the chances of other eruptions...

Ya know, I just wrote up this long response to what SL just said, but I've decided I won't post it as it would give away too much. Staying in the 'present' will have consequences, moving to the past would also have consequences. Such consequences are the stuff of future legends.

Man it's hard not to jump in and say too much though!

Its precisely *because* of my ethics that I wouldn't go work in a used car lot. All of those prison guards...they all made their individual choices. You say the setting can make the man. I would argue thats true only if the individual abdicates their own personal responsibility. We all make our choices.

Yes and no. The army guards in Iraq didn't decide to become guards, they were normal soldiers (meaning they weren't trained for being guards) who were ordered to. Some people can make the ethical choice, but the number who actually can is *much* smaller than the number who just think they can (no offense). The path towards evil can begin very easily and with a very small step. Worse, often that first step on the path can seem like the lesser of two evils.

Tell people they are guarding evil, crazy people who are trying to kill their friends and family and that with just a little bit of “softening” they can help save lives. For a more extreme example, tell them that the captured guy has hidden a nuke somewhere inside city limits (in this case it’s pretty much assumed that the rules go out the window).

Many of the corporate scandals we’ve had recently started with someone fudging the books by moving just a little bit of the next quarter’s profit onto this quarter. The rules for not doing it can seem very abstract if you have no accounting training, and the reasons for doing it can be very strong (the profit was created this quarter and is a sure thing, people will lose their jobs if you don’t, and other sets of rules (that you don’t use) do in fact say that you can move it forward a quarter). So you postpone the suffering and hope that you can make it up next quarter… but what really happens is you then have to move things forward again (or worse, a bit more). The level of potential suffering goes up, and now you are stuck. Eventually the situation blows up.

I get what you are saying Courier, and I don't want to derail the thread. (Though it is a good reminder for us to be wise ICly)

In The Prophet, by Khalil Gilbran, a man asks the prohept to "tell us about good and evil." The prophet replies that there is no such thing...that the best among you will steal bread when starving.

I am sure I would do the same if I was starving, but alot of these corporate scandaleers are quite fat and taken care of. People choose to go into business, to get involved in materialistic corporate culture. I have chosen a career that keeps me well outside of politics and corporate conniving. I refuse to put myself into a corrupt environment. Persoanlly, that there is so much corruptio is a asign to me that the system is broken. There are many well meaning people who get into law, politics, business, etc. with the good intentions of changing things from the inside. Then they just get steamrolled into conformity more-or-less...often becuase they have children that they must now provide for.

Not sure what I am trying to say exactly, cept for we all make choices. Those guards werent trained, they were soldiers...but I would *never* willingly be a soldier, the very definition of which places me beyond the civil rights of a citezen and places me under brutal military law, where failure to follow any order is like treason and the pressure for conformity is unresistable.

Hey guys, just want you to be aware, since you have no real rivals in this timeline in terms of personal power, I will be pretty focused on the little stuff. You are novas in a world with no novas. People are gonna pick up on that, and certain things might get you noticed that you wouldn't think twice about in a normal nova rich setting.

Absolutely cool though they are, glowing eyes are gonna get you noticed, and normal sunglasses aren't gonna cover em. Wrap around reflective sunglasses might work in the daylight, but wearing them at night or indoors and you're still gonna see a glow behind them. (A casino's main room might be an exception with all the flashing lights, but if the sunglasses look like they have tech embedded in them you won't be allowed to wear them there. No HUDs or other tech devices in a casino either. Also, the rooms where texas holdem are usually played don't have the flashing lights and such.)

(BTW, just for the record, if you have a gambling problem in RL please skip this and have your character do something else. - your community service announcement)

Ok, here's the way I'm gonna work this. I am going to assume you are gonna play 50 hands in the next 4 hours. I will roll each hand for you and assume you will bet your stack fairly agressively. I will take all of your Mega's into consideration as well as any powers you might have that could effect the game. This is the way the first 2 hours will go.

After you meet and eat at the buffet, (and my inital post) if you want to roll for yourself, you can tell me how many hands you wish to play and how much of your money you wish to commit to the game. After you have sent me that info (send this info first) you can use the Irony Dice Roller at this link, http://www.irony.com/mailroll.html and have it send the results of your rolls to me at donotspame@gmail.com If you do this be sure to specify any tricks that you are using.

The roll is Manipulation + Mega-Intelligence + Gambling. (I will take into consideration, Luck, mega perception, mega manipulation, mega wits, mega app, and mega charisma and their effects on the other players.) If you decide to play any other type of game besides poker let me know because other rules will be involved. I've decided to give an extra die for each intangible factor like Mega-Wits: Lie Detector and other things that could influence a poker game.

Steve will keep his Lie Detector on pretty constantly, i.e. fire it up at the start of every scene (not a shock I'm sure).

RE: intangible factors
Adaptability will factor in there eventually, but probably not for a while.

Omar will use his Awe-Inspiring enhancement once he enters the casino.

Specifically, Omar is looking for fights with entry fees in which anyone can enter. Those contests where the winner takes home a monetary prize. After a few spectacular victories, he will begin to make a name for himself, and move up the ladder to bigger fights (like UFC).

He will also look for contests involving strength...weight-lifing and such.

Hmmm. Cody isn't the most well suited to gambling, as he does not have the gambling skill. His base dice pool is 6 modified by 1 dot each in Mega Perception, Manipulation and Wits, plus lie detector, but that still puts him at only peak baseline. And given its Vegas there will be some peak baseline gamblers around. And so you know he cant use his telepathy without them knowing (will eventually get around to the meet the characters thread...)

So unless Steve wants him present as a "bodyguard" he will most likely drop the others off. (roster list for who is present please). Cody's abilities lend themselves more to the darker side of things...like interrogating people for passcodes and such.

One possibility, if people want to go heroic is that Cody has an intuition "danger sense" that affects everyone within a certain radius of him. He can find where the bad things are happening and deal with it. Needless to say this has other applications.

If we want to go larcenous, we could be this worlds first "supervillains," Cody would be handy for any kind of assault or raid or heist, especially with certain gadgets he posseses. Lets just say he could take a good portion of fort knox's gold with him personally if he were to get inside...

this alien shuttle gives us options too....we could pose as an armored car for pickup of things (the real drivers having given us their passcodes and uniforms).

Im thinking that for Cody, returning to the idea of a nova investigation company is too small and narrow given our new options. Im not sure what he wants to really do yet...

Ok, Money is not an issue any more. Lets just say that Carter and Steve are very unpopular right now with certain gamblers. The numbers are nutz. Very, very, nutz. There's a good reason that Vegas didn't allow Novas in your world. If you guys stay in this timeline you will eventually have enemies if people ever discover what you are. On the other hand, we have no money worries any more.

We now have a combined bank account of $165,015,000.

Steve was so lucky that people would just stop playing against him. You guys could go on and gamble more if you are careful, but if you do you risk people turning ugly. Even in Vegas you can only win so much before bad things start happening.

I thought I was going to make underworld contact and try to get up some IDs and such ... what happened to that?

I think Carter's amount was missing some zeros, as is it in Chapter 2 it says 65K but that must be 65M.

Yep, Luck is really, really, brutal for this. One extra succ per turn in a contest where the gamboling skill is usually applied per pot or per scene implies it's better to be lucky than good. Of course the annoying thing for other players would be the impression that he's either cheating or *shouldn't* be winning as much as he is.

No doubt the casino switched dealers and decks fairly often to make sure that wasn't going on. They may have the impression that we were cheating somehow... which in turn implies a fairly intensive search on who exactly "Steve Courier" is, which might or might not turn up that this obviously isn't him.

Isabel will be looking to buy high-quality painter's supplies while she's out, although it may be a bit difficult to find in Vegas, maybe.

Yeah, they did switch out decks regularly and dealers. The hardest part you had was cashing out. They desperately wanted to just transfer the funds to your bank account. That would have been a problem of course. Thanks to Omar you finally convinced them that cash would be fine. Had you been dealing directly with the casino itself like winning at Roulette they wouldn't have gone for it, but since you were dealing with three individuals you were able to convince them.

Paint supplies won't be a problem. There are plenty of rich people in Vegas that dabble in art. You would have been able to find them pretty easily.

Carter, do you want to do a bit of a "cosmic rewind?" I got a little confused, originally you and Cody were both talking about gambling, then you both mentioned at the last minute that you had other plans. I noticed Cody's change of mind but not yours. You won 65,000,000 at poker though. Up to you, if you want to give that up I can go back and redo what you were doing that afternoon, or we can leave things they way they are and continue from here.

Rather than retconning and dealing with that I'm going to con the con ... with any luck this guy will be able to get me into contact with the people I'll need to speak to about IDs and such ...

Or at least the buffets I've been to have these rooms.

Yeah, most places do, and I doubt a place the Bellagio would be any different.

BTW, the pickup of all the supplies Marcus and Isabel arranged are scheculed to start in the morning around 8:00am. It is currently about 6:30 in the evening.

I think Sammy the Hand is the forger.

Thanks for the heads up...I hadn't had coffee yet...

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