I placed the war after the civil war in America myself, because that was when slavery(Not world wide of course) ended in my head. Just call me a selfish American :P That way we would have E-male and Intronet, along with all the gizmos needed to enslave the magicals electronically.

As for the precautions. . .Alexi is a light sleeper, he would hear Erik moving his chains around that much in his sleep, and while Alexi is not there, I would say that the magical chains would recognize such an attempt and, not being the will of the one that sealed them, would circumvent his actions. There can even be a seal on them that knocks him out when he gets too violent. Humans may not be naturally magical, however they have learned to use it over the years. So, in short, his magical chains will not let him kill himself. Magic for the win!

That doesn't work with Joseph's age though. It's been flat out said that he's been a slave of the Vandros family for over five centuries... I could change it I suppose. I think this is supposed to be around 2050, however, as Erik was born a slave in one of the earlier factories. So around 1820 or so. That would make the dates line up, and if technology is more equivalent to now instead of 40 years from now, that helps with some of the disparity due to time and effort being expended on slave control tech.

Alright, fair enough. That works for me. I'm sorry that it came up. But that's something I can't change about his character. To me, attempted suicide is a logical conclusion, given what he thinks he knows and given his experiences. And it's made worse by the hormonal and psychological changes that are happening in his head.

What part of an earth like place but not earth do you not get?(Please do not take offence to that, that's just how it came out) I know you like your tech stuff following a logical line and for times to make sense, and I respect that, however to we need to have this earth like place to have advancements in the exact same areas, and use the same basic time settings? Joseph could very well been enslaves 500 years ago, and still have the tech that we have now the way it is. His enslavement has nothing to do with the tech and time placement of the war, only that he was enslaved right after the war, which happened 500 years ago, on a place that is not earth, just a lot like it. When I was talking about when slavery ended in America, I was not saying that america even had to exists, just that that was the level of technology at the time slavery ended, that way the whole thing could make a kind of linear sense for a person born on this planet.

*Long exhale* Sorry that came out the way it did, I'm just a little, *Nyaaaaa*, at this point about making the world so. . . .Real Life? Does that make sense? What if I wanted there to be cars 20 years before there were cars here on earth, just because on this world, they focused more on that than other branches of science and technology way back when? I don't wanna use dates like 1800 and 2000, because that makes are nice little made of fantasy realm a little to. . .Exacting? Is that the right word? We can come up with what tech we have as we play, and what tech we lost as well, as it becomes relevant. Joseph was enslaved after a war that threw the linear timeline of tech, which up to that point may have been focused in completely different areas than what is was in our reality, into a complete maelstrom of WTF, and after things settled, it stalled mostly due to the new need that the crazy humans had to get every last magical under their thumb. I think beyond that, we should just let it all develop naturally as we RP. . . . .

Normally I have no problem letting things develop naturally as we RP. Even if there's a few logical kinks, I usually can smooth over them in my head. It's just I feel like everything has to be clear, otherwise we will flat out say the exact opposite things. Like with the whole "People have died from this" "No they haven't" thing. We worked it out and I'm fine with the decision we made on it, but I'm really afraid of our brains just not being in the same place on stuff, and having it lead to obvious plotholes.

I mean, on a lot of things you're a really forceful partner, and I try to sort of let you be, because sometimes it's fun being dragged along in a story, and I know you are a better writer than I am. But I need the technology and history to make sense for me, partially because I know a lot about historical trends (forced through the AP classes in high school) and I have a personal attachment to technological history as an aspiring engineer.

Furthermore, it's even more important with my characters in this, due to how long they've been alive. It's not history to them, it's the lives that they have lived. Now I have no problems making unilateral decisions on this, and just having them come up IC, but honestly, I'm afraid you won't like the decisions I make. And if we disagree, then instead of one of us changing, we will both just write totally different things. That's why I'm trying to clarify this stuff.

"And if we disagree, then instead of one of us changing, we will both just write totally different things."

I'd never do that. If I find something I disagree upon with you, I will bring it up and hash it out with you until we agree on it somewhere.

I am sorry, I know I put my foot down here and there. . . A lot so it seems, and I am sorry. *Bows* I don't mean to be pushy, but honestly, when you ask me what I think, I tell you what I think, and once I've voiced something, I have a slightly harder time changing my mind than if it comes up in the RP naturally. I'm a planner. . .

Do you remember the person you recommended me to? I'm not sure if you guys ever talk about me, or what he and I are doing, but we spent about 2-3 months and 180+ posts trying to hash out the RP idea we started with, and ended up scrapping it just because there was too much planning. She got an idea in her head, but then asked me what I thought, and then we'd end up in 20 post lone debates over it because she would keep asking me all the facets of what I saw, before bringing up what she wanted. Most of the time I would fold, but by then there would be certain things I would not want to change, and more often than not, one of those things would be challenged. We ended up making an RP entirely based on building a universe, starting as barely formed something or others just so we wouldn't have to do much real planning, since the universe doesn't even exist yet :P And even then, we had a few rough disagreement patches.

Sorry for the rambling, I just wanted to give you an example of why it seems like I'm being forceful and controlling. I will take whatever power given me, and once in place, I may very well defend it vehemently. In your's and my's case, I think the point I feel is being missed, is that, and correct me if I'm wrong, you are taking your tech base off of a very strict understanding of Real Life world history, and the evolution of tech here on Our Earth. For me, that's like. . .My playing chopstick next to someone playing Beethoven. I don't know evolution of tech and the histories of tech development on Our Earth, so when it comes to RPs, I phutz around until something makes sense in my head, and while I can't articulate it properly(Chopsticks), in my head there is perfect sense(Beethoven). My version of tech history and development makes sense, in my head, but digging into it brings about the frustration of my not being able to put it on paper properly. I see the history of tech in our RP world developing along a completely different line than in the Real World, partially due to my ignorance of RL tech history, but even more because of the magicals themselves. Before the war, the were there, changing things, making the RP world different from ours, even in the tech sense, so despite our base of an earth like planet(We can even call it Earth, for simplicity sake) I would like to keep things on the simpler side and let things develop as they may.

That doesn't mean I refuse to do planning, I love planning, but maybe we can stick to specific tech ideas, like, was the intronet a thing before the war? Did the iPod ever come into existance, or something like it? Smaller scale. . . .Smaller scale. . . .

I tend to ask people what they think first because I've been taught that it's sort of the polite way to debate. I can come up with ideas too, but oftentimes what you see seems a lot more clear than my ideas to me. So I've been trying to accommodate that.

I'm not saying that technology has to develop exactly the same way, but there are enough threads and comparisons that I think things do have to happen in roughly the same order. As an obvious example, the internet can't come about before computers. Or the modern transistor really can't come about before vacuum tubes, unless you say that they skipped vacuum tubes entirely somehow, which would just seem odd to me. I've been thinking of it as mostly parallel development with a bit more study of magic and mind control as well.

To be clear, I'm no historian or anything. It's just I have enough understanding that sometimes things just don't make sense to me. Because I'm not a great historian, if I change the order on technology, the world becomes much more complicated, and I don't have the knowledge to make it make sense.

Like, the internet did not exist before the war, because it couldn't have. To have something like the internet, you need the transistor, fiber optic technology, and enough programming for at least 70-80s level computers. To me, things couldn't have developed another way, at least if the primary species is human.

But I'm fine with making smaller decisions. Here's an important one. I really need Joseph to have been captured during or right after the war. It's just how I've imagined his backstory already. Otherwise, I need a good explanation for how he could have been a slave before slavery of magicals was widespread. Was it legal just like it was legal to have a human slave? Was it somehow off the books? Maybe the Vandros family called him an indentured servant and he was really a slave? Of course, then the hard breaking technology/magic has to have been developed prior to the war, in which case why was it developed and why wasn't it used sooner? As you can see, it starts to be simpler if he was captured during or after the war. Additionally, it would give him a bit of a connection with Erik.

"Like, the internet did not exist before the war, because it couldn't have. To have something like the internet, you need the transistor, fiber optic technology, and enough programming for at least 70-80s level computers. To me, things couldn't have developed another way, at least if the primary species is human."

See, this is the kind of stuff that confuses me. . .Why? Why can't it have existed? Why is it impossible for those things to have existed 80 years after slavery ended? Can we not simply make it so slavery ended around the time such things were coming into being? So that by the time the war started it was simple, and slow as hell, but it did exist? I'm not saying any of this has to be the way things were, I'm just wondering why you seem against having that level of tech before the war. As I understand tech, it grows in the direction one focuses on, and in Our Earth's case, that has been mostly war based growth. What if trade and communication was the base drive of this RP world's tech growth? Would that not make computers come about a lot faster there than they did here? Correct me if I'm wrong here, it's been years since I was in school, and most of my info these days about tech comes from nerdy stuff I learn on TV shows :P

I have no problem with Joseph being captured right after the war, and I'd say that the law about slavery of magicals would have passed not a year after the end of the war, as kind of a solution so that no more wars were possible. Flawed logic, but I'd say they thought that as long as all magicals were slaves, there would never be enough free to start another war, and they'd once more have all the free labor they could ever want. Win win, y'know. . . Humans are stupid that way :P Also, about hard breaking, I think it would have been being developed during the war, perfected after the war, and first put to use successfully 3-4 years after the war. The scientists thought it would eventually come to enslaving magicals, so they worked on it during the war in secret government facilities *Shifty eyes*

Okay, the problem is these two things are related. If Joseph is enslaved soon after the war, and he's been enslaved for 500 years, that would put the end of the war 500 years prior to the RP. Sure, the internet, computers, and every part required for that to work could have been around that long (420 years to use your 80 year estimate), but logically the technology should be much much further by now. Like, this world should have teleportation, flying cars, and space travel. If it is still at a “modern” level at the time of the RP, then it couldnt have been around 420 years before, because then what was the advancement?

Furthermore, anything that exists can't be TOO far ahead or behind any other field of technology. For instance, if computing technology is that old, that's a big step towards robotics being more advanced. In which case why would they need slaves when they would have built robots by now?

You can't say, “Oh, it was developed then and then everything in the field just stopped” because the world and human progress doesn't work that way. Things slow down and speed up, but they don't just stop for hundreds of years unless a new technology that performs the same function comes along. Like, yes, we haven't advanced anything with vacuum tubes because they were functionally replaced by transistors which were superior in every way.

Am I making any sense?

It makes sense, but you forgot to add in the war. We haven't even discussed how long it lasted, and as I put forward before, what survived it. I want to entertain the idea that the war set us back, that magics were used during it to flat out destroy not only the tech itself, but the know how to use/make it.

As for the "Modern" I vaguely remember us agreeing on a more advanced setting, maybe 50-60 more years advanced than we are now, but only in certain fields, since as I said, development in some areas remained more intact after the war than others. As an example, if at some point during the war, the intronet highway was completely wiped out by a customized spell, and all knowledge of how it works was erased from both mind an text(Remember, this is an example) then after the war, people would remember it, but they would have to not only re-create it, but they would have to do so in a world where such things are not a major concern. The control and enslavement of the magicals would take precedent.

Or, a less extreme example, all car factories in the world were destroyed in a mass combined effort, after the war we could say people more focused on making/using motorcycles to get around on since they are easier to make and maintain. Sure, there are cars in the era now, however they are not hover cars because that tech was not important. I can see auto driving and the like, stuff we don't have yet, but I don't see our world having hover cars. . . .But again, this is an example. Like, the hand held music devices, not important, and they may exist not in the RP, but because they are very much non essentials, they would not be that far advanced.

So yes, what you say makes sense, but do you also see my logic? Also, we really need to decide how long the war lasted. . . .

I see your logic, but everything becomes a lot more complicated the more we change it. That's the main reason I wanted to stick with "as close to real life as possible" because the more we change the threads the more work it is to create an entire technological history. I can't just change some, because it leads to too many questions about how things worked. And the truth is, I wouldn't mind doing all of that, over time, and building a database complete with a timeline. But I don't want to do it alone.

In my timeline prior to this conversation, the war didn't hurt technology too much. Magic was a factor, but it was not powerful enough to wipe out all knowledge of stuff. It was much less WWII and more a 15th century war, fought on moving battlefields, with horses, infantry, and not much more advanced than a crossbow, at least on the human side, which largely didn't know magic at the time.

Due to controlling the slaves, and the mere existence of magic as something to study, mind control tech, imprisonment tech, and magical technology are all more advanced than they were in our world. But otherwise, things are roughly the same, technologically. This whole line of questioning started for me because the presence of magical slaves would change the social and cultural dynamic, first in relation to the history of slavery, but also in some other social and cultural aspects as well.

Now we don't have to keep that, but the more we reconstruct, the more work it is, because every field affects every other field in the longterm, to say nothing of social and cultural changes from different avenues of technological advancement.

To answer the more pressing question, I would say the war lasted around 60 years? That could add some justification to the sins of Joseph's early life as well.

You must really hate the worlds in Final Fantasy. . .

I like complicated, so I don't mind helping with the tech thing, as long as whatever we are working on together has a direct effect on what is going on in the RP between our characters. Alexi and Mois both use cars with wheels, so whatever we need to work out for them to have wheeled cars and not hover cars, I'm all for it. . .How the farmers and other agricultural professions work with their tech, not very interested at the moment, we don't have any farms for hundreds of miles, and none of our guys work with them directly, so if you wanna come up with automated gizmos or the like for them and slap them into your timeline, have at it.

As for the hurt tech. . .I swear I brought this up before. . .Way back when, I said I wanted the war to have trashed things a bit and made a lot of our tech fall behind while others advanced further. . .I remember that. . .But then again, I forget what I had for breakfast yesterday, so maybe I thought it but forgot to write it those months ago. . . I don't see the magical side of reality going down easy, and with the power I see many of the magical community having, I don't see any way of it being anything less than mini apocalyptic. Wow, we really were on opposite sides of this particular idea. . . I could of sworn I brought this up before though! *Ish frustrated that I don't have the patience to go look this up*

Oh, and about that Final Fantasy comment. . . All I can say is Swords and Airships. FF, main weapon, midevil, main mass transportation, steampunk :P I can think of plenty of Anime where the tech was rather sideways, but still worked just fine. Like Escaflowne. Gallant Swordsmen? Check! Giant Mech? Check! Let's go! A perfect marriage of tech and magic there :P Like the fate alteration device. . . .

But, anyways, I thinks stuff like that may be a large part of why I don't get your rigidness on tech. If it works in Anime, why cant it work in a fictional earth like world of our own!? :P *Teases* I has the feeling you may explode if we tried that tough :P

"Due to controlling the slaves, and the mere existence of magic as something to study, mind control tech, imprisonment tech, and magical technology are all more advanced than they were in our world. But otherwise, things are roughly the same, technologically."

I think the existence of whole 'nother side of reality would create huge changes not only in history, but in tech as well. Before the war, I can see many of the races being a part of human society, and because of their long lived nature, using what they've learned and their own personal talents to create things that humans may never have thought of because of our short lives. (I may be rambling at this point, so please forgive my rambles, but I think I may be on to something in my own line of thinking) Ever read "My Teacher is an Alien"? There are four books in that series, and one of which is called "My Teacher Glows in the Dark" and in it, it proposes that an alien came down and helped invent the TV, which slowed human's advancement towards space travel because a lot of the focus of human tech went to this new thing, and attempts to leave the atmosphere was put on the back burner. I think this is one of the things rattling around in the back of my mind when I talks about the rather staggered and slightly sideways development of tech. certain areas of development are stunted by others, slowed, and in some cases, abandoned. Like the Tesla Coil. When light bulbs were made, Tesla Coils, made around the same time, were given up on for the most part. . . .

Oh, and, question, if you really want this all back before the computer, what control measures do you see humans using for magicals to begin with? I don't see anything short of powerful shock collars on werewolves, and we need microchips for that. . . .In short, I don't think, with tech being messed up by magicals, that starting at the level of tech you propose would allow for the enslavement to ever even happened. Humans would need to be more advanced to ever have come out on top in a war with naturally magical creatures who are superior to humans in oh so many ways. . .

That works. See, I'm not always so picky :P 60 years gives more than enough time for the magicals to do some major damage :P Oh, and before it gets brought up, I really don't wanna talk about HOW the war ended just yet. I really REALLY wanna get more into the RP before discussing that particular bit of history. . . .

(I'm sending these out to all my RP partners)

Random status check: Are you enjoying the RP thus far? Anything you'd like to see more of? Less of? Ideas for future events?

I've never played Final Fantasy. But to use an example of an alternate reality I tend to take no issue with, look at Fullmetal Alchemist. I'm no expert on it, but from what I've seen, humanity is basically about 30 years behind "our" world in a lot of areas because of the focus of many minds on Alchemy. Although, I'll admit, their having automail when that kind of tech would take incredible understanding of the nervous system kind of makes me twitch when I think about it.

But part of the point is, I don't have to think about it because I'm not the writer. I can't help but get sort of lost in the history of a world or culture, because I feel the need to understand it for my own sake.

For the record, I'm sorry if you said this before. My memory isn't perfect, so maybe you said it and I put it out of my mind, or I didn't understand it in the same way you did.

Here's the problem I have with the war wiping out all technology and putting them in an apocalyptic past. If that had happened, then the magicals would have won (when they clearly didn't). Because if we place the war in 1500s tech, or even 1700-1800s tech, humanity didn't really have anything that could compete with the kind of destruction you are talking about. If we say "oh, it was 500 years ago, technology was roughly where it is now, or maybe farther, then everything was destroyed and we forgot it all" that presents it own problems because it's hard for me to believe that everything could be forgotten. I'm assuming the magicals were too spread out to warrant the use of a nuclear bomb, so that option is out. But we would need wartime tech to be roughly on par with at least 1940s to have a chance against magic that could do that. Even if the humans had their own "magic-infused technology" the whole time.

If all of this happened before the computer, then I was thinking that the early control methods were based on magic-infused tech and perhaps early experiments with electricity.

I... can live without knowing that for now. But I need to know at some point because it's a part of Joseph's life.

I said nothing about wiping out all technology, that's why I called it Mini Apocalyptic, just the sudden and complete destruction of SOME things. As for early control methods. . . I do not see most people even believing in magic before the war, so early control methods using magic would be severely limited. Magic is a Magicals thing in my mind, and humans would use tech to suppress it and to win the war, so, yeah. . . . .With as powerful as I see magicals, I don't see pre-computer being an option for the beginning of the war, which makes that statement before about being back in the 1500s very confusing to me. . .I was the one fighting for the war to have been further in the future, right? Like, around the late. . . .Wait, what am I doing. . .I don't wanna use RL dates! *Sniffles* I wanna have tech to have grown differently on our world. . . .*Bangs head on desk* Can't slavery have ended around the computer and war started right after intronet, and together we can work out what the magicals had to have done to make the current level of tech make sense? Like I said, a lot of fields of tech can be futuristic, I do not mind. Alexi's house is low tech on purpose, the rest of the world can be way ahead of him. . . .*Whines* *Cries* *Pouts like a three year old*

Oh,a dn that robot comment from before: Robots are for poor people who can't afford slaves. :P

Oh my god... that was so beautiful. A part of me wants to just have him give in now. But that would severely shorten the story.

Robots are totally superior to slaves though. :-P

I... just can't think of a way for it to work. I'm trying, but I can't think of a good solution. Everything I come up with is flawed. For instance, if we say the war threw them into a semi-apocalyptic dark age, then what stopped the magicals from escaping and roaming free, with the lack of infrastructure and all?

If we say that most of the world has better tech, then why does Alexi practically still live on practically a early 1900s level of technology? Furthermore, slavery would be less necessary, again, because of robotics.

Robots: Not when you take magic into account :P

And I'm glad I could move you :P

*Bangs head on wall* No, not dark age, the government is intact, it would JUST be various forms of technology that would have been destroyed, not the governmental infrastructure, nor the unilateral set back of all tech on the whole. Make sense?

About Alexi, because he wants to. And again Magic trumps Robots. Take faeries(And sprites) for example. As long as you've got a small garden, or flowers, the faeries can dot heir jobs, no maintenance or upgrades required, and they will take care of the garden themselves. No upgrades, no breaking, the only thing you have to worry about is buying new faeries when you faeries die. . Or, or. . .To make things simpler, if this will not kill you, robots never existed. Automated machines and mechanical arms and the like, but no one has ever decided to go the extra mile and make "Robots". Or, even if you can't do that, then I must say again, Magic for the win. No one need robots because magicals do everything robots would do, without needing parts, repairs, maintenance, the time to make them, and programming. Slaves are easier, and if we have learned anything as humans, we go for convenience. Why make robots for stuff slaves can do, when we already have slaves to do the work, and do it without much effort.

Yeah, I'm very tempted to let him give in. Especially since his sacrifice and suffering just seems totally useless apart from proving his inner strength, when I know parts of the secret of what Alexi is trying to do. Why can't he just freaking tell him again? It would save them both a lot of trouble.

No, that doesn't make any sense, because what kind of magic would do that? Technological advancements are related to both each other and society, so if you destroy say, all computing technology, then you HAVE destroyed the majority of modern day infrastructure... or even all of 80s level infrastructure, at least in banks, businesses, and governments. And what the hell kind of magical weapon could even do that? I mean, if the magicals essentially had an EMP that was that freaking powerful, they sure as hell shouldn't have lost. Wherever you pull the thread, there would be insane collateral damage. Furthermore, to destroy all the knowledge of how to rebuild, you would have to destroy every place it's written down, and all the people with the knowledge to rebuild it. That makes the weapon in question even MORE powerful, which makes it even more unlikely that the magicals would have lost.

Fine, there's no robotics then... at least not much in the private sector, because "justifiable" slavery replaced the need for it. But that doesn't solve ... well, basically everything I just said above.

*Is tempted to just say 'Fuck it all to hell'*

Do you know the luxury I enjoy most about writing stories? Aside from amusing people and exploring my imagination, it's the power to say "Why is the sky purple? Be cause I said so. Why are there cellphones and no cars? Because I want it that way. Why does water randomly gain sentience and walk around in the shape of a cow? Because I find it funny."

I am a fantasy person at heart, and can only write sci fi if the person I'm with is willing to NOT apply the real world to it. If I wanna say that I have a hand held ray gun that can level a city, I don't want to talk about how that is impossible, I want my fricken ray gun! It's powered by a mini black hole that I made with foozon energy contained in side a taliumn metal sphere. There, nice made up thing to fill the plot/science hole. I am trying really hard to cater to your need for things to make RL sense, but at this point I don't see any other way of doing that than me throwing in the towel and saying "Fine, you make up whatever the hell you need to ease your mind, and I'll submit."

I just. . .*Sigh* I just don't know what else to do at this point. This is not earth, this is a place LIKE earth that WE made, and since it's not real, we should be able to do whatever the heck we want with it, filling in any perceived plot hole with whatever nonsense that writers have used over the years to do just that. You're just. . . Trying to put too much RL in our non real world. It's giving me headache. . . .*Sniffles* Sorry for swearing. . . .

The problem is... that my brain has to make things make logical sense. I think that fantasy worlds have to have a set of rules (outlandish as they may be), have reasons for them, and stick to them. If it doesn't make sense in my head, I can't deal with it. I'm not the most knowledgeable person on a lot of things, but the rules have to make sense with what I know... I just, can't deal with it otherwise.

So yes, I'm fine with having a raygun that can level the city, but I'd rather have a semi-logical way that it works and a story for how the character got it. For me, the sky is purple because on the planet in the setting, there are different concentrations of chemical compounds in the atmosphere than on RL Earth, so the light reflects into visible purple...

Will you really hate me for letting me win on this one? In the longterm, it still doesn't even really affect the story. I mean, your characters can still basically have whatever they want. Alexi's master plan will probably still go off without a hitch. Is it too big of a deal that things came about differently?

~*~*~

On an unrelated note, I'm genuinely ... stumped on what to do with Erik.

I came up with a semi-logical way for the gun to work. Black hole, boundless energy, contained by stuff I made up that can bind black holes. Does that not fall into the category of logical? As for the sky thing, sure, that COULD is why it is purple, but did I need to say that in the story? No, I just have to say it's purple, and let my readers imagine the reason. The sky COULD be purple because this world is surrounded by a big lady and her dress makes up the sky :P

The problem with putting very strict rules to any world involving magic, is in many cases, the rules governing magic, if indeed there are any, tend to run contrary to the rules of the rest of the universe.

And no, I don't hate anybody, but in the case of this RP, there are certain things I need for the RP, and certain things that can not exist for me to enjoy myself. Like the robot mentality. I guess I have to drop this here: The RP is far from over with the fruition of Alexi's plan, and the rest of the world outside the house walls will be VERY relevant after the plan's climax. The story climax is waaaay after the plan. It's one of the reasons I've been so picky about tech. If certain things exist, the plan would either not work, or need some major additions and changes.

In short, I don't wanna lat out this huge net of the tech history and current status because that would totally f'up(Most likely) not only the plan, but the rest of the RP after it. I'd rather not lay down something that makes sense to you and makes you comfortable, only tome come in later and say, "Oh, by the way, this tech can't exist otherwise this whole thing falls apart" and either have you not want to change, or have to re-work the entire grid.

~*~*~*~*~*~

Oh, and for Erik, what I just said above may help you with that. No matter when he gives in, there is a LOT more RP to happen after that 4th dose :P