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Message: <blockquote data-quote="The Shadow" data-source="post: 1482404" data-attributes="member: 16760">Thanks!  Glad you're enjoying it.Awww, don't be shy.  Feel free to tell me all the things I do excellently. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />SP and I heartily agree that there are dramatic dangers in the Shadow leaning too heavily on technology.  I wanted him to have a bit of an exotic edge (especially in cases where his powers were not very useful) but not to have it overshadow him (pardon the pun <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />.This is why I bought him a very small Gadget pool (he could in theory buy weapons and armor with it, but they'd be considerably weaker than his mundane gun and vest), and why I further hamstrung it with unreliability.  Every time after the first that a given gadget is used, SP rolls a die to see if it actually works.  You'll note that the Shaolin device fizzled out catastrophically during the fight with Legion. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />  You can't generally go out and buy batteries for Garrity-tech at the store, and he's the only one who can fix them!What's more, defining a Gadget in M&M always requires a Hero Point, which are a highly limited and valuable resource - very useful in combat, among other things.  I am vividly aware that every time Alex pulls out a Gadget, I am sacrificing combat effectiveness later.Even with all that, it would seem that there is some feeling that things are a bit much.  No doubt in part because OmniMetal (not Hal) supplied some useful gimmicks this time around.  I suspect that source has now thoroughly dried up. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" />  But we'll definitely take the matter under advisement.However, we also think you're confusing Alex's jokes with Alex's real attitude, and further confusing Alex's attitude with OUR attitude.  It is by no means true that Hal can do anything, or that he is "Merlin".  SP has ruled out several proposed gadgets and capabilities, and he hasn't always told me why - it's his campaign world, after all.Alex jokes about Hal's "magic" precisely because he knows it ISN'T magic - and because it gets under Hal's skin.  There is also an in-joke involved here;  the various incarnations of the Shadow, as I mentioned in the post on his RL origins this page, have always been rabidly empirical and anti-magic.  It's entirely possible that the ribbing going on between SP and me in those scenes are going over other people's heads.Finally, while Hal does at times veer slightly into Treknobabble, I think maybe you misinterpret.  His problem is that he is so far beyond the state of the art that there are no words or concepts in English to express the way his stuff works. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />  So he fumbles around trying to say SOMETHING, and then has to give up.  Hence the "Oh, never mind!"  This is quite unlike Geordi, whose writers just make up new (supposedly well-known and reproducible) capabilities on the spot whenever it's convenient.You seem to have some very rigid views on what "superscience" and "psionics" are, and what they are capable of.  Suffice to say that we do not share these views.  And that we regard it as a bit unusual, to say no more, for someone to call our coherent, consistent treatment of a fictional topic "ludicrous".  And heck, maybe Hal IS grossly mistaken.  We've never claimed or implied he's omniscient; in fact, he's been mistaken several times in the campaign already.I personally find it a bit amusing that you don't list the two gadgets that really are impossible under current physics (the disintegrator and the phasing device) and instead list those that are all well within the projected capabilities of current technologies in the next few decades:  handheld devices not unlike the Portable Window (only much more specialized and not as miniaturized, true - but on the other hand they're ranged) already exist; I myself can guess how an untraceable phone would work, though the technology to build it isn't quite here yet;  and there are people feverishly working right now on projects that they hope will make "instachemistry" possible before too long.  The flying motorcycle is admittedly far more speculative, but even antigravity isn't nearly as taboo a topic as it used to be, and I've seen scientific papers in reputable journals on gravity shielding.  (I have degrees in chemistry and physics, and SP in math and a minor in computer science.  Loren has 'em in English and engineering physics.  Yes, he's schizoid. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />Finally, we'd just like to point out that, although scarcely four-color, this is still a comic-book campaign, and that Hal is pretty darn toned down compared to comic geniuses like Reed Richards, Lex Luthor, or Forge.</blockquote>

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