SW10/WWW: Powernaut 1969 #14: Let Me Tell You About Power!

Scott Eiler seiler at eilertech.com
Tue Sep 16 20:26:49 PDT 2014


On 9/16/2014 3:18 AM, Andrew Perron wrote:
> On 8/30/2014 3:24 PM, Scott Eiler wrote:
>> As things escalate to near maximum, another hero has what may be his
>> finest
>> moment...  Powernaut 1969 continues.
>>
>> http://www.eilertech.com/stories/powernaut/1969b.htm#14
>
> Dangit, now I *have* to review this one. Daaaaaaang.
>
>>   have a concept of Conservation of Characters. This expresses itself
>> here as,
>> Son of Stonewater Smith = the Devil in White = Ron Cannon = Kwame
>> Cannon. (The
>> Devil in White was a background character for Ellipsis. Ron came in
>> from a
>> convention game, when I needed characters for the  Aleutian Crisis of
>> 2004 -
>> http://www.eilertech.com/stories/2004/aleut.htm .  Kwame changed his
>> name from
>> Ron, and once appeared in a Powernaut text short-short story which got
>> rejected for Jolt City.) Now that I am exploring the origin of
>> Ellipsis, I
>> have an even more explosive equivalency, which I mentioned in last week's
>> commentary. I literally came up with that idea while writing that
>> commentary.
>> Oh, shit...
>
> Daaaaaaaang. That's one good off-the-cuff idea.

... I guess it must be true, then!  8{D>

And I'm *still* making it up as I go - as witness the Hyper-Piper's 
interest in genetics, as mentioned elsewhere.


>> I'm uncertain how I feel about this. On the one hand, society has
>> dealt with
>> the power of Ellipsis despite his having been *unsuccessfully*
>> brainwashed to
>> renounce power - and in some respects, he's used his power for the
>> good of
>> society. On the other hand, the 1969 brainwashing seems to have held
>> for Wyatt
>> Ferguson. His reaction to great power has uniformly been to renounce
>> it. Given
>> the amount of power he's renounced over his career, that may be safest
>> for the
>> world. But how can that be *proper*?
>
> I love how S.O.S. assumes this was brainwashing, and not what it seems -
> an honest message.

Thanks; that was what I was aiming at.  But for my own part, I think I 
might have written S.O.S. too negatively in this particular commentary. 
  I'm not sure he and Wyatt have ever met outside of Hypergaard - but 
they are both engineers, they have numerous mutual colleagues in 2005 as 
S.O.S. writes this, and they regard each other quite well.  It would be 
odd in Real Life for any of *my* fellow engineers to say, gee, Scott 
could have done more with his life.  It would even be insulting if they 
went all the way back to my childhood to try to justify that comment... 
  hey, maybe Wyatt might have a word with S.O.S. sometime.

Besides, well, perhaps S.O.S. ought to stop his repeated negativity 
about someone who's stepped in for the Powernaut in the Power Patrol's 
time of need.  (I now call that level of negativity "Elana Devin 
Syndrome", though if one follows Tumblr one can see Elana has her 
reasons.)  Powernaut 1969 Part 3 is already slated to have some lighter 
portrayals; at this rate, the Powernaut will even get some compliments 
in the afterword.

-- 
(signed) Scott Eiler  8{D> -------- http://www.eilertech.com/ ---------

When you *are* the leader... whatever goes wrong... whether you did it
or not... *you* are held responsible. - Barack Obama

I know. - Archie Andrews

- from Archie #617, March 2011, scripted by Alex Simmons.


More information about the racc mailing list