glitterboy2098 wrote: Pepsi Jedi wrote:glitterboy2098 wrote: yes pg 8 says that. but pg 13 talks about how city states and communities are poppingup everywhere. which is hardly a sign of a hyper-lethal enviroment.
Kinda.. the sentence is there, but when you read the rest it's talking about the CS. And that sentence about them popping up everywhere was right after talking about the 300 years of dark ages where the monsters just flat out ruled.
Yes the CS does exist and they defend their turf but that doesn't mean that travel out side the CS protected area's is any easier.
except that if the enviroment of rifts was as dangerous as people say, you'd never have towns and villages outside the major nation-states. much less tiny villages that have been described in so many books.
The ones you describe are few, far between, often destroied just before or just after a pc group goes through (( if not destroyed BY the PC group)) and often have a reason for existing. Dragon that lives there in secret... out law gang hide out that they frequent, some guy is an ex merc with guns to protect them, or a mage, or a group of druids. ect.
glitterboy2098 wrote:
if things were as dangerous as people claim, not even having a 'protector' would be sufficent to stop such small communities from being wiped out by predator monsters.
It's likly a combination of factors. 1) being too small to matter much. 2) having protectors of some kind, be it innate magic, or psionics, or 5 or 6 guys with laser rifles, or a dragon, or a group of thugs that use it as a base, and 3) The wilderness __IS__ So vast, that even with the threats out there, as you point out, it's hard to find um. Not every predator is going to cross territories and what not. The predators around town A might get.... a virgin sacrifice every few years. where town B might save up for a few years to buy their protection, ect.
glitterboy2098 wrote: glitterboy2098 wrote:
pg 17-18, under "the savage wilderness", pays lipservice to the whole 'dangerous enviroment', but the actual details say otherwise. mention of villages and towns being islands of safety in a sea of unknown danger is presented with so much hyperbole it's pretty obvious the dangers have been exaggerated. after all, if things were really that dangerous, if monsters were really that common..how the hell are there villages and towns? the man-eating monsters would have wiped them all out by now, since such small communities couldn't provide any effective defense.
Wait now.. now your counter to "They never say that the wilderness is that dangerous" is... "They've said it's SO dangerous they must be making it up!"?? Doesn't that prove they DO say it's dangerous like I said?
As for how.... again, *points up to the CS* There's a major reason. Another reason is, a pretty large chunck of humanity now is psionic. Some others have magic. Now that the dark ages are past there are more 'Adventurers' out there. They can hire groups (( like ours)) todefend them or take out threats.
You can't in one breath go "There's no evidence like you said that it's dangerous" and then in the next breathh go "Ok the time they say it IS So dangerous they're just exaggerating." The second proves tthat they DO say it. Right?
sorry, the CS can't be the reason.
To be fair I said 'a major reason'. In the section you were pointing to, it was talking about the growth and expansion of the CS.
glitterboy2098 wrote: the CS sure isn't protecting the heinland and carter freeholds, for example. two tiny settlements in the middle of the dinosaur swamp.
Nor was that section talking about them. If you look that part was relating to the stuff growing out of the CS's solidified might.
glitterboy2098 wrote:
no more than 2 dozen people, who have lived there for over a decade. they live in a land of giant dinosaurs, freaky ghosts, man eating plants, and other weirdness... and they don't have massive defenses or tons of defenders. just a pallisade wall and some guns.
I point you to the OOCs in the book. If Memory serves. "Dinosaur hunter" is a major one? And they have a few sorts. Those are more likely for THAT place.
glitterboy2098 wrote:
there are plenty of other examples. most of the towns in rifts canada, for example, including the fury beetle ranch, barely have any defenses. and the CS shure doesn't protect them.
No, the CS isn't hte only reason, it was one of (( note that. ONE OF)) The major reasons for the part you were pointing to. As for Canada. They have Tundra rangers and magical tribes, and Free Quebec, ect. It's still little drops of civlilsation in huge vast stretches of monster filled wilderness.
glitterboy2098 wrote:
and while almost a quarter of humanity might be psionic, most are only minor psi's, with one or two powers.. and there aren't many offensive or defensive powers available to minor and major psi's. lots of sensing powers and healing stuff, some useful tricks, but not much in the way of damage dealing.
And when you have thhose weaker powers? What do you do? you learn to use them for best effect. Thhose sensing powers nad healing stuff? You sense the danger coming, you hide. You evade, and when needed you heal. You don't have to engage every problem to win. Most times if people/things are too much trouble, 'Bad guys' will meander away. Few are the sorts that will expend huge ammounts of money/time/resources to track down every single living thing and put it to the blade. If they come to a small village and it seems abandoned because the people sensed them coming and flee, using psioniccs to keep one step ahead.. the bad guys might loot the town, but they don't hunt down every single man, woman and child. (( unless they're truely evil... then... sucks but happens.))
glitterboy2098 wrote: those babies are in the 'super' psionics that minors and majors can't get too..and people with super Psi are by canon supposed to be fairly rare.
Indeed, but even if they're 1 in 100, a village of 100 could have 1. (( or a few)) and one guy throwing MD Fireballs is nothing to sneeze at.
glitterboy2098 wrote:
so if the CS is allowing all these non-CS communities to pop up, it's becuase they're killing any creature they find nation wide. at which point things are no longer a wilderness.
Not in evidence, but the CS does patrol and engage many of the baddies mentioned. But not so much as to take out dozens of pages describing them, just in the first chapter of the first book. lol
glitterboy2098 wrote: glitterboy2098 wrote:
Pg18 spends more time talking about how hard it is to travel due to the lack of roads and the issues of terrain.. which is a valid reason for most people not travelling more than to the next town.
Did you miss The second paragraph on page 18 where it talks about the elimination of humans and the repopulation of earth by "Aliens, DBees and monsters, True Monsters"
Or the fourth paragraph where it speaks about Rift's continuing to disgourge an endless supply of alien creatures, reality warping energy that changed the landscape into alien vistas from what it once had been." and ____"It also filled the new wilderness with every conceivable danger"____ Then lists off Dinosaurs, confused alien creatures from other worlds, Demons most foul, evil spirits and dark gods from across the megaverse. Creatures of magic, like Dragon, Sphinx, unicorn and others" make their homes there and "where we humans and our DBee cousins have become their prey victoms and playthings"
These are all from the page you pointed out, that it spoke more about just the lack of roads.... that's a bit.... Selective in what you saw there. It even goes on to point out the technological resurgence has carved out some towns and cities and almost true nations.. but makes it a point to tell you in the same breath that they are "More akin to an
oasis in a savage land than a true dominating force" Their emphisis.
It goes on to speak of those towns. Talking about curling up next to the fire with frienss and the ILLUSION OF SAFETY. About how "it's easy to forget about unknown lurking in the wilderness just a few 100 yards away" and "However the monsters are never far from the door and one must be ever vigilant or fall victom to trechery and sudden death"
Paragraph after paragraph hammers it in. Just on THIS ONE PAGE. It goes on talking abouth ow the CS is mighty but is pretty much unkown in most places out side their own sphere of influence.
"No matter how large or powerful the kingdom, it's surrounded by unpredictable and unrelenting wilderness" and talks about how the farm mightbe a few miles away or "Several hundred miles of hostile wilderness"
I quote this way so I don't get in trouble for pretty much typing the entire page. It's there for anyone to read though. Time and time and time again talking about the dangers in the wilderness. yes it does mention there's not always roads but that's one sentence amist 100s of them talking about how dangerous it is.
and this is written from the voice of Erin tarn, who goes on to point out that monsters and such are spread out widely and your not likely to encounter them. the danger is pretty clearly being exaggerated for effect. the effect being to point out to city dwellers (like we are, here in real life) that the world of rifts earth is not civilized, it's largely uninhabited and there are forces out there that can cause lots of trouble. buit it doesn't say that every community is beset by such forces all the time, like people seem to be assuming.
but it's not. her books are written as primers to educate. Not fairytales to frighten. It's very clear, when you don't cut out the huge chuncks describing the dangers, for the one sentence you're aiming for, she --is-- describing just how dangerous it is out there, for people that live safely behind the walls. Seriously. Your original claim is 'There's nothing in the books toback up the danger you're saying is there" and there's dozens of pages right here saying it over and over again.
You're saying "oh she's just being fanciful for effect. She's not. It's there. lol it just doesn't agree with your point.
glitterboy2098 wrote: glitterboy2098 wrote: there is also mention of travelling for days without encountering
anything. the description of it says things "may" be lurking in the shadows just out of sight.. but the presentation is basically the same kind of bogeyman stories frontiersmen in the 1600's, 1700's, and 1800's told to city dwellers about the indians. "yep, didn't see a soul the whole time. but them injun's were hiding just out of sight the whole time, i could tell"
No.. when one opens the book and reads it, it reads like a warning from one that's been there. She's not writing storys to frighten people. Shes laying out how wild and woolly that wildness is. Speaking of many of the horrors. You're down playing it but it's hit on and hammered in time and again. Just as I said it was.
You call it hyperbolic.. I think it's trying to adequately describe just how scary and dangerous it IS out there. The point is you said it wasn't there. You didn't see evidence and the evidence ___IS___ There, right where I pointed. and it's not just once... maybe twice. It's over and over and over.
and in my studies of real history, i have read plenty of first hand accounts of things from 'people who were there' that were just as hyperbolic.
Nope. Not allowed to cite "real history" as a way to try and relate to a game and then link it to being fanciful. It's written as fact by one of the greatest scholars of the day. Personal account. Not fanciful embelishment as you're making out. "Erin Tarn" ___IS___ The well traveled scholar of Rifts earth. You're making it out like she's a huckster and charlitan, when nothing in the books presents her that way. (( The CS paint her that way but it's clear that they do so to discredit her, and that their PR campaign against her is lies))
glitterboy2098 wrote:
yes she is writing about horrors and wild wooly wilderness... but like similar first hand accounts of the wild west, or the first hand accounts of the 17th century settlers, or the first hand accounts of settlers in the spanish carribean, she's writing about the possibilities of what could happen, not the realities. most settlements in the wild west were not attacked by indians. nor the ones in the 17th century. but such attacks did happen, and there are plenty of records of of such attacks. and if you plot them against known settlements, it's a relative drop in a bucket. but those stories were spread and printed and hyped up, especially to people looking ot settle, because people needed to be aware of the potential for danger, no matter how unlikely. and back then, the assumption was also "settlers are always gonna be attacked by indians," hostiles were seen behind every tree. and if it wasn't indians it was bears and cougars and wolves and snakes, etcetera etcetera etcetera. forget the fact that most people wouldn't see one of them unless they went looking for them, people thought the life of a wilderness settler was one of constant unrelenting danger. thats part of where the whole 'frontiersman' mystique came from.
the reality was much different. not much danger, except for the (usually not talked about) dangers of bad crops, illness, or bad weather. lots of hardship, but you could live comfortably with some reasonable precautions taken.
Yet the book takes clear difference between the wilderness we (( you and I and our lovely readers)) know and the 'Reality of rifts earth" and how it's SOOO much more dangerous.
Again, you're acting like Erin Tarn is a conwoman, blowing things out of porportion to sell books. "In the rifts world" she's not. She's known as one of the greatest most well traveled people on the planet.
glitterboy2098 wrote: glitterboy2098 wrote:
pg 18 through 41 goes into what kinds of tribes and creatures live in various regions, but it's like me saying "gorillas, leopards, chimpanzees, and man-eating pymies live in central africa". doesn't tell us squat about how common those are. you can spend months in central africa looking for those with knowledge of thier habits and ranges and not find them. just stumbling across one without trying to darn rare. all of the regions described in pg18-41 are huge areas. so there are tribes of simvan in the midwest. how big is a tribe? how spread out are they? etc. we don't know. even the simvan entries in various books don't say.
But previously it takes time to tell you. "It's not like earth was" It points out that the wilderness of Rifts earth is vast and many times thicker than 'our' earth. They point out that OUR wilderness was not like theirs, and we only had 18% wilderness while theirs is 90%. It's an entire paragraph on page 17, but to directly quote "The wilderness of our past is nothing like the savage wilderness we know today"
It directly addresses the threats you talk about.. and says theirs is many times worse.
my point was that the region entires just give lists, not rarities. those regions are huge. like, before european settlement huge. yet those lists don't provide any kind of information on how common they are.
It does in other parts. Not percentages, but the rest of the text taken as a whole indicates the dangers are present. It DOES say you can go distance with out seeing anything. But just as likely you can have demons suddenly fly over you while walking down the road. You never know.
glitterboy2098 wrote: glitterboy2098 wrote:
and page 19 has a very pertinent passage.
"i have had city folk question how it can be with all the fabled towns, tribe, clans, dbees and monsters they hear about, that one doesn't stumble over one hiding behind every tree. it doesn't work that way.
the wildlife hides from intruders like us, the innocent animals run to avoid becoming hunted, and the predators watch from a nervous distance waiting at least until they are ready to strike. people hear there may be hundreds, or thousands, even tens of thousands of a species, but they forget that number is spread across vast expanses of land, or that perhaps as few as one or two or a dozen may live in any given area. a predator like a mountain lion, for example, wil lconsider 100 to 200 square miles (259 or 518 sq. km) as its domain or its hunting ground, and only it and its mate prowl it (along with other species of predators). thats a large area that city dwellers can't adequately picture, and such a range is tiny compared to the sweeping wilderness that is our land."
she then goes on to point out she only calls it a "savage wilderness" because the land is not "a parkland", and does have such creatures in it.
Yes... and lets finish the paragraph shall we? Yes. Lets.
"Home to man eating plants, wild animals, giant insects, demons and a host of inhuman creatures, spirits, ghosts, and supernatural beings."
LOL you're ------very----------- selectively reading and presenting here Glitterboy. Usually you don't do that but in this case it's a shame. You're picking one sentence out and purposefully leaving out the next that proves my point.
"home to" just means "these things are found here" it provides no infomation on rarity in itself. [/quote]
But they ARE there. You make it sound like they're not. Your sentence "Only calls it" savage wilderness and what not, completely ignoring the laundry list of things that can obliterate you. So much so that you purposefully leave out the very next sentence which named off 8 catagories. (( Not 8 things. 8 different catagories)) of things just there.
glitterboy2098 wrote:
your being selective in choosing to ignore the paragraphs talking about how its rare to encounter things because of the sheer size of the wilderness in favor of one line that provides no actual information of commonality.
No no. I'm pointing out dozens of PARAGRAPHS of information, repeatedly pointing out the danger, and then pionting out your one sentence amist all that that points out you 'can' go for a distance and not see them.
Possibility doesn't indicate rarity. I can go from here to town sometimes, a 30 mile trip and not see a human but there's 1000s of them out there.
glitterboy2098 wrote:
erin tarn describes exactly why your not likely to encounter much of those things in any given area in that passage.
And in the same breathh says it's just as likely to run into a list of them.
Look. You started this by saying there's nothing in the books to point to the dangers described. I've pointed out that just in the beginning few dozen pages of the RUE there ____IS____ stuff in the books pointing to the dangers.
You're saying it's all made up and trumped up by a charliton. I'm pointing out she's concidered the most well traveled scholor on the planet.
Point is, with only opening one book. The BASE book, my point is proven. _____AS WRITTEN______ Rifts is 90% dangerous wilderness with an endless supply of dangers that list in to tthe millions of different kinds.
Are you going to meet one every step out side your door? No, but every step after that yourchancce of running into SOMETHING gets larger and larger and larger. Sooner or later you do. And chances are, it's not going to be friendly and invite you for tea.
That's the setting as written. To say it's not, is to pretty much ignore the 50+ books we have on Rifts.
