Astral forms aren't astral barriers in the strictist sense, although they are solid on astral. However, astral fast movement works because there is no inertia on the astral plane. There is inertia on the physical plane. Using a watcher motorcycle is equiviliant to trying a 50ton lead weight to a paper airplane and trying to get it to fly.

Ok, how does one travel from country to country and remain in the same domain while using a single spirit with both Concealment and Movement?

At some times of the year a Mist spirit will do it for you. If you're a Wujen, Sylphs have you covered.

~J

Or if you're traveling across an ocean.

That's a huge patch of fog.

A sea spirit might be a possibility, too. [edit] SL James beat me to it. How high above the sea level should a sea spirit's domain reach, especially if the point is to fly through the air? No doubt the domains overlap, but when the guy starts flying, I think he left the sea domain. [/edit]

The point still is, it is not as simple as it seems. Really only one spirit available to one type of magician provides both needed powers to go all over the place like they were originally expounding. Everything else gets more limited and/or more complicated and requires more spirits services or spells. If someone wants to go through all the requirements, they deserve to fly around unseen.

Use a Great Form Spirit, which can cross domains. Problem solved.

I think the point of all of it is flying hippity skippity through country after country is probably not wise - take precautions FIRST or be prepared for bad things to possibly happen to you. A little legwork and your travelling can be pain free.

So - Have a barrier protect you from wierd things, have watchers protect you from rogue spirits, go invisible to protect against mundane viewing, check smuggler contacts to find out patrol schedules...the only thing to worry about is radar detection, and if you travel low enough you should evade that as well...but that raises other problems, of course.

Anything else for the flying supersonic mage to worry about?

To address a few points:

Only spirit who has both concealment and movement is indeed the Mist spirit, which isn't a run of the mill wind spirit, my bad.

On the spirit having to be physical, no, he only needs to be astral. Astral spirits can use their power on their summoner even if he is fully physical.

Now Tiz, if your games have complete magical coverage around Seattle 24h a day then ya, in your game, I'm not doing that.

In my game, mages are relatively rare. Certainly not common enough that there are mages available to patrol the border around Seattle constantly. Spirits aren't really a huge problem you get over the walls and into the NAN you hit the trees and it's not that hard to do. There's a WHOLE LOT of wall and I'm one pretty small monkey.

But again, if in your vision of the world it's wall to wall combat spirits and angry mages looking for something to blast, then ya, I'm going underground...

Last thing, flying around invisible offends your cyberpunk sensibilities? You're playing the wrong game chummer. Look around, it's Dragons and Orcs and Trolls oh my. Neo Wannabe? First of all I don't recall Neo ever being invisible, so I guess that means just flying makes me a Neo wannabe? Like other great Neo wannabes before me, which according to you is anyone who flies... thank God Neo invented flying! Superman would have been screwed...

Guess I should just get a motorcycle and join the Akira wannabes?
Maybe a car and I could be a Batman wannabe?
Ah screw it, I'll just spring for new sneakers and be a Micheal Jordan wannabe.

Sunday

Does anyone remember that episode of the X-files where a genie that made a guy invisible and he ran out into the road without thinking.

I'm imagining that with a suboribital.

Let me know when the crack wears off.

At NO point and time did I ever say or imply that this was the only way I got around. In fact I usually skateboard if you must know, but if I have to cross the border in a hurry, bet your ass I'll be flying over the wall invisible. I won't do it at noon at the shiniest busiest part I can find while firing manabolts into the sky for added effect.

Other than your asinine rant on your imaginary perceptions of any games I run in or GM in, there are many drawbacks to CONSTANTLY flying around invisible. It is not however, as you seem to think, the end of the Universe.

If you're so bent out of shape about it that you have to fire manabolts at flying mages from Angrybrand ™ sattelites from the Asshat corporation ™, knock yourself out but please spare me your holier than though bullshit. If it means so much to you, you can win.

No more flying folks, it upsets the man, apparently quite a lot.

But seriously though, when the crack wears off, we can talk some more.

You're funny.

At no point did I say you can't fly. At no point did I say I wouldn't let you (even, toturi, if I was "teh GM") in a game with me. At no point did I say it upsets me (and, well, nothing anyone does on Dumpshock really "upsets" me, more "amuses" and "gives me something to do at work). At no point did I say they'd be randomly attacked for flying around invisibly. You're delusional, and making up arguments on my behalf (which, I guess, saves me time, if nothing else).

All I said was it's not as super-duper perfect neat-o as you keep saying it is. It's not flawless. It's fallible. It's still quite possible to get noticed, and if noticed, caught. You're still breaking laws by doing it (unless it's a Force 2 Levitate and a Force 2 elemental). You're still lit up like a Christmas tree on the astral while you do it. You're still slow, compared to astral creatures/mages, while doing it. It's imperfect, and it should not work without incident all the time.

Chill. The fuck. Out.

Both of you need to lay off the crack. In fact, you oughta start hitting the weed a bit, if that's what it'll take to get you two to calm the fuck down.

Re: radar

You will not be detected by civillian radars.

Military radars of the 2060s should have no problem tracking you, as they will be optimized to detect low radar visibility aircraft (which will have about the same radar return that you do). However, if you are flying low, you run into horizon problems from ground based radar. And air based radars are expensive to operate and not likely to cover 'peaceful' sections of border.

If imp invis is ruled as protecting from radar as well (or you develop a specific 'immunity to radar spell' then you will be esentially undetectible by radar.

There is also your thermal signature, pushing that much air out of the way gets warm to hot. If you are going up to 100 or so mph, you probably don't have to worry about thermal signature unless you fly right over the detector. If you are going much faster you'll probably have to seriously worry about heating effects (i.e. get a cooling spell or bit of tech). This alos means that thermal type detectors might be able to track you. The problem with thermal detertors is that you basically have to know where to point them in the first place to track something. If you were, say, being intercepted by a military jet, they would probably have no trouble tracking (and firing) on you based on your thermal signature, of course if you are invisible to both sight and radar and have your thermal signature supressed, and the other side dosen't have magic, you are probably off scott free.

Regarding thermal signatures:

If you are using an air spirit with the movement power it coud be interpreted, as was mentioned earlier, as maniuplating the air to guide you. If that's the case, some of what the spirit is doing likely involves mitigating friction effects in the air bubble around you which reduces the heat generated by flight.

Personally, I would rule that movement makes you move and that it required use of concealment to reduce thermal signature, radar footprint, etc.

Just a theory, not actually 'rule' oriented, but rather concept oriented. What about an astral trail? Flying that fast with a bunch of spells sustained or locked and a Spirit assisting, I can imagine that leaving a pretty noticable "vapour-like" trail easily visible to any astrally perceiving awakened character. They may not be able to actually see you flying, but I don't think it would be that difficult to follow you astrally.

From what I remember, spells will work reliably up to about 100 miles (~500,000 feet in altitude) so if you can get spells to protect you against the environment, then you can get your astronauts wings while you are at it.

Interesting thought, a very good mage with a telescope could greatly reduce the cost of launching things into orbit by levitating things to the farthest extent possible before igniting boosters.

I suppose aiming the payload before firing the boosters could be rather troublesome though.

Agreed, for a moment I thought that centering worked slightly differently and would let the mage bypass the high TN -- MITS has shown me the error of my ways.

That said, a small enough payload could still be moved rather effectively -- if the savings on fuel needed were great enough I could envision this being rather useful. I suppose it depends on what is being launched.

on that thought line, what effects would group casting have on it? i'm thinking it might be useful for things like launching supplies to any space stations or extended space flights, not that those really happen in SR.....

Well I was curious how they managed to build Zurich, considering how incredibly expensive it is per pound to put stuff into orbit (something like a million dollars a pound or something; it's nuts) without a space elevator of some sort. Maybe they used mages and slingshotted everything piecemeal into orbit?

Or they just spent a million dollars a pound because, as high level megacorpers, they actuall HAVE that much money to spend on stupid shit.

ORIONs only really work if you're leaving permanently. Also, to just call it "nuclear powered" is, while accurate, somewhat deceptive.

~J

looks like average price per pound for an orbital launch is somewhere around 20k for GTO.

http://www.futron.com/pdf/FutronLaunchCostWP.pdf

The Eggman

Somewhere in SR3 (don't have my old books here) it does state that Spirits can use their Powers on their Summoner without having to Materialize. It is only when they are ordered to use those Powers on others that they have to take physical form.

Probably misremembered.

One thing to keep in mind is that with a force 10 spell quickened on you, you have the astral subtlety of a mushroom cloud on the horizon.

Any entity that uses astral beings (mages, spirits, etc) to patrol its border is *likely* to see you, irrespective of the size of the border. You're glowing like a goddamn star on the astral. The only thing that is likely to hide you is the horizon. And if you're dealing with a spirit or mage that is flying about on the astral, the horizon can be very, very far away.

Anything that is capable of astral perception is going to react to you in extremes. There will be no "indifference" or "ignoring" you. Extreme curiousity, extreme fear, extreme hatred, etc. Those will be the reactions you get from dual natured beings.

Basically, the main thing I would suggest that the GM focus on is your total, utter incapability at being subtle where astral perceiving beings are concerned. You will attract spirits and dual natured beings *constantly*. If there is a dragon anywhere in the vicinity, who do you think it's going to be most interested in? How about that mana eating bacteria? If there's a cloud within 20 miles, it's going to zero in on you. Etc, etc, etc.

To a certain extent that's true in my game. Actually that kinda happened in the game today where she couldn't understand why a lonely watcher spirit (force 3) who was the patrol spirit wouldn't be alarmed by *her* plus 13 force 6 watchers congregated around her.

Glowing like a star tho...some of it is dimmed because she's a lvl 5 initiate. So it's only like an uninitiated sustaining a level 5 spell. So I don't necessarily buy the star comparison. To me masking is not all or nothing. (Or if I got that initiate grade wrong, the math is still there)

Oh, and killing the watcher spirit was not a good thing - this was a "leave no trace" mission and that would raise the alarm.