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Robindaybird posted:Utopia Now got all the stink of Libertarian Wonks and their 'filthy leeches go away' sand castle island dreams. Utopia Now was very much written to be that way, and yeah, they really don't know quite what to do with the Abbey. Neopie posted:Okay. Can someone clarify for me what an Institutional Demon is, exactly? Is it just nDemon demons? So, Mors covered the short version, so here's the long version. It's (almost always) Infrastructure. The God-Machine can't directly just point a finger and make something happen. It has people (and angels) for that. In order to create a desired result ("occult matrix"), it has to set up a chain of events and requirements that will make the weird occult physics it's got a mastery over do the needful. For instance, if it wants to summon a very particular sort of angel, maybe it has to set up five clock towers in a pentagon across a metro area that are all just barely off sync, so when they all strike 4 PM on October 27th, 2017, the angel will appear in the correctly prepared warehouse floor covered with coyote entrails. Or, it wants to have a system that allows it and its agents to automatically sort out communication or packages through the mail system that directly threaten other plans. These sets of locations, actions, requirements, and so on are Infrastructure. Infrastructure comes in several different classifications, but in general, it's the means with which the God-Machine enacts its inscrutable plans. This means that despite the God-Machine being as close to, well, a god, that the World of Darkness has (barring several other heavyweight contenders like spirit-gods, True Fae in Arcadia, etc), it can be thwarted. Identify the weak link in its logistical train, and smash it with a hammer. One delicate bit of fine china placed just so might be the only thing preventing decades of schemes from completely imploding in a spectacular fashion, like a house of cards. However, the God-Machine probably knows this, so anyone who even looks at that set of china funny for more than half a second will be instantly under surveillance, with a clown car of murderbots ready to be dropped on them. The big prizes have the biggest security. It also means that if you have a basic understanding of Infrastructure and make a few educated guesses, you might be able to sneakily subvert Infrastructure to bend its purpose against its plans. The fax machine that sends a hitman angel after anyone whose personal information it scans might send a guardian angel instead, or that letter-sorting Infrastructure instead sorts communications that threaten you and your Ring. Oh, and note - in theory, since all the God-Machine does is manipulate extremely esoteric laws of reality, it is entirely possible for the effects of Infrastructure to just sorta happen in absurdly rare cases - or, far more tantalizingly, if they're set up by somebody else. Say, demons. Nobody's ever managed to do it and prove it, because Infrastructure generally hinges on incomprehensibly complex principles and subatomic levels of accuracy, but it may be possible to reverse-engineer Infrastructure and use it to create a custom set of Infrastructure that could destroy the God-Machine entirely. In theory. Anyone who tries to tell you they've got a plan for that figured out is lying, insane, or trying to lure you back into the gears, of course.
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Jun 19, 2015 23:50
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pkfan2004 posted:Sapphire & Steel is neat because they're absolutely not human. The Doctor isn't human either, but the Doctor acts in a way like he's a friendly human-looking entity in the whole uncanny valley chart so people are willing to overlook him not being human. Sapphire and Steel aren't human and can be polite or cordial but that's basically it because their mission comes first. Ruby and Mr. Gold were also very, very early sneak previews/concept tests of Demon: the Descent demons, if I remember my scuttlebutt correctly. WoD writers enjoy seeding potential future lines or weird poo poo to hook into later in the things they write. The God-Machine got a lot of cryptic nods for a couple of years before Demon and 2e in general got announced.
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Jul 19, 2015 17:13
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GimpInBlack posted:IIRC Ruby and Mr. Gold were more a case of Demon developers looking back over the previous WoD lines and going "hey, these things kinda look a lot like Unchained/GMC angels" than a deliberate nine-year-in-advance sneak peek--we're not that organized. Whoops, I knew I was probably remembering something wrong  Still, though, I distinctly remember the first Demon blurbs making me go  , because they were extremely similar to my own setting thoughts which were developed from the same stuff Demon eventually called back to.
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Jul 19, 2015 21:10
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