n/m

Well, what if a nunnery got infested with mantid spirits and got turned loose on the bug mafia? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

Convent, a nunnery is something very very differnt. That aside I was traumatized neough by nuns growing up. I didn't htink you could possibly make them sound worse but...

Mantid-Spirit Infected Nuns that Practice Blood Magic.

There, I made it worse.

You mean "like Aztechnology." Ares has bugs on staff, and only hates hives that their staff hives don't get along with. They are the best at fighting bugs, but that does not mean that they actually have anything against bugs particularly. They would be the group most likely and able to parlay with the new Bug Mafia, because they have telepathic employees who speak that language.



This is a cyberpunk setting. People trade away their souls for power piecemeal all the time. How many people seriously refuse the power of Wired Reflexes just because they lose half their Essence? How many people don't? Getting invested with a bug spirit involves losing all of your Essence. But it's rather more power than a set of wires or some dermal plating. It's not Essence friendly, but it's super wiz. And people, rational people, would sign up for that with open eyes.

I would sign up for that. I personally don't care about my "spirit" and am concerned only with the contents of my brain. Given my radical materialist outlook, I'd allow a bug demon to devour my soul and wear my body like a Frank suit in a heartbeat. For me personally, the drawback would not be that my spiritual uniqueness would no longer exist, it would be that the merge might fail, leaving me retarded (hybrid) or nonexistent (trueform). So long as the process was risky, I wouldn't do it. So if they came to me in the late 2050s, when they got about one good merging in a hundred candidates, I would fight and die rather then go into the cocoon. But if they have a Queen on hand and the 2070s bug techniques where they can virtually guaranty a successful merge, I'm totally there.

And if you think I'd be alone in that assessment, you are naive. There are people, real people, who don't care about their souls or mental privacy and do care about being able to bounce bullets off their chest and fly. And I'm guessing that it isn't super hard to find these people in organized crime families.

-Frank

Count me in! (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smokin.gif)

Isn't the Mafia traditionally Catholic?

Hey, just thought of another really bad job!

I don't see the italian mafia trading their souls for bug powers either. With magic coming back, and renewed faith (more miracles, magical orders in the church) and the good tradition of the roman catholic church of forgiving sins when you confess to the priest, I see that mob branch as getting stomped flat by the rest of the families, with church support.

Well the Mafia bugs would not be Ares bugs so they would want to stop the competition, right? It keeps Ares as your shopping source for 'tame' bugs and helps non-bug mafia clean out their competion.

It's always handy to have 'friends' in low places to whom only you and yours can truly relate.

You're assuming that all Italian mobsters are materialistic like you. Also, if the mobsters didn't care about their/each other's souls, why would many of them still be Catholic?



I can see how many can see "Magic" as miracles, not to mention the "Shamanic" tradition. Regardless, the La Costra Nostra has gone against many powerful enemies, so I'm sure that the Insect Mages will have a hard time fighting them. I don't think it will be a "Entire mob gets effortlessly taken over, with no large, long-lasting mob wars." Seems too anti-climatic.

One family infected by Bugs, hiding this fact away from the rest of the Families, I could see.

But, while the Families may not get along, they DO communicate with each other! And, again, I point to Chicago!

Yes, most of the big wigs got out before the wall came down, but a lot that stayed behind are some of the meanest, nastiest, and most respected fellows around I would bet!

Triads would be a better target, or the Vory, less experience with the Bugs. Italian Mafia? Big mistake.

Forcefully taking control of any crime syndicate is a big mistake, especially when other cells are not within your control. But the Insect Mages know that, and I'm sure they're in a "bring it on!" mode.

Ants at the very least. They have never forgotten what it means to make War... (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nyahnyah.gif)

Frank, to which book(s) would one go to find out more about Ares and their bugs?

I think it was Threats or Threats 2.

Threats 2.

It gets more out there. Reading some of the stuff in Street Magic and Augmentation makes a lot more sense with that in mind. For example: Montgomery of Info-Sante is a character from 2XS and Temple of the Sun.

-Frank

You know the fact that something is offering you something of value for your soul should really get you to reconsider its lack of value.

Well, even if I didn't care about my soul or privacy, I might care about ceasing to exist while someone else gets to run around with my body and memories, bouncing bullets of their new chest and flying around. They might be having fun but if I'm dead I don't see the advantage to me.


-karma

Those of us who are materialists don't think we would know the difference. It seems all of our memories, and most of our personality remain intact in exchange for the "upgrade". So really it seems like a win win.

But you are not there to do it. you're gone. it's like someone moves into your house, wears your clothes, reads your diary, e-mails your friends and drives your car but you're not there for it.

Spiritually speaking, yes. But if you don't give a rat's ass what happens to your spirit, then that hardly matters. Physically and mentally, that's still you. It emails your friends things that you would say, and the experiences it gains are continuous with the experiences and memories you have already accumulated.

From the standpoint of the materialist, the new creature is just as much "you" as the newly formed cells you'll grow in the next few days. I mean sure, a month from now all your skin will have fallen off and new skin will have grown in its place. In six months a complete turnover of neurotransmitters will have occurred and your brain will be an essentially newly formed organ made of new lipids and proteins and contorted into a new set of connections using electrical currents generated with new Potassium and new Sodium. But despite all this newness, the memories, the experience is still the same. And the materialist is willing to call this new creature as the same. Whether it got a new set of skin created from food-derived nutrients or a new aura grafted in from a distant metaplane crawling with insect demons.

Anyone who would be willing to become a Vampire for power (and there are many), should be willing to become a Fleshform Insect spirit for the same reason. Actually as things currently stand, the Insects are offering a much more compelling offer in 2071 than the International Vampire Conspiracy, because a well run Hive can offer a greater than 97% chance of you coming through the process with your memories intact, and the latest of Vampiric spawn creation techniques still outright kills nearly one in three.

-Frank

but it's not you. the part that is YOU deciding how you want to live your life, is gone. YOU, the person who wants to embrace the bug, is gone after that merge.

I don't know how much more clearly I can state this: from a materialistic perspective, the part of you that makes decisions is in fact your memories. Those are still there, so there's no reason for a materialist to treat an Insect Merge any differently from any other life changing event. Everything that a materialist believes is you is still in you.

It's exactly the same as Vampirism. Or awakening into an Adept for that matter. Spiritually, you are different. But a mundane materialist cannot tell and does not care.

-Frank