Actually, thinking about this, the question is what the known facts are about the Bugs.

Suppose that instead of Bugs we had a new Bio-based procedure.
It is very expensive
It is hard to get a hold of
It is reported to stop aging
It is reported to make you dual natured
It gives you Hardened, Mystic Armor or a respectable grade (6 - 8?)
It is rumored to make you unaging

It is rumored that you develop a strong loyalty to the B Bio-factory Corporation
It is rumored that if you have an immortal soul, the procedure destroys it.

Depending upon whether you take that last two rumors seriously or not (including whether you care about the second one) a person might or might not be interested in the procedure.

If the last two are known to be replaced with
You will undergo a radical change in motivation
You will be absolutely loyal to the B Bio-factory Corporation
Then people may be more skeptical. In particular, with the second set, folks who are focussed on their independent power are likely to be skeptical. But for folks two (or more) ranks down from there, that may well be a different question.

So it depends upon which particularly people in an organization, and what information they have. ANd what beleives about the importance of various factors including soul, culture, etc. different people have different views.


Yours,
Joel Halpern

No, it's not a false dichotomy. I did not say your soul exists because the invisible ant does. I said that because the invisible ant spirit exists, (and thus things in the spirit realm exist,) perhaps you should consider the possible existence of your own soul.

And it's interesting that you would mention science, which has often been behind the curve on things that "magic-ee/wise folk" have known for hundreds of years. Especially when dealing with a new field, such as magic in SR, science should keep it's mind open until it gets a little deeper into the pool.

frank is now being willfully obtuse, choosing to ignore or misunderstand the rules of the GAME.

Can you please point out just where he is doing this, and exactly what rules he is ignoring?

There are absolutely no rules for 'souls' or 'the afterlife' in Shadowrun. Also keep in mind that Frank is the person who wrote a lot of this stuff in Street Magic.

Crack open Augmentation. There is such a procedure. Ares does that procedure too.

Just saying.

-Frank

The problem people are having, I think, is Frank is arguing from a philosophy that makes no sense. Strict Materialism which Frank seems to be arguing for does not work in ShadowRun because there are things that are NOT material. Additionally, the whole definition that you are sum of your memories does not work very well, because you cannot produce a copy of those memories. That was one of the stumbling blocks with Materialism.

Instead, Empiricism works much better, as it allows you to rely on observed phenomena beyond those that are material. If we go by Empiricism, which, by the way, is the core of modern science, not materialism, then there are problematic areas regarding Bugs. Observed Data would indicate that there are changes in the person, and that their Aura has changed. These coincide with the Bug Infestation, and thus could be linked to that. However, beyond that, there is nothing an Empiricist can say for sure beyond that.

Now, though, the other issue with Frank's argument is that he is assuming that the Mafia are all, 100% Strict Materialists. That none of them would think about things like the state of their soul(if so..why do they regularly go to Confession?), because he somehow equates Catholicism with following the strict interpretations of the Bible as seen in Baptists. This is proof to me that he has not actually know many Catholics, or else he would know that Catholicism is more about the Papal Bulls, Papal Rulings and philosophies, and what the priests are taught is important from their Catholic Bible(which has more and different books from other versions of the Bible.) A good Catholic is trained to ask their Priest about anything, because they are just mere, flawed humans, while the Priest has a direct line to God, and the Priest gives advice on everything from spiritual matters to marital troubles, as well as absolving them of their sins by telling them what penance they must do, often in the form of numbers of specific ritualized prayers.

*hmmms* Actually, now that I think about it..the best person t infect if the Bugs decided they wanted to infect the Mafia would not be the capos, Dons, or any low level goons...it would be the Catholic Priests. I wonder how close an eye the Vatican keeps on its priests in Italy?

Depends on your definition of "material." Imagine for the moment that someone somehow designed an experiment that proved that String Theory was true, or at least true enough to have real significance to the way we did things in our every day lives. Suddenly we have an extra dimension or three that definitely exist and have consequences that we can measure and confirm. Imagine that people are born and grow up in a world where this has already happened.

Do you honestly believe that people will stop being materialists because of these extra dimensions? They weren't included in the description of the material back before their discovery, but they'd be real enough to anyone born and raised in a society which accepted them. Did Einstein's transformation of Time into a mundane location seriously threaten anyone's lack of faith in the supernatural?

Anything you can poke is acceptable to the materialist because it manifestly is part of the real world. Anything you can't prove or demonstrate is dismissable by the materialist as unlikely or implausible. The fact that matter exhibits funny qualities when accelerated to near the speed of light or when possessed by spirits does not phase the materialist in the slightest, because those are definite and repeatable qualities of the real world around him. It's a bullet-proof philosophy, because it is capable of adding things to itself as soon as it can no longer ignore them.

Materialism rejects the supernatural by claiming that everything that is be of natural form (the causes of which may or may not be known). In 2072 the materialist believes in spirits, he just doesn't think that spirits are from beyond reality, merely insufficiently studied.



No, it was simply an example philosophy that would support jumping ship to bug infestation. There are many more. Examples:

• Spirits are an observable part of the world, it is equally measurable that metahumans don't have them. While metahumans can't be summoned or banished, they do age and die. And at the end of the life of the body, even an astral projection of one's aura will fade away into nonexistence and one is left with nothing whatever. Conclusion: Immortal Souls exist, and you probably don't have one. Therefore you'd better get one by merging with a spirit as soon as possible lest you be ground to dust beneath the ever rolling millstone of time.
  
• Ultimate good and evil exist (act of faith), and after death the personifications of whichever has greater claim on your life will determine what is to be done with your eternity. Conclusion: you should evaluate your life and determine whether your eternity will be constructed by the lord(s) of good or evil. And then you should find some avatars of whichever side you fall upon, and ingratiate yourself as well as you can. If you think that your life has as a whole been wicked, it is best to find some avatars of Evil and get on their good side so that you get a posh appointment in the hereafter.
  
• The metaplanes are the afterlife (act of faith), and if you can't get there you won't get there. So initiate mages get to go to heaven (or naraka, or whatever), and mundanes don't. Conclusion: If you wake up i the morning with no magical ability, you'd better find a way to forge a link to the metaplanes before time runs out and you die. Any link will do, you just have to find one or you don't get a hereafter at all.

Just off the top of my head. Real people will really preach these philosophies based on the properties of the Sixth World.

-Frank

Mundanes can get to the metaplanes thanks to the Astral Gateway spirit power. It's not much of a stretch to belive that an "Angel" guides you to the afterlife after you die using a similar power.

Also, a lot of myths have been proven true in SR - magic, astral space, dragons, unicorns, pegasi, dwarves, elves, etc. - so I'd say that even many materialists won't be as hardcore sceptics to assume that some of the greatest "myths" - valhalla, heaven, hell - are not true.

You seem to be missing Frank's point.
He is not arguing that everyone, or even every character, should be a willing to be possessed by a spirit / bug / whatever.
He is however arguing quite cogently that there are multiple believe systems under which it is entirely reasonable to accept such possession, and even to seek it out. Even in the SR universe, there are plenty of spiritual unknowns and lots of room (quite deliberately and helpfully for us as players and GMs) for differing philosophical views.
(I happen to personally not be a materialist, and it is likely that even if my characters were, they would find some of the other constrains, like the change in motivation, to be show stoppers for them. But that sure does not make it a show stopper for all the people in the SR universe. And I don't know enough about mobsters, much less Italian mobsters, to have any opinion as to what there philosophical outlook is likely to be, and how many exceptions there are to any such generalization, etc.)

Yours,
Joel

The more that I think about it, the more that I can see the Mafia agreeing with the Insect Mages' deals, but only if said Mages could pull the wool over the Capos' eyes about the real deal. If the Mafia really knew what was going on (i.e. bugs inhabiting your bodies and taking control), then a mob war would break out.

I think the Vatican keeps a close watch on it's priests, especially in Italy, because their right there. With that being said, the church is kinda infamous for missing problems (whether deliberately or not). I think that it would be significantly harder to infect a priest on the sly, but a kidnapping, where the priest was able to "escape" a few days later is much more likely.

I believe Fortune said on the last page that he was more interested in what would happen now that it has happened. Well, I think that nabbing a few priests and turning them into their own pet priests might very well be on the to do list. It would give more influence among the mundanes of the city, and if they were lucky, it might give them a heads up if one of the organizations that's likely to kill them is on the way. (I don't think they would get far with infecting the priesthood though, because there are a fairly large number of awakened among them and the faithful. It would be dangerious, and likely to bring them to the attention of the church at large.)

Which brings up a question I wanted to ask. How "smart" is a bug spirit? Spirits of course have high mental stats if their high force, but how does that translate to the way we think, and how they relate to us? Would bugs know not to infiltrate the church, because it could bring down a rival "hive" (large organized group) on their heads? Would they only infiltrate the important mafia guys, and select brute squads? Are they smart enough to figure us out and second guesse us, or is it going to be humans vs. bugs both trying to second guesse the other, but totally missing because we can't possibly understand the other's mind set?

(And there is no such thing as a bullet proof philosophy.)

I actually had a character (mage adept) who thought they were a jedi.

Seems obvious to me you're a little short on catholic doctrine yourself.
Some 'cathloics' are biblical literalists, others are not.
Some follow the popes every word and gesture with baited breath, and others think he's a duche bag.

Isn't there already a deep, dark burrowing Great Dragon (or Earthdawn something-or-other) already behind the Vatican? Or is that just in their history?

O-O Well, that would be terribly exciting if it were true. I don't know anything about it though. Do you have any more information, because several campaigns I'm in/run revolve around the Vatican. So the more info the better. (Like the bug spirit's we're talking about. Next campaign might have to involve them.)

Moleskin doesn't get any SR props, that was an Earthdawn thing that thankfully hasn't been brought up as a serious plotline.

-Frank

Synner on the Vigilia Evangelica

My point was that a) mundanes can reach the metaplanes, contrary to what Frank said, and b) that his cut of materialists might not be as common as he thinks they are.

Wow. Five pages on a plot seed I threw into a chapter I didn't even intend to write (but ultimately had a lot of fun with), and now someone digs up another of my pieces... Nice to know the stuff I come up with sticks in some people's minds. Now if I could only get them to pay attention to the stuff on the common root of Hinduism and the Path of the Wheel...


If you haven't checked it out already, you should take a look at the Shadows of Europe chapter on Italy and the Vatican (for some ideas on Vatican politics in the 21st century) and the Loose Alliance section on the secretive Vigilia Evangelica which the above link refers to (for the truth about the Vatican's Black Libraries).

The part on Italy was one of my favorite things you wrote.
I also liked how you successfully hearded cats when discussing wicca

I've definitely read the Shadows of Europe section, but not the Loose Alliance piece. I did just check the link though, and it sounded very interesting, so I guesse I have my next reading assignments set. *smile*

Your welcome. The common root... beyond the similarity of spiritual advancement?

Hint:

Ireland
Iran
Aryan
Ainu
-These words have something in common. Say them out loud.

A Celtic swastika looks like this.
A Persian swastika looks like this.
An Indian swastika looks like this.


And the oldest swastikas we have on record are from Southern Ukraine, and they look like this.

Just saying.

-Frank

ZOMG, Frank's suggesting that the swastika is a universal symbol of good luck and stuff, and that said countries' ancestors may be related or borrowed from each other! Whodathunkit?

No he's not. He's pointing out the symbol which has been noted in several cultures can be traced back to common roots.

A similar, less inflamatory example(and lets face it anything nazi is inflamatory) would be the similarity in the name of sun dieties in prechristian europe and the middle east-Baal, Bal, Bel Balder etc.

Okay, I misinterpreted something on the Internet. Not my first time...

There honestly should not be anything inflammatory about the Indo-Aryan swastika. It has been in common use for literally thousands of years before anyone ever even dreamed of the word "nazi." To everyone outside of Europe, and a lot of people in Europe, the swastika is just a sacred symbol of Hinduism. And Buddhism. And Jainism. And every other religion which is descendant from the original Central Asian barbarians for whom the word "barbarian" is coined: the Aryans. There are seriously about 2 billion people on the planet for whom the swastika is a sacred symbol that has nothing to do with nazism. These people include the Dalai Lama and Gandhi.

That's seriously not a nazi thing. It's the reason why all the Indo-European languages are so similar. And it's the reason that the archaic Irish caste system is pretty much identical to the old Indian caste system. There really is a common group of people that spread a lot of cultural ideas around several thousand years back from the island of Ire to the island of HokkaidÅ?.

The fact that they were apparently kicking around in Southern Ukraine during the ice ages is of particular interest to Earthdawn/Shadowrun crossovers.

-Frank

True dat. The swastika isn't a Nazi symbol unless it's black and on a white circle which is on a red background.

Barbarians in loincloth casting life-prolonging magic that is nowadays called cybermantic magic... reference Cybertechnology pg. 74.

So, people still complain, especially in America's "Lawsuit mentality" culture. For example a Pokemon card had a swastika on it, and it caused so much controversy that the Japanese company discontinued said card entirely in America.

But we're adults here. And we should know that when Buddha has a swastika on his belly, that it's not an attack on homosexuals, gypsies, or socialists.

-Frank

Most adults that get in the news/make lawsuits aren't very rational or reasonable. Look at any reality show. Not to mention that most humans always find something to complain about.

Not saying that I disagree with you, it's just that when most people think "Swastika," they think "Nazi," and as such, assume the worst.

Jack Thompson is an Adult. Look at what he does.

He walked out of his own hearing in a fit.

Frank's hit the nail on the head. The Aryans have little to do with what the Nazi image of them. If you look closely at the presumed timing of the conquest of the Indus civilization by the Aryan barbarians its gets kind of interesting (strangely enough the reason for the mass Aryan migration continues to elude us). And they went everywhere, the Aryans are also believed to be the forefathers of the Celts. Then there's the commonalities between the ancient irish caste system and the Hindu varna. The fact that changing one's caste (up or down) requires reincarnation. The similarities in Indo-European languages. There really is a common root to all of this and the source of it all is indeed quite interesting for someone who's followed ED and SR links.

So that explains why the Elves are so into Celtic Lore and so on.

Yes. Flash back a few thousand years and it comes from Southern Ukraine.

Not just in Shadowrun, but in the real world.

-Frank