Or maybe it's just that mankind hasn't anthropomorphized insects the way they have dogs, eagles, and even spiders. I mean, seriously, everybody knows of Arachne and Anansi, but there isn't a brother Termite figure in really any mythology. That's why there's a Spider totem, but no termite totem. So i think it's largely a problem with human belief; for us, a dog is loyalty, an eagle is freedom and haughtiness, but a locust is a locust is a locust, at best. Locusts aren't made into gods of anything; they're just annoying little shits that eat crops. And the same goes for every arthropod but Spider.

SL James has it correct.

I actually have a fair number of shadowrun books. They all seem to make sense, and are for SR3.

Hah, I was going to link that myself when someone started speculating about Damien Knight having a spirit pact.

Source?

~J

House of the Sun, for one. I'm sure there are a couple of others, especially among the Earthdawn releases.

Yes, the short stories are indeed canon.

That forum is next door, first of all.

Or against them.

That was not Damien Knight. That was someone Knight hired to sit in his chair when he was about to get assassinated by an insect spirit. Recall that this is written in 1992 and Knight hasn't made peace with any of the hives (it's 2053).

-Frank

yeah. basically, Knight has a mage or three that are kept continually training in a hyperbolic time chamberspace station, making them extremely powerful assets that he can call on when he's got something big planned. the training method is based, as best i can tell, on the same philosophy that advised dropping one-ton weights one a person in order to strengthen their body.

Zero. The Eden Space Station is a Mana Ebb, not a Mana Void. You just need to have a Magic of 6, which means that you don't need to be an Initiate.

-Frank

Because Lofwyr doesn't understand anyone. The Hive is the antithesis of Lofwyr's existence. He is the perfect example of the Selfish Actor, a philosophical ideal of Egoism. The Invae are Eusocial, they are individually willing, even eager, to sacrifice themselves for the good of the group. The Insects represent the philosophical ideal of Altruism to an extent similar to Lofwyr's.

These opposing philosophies don't have common ground save in human action. Man is a social creature but a man is an island of individuality and all that. Lofwyr does not get behavior that is not personally self interested and the Insects do not understand actions motivated by ought else but the good of the whole.

You can't buy the loyalty of an individual insect and Lofwyr does not comprehend the existence of the hive as a bargaining unit. He can't even understand friendship (see Survival of the Fittest), so something as out there as sublimating the self to embrace the self of group is just a string of words to him.

Because the Invae don't matter and Lofwyr doesn't give a shit. The last time they showed up they kicked some ass for a while and were driven underground and lived in caves meeping in the darkness writhing under the wrath of the Scourge just like everyone else. Lofwyr sees the Insects as a distraction and nothing more.

People get concerned about them, but they really are in no danger of putting him in a coccoon so it doesn't matter. The way he sees it, Invae attack will cost everyone occassional contacts and subordinates with their attacks and schemes. Also, eventually they will be defeated because they are in total nowhere near as powerful as the massed armies of humanity.

So from Lofwyr's perspective, the Invae are a Reverse Commons Problem. That is, eventually enough resources will be brought to bear against the Insects to defeat them. And until that happens, Invae attack will damage everyone's resources somewhat. So Lofwyr did the math on how much he expected to lose by putting in any real effort to defeating the bug menace, and how much he expected to lose by letting the Insects run rampage across the planet for long enough to convince some excitable human groups to chip in instead - and decided that he would lose more by committing resources against the Invae than he would by not committing resources against them.

---

That's how Lofwyr thinks. And in isolation, that thinking generates the best possible results for one's self every time.

But Ares has the better plan. They came out of the Universal Brotherhood confrontation stronger. They were able to play both sides - garnering allies and friends by committing resources against the Bugs, and getting allies of enough Bug groups who were awed and persuaded enough to join up. By committing in and being willing to work with and for others, Ares pulled ahead - even though they spent more on the Bug City problem than S-K lost by allowing the process to fester.

-Frank

What a miserable existence.

yes

*STAB STAB STAB STAB STAB*

~J

Me too. But when I do it, it's usually intended to be a slight nod to Kosh Naranek.

...who does it on Buffy? I've managed to avoid seeing anything from the "Buffyverse" (or similar shows such as "Charmed" or "Angel"), aside from the original movie...

Schwartzkopf.

I'm not familar with that one. Whats the supposed deal with him/her?

According to AH:

He's a university professor. He can't be all bad. ...Right?

Nah...

It's not like he wrote a book advocating the creation of a useless missile defense system.

Mein Fuhrer! I can walk!

<hr>

He's teaching, which implies to me that he is walking around in human form most of the time (you try fitting a great dragon into a lecture hall).

If he is working in a university, he is likely also publishing papers and such on magical theory, which seems to be a very out-of-character thing to do for a dragon (aren't they supposed to hoard information, too?)

Finally, if he's got old students running around after magical artifacts for him, that seems to imply that he has a close one-on-one relationship with metas (or that he's got some other hold over them)...

Well of course he's got some hold over them. I can easily see the following somewhat evil scenarios.

A) Agree to run around collecting stuff for me after you graduate or I will instead fail you! If you run from me I will instead eat you alive!

B) Blackmail

C) The assumed prestige/wonder in working with a 'friendly' dragon.

D) He's using modern brainwashing techniques uppon them.

E) All of the above

Actually, I was describing one of my professors.

Page 157 of Dragons of the Sixth World would disagree with you.

Well the what is known, as in magical theory.

The why is a whoooole other ballgame.

if a GD didn't want it to be noticed quickly, i don't think it would be. these are beings that manipulate the world behind the scenes, making moves no one ever finds out about. manipulating a classroom should be easy.