Just noticed this. Halinn, all (worthy) men in the Mormon church become members of the priesthood, starting at the age of 12. Awakening wouldn't really do much to help out there. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

I suppose that, if interested, we best move this to PMs because forum rules and shit.

Eh, I'm good. We've all been pretty civil and it's all been mostly relevant to game play, so I'm not too worried about getting into trouble. That part about the LDS Church's stance on homosexuality is definitely something we should avoid though, seeing as how it's not really relevant anymore. Back to SLC?

Personally, I'd like to see what people would write up for a homebrew SLC based on their experiences, especially with SLC becoming way more worldly and desirable for large companies of the years since it was originally written up.

SoNA is completely insane on SLC. To give an obvious example, Mormons are not anti-gun. For example, Utah was the first state that passed a law that prohibited state universities from banning students from carrying concealed weapons on campus. And as one of my LDS friends mentioned once, Jesus had Peter, Brigham Young had Porter Rockwell. In SoNA SLC has a no weapons policy with magical gun detectors. The entire SLC section was pretty clearly written by someone who knew nothing, cared less and looks like they just randomly made shit up in a drunken evening.

I had it as being an island of civilization in the totalitarian Ute state, where the 40,000 Utes oppress the 600,000 Navaho and other Native Americans while the two million LDS of the Salt Lake City-Ogden Metropolitan Area pretend to be ruled by the Utes. The SLC Sheriff's department is very, very large and has unusual equipment for "police", as well as having a much larger sheriffs "reserve officers", which consists of pretty much all the male residents. Who are organized in companies and keep their assault rifles and body armor at home except for their yearly training sessions.

But the coffee is pretty bad and there are not a lot of places to get a good beer.

I'd keep the mana ebb, and that's about it if I were to write a homebrew. I think Jay Levine wrote the SoNA section on the Ute nation, and from talking with him in the past on Shadowland I wouldn't say that about him, kzt. I agree very little with what's been written about the city for the setting, but I'd chalk that up to someone with a word-count and deadline issue than someone just pulling shit out of his ass.

Uhm, where do you take the 'more open and worldly' from? Or is that a premise you'd like to see?

Personally, I used it as a dystopian religious state, technologically competent and ideologically rigid, run by a more fundamentalist LDS church, with roaming bands of missionaries (young men who found no mate in SLC) in the outskirts looking for eligible women to convert and marry, especially in local and rather oppressed white reservations. Resulting immigration made the city larger than today, and provided a significant workforce. Also, there was a plethora of religious spam on the characters there.

One thing is for certain: LDS missionaries are all over teh world, seeking more converts.

And now I make a note to have a pair of missionaries to knock on teh door of my group's safehouse.

"Hello, I am Michael."
"And I am Wolf-Howls-at-Moon."
"And we'd like to share the word with you."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gsccgEjLqMc

Yes, I do know that.

I think Neko meant that our-timeline SLC has become more worldly and open than it was when the first SR-timeline was written, hermit, which is very true. Given the time that the divergence happened in SR and the overall "glass-all-the-way-empty" feel of cyberpunk I'd probably ignore that, though.

Me too, it's a dystopia running on clichés, after all.

Well, demonic possession is officially recognized by the RCC and there are prominent examples like a certain Indian-American governor who himself described how he took part in the exorcism of a woman, complete with physically restraining the victim when she wanted to seek more qualified treatment for her seizures. Most catholics in the western world would still describe the idea as rather...questionable


BTW, doesn't Mormon mythology say that the ancient earthly paradise in America included the native tribes? That would explain why the Mormons got along better with the NAN than the rest of the old USA.

Yes, to my knowledge they'Re the new Jews or soemthing.

And yes, the RCC is hot on Exorcism - hell, our own Bishops' conference is, though they're rather coy about it, and with Ratzinger in the Holy See this will not get any saner any time sooon - but my point is that Mormons believe that, too, to my knowledge.

Could be. I'm hardly an expert. I spent about 5 weeks there at Novell events during the 90s and early 2000s plus a visit or two since, but the whole approach just to that section strikes me as someone "just pulling shit out of his ass". Of course, given that there are 10,000 Utes vs 300,000 Navajo, the entire concept of a "Ute nation" is so totally insane I guess that what he did hardly rates...

not quite. you're sort of combining two different pieces of information that we do believe in there, i think.

for starters, we believe that pre-flood (ie pre-Noah), the things that happened in the Bible occurred somewhere on the American continent, and in particular that parts of Missouri are where Adam lived towards the end of his life (possibly earlier on as well, but i'm not aware of anything which specifically indicates that... in contrast, the fact that Missouri is believed to be the place where Adam and many of his descendants gathered at the end of Adam's life *is* quite well documented... note that i said the *belief* is well documented, i'm not saying we have some archaeological proof of this or anything. just revelation).

we also believe, and again, this is very well documented, that native americans are descendants of groups of Israelites (one group primarily being of the tribe of Manasseh, and another must have included at least some from the tribe of Judah given the heir to the throne of Judah was among them. so far as we can tell, there don't appear to have been any Levites, if that matters to you). in fact, this is how the Book of Mormon begins: around 600 BC, just before the babylonians invade and destroy Jerusalem and scatter the Israelites living there across their empire, a group leaves Jerusalem, travels to the ocean, and crosses it. another group also left shortly after the babylonian invasion and crossed the ocean as well (the former group is much more thoroughly documented than the latter, at least up until the two groups meet and combine).

the Book of Mormon is a (partial) record of these people beginning in 600 BC and continuing to 421 AD. as is written on the title page, part of the purpose of the Book of Mormon is to convince the modern native americans that they are of the house of Israel and that they should come unto Christ. as a result, Mormons in general tended to be on better terms with native americans than most european settlers... we were trying to make friends with them and preach the gospel to them, which is generally considered to be much more effectively done with living people.

as to the Church's approach to magic, as i said i really can't see them thinking of it as being the priesthood. it's too clearly not controlled by God. either a complete rejection of it (which just seems unlikely in view of how vulnerable that leaves them), or an acceptance of it but a very strong opposition to certain aspects of it (with mental manipulations and possession spirits being very likely to be on the list of "evil magic"), with it being considered a gift from God but not the priesthood, are the most likely results. as i've said before, i consider the latter to be more likely (frankly, if you don't have access to at least wards and counterspelling, you're going to be in very bad shape in the 6th world).

as to miracles... we believe that they are possible. i would say that most are not expecting a pillar of fire from heaven (though it is in theory a possible response), but healing (not necessarily instantaneously), receiving guidance and inspiration in answer to prayers (not necessarily in visions or dreams, though again... it is possible), and being strengthened by the Lord in difficult times and such. *can* God throw a lightning bolt at a tank? absolutely, if God felt it was necessary. but i would say he's much more likely to simply soften the ground to muck in front of the tank instead, or help you figure out how to disable or destroy the tank... and of course, there's always the possibility that the answer will be "no" for one reason or another.

Well, the Ute Nation is more or less the nation of tribes nobody likes (Pawnee!). Also, the NAN lives by the good american tradition of a one-drop rule (SoNA suggests that), meaning if you can prove ONE of your ancestors ever was a Ute, so are you. That expands the numbers of Native Americans considerably. Also, today's numbers are tribal affiliation, not ethnicity, which are two different things. It's also the only way to make any sense of the NAN books' numbers.

Also, more SLC facts:

Brigham Young Transit Lines, the monopoly on bus transit in Ute Nation (and in 2074 presumably still a large company, though probably PCC controlled) and is famous for it's preachy onboard entertainment program. Also, SLC operates one of only three international airports in former Ute Nation.

And one hero. Daniel "Howling Coyote" Coleman, the prophet of the Ghost Dance and leader of SAIM was a Ute, as were his first followers and lieutnants. You could somewhat compare that to the US: there only was one Georges Washington, yet the capital and a state are named after him.

Thanks for explaining this, but what caused the watershed at 421? For some reason Google was amazingly non-informative

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book_of_Mormon_chronology

Starting in 200 CE, a group called the Lamanites started defying the Church and the teaching of Jesus Christ. They became stronger and stronger, and by 245 they already were more numerous than the Nephites (the believers). There were several wars between 321 and 385. In the end, the Nephite nation lost and were annihilated. By 400, all the survivors had been slain, except for Moroni, the son of the prophet Mormon. In 421, Moroni hid the sacred texts that Joseph Smith uncovered centuries later. Hence why nothing is said about what happened after that point.

As fascinating as the mormons are, surely there is other things to know about SLC? right? ... right guys...?

Stupid question... is there actually a salt lake at salt lake? if not, I think that some ambient mana could fix that

Of course there is. Look at a map.

It's a lot like teh Dead Sea, really. High salt content (obviously) which makes people quite bouyant.

I'm given to understand that it also smells kinda bad.

I was expecting more salt less lake, like those dried lake beds.

Hmm, should have searched for "chronology" instead of "history"


So the forefathers of the NAN are believed to have waged a genocidal war against the ancient Mormons...I see some potential tension there. Oh wait, did I just try to make sense of NAN demographics? Nevermind, move along citizen (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

Lionhearted, we have both: The Great Salt Lake and Bonneville Salt Flats where Speed Week happens every year.