Shifti - User contributions [en]

Talk:Paradise (Setting)

2009-06-17T07:25:10Z

MisterBackground: /* The "Posthuman" World */

It's an interesting setting, what I've read so far, and I've got an idea or two percolating that may or may not come to fruition. A seed is trying to sprout for an idea starting in '05 and going forward.

One little detail though, (and it doesn't really apply to me but may for others), removing hippo's, rhino's and elephants from the pool seems to be a bit speciest, considering moose are allowed. In looking at the Wiki, it seems that hippos (1.5meters) and rhinos (2.0 meters) are actually generally smaller or the same size as the largest moose (2.1 metres) species. Elephants seem to average about a meter or two larger than the moose.

Perhaps a better restriction would be to allow any land mammal (and any sea mammal that is between the sizes of the minimum land mammal size and the maximum land mammal size), but set minimum and maximum furre sizes; something like a min of 1.2 metres or 4ft to a max of 2.0 metres or 7ft.

Anyways, I'll try and keep an eye on things and see if I can culture this idea I've got further. - 19:50, 10 January 2008 [[User:Jetfire|Jetfire]]

== Theory on how the Change 'spreads' ==

Been thinking about how it might spread, such that we have a higher proportion of Changed in NA, but not leaving the rest of the world out, and I think I know how.

The 'computer virus' that Changes people, uses the RDF to spread itself. Our 'program's' own protection method is also spreading the damages.

Basically, I am guessing that if the RDF needs to kick in on you, then you are passively 'infected'.

Then, when August 17th comes around, the Virus triggers itself, but it for whatever reason can only copy itself for every previously Changed person. (The Doubling effect), and it can only affect people that have been passively infected, ie people who have had the RDF kick in on them.

The goal of the virus is to spread as far as it can, so it takes the number of new Changed it can, and spreads it more or less evenly across the available (RDF-affected) population.

So the first Changed is in Chicago (I think). Through the year until the next Change, she will encounter thousands of people, even in passing, which triggers the RDF on them and passively infects them.

Come August, 1988, the next Changed will be picked randomly from those thousands of people, and now we'll have 2 people spreading the RDF virus. 1989, a big chunk of Chicago has probably had the RDF trigger at least once, not to mention some tourists and other visitors to the city.

In 89, we get 2 more Changed, and one of them could possibly be in a different random city, just because he'd been to Chicago in the past 2 years and unknowingly seen a Changed, and a new nest of RDF-field affected people starts up.

European and Asian and Oceanic outbreaks could happen in years to come as the number of tourists and business people from those reasons travel into North America and begin to be fielded and infected themselves.

The 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City probably 'infected' most of the people who were around and watching, meaning that by then (if not before) pretty much anyone has a chance to be Changed.

It also means that truly isolated areas of the world (South Pacific islands, isolated Amazonian tribes, etc) could potentially be unchanged after the 2020 deadline; but any encounter at all with a Changed would likely Change them immediately and spread like wildfire through the village)

And while the RDF may 'fail' at some point, it'll probably still be around in a less effective form, trying to maintain some stability and spreading the Change. --[[User:Jetfire|Jetfire]]
:I'll give that some thought. It's somewhat similar to something I already had in mind. Perhaps those who have the RDF fail completely will be much more likely to change the next year, or they might even change out-of-phase. In any case, once they figure out that it's like a communicable disease, and everyone is already 'infected', the remaining humans will go nuts. --[[User:JonBuck|Buck]] 12:35, 27 January 2008 (EST)

== Change and disabilities? ==

I keep forgetting to bring this up on IRC, but how do people (as in writers and other interested people in this setting) think disabilities would be affected by the change? Both Mental and Physical?

Would a paraplegic who lost his legs in an accident regrow them if he changed? Would he regain the use of them if they weren't lost but just disabled? (back injury)? What about false teeth, deafness, blindness, etc?

What if the cause was not from a physical accident, but was viral or bacterial in nature? Some disease struck them blind? Would they stay blind?

And what if the disabilities were genetic? Would those genetic flaws still show in the new form?

Finally, what about mental disabilities? Could the Change 'cure' Alzheimer's? Would it affect someone who is literally a brain dead vegetable on life support?

If it does have curative properties, I suspect we'll start seeing more and more miracle cures (assuming they can survive the flu) in the years to come. Which may imply that there'll be a push in the early to mid 2010's to just keep someone alive as long as possible in the home they Change and are cured/fixed.

Thoughts?

--[[User:Jetfire|Jetfire]] 11:00, 4 February 2008 (EST)

:I think there are good arguments to be made for some healing properties of the Change, but I wouldn't make it go all out. A person missing a limb should still be missing a limb after the change (I have in mind a scene with a one-armed pianist who goes monkey and starts playing with his feet).

:When it comes to things like Alzheimer's, that is a much more difficult choice. I don't see mental retardation being suddenly healed by the Change, as that is a birth defect (and such things happen in animals too). But progressive diseases may backtrack, even if the conditions begin to return over time. That could make an even more painful story, somebody suffering from Alzheimer's, who Changes and now recognizes all his family again. But after a year or so everything starts to slip away again...

:Anyway, the whole keeping folks alive and hoping for a Change could make a good dynamic too. I just think there's a lot fo possibilities to consider before we make a decision on this. --[[User:MatthiasRat|MatthiasRat]] 12:24, 4 February 2008 (EST)
::I'm inclined to do as Matthias suggests. It's more or less what I had in mind. However, one of the things that the Change does is it puts everyone in very good health. Even being a 300 pound female bear, CM is in very good shape. It will cure some ailments, and put chronic diseases into remission. Those developments will confuse the medical community enough without regrowing limbs or curing Down's Syndrome. But if you've read the latest Tall Tales, ROB is being forced to act more openly. --[[User:JonBuck|Buck]] 15:40, 4 February 2008 (EST)

:What happens to medical devices like heart pacemakers or hip replacements that were implanted in people before they changed? --[[User:JeniSkunk|Jenifur Charne]] 20:45, 10 February 2008 (EST)

::That's basically an open-ended question. I'm going to leave the answer to that one unsaid because I think it'd be a good Plot Point in a story. A furry episode of ''House'' maybe? --[[User:JonBuck|Buck]] 22:45, 10 February 2008 (EST)

::Late into the discussion, but better late than never. : ) Anyway, what about things like fillings and caps on teeth? Going to a dentist would be interesting. Going another step, outside medical devices wouldn't fit anymore and would bring up some unique delimas. What about people with prosthetics? If someone turns into a bear, I'm sure their leg isn't going to fit anymore, yet Unknown will wonder why they make such a claim all of a sudden. Lots of places to go with these stories. [[User:Tinbender|Tinbender]] 21:24, 5 May 2008 (EDT)

Hey, not really sure on any of the points raised, have to give it some thought. One thing to consider though is can anthro's act as a bridge to humans for viruses that currently only affect animals?--[[User:Devin|Devin]] 23:35, 10 February 2008 (EST)

== A mortal analysis of Paradise ==

Lets me see if I get some of the details right.

There is a post-singularity Uber-computer, that when projected into 3-space, has the same consistency as humanity's combined thumbnail and happens to be running a simulation of the events leading up to its own creation. Secondly, it gets infected by a super-bug/virus that makes borg nano-probes look overly large and cumbersome. Said post-singularity, sentient, ROB-type entity/ virus changes some lines of code (if such things can be referred to as such) in reference to the people in the simulation, in and around the vicinity of Chicago (maybe the super-bug's designers had way-distant ancestors from there, or whose ancestors had a grudge against the place). The Uber-comp, in a flash of inspiration counters with the 'firewall-from-not-heck', or RDF as we understand it. The ROB is still successful with its dastardly and despicable plan to make the simulated history end differently.

That I get as far as it can be understood by a three-dimensional entity not particularly versed in post-singularity, multi-dimensional physics and computational theory.

The RDF, The Veil, The "Really-Annoying-Mess-Up-Everyones-Lives" Field, appears to start collapsing or 'twisting' in several personal accounts. In fact, it would seem that there are certain individuals who have appeared to figure out means of 'gazing-past' the gaps in said previously mentioned field even though they do not have one of their own. Yes it has been theorized that they will soon fall victim to the ROB, however, consider that all of this is in one sense mere coding (albeit it happens to be far more complex than that), and that said people are taking advantage of 'bugs' in the code. How many bugs are there? Is it possible for someone (probably a changed, or mad scientist) to 'tune' or 'tinker' with the field, probably no more than tweaks to appearance or color? I know the Primary Engineer Of This Work has stated that there are no 'powers', but then again, this is all just code, and hackers can sometimes be just mortal.

Just a thought or two. I should probably stop this monologue before a super spy shows up.
~midon~

:You're pretty close overall, though the simulation doesn't necessarily have to be of the ROB's own creation. Human Earth could be something It came up with all by Itself. Another book that's similar to what I've come up with here is ''[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darwinia_(novel) Darwinia]''. Someone suggested that the best thing for the ROB to do is to restore from backup. The thing is, these are still people. ROB doesn't have a moral problem with allowing them to die within the sim, but will act to protect both itself and its people from an outside threat. Hence the RDF and other measures.--[[User:JonBuck|Buck]] 17:46, 4 February 2008 (EST)

== Thinking far future... ==

First, to make it VERY clear, I am NOT thinking of any stories or anything set in the 2020 period yet. I've just been thinking of how the world may be like by then, as the last half are about to change.

I suspect there would be a mix of celebration (the last humans are joining us!) and mourning (humans will no longer be as they were). Regionally, there will probably be searches for the "last human baby", the ones born days/hours before the last Aug 17 change; they'd probably be local celebrities, similar to "New Years Babies"

And in 2021, the nervousness would start. Is the change source gone? Is it mutating? Are we going to change further? Or into something else now? For the Changed Generation, that little shiver of fear every August 17th will probably persist until they are all gone.

All that assumes civilization hasn't fallen apart by then of course. :)

--[[User:Jetfire|Jetfire]] 10:42, 25 February 2008 (EST)

== Summer Olympics ==

This was nagging at the back of my mind a bit, but I finally nailed it down to actually check dates:

:"The 2008 Summer Olympics, officially known as the Games of the XXIX Olympiad, will be celebrated from August 8, 2008 to August 24, 2008".

For the record, the 2004 Olympics also just straddled the Change day, having started on Aug 13th. No other Summer Olympics have straddled Change day, but the 1996 games ended just before it, and the Paralympic Games that year did straddle the Change day.

The 2012 games in London curiously have a break between the end of the Olympics on Aug 12, 2012, and the start of the Paralympics on Aug 29.

Just something to think about for writers out there. :)

--[[User:Jetfire|Jetfire]] 10:07, 27 February 2008 (EST)

:The Change takes place right in the middle of the Olympics. All it takes is for one or two athletes to change to gum up the works. These people are already in top physical shape, too. But what happens when a swimmer becomes a dolphin, an otter, or perhaps something that doesn't swim well? I don't think the RDF can handle becoming as large as a rhino. They'll still displace an awful lot of water when they splash in.

:I'll have to mention this in Open Secrets.

:--[[User:JonBuck|Buck]] 14:53, 27 February 2008 (EST)

::At least the illness will be a bit of a cover. Depending on how many Changed athletes there are, (both active and new Changed), the illness could be used to skip out on some events out of necessity.

::Still the pressure to perform, even if their form is inappropriate for the sport (A Bull trying to do a polevault or the triathlon in general? A bear for gymnastics? A Mouse in weightlifting? ) will be intense

::There would probably be a lot of discussion when a star athlete suddenly isn't performing as well as they did before.

::Of course, a few years after that, the Beijing Olympics here will probably end up with a * like the LA and Moscow Olympics, as people find out about the Change and the number of ringers (otters in swimming events, felines and primates in gymnastics, gazelles and cheetahs in track events, bears and bulls in weight lifting, etc...) semi-intentionally sent by the various countries. We could very well see TTC-level problems happening in Olympic Village.

--[[User:Jetfire|Jetfire]] 15:07, 27 February 2008 (EST)

== What happens ''after'' 2020? ==

Point one: Computer programs are never ''intrinsically'' equipped with an off-switch. Rather, a shutdown condition must be explicitly coded into a program -- and any program which ''lacks'' an explicit shutdown condition, will continue to chug merrily along until something hardware-ish gets in the way.

Point two: The Change is the result of a 'furry virus", ''i.e.,'' a '''computer program'''.

2020 is when the entire planetary population will be furry... but who's to say the 'furry virus' won't ''continue'' to do its thing, Changing people year in and year out, with each year's quantity of Changes being double that of the year before? We know that being Changed is ''not'' an absolute protection against the 'furry virus' -- the setting rules themselves ''explicitly allow'' previously-Changed people to get hit with another dose of Change, after all -- so ''either'' (a) the 'furry virus' ''does'' have an explicitly-coded off-switch, or else (b) starting in 2020, an ever-increasing number of people are going to end up Changing ''two or more times in any given year.''

If the 'furry virus' ''has'' a built-in off-switch, that begs the question of what, exactly, its shutdown condition ''is.'' Does it stop spreading/infecting when there's no unchanged Human left, is it waiting for some specific event or combination of events before it quits, or what? Perhaps the guy who wrote the 'furry virus' did so with the specific intent of encouraging ROB to make [insert specific changes here] in ROB's virtual world, such that the results of those changes are the virus's 'off-switch'?

If, on the other hand, the 'furry virus' has ''no'' built-in brakes, things can get weird, fast. People have already floated the notion of Changes happening "out of season"; what if these 'unscheduled' Changes are merely a harbinger of things to come, in which people can be re-zapped at any time of year, an arbitrarily large number of times per year? It may be instructive, or at least amusing, to extrapolate the data given in "The Numbers", and divide each year's expected number of Changes by the expected population for that year: In 2020, there's 1.12 Changes per person (perhaps every human being Changes, regardless of their current state, and there's a 12% chance of one guy Changing ''twice?).'' Since we're basically talking about a doubling function, it only takes until 2024 for every ex-human to be an involuntary member of the Change Of The Month Club (because there's a touch over 17 Changes per person that year), and the Change Of The '''Day''' Club starts up in 2029 (during which year there's a bit less than 514 Changes per person per year). In 2034, the extrapolated number of Changes per person for that year is significantly over 15,000 (which works out to about 7/4 of a Change ''per hour,'' every hour, for every human being); by 2040, we hit 1.75 Changes per ''minute;'' 2046 is when every human being starts to hit 1 Change per ''second.''

To repeat what I said above: Things get weird, fast.

Obviously, the above figures are ridiculous, since they're derived from mindless extrapolation of an exponential curve. Perhaps the most sensible way to go is to presume that ROB manages to ''do'' something about the metatstasizing 'furry virus' no later than 2025 or so. In any case, one hopes said figures at least provide a bit of food for thought... [[User:Cubist|Cubist]] 05:03, 10 March 2008 (EDT)

== Change and the Media ==

It's probably a sign that I watch WAY too much TV, but it's a theme that's been in the back of my mind (man that back area's getting mighty crowded with ideas). As the Change progresses, even with the Veil in place, more and more effects of the Change will start showing up in other ways, and it will become more and more 'public' even if the Unchanged won't really know what is going on. I suspect TV shows especially will begin to show a lot of these.

This is just some of my rambling thoughts on what the TV Cable signals might be sending to the screens of the Changed near-Future.

Reality TV in all its forms will probably be the first to really start showing the effects of the Changed, since they tend to have the fastest turnaround time and the most contact with non-actors. Court shows (like I wrote in my short story case) will have more and more cases of Changed vs Norms and even weird Changed vs Changed cases. "He won't share the nail clippers!" "She gifted me the money for the vacation to Alaska in January")

Gameshows also will start having more Changed contestants, especially popular ones like Price is Right.

And then you have the Survivor types. Show's like "Top Model" and "Bachelor(ette)" and "Blind Date" (especially given the Change's habit of giving the Changed Eye-turning bodies) will probably have the most Changed on a show early on (whether intentionally or unintentionally).

Home Makeover shows may start seeing even weirder designs as designers/homeowners remake rooms to give room for antlers or bigger buttons for hoof fingers and such. (We thought Frank's designs on Trading Spaces were weird BEFORE he Changed... :P )

Amazing Race may have a Changed Team soon; a few Changed in the Big Brother House (probably intentionally put in there by a Changed Studio staffer), and the next Survivor or two would probably have some contestants.

Once the Field comes down, I fully expect CBS to roll out a "Furries vs Normals" Survivor while they can.

Now onto more tasteful TV. (arguably :P )

Cartoons? (what few new ones that are made) will likely start having more and more of a furry bend to them. Hallowe'en specials may turn 'human' toons into furry ones as experiments to transition shows.

Soaps? Expect Change stories fairly soon I dare say. I don't watch them myself, but from what I've heard of some storylines they've done in the past, the Change isn't all that strange. These writers will probably be chaffing at the restrictions of the Field the most.

Sitcoms will probably start getting Changed in-jokes fairly quickly as more Changed writers and actors come on staff. Some of the jokes may verge on Veil-breaking too, but viewers would discount as visual FX.

Procedurals/Drama's, business as normal but more Change-related stories. Maulings and gorings investigated on CSI's (along with strange fingerprints/bootprints, hair samples, etc...), Without a Trace investigating people who disappear after Change Day, maybe even a TG mystery. Numb3rs maybe touching on the Change rate (imagine Chris brought in as an advisor for an ep ? :) ). House or ER dealing with a Changed patient and/or Changed doctors/nurses.

And finally (for now) Sci Fi/Fantasy shows will probably find themselves in a very difficult position. On the one hand, they'd be ideal to start exploring the Change itself. On the other hand, as long as the Field is in effect, they can't really explore them since they'd have to turn normals into Furry's (or dress furry's in fursuits). Plus, a show's setting may not exactly be ideal for adjusting to the Change. "SG-1/Atlantis" may be able to adjust (turn it into an Ori curse or something), but Terminator would have a harder time. Heroes could probably pull it off, but BSG? Unlikely. (Imagine them finding 'Earth' but it's a Furry Earth... Hmmm...)

Anyways, that's just some of my rambling thoughts on the TV of the near future, for what its worth.

:There's a simple way to make furries show up in Television. Simply use the polarized lenses as featured in Open Secrets on the video camera units. The image of the furries would pass through the polarized lenses onto the film. The film would record the true image in the same way that people would see the true image. Boom, RDF circumvented. --[[User:MatthiasRat|MatthiasRat]] 12:26, 28 January 2009 (EST)

:: True those would work. But everyone involved for those scenes would have to Know or questions would be raised. Depending on the scene and production. (Thouhg some could be handwaved, as long as the producer/editors Know. "Bob's gonna play the part of a man-rat for this scene. We'll CG-replace him in Editing afterward"

::--[[User:Jetfire|Jetfire]] 12:33, 28 January 2009 (EST)

::: Well, at the very least, the cameraman is going to be in the know fast! Actually, I could see something like this being done once things go public. We could have a documentary on the early Changed (while you can still get human actors!), and you'd have some cameras with the filter on it and some without so you could show what the Changed sees and what the unsuspecting humans around him see. --[[User:98.236.12.68|98.236.12.68]] 05:14, 29 January 2009 (EST)

:::: That is happening to some extent, though not with the filters yet. Shiloh (and her new boyfriend newly Changed this year) are doing what they can to document the Change and how it affects lives as it happens (on the side from their main jobs), and I'm sure she's far from alone on this.

:::: Once more Documentary makers get ahold of this and it goes public, I'm sure there will be more too.

::::--[[User:Jetfire|Jetfire]] 10:33, 29 January 2009 (EST)

== Furries in Space? ==

OK Time for even more thoughts from me. :) Endeavor's launch last night triggered this thought.

I'm not going to elaborate, but is anyone watching the ISS crew for change symptoms? Or the shuttle crew if they're up? A Change up there could be Veil breaking just because of the amount of attention and lack of privacy those people have. (not to mention the extreme circumstances they'd be under).

The Change itself could very well spell the end of Manned space flight for the next few decades in the end.

Not sure if it would spell the end of manned space flight but yeah even just an examination of the air filter would find stuff that couldn't have gotten up there any other way.--[[User:Devin|Devin]] 19:16, 11 March 2008 (EDT)

:I'm sure it'd be the end of manned space flight for quite some time simply for economic reasons if nothing else. This is going to be rather disruptive and there'll probably be a bit of a budget pinch. [[User:Bryan|Bryan]] 19:21, 18 March 2008 (EDT)

==The Reality Distortion Field is Real ==

Sadly, not the one you have in mind: http://apple.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/03/18/2117208 :) [[User:Bryan|Bryan]] 19:21, 18 March 2008 (EDT)

== Bats? ==

Just a question about the species: I've noticed you put aside birds for now, but what about bats?--[[User:142.68.130.19|142.68.130.19]] 23:52, 1 April 2008 (EDT)

:Bats will put a huge strain on the Veil. If/when they do show up, it might be coming down by then anyway. --[[User:JonBuck|Buck]] 00:36, 2 April 2008 (EDT)

== Farming in Paradise ==

Just shooting an idea in here for later. [http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/04/080410153658.htm This is the technology] widely deployed it the Paradise setting. But put the clock back ten years (1997 discovery, widespread global deployment by 2008). Biochar/agrichar. With any luck, the Green Revolution will be replaced with the Black Gold Revolution quickly. --[[User:JonBuck|Buck]] 03:27, 15 April 2008 (EDT)

== BioFuels ==

Jon, you're beginning to scare me a bit. :P

This was just on Slashdot this morning: [http://www.utexas.edu/news/2008/04/23/biofuel_microbe/ New Source for Biofuels Discovered by Researchers At The University of Texas at Austin]

Basically, some bacteria that can make cellulose which can be turned to fuel, and the cellulose can be harvested without harming the bacteria.
--[[User:Jetfire|Jetfire]] 06:10, 25 April 2008 (EDT)

:I read about this yesterday. They hope to increase production efficiency 17-fold because otherwise, you'd have to cover the ''entire'' Midwest with this. Unfortunately it won't happen fast enough to prevent the shortages I know are coming.

:I read about this stuff every day. I mean, ''every'' day. --[[User:JonBuck|Buck]] 14:19, 25 April 2008 (EDT)

Another bit of news: [http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article4133668.ece "Scientists find bugs that eat waste and excrete petrol."] --[[User:JonBuck|Buck]] 11:12, 15 June 2008 (EDT)

== The Chicago Ghost Killer ==

After having seen countless videos of Persona 3 on youtube, and having played the .hack//GU games, and having read about this setting repeatedly, this idea was born out of my skull. It doesn't really fit with the setting per-say, (people dealing with expected changes in their lives and the changing of culture as truth becomes harder and harder to keep hidden), but it's still interesting.

Imagine if once the number of furries hits the thousand mark or close to it (1997), a strange series of murders begin in Chiago and wander outwards. To normal police and investigators these people have -nothing- in common, just random innocent people. But the furries know that every single person killed was a furry! Now this is where things start to get weird.

When seen by furries, the killer is a lanky laid back twenty something raven haired young man whose expression almost always remains passive wearing semi-formal dark clothes with a revolver in one hand and spare bullets in the opposite pocket.

When the police just about anyone else whose effected by the perception filter see him, they see 'Average Joe' or 'Face You Can't Help But Forget' and never ever notice the weapon he's holding unless he hits them with it or shoots them or something just as drastic. It is also is picked up by metal detectors the same as any metal gun. In other words, his existence, is like the existence of furriness to normal humans, his existence effects them, but they can't notice him directly.

This guy always knows a furry when he sees one regardless of media or medium, or reads one, this include file records of people TGed by the virus. When he spots one or finds out about one, he calmly location that person, in order of him learning about them, and shoot that person in the head without fanfare then simply move on to the next one.

Physically his strength and speed are all perfectly average human, meaning a bear or tiger furry could easy tear him apart.

Strange thing is that if profiled, no records of him will turn up, anywhere!

Also, he might even begin to appear DIFFERENTLY to people who are under the effect of the perception filter. He can't appear as a furry, and can NEVER EVER appear as a precise person (he can't appear as someone's mother or brother). But he can ultimately change how people look at him, they see a five year old girl with a teddy bear opposed to a man with a revolver even if he STILL can't fit in a toy car for the life of him and that 'bear' might go off if someone else 'hugs' it, (which he'd avoid someone doing at all posts). He could also appear as a fire fighter or police officer if he gets clever enough. Though furries will -always- see through this disguise. Along with any human whose able to see furries without effort.

The Chicago Ghost Killer never attacks non-changed humans, and will never take a shot if there's a reasonable chance of shooting a non-changed person.

He travels by mundane methods, he always travels by the most practical and speedy method and always has the correct change or ticket (this is not an illusion). His taxi, train, or airplane never crash.

If detained for questioning, he might just walk straight out of the police station unless some of the cops are furries. If stripped of his weapon and ammo next time he shows up he'll have a new set perfectly identical to the last one down to the imperfections in the casing.

Now this is where things get ambiguous. I don't know if he's killed he just appears in Chicago the day after the change again each year, or weather two different people with abilities similar to his appear in his stead these armed with a crossbow and another one shot distance weapon.

Since deleting the entire universe is not an option, The Chicago Ghost Killer might be an emergency fail safe to try and cut off the infected flesh from the system.

His name comes from where he started killing (strangely the same place as the changes began) and the fact that to normal humans he IS like a ghost, there yet not there but decidedly felt.

I know this doesn't really fit with the setting at all, but I just had to share it with the only people who'd appreciate it.

Thank you.

- Alex Warlorn. 2008 06 15

:And his name is Agent Johnathan Walker Smith, is it? Seems like a Matrix Agent to me... (unsigned comment)
::Actually I don't think he'd -have- a name, or even know the true nature of the world, he'd just know what he -had- to do and how to do it and how he can do it.-- Alex Warlorn

== Octuplets born in California ==

Things that make you go Hmmmm....

8 babies at once
Planning to breast feed them all.
Names not being released (yet).

Could we have a changed couple hiding out there from the glare of the media spotlight? :)

--[[User:Jetfire|Jetfire]] 15:25, 27 January 2009 (EST)

=='''Future RDF Failure'''==

I'm starting to work out ideas about how the RDF would fail. My current thinking is that it will work on a small scale first. Visually, there would be a "refraction", like seeing your own eyes through your glasses. Or your leg halfway in a pool. This is the "Refraction Effect". These are places where the RDF has been removed, like a section of glass, revealing the Real World underneath. It's gone. The visual effect makes it clear a border's been crossed. I'm not sure ''when'' this is going to happen. Probably sometime near the US Gov wants to go public. --[[User:JonBuck|Buck]] 07:57, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

===Weirdness Censor?===

I've been thinking about an "RDF Lite" that could basically act as a Weirdness Censor instead of the full blown see-furries-as-humans version that exists right now. There'd still be social upheaval, but not the civilization-ending type that would most likely happen. I'm very likely going to do this in After Hours, but I want to do it right. --[[User:JonBuck|Buck]] 23:37, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

==The "Posthuman" World ==

In order to differentiate this setting from WoC more, I'm going to keep a certain number of regular humans in the furry world that results when the virus runs its course. Same rules as other furry types as far as parent-child species. --[[User:JonBuck|Buck]] 19:41, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

:No offense, but that feels like a cop-out to me. As someone else pointed out, a computer virus is NOT going to simply 'burn itself out' a computer virus continues like any program infinitely unless it's directly ordered to. Once it runs out of humans to transform, it'll start to transform furries into other species, and become even more chaotic as time progresses. I just feels cheap the virus suddenly just stops, and it doesn't make sense form a programming point of view either since it would open MANY MORE cans of worms anyway. -- Alex Warlorn June 15 2009

::Okay. How to address this? A lot of my ideas for this setting comes from Charles Stross's work, which can get pretty mind-bending at times. ''Accelerando, Glasshouse, Singularity Sky'', and ''Iron Sunrise'' all come to mind. One of my basic assumptions is that the Furry Virus is itself sentient/sapient, but it's not ''quite'' as smart as the transhuman intelligence running the Simulation Space that is our universe (down to the Planck Length).

::The RDF was a last-ditch effort to maintain the experiment as it was. We're all a bunch of microbes, as far as ROB is concerned. But It's not the type of Being to just chuck the whole experiment into the incinerator and start over. At this point ROB has scrapped the original experiment in favor of trying to prevent our little petri dish universe from going completely bad. So, 1) contain the Furry Virus, and 2) prevent it from doing any more damage beyond 2020 by creating a specific End State. The FV remains, but it becomes an uncommon chronic disease.

::Frankly, now that furries and the TGed have been Outed ROB may even stop the history editing. More obvious actions include: Refilling dead oilfields, creating social conditions so humans aren't really surprised at the Change. There are probably all kinds of countermeasures ROB has done that I haven't thought of in order to keep people from going ''crazy crazy'' and incinerating their own petri dish. --[[User:JonBuck|Buck]] 03:57, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

:::I was thinking of a similar idea, but in a programming context as opposed to a biological one, and ''very'' limited. Think of every person as an element of an array, i.e. Human[]. An algorithm designed to change the values of every element, like the furry virus is doing, would most likely go from 0 to some constant POPULATION_HUMAN. In that case, ROB might be able to circumvent the effects for the virus for a select few by assigning people to special values: NULL, NaN, -1, MAX_INT, INFINITY, or other predefined numbers, even those that aren't considered "special" to humans. The purpose of this would be to preserve ''some'' unaltered "data" for purposes not important to us, and it can't be done for all humans because of the effort or memory required to "manually" fix so many values.

:::Conversely, perhaps ROB will let the virus run its course so It can then safely run a variation of the virus to turn everyone back into humans. That would be another interesting take: when the world's furry in 2020, how will everyone feel when they find out they'll all be human again by about 2055, depending on population, and perhaps if the same thing happens in cycles? ...

:::...Or if it turns out that life has been this way for a long, ''long'' time. Thinking back to what ROB has been able to do, this is easily within Its power. -- [[User:MisterBackground|MisterBackground]] 05:31, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

::::ROB figures it's best to let the virus run its course then neutralize it like I've described. Perhaps ROB's reworking the Experiment to account for the new changes.--[[User:JonBuck|Buck]] 06:04, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

:::::Colons! Colons as far as the eye can see! Ahaha.

:::::One little problem I had with ''Accelerando'' (though I did indeed love it in all other respects) was how completely unfathomable the Higher Beings were. You never could figure out what their reasons were for anything…and in fact, in all their interactions with the remnants of pre-Singularity humanity, they mostly seemed to delight in "poking the anthill". Sending boatloads of recreations of historical and fictitious characters out to that space station just to mess with humanity's minds. And not only could you not ask them why, you wouldn't be able to understand their answer if you did. Hence, one of the things that you hope you learn in the end—the question of "why?"—is forever unanswered.

:::::It would be kind of nice to have some of the characters eventually be able to confront ROB and the virus and ask them what the deal was, but I'm not holding my breath any. —[[User:Robotech Master|Robotech Master]] 06:22, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

::::::I'm very, ''very'' careful not to jump the shark. But at the very least ROB does have some empathy for us microbes. While ROB does do some "resimulation" for TGed folk, it absolutely ''will not'' alter memories because that would cause personality death.

::::::Paradise is more similar too ''[http://www.amazon.com/Darwinia-Novel-Different-Twentieth-Century/dp/0812566629 Darwinia]'' than ''Accelerando''. --[[User:JonBuck|Buck]] 18:58, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

:::Another possibility I just thought about: perhaps this isn't the act of a virus at all. Instead this is the fix to an ancient "Human Virus" that infected the universe, and it's just restoring the original experiment (or whatever). Or if you ''really'' want to throw people off: humanity ''is'' the virus itself, and this is how ROB is solving the problem. -- [[User:MisterBackground|MisterBackground]] 07:25, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

::Well, to be fair, this is a post-Singularity virus. Nobody ever said it was strictly one-function only. For all we know, it may have a behavioral change programmed into it. "Take Z action until condition A is met, then switch to taking Y action until condition B is met, etc." Or heck, the virus itself may be a sentient/sapient digital life form with free will, fully able to "change its mind" when it wants to. Certainly there is some intelligent agency at work behind the Reality Distortion Field that has already shown the ability to change its own behavior or react to changes in infected people's situations (changing TG furs' "ghosts"—and all extant records—from male to female when they get pregnant, for instance). No reason the virus can't be the same way. —[[User:Robotech Master|Robotech Master]] 23:32, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

:How is that going to work? I'm not sure how humanity can propagate by the "same rules" as other furry types given that it's been established humans and furres are not able to interbreed. Perhaps there might be an inverse of the Sleeping Sickness (a Waking Sickness? :) which causes furries to randomly mutate back into human in addition to the other types of furry form? —[[User:Robotech Master|Robotech Master]] 22:31, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

::Two thoughts: 1) In 2021 there's a group of humans worldwide who don't Change. They're simply the one species among many. After this point they can breed with furres because the RDF is down anyway. Perhaps they can already do this in Bubbled areas in 2010. 2) Human forms can be a recessional trait that shows up on occasion, between two furres.

::Furry babies already look ''very'' human due to a type of neoteny. Even the herbivores like horses and deer have very stubby muzzles. It looks more like a mask when they're born. Within two years those muzzle stubs grow the "baby animal" proportions, then as normal. They're generally more thinly furred for those first two years also. I keep thinking of puppies. No matter what the breed, they all look ''extremely'' similar when newborn. Same will be true in this setting. --[[User:JonBuck|Buck]] 23:55, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

Additionally, TG and TF will continue. I'm thinking of something akin to Matthias' character, with random changes. It'll be considered a chronic disease. And the severe forms ''can'' kill you. --[[User:JonBuck|Buck]] 06:40, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

== Possibly the first occurance of ROB ==

As I mentioned when I introduced him, ROB (Random Omnipotent Being) comes from some other message boards I regularly view/visit. Well someone seems to have found what may have been the first occurrence of ROB. [http://forums.spacebattles.com/showthread.php?t=53955] Pretty humble beginnings for him if you ask me. :) (His brother, COROB (Crossover Obsessed Random Omnipotent Being) similarly had humble beginnings a month or so later. [http://forums.spacebattles.com/showthread.php?t=55397] )

Talk:Paradise (Setting)

2009-06-16T05:36:50Z

MisterBackground: /* The "Posthuman" World */

It's an interesting setting, what I've read so far, and I've got an idea or two percolating that may or may not come to fruition. A seed is trying to sprout for an idea starting in '05 and going forward.

One little detail though, (and it doesn't really apply to me but may for others), removing hippo's, rhino's and elephants from the pool seems to be a bit speciest, considering moose are allowed. In looking at the Wiki, it seems that hippos (1.5meters) and rhinos (2.0 meters) are actually generally smaller or the same size as the largest moose (2.1 metres) species. Elephants seem to average about a meter or two larger than the moose.

Perhaps a better restriction would be to allow any land mammal (and any sea mammal that is between the sizes of the minimum land mammal size and the maximum land mammal size), but set minimum and maximum furre sizes; something like a min of 1.2 metres or 4ft to a max of 2.0 metres or 7ft.

Anyways, I'll try and keep an eye on things and see if I can culture this idea I've got further. - 19:50, 10 January 2008 [[User:Jetfire|Jetfire]]

== Theory on how the Change 'spreads' ==

Been thinking about how it might spread, such that we have a higher proportion of Changed in NA, but not leaving the rest of the world out, and I think I know how.

The 'computer virus' that Changes people, uses the RDF to spread itself. Our 'program's' own protection method is also spreading the damages.

Basically, I am guessing that if the RDF needs to kick in on you, then you are passively 'infected'.

Then, when August 17th comes around, the Virus triggers itself, but it for whatever reason can only copy itself for every previously Changed person. (The Doubling effect), and it can only affect people that have been passively infected, ie people who have had the RDF kick in on them.

The goal of the virus is to spread as far as it can, so it takes the number of new Changed it can, and spreads it more or less evenly across the available (RDF-affected) population.

So the first Changed is in Chicago (I think). Through the year until the next Change, she will encounter thousands of people, even in passing, which triggers the RDF on them and passively infects them.

Come August, 1988, the next Changed will be picked randomly from those thousands of people, and now we'll have 2 people spreading the RDF virus. 1989, a big chunk of Chicago has probably had the RDF trigger at least once, not to mention some tourists and other visitors to the city.

In 89, we get 2 more Changed, and one of them could possibly be in a different random city, just because he'd been to Chicago in the past 2 years and unknowingly seen a Changed, and a new nest of RDF-field affected people starts up.

European and Asian and Oceanic outbreaks could happen in years to come as the number of tourists and business people from those reasons travel into North America and begin to be fielded and infected themselves.

The 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City probably 'infected' most of the people who were around and watching, meaning that by then (if not before) pretty much anyone has a chance to be Changed.

It also means that truly isolated areas of the world (South Pacific islands, isolated Amazonian tribes, etc) could potentially be unchanged after the 2020 deadline; but any encounter at all with a Changed would likely Change them immediately and spread like wildfire through the village)

And while the RDF may 'fail' at some point, it'll probably still be around in a less effective form, trying to maintain some stability and spreading the Change. --[[User:Jetfire|Jetfire]]
:I'll give that some thought. It's somewhat similar to something I already had in mind. Perhaps those who have the RDF fail completely will be much more likely to change the next year, or they might even change out-of-phase. In any case, once they figure out that it's like a communicable disease, and everyone is already 'infected', the remaining humans will go nuts. --[[User:JonBuck|Buck]] 12:35, 27 January 2008 (EST)

== Change and disabilities? ==

I keep forgetting to bring this up on IRC, but how do people (as in writers and other interested people in this setting) think disabilities would be affected by the change? Both Mental and Physical?

Would a paraplegic who lost his legs in an accident regrow them if he changed? Would he regain the use of them if they weren't lost but just disabled? (back injury)? What about false teeth, deafness, blindness, etc?

What if the cause was not from a physical accident, but was viral or bacterial in nature? Some disease struck them blind? Would they stay blind?

And what if the disabilities were genetic? Would those genetic flaws still show in the new form?

Finally, what about mental disabilities? Could the Change 'cure' Alzheimer's? Would it affect someone who is literally a brain dead vegetable on life support?

If it does have curative properties, I suspect we'll start seeing more and more miracle cures (assuming they can survive the flu) in the years to come. Which may imply that there'll be a push in the early to mid 2010's to just keep someone alive as long as possible in the home they Change and are cured/fixed.

Thoughts?

--[[User:Jetfire|Jetfire]] 11:00, 4 February 2008 (EST)

:I think there are good arguments to be made for some healing properties of the Change, but I wouldn't make it go all out. A person missing a limb should still be missing a limb after the change (I have in mind a scene with a one-armed pianist who goes monkey and starts playing with his feet).

:When it comes to things like Alzheimer's, that is a much more difficult choice. I don't see mental retardation being suddenly healed by the Change, as that is a birth defect (and such things happen in animals too). But progressive diseases may backtrack, even if the conditions begin to return over time. That could make an even more painful story, somebody suffering from Alzheimer's, who Changes and now recognizes all his family again. But after a year or so everything starts to slip away again...

:Anyway, the whole keeping folks alive and hoping for a Change could make a good dynamic too. I just think there's a lot fo possibilities to consider before we make a decision on this. --[[User:MatthiasRat|MatthiasRat]] 12:24, 4 February 2008 (EST)
::I'm inclined to do as Matthias suggests. It's more or less what I had in mind. However, one of the things that the Change does is it puts everyone in very good health. Even being a 300 pound female bear, CM is in very good shape. It will cure some ailments, and put chronic diseases into remission. Those developments will confuse the medical community enough without regrowing limbs or curing Down's Syndrome. But if you've read the latest Tall Tales, ROB is being forced to act more openly. --[[User:JonBuck|Buck]] 15:40, 4 February 2008 (EST)

:What happens to medical devices like heart pacemakers or hip replacements that were implanted in people before they changed? --[[User:JeniSkunk|Jenifur Charne]] 20:45, 10 February 2008 (EST)

::That's basically an open-ended question. I'm going to leave the answer to that one unsaid because I think it'd be a good Plot Point in a story. A furry episode of ''House'' maybe? --[[User:JonBuck|Buck]] 22:45, 10 February 2008 (EST)

::Late into the discussion, but better late than never. : ) Anyway, what about things like fillings and caps on teeth? Going to a dentist would be interesting. Going another step, outside medical devices wouldn't fit anymore and would bring up some unique delimas. What about people with prosthetics? If someone turns into a bear, I'm sure their leg isn't going to fit anymore, yet Unknown will wonder why they make such a claim all of a sudden. Lots of places to go with these stories. [[User:Tinbender|Tinbender]] 21:24, 5 May 2008 (EDT)

Hey, not really sure on any of the points raised, have to give it some thought. One thing to consider though is can anthro's act as a bridge to humans for viruses that currently only affect animals?--[[User:Devin|Devin]] 23:35, 10 February 2008 (EST)

== A mortal analysis of Paradise ==

Lets me see if I get some of the details right.

There is a post-singularity Uber-computer, that when projected into 3-space, has the same consistency as humanity's combined thumbnail and happens to be running a simulation of the events leading up to its own creation. Secondly, it gets infected by a super-bug/virus that makes borg nano-probes look overly large and cumbersome. Said post-singularity, sentient, ROB-type entity/ virus changes some lines of code (if such things can be referred to as such) in reference to the people in the simulation, in and around the vicinity of Chicago (maybe the super-bug's designers had way-distant ancestors from there, or whose ancestors had a grudge against the place). The Uber-comp, in a flash of inspiration counters with the 'firewall-from-not-heck', or RDF as we understand it. The ROB is still successful with its dastardly and despicable plan to make the simulated history end differently.

That I get as far as it can be understood by a three-dimensional entity not particularly versed in post-singularity, multi-dimensional physics and computational theory.

The RDF, The Veil, The "Really-Annoying-Mess-Up-Everyones-Lives" Field, appears to start collapsing or 'twisting' in several personal accounts. In fact, it would seem that there are certain individuals who have appeared to figure out means of 'gazing-past' the gaps in said previously mentioned field even though they do not have one of their own. Yes it has been theorized that they will soon fall victim to the ROB, however, consider that all of this is in one sense mere coding (albeit it happens to be far more complex than that), and that said people are taking advantage of 'bugs' in the code. How many bugs are there? Is it possible for someone (probably a changed, or mad scientist) to 'tune' or 'tinker' with the field, probably no more than tweaks to appearance or color? I know the Primary Engineer Of This Work has stated that there are no 'powers', but then again, this is all just code, and hackers can sometimes be just mortal.

Just a thought or two. I should probably stop this monologue before a super spy shows up.
~midon~

:You're pretty close overall, though the simulation doesn't necessarily have to be of the ROB's own creation. Human Earth could be something It came up with all by Itself. Another book that's similar to what I've come up with here is ''[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darwinia_(novel) Darwinia]''. Someone suggested that the best thing for the ROB to do is to restore from backup. The thing is, these are still people. ROB doesn't have a moral problem with allowing them to die within the sim, but will act to protect both itself and its people from an outside threat. Hence the RDF and other measures.--[[User:JonBuck|Buck]] 17:46, 4 February 2008 (EST)

== Thinking far future... ==

First, to make it VERY clear, I am NOT thinking of any stories or anything set in the 2020 period yet. I've just been thinking of how the world may be like by then, as the last half are about to change.

I suspect there would be a mix of celebration (the last humans are joining us!) and mourning (humans will no longer be as they were). Regionally, there will probably be searches for the "last human baby", the ones born days/hours before the last Aug 17 change; they'd probably be local celebrities, similar to "New Years Babies"

And in 2021, the nervousness would start. Is the change source gone? Is it mutating? Are we going to change further? Or into something else now? For the Changed Generation, that little shiver of fear every August 17th will probably persist until they are all gone.

All that assumes civilization hasn't fallen apart by then of course. :)

--[[User:Jetfire|Jetfire]] 10:42, 25 February 2008 (EST)

== Summer Olympics ==

This was nagging at the back of my mind a bit, but I finally nailed it down to actually check dates:

:"The 2008 Summer Olympics, officially known as the Games of the XXIX Olympiad, will be celebrated from August 8, 2008 to August 24, 2008".

For the record, the 2004 Olympics also just straddled the Change day, having started on Aug 13th. No other Summer Olympics have straddled Change day, but the 1996 games ended just before it, and the Paralympic Games that year did straddle the Change day.

The 2012 games in London curiously have a break between the end of the Olympics on Aug 12, 2012, and the start of the Paralympics on Aug 29.

Just something to think about for writers out there. :)

--[[User:Jetfire|Jetfire]] 10:07, 27 February 2008 (EST)

:The Change takes place right in the middle of the Olympics. All it takes is for one or two athletes to change to gum up the works. These people are already in top physical shape, too. But what happens when a swimmer becomes a dolphin, an otter, or perhaps something that doesn't swim well? I don't think the RDF can handle becoming as large as a rhino. They'll still displace an awful lot of water when they splash in.

:I'll have to mention this in Open Secrets.

:--[[User:JonBuck|Buck]] 14:53, 27 February 2008 (EST)

::At least the illness will be a bit of a cover. Depending on how many Changed athletes there are, (both active and new Changed), the illness could be used to skip out on some events out of necessity.

::Still the pressure to perform, even if their form is inappropriate for the sport (A Bull trying to do a polevault or the triathlon in general? A bear for gymnastics? A Mouse in weightlifting? ) will be intense

::There would probably be a lot of discussion when a star athlete suddenly isn't performing as well as they did before.

::Of course, a few years after that, the Beijing Olympics here will probably end up with a * like the LA and Moscow Olympics, as people find out about the Change and the number of ringers (otters in swimming events, felines and primates in gymnastics, gazelles and cheetahs in track events, bears and bulls in weight lifting, etc...) semi-intentionally sent by the various countries. We could very well see TTC-level problems happening in Olympic Village.

--[[User:Jetfire|Jetfire]] 15:07, 27 February 2008 (EST)

== What happens ''after'' 2020? ==

Point one: Computer programs are never ''intrinsically'' equipped with an off-switch. Rather, a shutdown condition must be explicitly coded into a program -- and any program which ''lacks'' an explicit shutdown condition, will continue to chug merrily along until something hardware-ish gets in the way.

Point two: The Change is the result of a 'furry virus", ''i.e.,'' a '''computer program'''.

2020 is when the entire planetary population will be furry... but who's to say the 'furry virus' won't ''continue'' to do its thing, Changing people year in and year out, with each year's quantity of Changes being double that of the year before? We know that being Changed is ''not'' an absolute protection against the 'furry virus' -- the setting rules themselves ''explicitly allow'' previously-Changed people to get hit with another dose of Change, after all -- so ''either'' (a) the 'furry virus' ''does'' have an explicitly-coded off-switch, or else (b) starting in 2020, an ever-increasing number of people are going to end up Changing ''two or more times in any given year.''

If the 'furry virus' ''has'' a built-in off-switch, that begs the question of what, exactly, its shutdown condition ''is.'' Does it stop spreading/infecting when there's no unchanged Human left, is it waiting for some specific event or combination of events before it quits, or what? Perhaps the guy who wrote the 'furry virus' did so with the specific intent of encouraging ROB to make [insert specific changes here] in ROB's virtual world, such that the results of those changes are the virus's 'off-switch'?

If, on the other hand, the 'furry virus' has ''no'' built-in brakes, things can get weird, fast. People have already floated the notion of Changes happening "out of season"; what if these 'unscheduled' Changes are merely a harbinger of things to come, in which people can be re-zapped at any time of year, an arbitrarily large number of times per year? It may be instructive, or at least amusing, to extrapolate the data given in "The Numbers", and divide each year's expected number of Changes by the expected population for that year: In 2020, there's 1.12 Changes per person (perhaps every human being Changes, regardless of their current state, and there's a 12% chance of one guy Changing ''twice?).'' Since we're basically talking about a doubling function, it only takes until 2024 for every ex-human to be an involuntary member of the Change Of The Month Club (because there's a touch over 17 Changes per person that year), and the Change Of The '''Day''' Club starts up in 2029 (during which year there's a bit less than 514 Changes per person per year). In 2034, the extrapolated number of Changes per person for that year is significantly over 15,000 (which works out to about 7/4 of a Change ''per hour,'' every hour, for every human being); by 2040, we hit 1.75 Changes per ''minute;'' 2046 is when every human being starts to hit 1 Change per ''second.''

To repeat what I said above: Things get weird, fast.

Obviously, the above figures are ridiculous, since they're derived from mindless extrapolation of an exponential curve. Perhaps the most sensible way to go is to presume that ROB manages to ''do'' something about the metatstasizing 'furry virus' no later than 2025 or so. In any case, one hopes said figures at least provide a bit of food for thought... [[User:Cubist|Cubist]] 05:03, 10 March 2008 (EDT)

== Change and the Media ==

It's probably a sign that I watch WAY too much TV, but it's a theme that's been in the back of my mind (man that back area's getting mighty crowded with ideas). As the Change progresses, even with the Veil in place, more and more effects of the Change will start showing up in other ways, and it will become more and more 'public' even if the Unchanged won't really know what is going on. I suspect TV shows especially will begin to show a lot of these.

This is just some of my rambling thoughts on what the TV Cable signals might be sending to the screens of the Changed near-Future.

Reality TV in all its forms will probably be the first to really start showing the effects of the Changed, since they tend to have the fastest turnaround time and the most contact with non-actors. Court shows (like I wrote in my short story case) will have more and more cases of Changed vs Norms and even weird Changed vs Changed cases. "He won't share the nail clippers!" "She gifted me the money for the vacation to Alaska in January")

Gameshows also will start having more Changed contestants, especially popular ones like Price is Right.

And then you have the Survivor types. Show's like "Top Model" and "Bachelor(ette)" and "Blind Date" (especially given the Change's habit of giving the Changed Eye-turning bodies) will probably have the most Changed on a show early on (whether intentionally or unintentionally).

Home Makeover shows may start seeing even weirder designs as designers/homeowners remake rooms to give room for antlers or bigger buttons for hoof fingers and such. (We thought Frank's designs on Trading Spaces were weird BEFORE he Changed... :P )

Amazing Race may have a Changed Team soon; a few Changed in the Big Brother House (probably intentionally put in there by a Changed Studio staffer), and the next Survivor or two would probably have some contestants.

Once the Field comes down, I fully expect CBS to roll out a "Furries vs Normals" Survivor while they can.

Now onto more tasteful TV. (arguably :P )

Cartoons? (what few new ones that are made) will likely start having more and more of a furry bend to them. Hallowe'en specials may turn 'human' toons into furry ones as experiments to transition shows.

Soaps? Expect Change stories fairly soon I dare say. I don't watch them myself, but from what I've heard of some storylines they've done in the past, the Change isn't all that strange. These writers will probably be chaffing at the restrictions of the Field the most.

Sitcoms will probably start getting Changed in-jokes fairly quickly as more Changed writers and actors come on staff. Some of the jokes may verge on Veil-breaking too, but viewers would discount as visual FX.

Procedurals/Drama's, business as normal but more Change-related stories. Maulings and gorings investigated on CSI's (along with strange fingerprints/bootprints, hair samples, etc...), Without a Trace investigating people who disappear after Change Day, maybe even a TG mystery. Numb3rs maybe touching on the Change rate (imagine Chris brought in as an advisor for an ep ? :) ). House or ER dealing with a Changed patient and/or Changed doctors/nurses.

And finally (for now) Sci Fi/Fantasy shows will probably find themselves in a very difficult position. On the one hand, they'd be ideal to start exploring the Change itself. On the other hand, as long as the Field is in effect, they can't really explore them since they'd have to turn normals into Furry's (or dress furry's in fursuits). Plus, a show's setting may not exactly be ideal for adjusting to the Change. "SG-1/Atlantis" may be able to adjust (turn it into an Ori curse or something), but Terminator would have a harder time. Heroes could probably pull it off, but BSG? Unlikely. (Imagine them finding 'Earth' but it's a Furry Earth... Hmmm...)

Anyways, that's just some of my rambling thoughts on the TV of the near future, for what its worth.

:There's a simple way to make furries show up in Television. Simply use the polarized lenses as featured in Open Secrets on the video camera units. The image of the furries would pass through the polarized lenses onto the film. The film would record the true image in the same way that people would see the true image. Boom, RDF circumvented. --[[User:MatthiasRat|MatthiasRat]] 12:26, 28 January 2009 (EST)

:: True those would work. But everyone involved for those scenes would have to Know or questions would be raised. Depending on the scene and production. (Thouhg some could be handwaved, as long as the producer/editors Know. "Bob's gonna play the part of a man-rat for this scene. We'll CG-replace him in Editing afterward"

::--[[User:Jetfire|Jetfire]] 12:33, 28 January 2009 (EST)

::: Well, at the very least, the cameraman is going to be in the know fast! Actually, I could see something like this being done once things go public. We could have a documentary on the early Changed (while you can still get human actors!), and you'd have some cameras with the filter on it and some without so you could show what the Changed sees and what the unsuspecting humans around him see. --[[User:98.236.12.68|98.236.12.68]] 05:14, 29 January 2009 (EST)

:::: That is happening to some extent, though not with the filters yet. Shiloh (and her new boyfriend newly Changed this year) are doing what they can to document the Change and how it affects lives as it happens (on the side from their main jobs), and I'm sure she's far from alone on this.

:::: Once more Documentary makers get ahold of this and it goes public, I'm sure there will be more too.

::::--[[User:Jetfire|Jetfire]] 10:33, 29 January 2009 (EST)

== Furries in Space? ==

OK Time for even more thoughts from me. :) Endeavor's launch last night triggered this thought.

I'm not going to elaborate, but is anyone watching the ISS crew for change symptoms? Or the shuttle crew if they're up? A Change up there could be Veil breaking just because of the amount of attention and lack of privacy those people have. (not to mention the extreme circumstances they'd be under).

The Change itself could very well spell the end of Manned space flight for the next few decades in the end.

Not sure if it would spell the end of manned space flight but yeah even just an examination of the air filter would find stuff that couldn't have gotten up there any other way.--[[User:Devin|Devin]] 19:16, 11 March 2008 (EDT)

:I'm sure it'd be the end of manned space flight for quite some time simply for economic reasons if nothing else. This is going to be rather disruptive and there'll probably be a bit of a budget pinch. [[User:Bryan|Bryan]] 19:21, 18 March 2008 (EDT)

==The Reality Distortion Field is Real ==

Sadly, not the one you have in mind: http://apple.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/03/18/2117208 :) [[User:Bryan|Bryan]] 19:21, 18 March 2008 (EDT)

== Bats? ==

Just a question about the species: I've noticed you put aside birds for now, but what about bats?--[[User:142.68.130.19|142.68.130.19]] 23:52, 1 April 2008 (EDT)

:Bats will put a huge strain on the Veil. If/when they do show up, it might be coming down by then anyway. --[[User:JonBuck|Buck]] 00:36, 2 April 2008 (EDT)

== Farming in Paradise ==

Just shooting an idea in here for later. [http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/04/080410153658.htm This is the technology] widely deployed it the Paradise setting. But put the clock back ten years (1997 discovery, widespread global deployment by 2008). Biochar/agrichar. With any luck, the Green Revolution will be replaced with the Black Gold Revolution quickly. --[[User:JonBuck|Buck]] 03:27, 15 April 2008 (EDT)

== BioFuels ==

Jon, you're beginning to scare me a bit. :P

This was just on Slashdot this morning: [http://www.utexas.edu/news/2008/04/23/biofuel_microbe/ New Source for Biofuels Discovered by Researchers At The University of Texas at Austin]

Basically, some bacteria that can make cellulose which can be turned to fuel, and the cellulose can be harvested without harming the bacteria.
--[[User:Jetfire|Jetfire]] 06:10, 25 April 2008 (EDT)

:I read about this yesterday. They hope to increase production efficiency 17-fold because otherwise, you'd have to cover the ''entire'' Midwest with this. Unfortunately it won't happen fast enough to prevent the shortages I know are coming.

:I read about this stuff every day. I mean, ''every'' day. --[[User:JonBuck|Buck]] 14:19, 25 April 2008 (EDT)

Another bit of news: [http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article4133668.ece "Scientists find bugs that eat waste and excrete petrol."] --[[User:JonBuck|Buck]] 11:12, 15 June 2008 (EDT)

== The Chicago Ghost Killer ==

After having seen countless videos of Persona 3 on youtube, and having played the .hack//GU games, and having read about this setting repeatedly, this idea was born out of my skull. It doesn't really fit with the setting per-say, (people dealing with expected changes in their lives and the changing of culture as truth becomes harder and harder to keep hidden), but it's still interesting.

Imagine if once the number of furries hits the thousand mark or close to it (1997), a strange series of murders begin in Chiago and wander outwards. To normal police and investigators these people have -nothing- in common, just random innocent people. But the furries know that every single person killed was a furry! Now this is where things start to get weird.

When seen by furries, the killer is a lanky laid back twenty something raven haired young man whose expression almost always remains passive wearing semi-formal dark clothes with a revolver in one hand and spare bullets in the opposite pocket.

When the police just about anyone else whose effected by the perception filter see him, they see 'Average Joe' or 'Face You Can't Help But Forget' and never ever notice the weapon he's holding unless he hits them with it or shoots them or something just as drastic. It is also is picked up by metal detectors the same as any metal gun. In other words, his existence, is like the existence of furriness to normal humans, his existence effects them, but they can't notice him directly.

This guy always knows a furry when he sees one regardless of media or medium, or reads one, this include file records of people TGed by the virus. When he spots one or finds out about one, he calmly location that person, in order of him learning about them, and shoot that person in the head without fanfare then simply move on to the next one.

Physically his strength and speed are all perfectly average human, meaning a bear or tiger furry could easy tear him apart.

Strange thing is that if profiled, no records of him will turn up, anywhere!

Also, he might even begin to appear DIFFERENTLY to people who are under the effect of the perception filter. He can't appear as a furry, and can NEVER EVER appear as a precise person (he can't appear as someone's mother or brother). But he can ultimately change how people look at him, they see a five year old girl with a teddy bear opposed to a man with a revolver even if he STILL can't fit in a toy car for the life of him and that 'bear' might go off if someone else 'hugs' it, (which he'd avoid someone doing at all posts). He could also appear as a fire fighter or police officer if he gets clever enough. Though furries will -always- see through this disguise. Along with any human whose able to see furries without effort.

The Chicago Ghost Killer never attacks non-changed humans, and will never take a shot if there's a reasonable chance of shooting a non-changed person.

He travels by mundane methods, he always travels by the most practical and speedy method and always has the correct change or ticket (this is not an illusion). His taxi, train, or airplane never crash.

If detained for questioning, he might just walk straight out of the police station unless some of the cops are furries. If stripped of his weapon and ammo next time he shows up he'll have a new set perfectly identical to the last one down to the imperfections in the casing.

Now this is where things get ambiguous. I don't know if he's killed he just appears in Chicago the day after the change again each year, or weather two different people with abilities similar to his appear in his stead these armed with a crossbow and another one shot distance weapon.

Since deleting the entire universe is not an option, The Chicago Ghost Killer might be an emergency fail safe to try and cut off the infected flesh from the system.

His name comes from where he started killing (strangely the same place as the changes began) and the fact that to normal humans he IS like a ghost, there yet not there but decidedly felt.

I know this doesn't really fit with the setting at all, but I just had to share it with the only people who'd appreciate it.

Thank you.

- Alex Warlorn. 2008 06 15

:And his name is Agent Johnathan Walker Smith, is it? Seems like a Matrix Agent to me... (unsigned comment)
::Actually I don't think he'd -have- a name, or even know the true nature of the world, he'd just know what he -had- to do and how to do it and how he can do it.-- Alex Warlorn

== Octuplets born in California ==

Things that make you go Hmmmm....

8 babies at once
Planning to breast feed them all.
Names not being released (yet).

Could we have a changed couple hiding out there from the glare of the media spotlight? :)

--[[User:Jetfire|Jetfire]] 15:25, 27 January 2009 (EST)

=='''Future RDF Failure'''==

I'm starting to work out ideas about how the RDF would fail. My current thinking is that it will work on a small scale first. Visually, there would be a "refraction", like seeing your own eyes through your glasses. Or your leg halfway in a pool. This is the "Refraction Effect". These are places where the RDF has been removed, like a section of glass, revealing the Real World underneath. It's gone. The visual effect makes it clear a border's been crossed. I'm not sure ''when'' this is going to happen. Probably sometime near the US Gov wants to go public. --[[User:JonBuck|Buck]] 07:57, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

===Weirdness Censor?===

I've been thinking about an "RDF Lite" that could basically act as a Weirdness Censor instead of the full blown see-furries-as-humans version that exists right now. There'd still be social upheaval, but not the civilization-ending type that would most likely happen. I'm very likely going to do this in After Hours, but I want to do it right. --[[User:JonBuck|Buck]] 23:37, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

==The "Posthuman" World ==

In order to differentiate this setting from WoC more, I'm going to keep a certain number of regular humans in the furry world that results when the virus runs its course. Same rules as other furry types as far as parent-child species. --[[User:JonBuck|Buck]] 19:41, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

:No offense, but that feels like a cop-out to me. As someone else pointed out, a computer virus is NOT going to simply 'burn itself out' a computer virus continues like any program infinitely unless it's directly ordered to. Once it runs out of humans to transform, it'll start to transform furries into other species, and become even more chaotic as time progresses. I just feels cheap the virus suddenly just stops, and it doesn't make sense form a programming point of view either since it would open MANY MORE cans of worms anyway. -- Alex Warlorn June 15 2009

::Okay. How to address this? A lot of my ideas for this setting comes from Charles Stross's work, which can get pretty mind-bending at times. ''Accelerando, Glasshouse, Singularity Sky'', and ''Iron Sunrise'' all come to mind. One of my basic assumptions is that the Furry Virus is itself sentient/sapient, but it's not ''quite'' as smart as the transhuman intelligence running the Simulation Space that is our universe (down to the Planck Length).

::The RDF was a last-ditch effort to maintain the experiment as it was. We're all a bunch of microbes, as far as ROB is concerned. But It's not the type of Being to just chuck the whole experiment into the incinerator and start over. At this point ROB has scrapped the original experiment in favor of trying to prevent our little petri dish universe from going completely bad. So, 1) contain the Furry Virus, and 2) prevent it from doing any more damage beyond 2020 by creating a specific End State. The FV remains, but it becomes an uncommon chronic disease.

::Frankly, now that furries and the TGed have been Outed ROB may even stop the history editing. More obvious actions include: Refilling dead oilfields, creating social conditions so humans aren't really surprised at the Change. There are probably all kinds of countermeasures ROB has done that I haven't thought of in order to keep people from going ''crazy crazy'' and incinerating their own petri dish. --[[User:JonBuck|Buck]] 03:57, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

:::I was thinking of a similar idea, but in a programming context as opposed to a biological one, and ''very'' limited. Think of every person as an element of an array, i.e. Human[]. An algorithm designed to change the values of every element, like the furry virus is doing, would most likely go from 0 to some constant POPULATION_HUMAN. In that case, ROB might be able to circumvent the effects for the virus for a select few by assigning people to special values: NULL, NaN, -1, MAX_INT, INFINITY, or other predefined numbers, even those that aren't considered "special" to humans. The purpose of this would be to preserve ''some'' unaltered "data" for purposes not important to us, and it can't be done for all humans because of the effort or memory required to "manually" fix so many values.

:::Conversely, perhaps ROB will let the virus run its course so It can then safely run a variation of the virus to turn everyone back into humans. That would be another interesting take: when the world's furry in 2020, how will everyone feel when they find out they'll all be human again by about 2055, depending on population, and perhaps if the same thing happens in cycles? ...

:::...Or if it turns out that life has been this way for a long, ''long'' time. Thinking back to what ROB has been able to do, this is easily within Its power. -- [[User:MisterBackground|MisterBackground]] 05:31, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

::Well, to be fair, this is a post-Singularity virus. Nobody ever said it was strictly one-function only. For all we know, it may have a behavioral change programmed into it. "Take Z action until condition A is met, then switch to taking Y action until condition B is met, etc." Or heck, the virus itself may be a sentient/sapient digital life form with free will, fully able to "change its mind" when it wants to. Certainly there is some intelligent agency at work behind the Reality Distortion Field that has already shown the ability to change its own behavior or react to changes in infected people's situations (changing TG furs' "ghosts"—and all extant records—from male to female when they get pregnant, for instance). No reason the virus can't be the same way. —[[User:Robotech Master|Robotech Master]] 23:32, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

:How is that going to work? I'm not sure how humanity can propagate by the "same rules" as other furry types given that it's been established humans and furres are not able to interbreed. Perhaps there might be an inverse of the Sleeping Sickness (a Waking Sickness? :) which causes furries to randomly mutate back into human in addition to the other types of furry form? —[[User:Robotech Master|Robotech Master]] 22:31, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

::Two thoughts: 1) In 2021 there's a group of humans worldwide who don't Change. They're simply the one species among many. After this point they can breed with furres because the RDF is down anyway. Perhaps they can already do this in Bubbled areas in 2010. 2) Human forms can be a recessional trait that shows up on occasion, between two furres.

::Furry babies already look ''very'' human due to a type of neoteny. Even the herbivores like horses and deer have very stubby muzzles. It looks more like a mask when they're born. Within two years those muzzle stubs grow the "baby animal" proportions, then as normal. They're generally more thinly furred for those first two years also. I keep thinking of puppies. No matter what the breed, they all look ''extremely'' similar when newborn. Same will be true in this setting. --[[User:JonBuck|Buck]] 23:55, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

Additionally, TG and TF will continue. I'm thinking of something akin to Matthias' character, with random changes. It'll be considered a chronic disease. And the severe forms ''can'' kill you. --[[User:JonBuck|Buck]] 06:40, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

== Possibly the first occurance of ROB ==

As I mentioned when I introduced him, ROB (Random Omnipotent Being) comes from some other message boards I regularly view/visit. Well someone seems to have found what may have been the first occurrence of ROB. [http://forums.spacebattles.com/showthread.php?t=53955] Pretty humble beginnings for him if you ask me. :) (His brother, COROB (Crossover Obsessed Random Omnipotent Being) similarly had humble beginnings a month or so later. [http://forums.spacebattles.com/showthread.php?t=55397] )

Talk:Paradise (Setting)

2009-06-16T05:31:13Z

MisterBackground: /* The "Posthuman" World */

It's an interesting setting, what I've read so far, and I've got an idea or two percolating that may or may not come to fruition. A seed is trying to sprout for an idea starting in '05 and going forward.

One little detail though, (and it doesn't really apply to me but may for others), removing hippo's, rhino's and elephants from the pool seems to be a bit speciest, considering moose are allowed. In looking at the Wiki, it seems that hippos (1.5meters) and rhinos (2.0 meters) are actually generally smaller or the same size as the largest moose (2.1 metres) species. Elephants seem to average about a meter or two larger than the moose.

Perhaps a better restriction would be to allow any land mammal (and any sea mammal that is between the sizes of the minimum land mammal size and the maximum land mammal size), but set minimum and maximum furre sizes; something like a min of 1.2 metres or 4ft to a max of 2.0 metres or 7ft.

Anyways, I'll try and keep an eye on things and see if I can culture this idea I've got further. - 19:50, 10 January 2008 [[User:Jetfire|Jetfire]]

== Theory on how the Change 'spreads' ==

Been thinking about how it might spread, such that we have a higher proportion of Changed in NA, but not leaving the rest of the world out, and I think I know how.

The 'computer virus' that Changes people, uses the RDF to spread itself. Our 'program's' own protection method is also spreading the damages.

Basically, I am guessing that if the RDF needs to kick in on you, then you are passively 'infected'.

Then, when August 17th comes around, the Virus triggers itself, but it for whatever reason can only copy itself for every previously Changed person. (The Doubling effect), and it can only affect people that have been passively infected, ie people who have had the RDF kick in on them.

The goal of the virus is to spread as far as it can, so it takes the number of new Changed it can, and spreads it more or less evenly across the available (RDF-affected) population.

So the first Changed is in Chicago (I think). Through the year until the next Change, she will encounter thousands of people, even in passing, which triggers the RDF on them and passively infects them.

Come August, 1988, the next Changed will be picked randomly from those thousands of people, and now we'll have 2 people spreading the RDF virus. 1989, a big chunk of Chicago has probably had the RDF trigger at least once, not to mention some tourists and other visitors to the city.

In 89, we get 2 more Changed, and one of them could possibly be in a different random city, just because he'd been to Chicago in the past 2 years and unknowingly seen a Changed, and a new nest of RDF-field affected people starts up.

European and Asian and Oceanic outbreaks could happen in years to come as the number of tourists and business people from those reasons travel into North America and begin to be fielded and infected themselves.

The 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City probably 'infected' most of the people who were around and watching, meaning that by then (if not before) pretty much anyone has a chance to be Changed.

It also means that truly isolated areas of the world (South Pacific islands, isolated Amazonian tribes, etc) could potentially be unchanged after the 2020 deadline; but any encounter at all with a Changed would likely Change them immediately and spread like wildfire through the village)

And while the RDF may 'fail' at some point, it'll probably still be around in a less effective form, trying to maintain some stability and spreading the Change. --[[User:Jetfire|Jetfire]]
:I'll give that some thought. It's somewhat similar to something I already had in mind. Perhaps those who have the RDF fail completely will be much more likely to change the next year, or they might even change out-of-phase. In any case, once they figure out that it's like a communicable disease, and everyone is already 'infected', the remaining humans will go nuts. --[[User:JonBuck|Buck]] 12:35, 27 January 2008 (EST)

== Change and disabilities? ==

I keep forgetting to bring this up on IRC, but how do people (as in writers and other interested people in this setting) think disabilities would be affected by the change? Both Mental and Physical?

Would a paraplegic who lost his legs in an accident regrow them if he changed? Would he regain the use of them if they weren't lost but just disabled? (back injury)? What about false teeth, deafness, blindness, etc?

What if the cause was not from a physical accident, but was viral or bacterial in nature? Some disease struck them blind? Would they stay blind?

And what if the disabilities were genetic? Would those genetic flaws still show in the new form?

Finally, what about mental disabilities? Could the Change 'cure' Alzheimer's? Would it affect someone who is literally a brain dead vegetable on life support?

If it does have curative properties, I suspect we'll start seeing more and more miracle cures (assuming they can survive the flu) in the years to come. Which may imply that there'll be a push in the early to mid 2010's to just keep someone alive as long as possible in the home they Change and are cured/fixed.

Thoughts?

--[[User:Jetfire|Jetfire]] 11:00, 4 February 2008 (EST)

:I think there are good arguments to be made for some healing properties of the Change, but I wouldn't make it go all out. A person missing a limb should still be missing a limb after the change (I have in mind a scene with a one-armed pianist who goes monkey and starts playing with his feet).

:When it comes to things like Alzheimer's, that is a much more difficult choice. I don't see mental retardation being suddenly healed by the Change, as that is a birth defect (and such things happen in animals too). But progressive diseases may backtrack, even if the conditions begin to return over time. That could make an even more painful story, somebody suffering from Alzheimer's, who Changes and now recognizes all his family again. But after a year or so everything starts to slip away again...

:Anyway, the whole keeping folks alive and hoping for a Change could make a good dynamic too. I just think there's a lot fo possibilities to consider before we make a decision on this. --[[User:MatthiasRat|MatthiasRat]] 12:24, 4 February 2008 (EST)
::I'm inclined to do as Matthias suggests. It's more or less what I had in mind. However, one of the things that the Change does is it puts everyone in very good health. Even being a 300 pound female bear, CM is in very good shape. It will cure some ailments, and put chronic diseases into remission. Those developments will confuse the medical community enough without regrowing limbs or curing Down's Syndrome. But if you've read the latest Tall Tales, ROB is being forced to act more openly. --[[User:JonBuck|Buck]] 15:40, 4 February 2008 (EST)

:What happens to medical devices like heart pacemakers or hip replacements that were implanted in people before they changed? --[[User:JeniSkunk|Jenifur Charne]] 20:45, 10 February 2008 (EST)

::That's basically an open-ended question. I'm going to leave the answer to that one unsaid because I think it'd be a good Plot Point in a story. A furry episode of ''House'' maybe? --[[User:JonBuck|Buck]] 22:45, 10 February 2008 (EST)

::Late into the discussion, but better late than never. : ) Anyway, what about things like fillings and caps on teeth? Going to a dentist would be interesting. Going another step, outside medical devices wouldn't fit anymore and would bring up some unique delimas. What about people with prosthetics? If someone turns into a bear, I'm sure their leg isn't going to fit anymore, yet Unknown will wonder why they make such a claim all of a sudden. Lots of places to go with these stories. [[User:Tinbender|Tinbender]] 21:24, 5 May 2008 (EDT)

Hey, not really sure on any of the points raised, have to give it some thought. One thing to consider though is can anthro's act as a bridge to humans for viruses that currently only affect animals?--[[User:Devin|Devin]] 23:35, 10 February 2008 (EST)

== A mortal analysis of Paradise ==

Lets me see if I get some of the details right.

There is a post-singularity Uber-computer, that when projected into 3-space, has the same consistency as humanity's combined thumbnail and happens to be running a simulation of the events leading up to its own creation. Secondly, it gets infected by a super-bug/virus that makes borg nano-probes look overly large and cumbersome. Said post-singularity, sentient, ROB-type entity/ virus changes some lines of code (if such things can be referred to as such) in reference to the people in the simulation, in and around the vicinity of Chicago (maybe the super-bug's designers had way-distant ancestors from there, or whose ancestors had a grudge against the place). The Uber-comp, in a flash of inspiration counters with the 'firewall-from-not-heck', or RDF as we understand it. The ROB is still successful with its dastardly and despicable plan to make the simulated history end differently.

That I get as far as it can be understood by a three-dimensional entity not particularly versed in post-singularity, multi-dimensional physics and computational theory.

The RDF, The Veil, The "Really-Annoying-Mess-Up-Everyones-Lives" Field, appears to start collapsing or 'twisting' in several personal accounts. In fact, it would seem that there are certain individuals who have appeared to figure out means of 'gazing-past' the gaps in said previously mentioned field even though they do not have one of their own. Yes it has been theorized that they will soon fall victim to the ROB, however, consider that all of this is in one sense mere coding (albeit it happens to be far more complex than that), and that said people are taking advantage of 'bugs' in the code. How many bugs are there? Is it possible for someone (probably a changed, or mad scientist) to 'tune' or 'tinker' with the field, probably no more than tweaks to appearance or color? I know the Primary Engineer Of This Work has stated that there are no 'powers', but then again, this is all just code, and hackers can sometimes be just mortal.

Just a thought or two. I should probably stop this monologue before a super spy shows up.
~midon~

:You're pretty close overall, though the simulation doesn't necessarily have to be of the ROB's own creation. Human Earth could be something It came up with all by Itself. Another book that's similar to what I've come up with here is ''[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darwinia_(novel) Darwinia]''. Someone suggested that the best thing for the ROB to do is to restore from backup. The thing is, these are still people. ROB doesn't have a moral problem with allowing them to die within the sim, but will act to protect both itself and its people from an outside threat. Hence the RDF and other measures.--[[User:JonBuck|Buck]] 17:46, 4 February 2008 (EST)

== Thinking far future... ==

First, to make it VERY clear, I am NOT thinking of any stories or anything set in the 2020 period yet. I've just been thinking of how the world may be like by then, as the last half are about to change.

I suspect there would be a mix of celebration (the last humans are joining us!) and mourning (humans will no longer be as they were). Regionally, there will probably be searches for the "last human baby", the ones born days/hours before the last Aug 17 change; they'd probably be local celebrities, similar to "New Years Babies"

And in 2021, the nervousness would start. Is the change source gone? Is it mutating? Are we going to change further? Or into something else now? For the Changed Generation, that little shiver of fear every August 17th will probably persist until they are all gone.

All that assumes civilization hasn't fallen apart by then of course. :)

--[[User:Jetfire|Jetfire]] 10:42, 25 February 2008 (EST)

== Summer Olympics ==

This was nagging at the back of my mind a bit, but I finally nailed it down to actually check dates:

:"The 2008 Summer Olympics, officially known as the Games of the XXIX Olympiad, will be celebrated from August 8, 2008 to August 24, 2008".

For the record, the 2004 Olympics also just straddled the Change day, having started on Aug 13th. No other Summer Olympics have straddled Change day, but the 1996 games ended just before it, and the Paralympic Games that year did straddle the Change day.

The 2012 games in London curiously have a break between the end of the Olympics on Aug 12, 2012, and the start of the Paralympics on Aug 29.

Just something to think about for writers out there. :)

--[[User:Jetfire|Jetfire]] 10:07, 27 February 2008 (EST)

:The Change takes place right in the middle of the Olympics. All it takes is for one or two athletes to change to gum up the works. These people are already in top physical shape, too. But what happens when a swimmer becomes a dolphin, an otter, or perhaps something that doesn't swim well? I don't think the RDF can handle becoming as large as a rhino. They'll still displace an awful lot of water when they splash in.

:I'll have to mention this in Open Secrets.

:--[[User:JonBuck|Buck]] 14:53, 27 February 2008 (EST)

::At least the illness will be a bit of a cover. Depending on how many Changed athletes there are, (both active and new Changed), the illness could be used to skip out on some events out of necessity.

::Still the pressure to perform, even if their form is inappropriate for the sport (A Bull trying to do a polevault or the triathlon in general? A bear for gymnastics? A Mouse in weightlifting? ) will be intense

::There would probably be a lot of discussion when a star athlete suddenly isn't performing as well as they did before.

::Of course, a few years after that, the Beijing Olympics here will probably end up with a * like the LA and Moscow Olympics, as people find out about the Change and the number of ringers (otters in swimming events, felines and primates in gymnastics, gazelles and cheetahs in track events, bears and bulls in weight lifting, etc...) semi-intentionally sent by the various countries. We could very well see TTC-level problems happening in Olympic Village.

--[[User:Jetfire|Jetfire]] 15:07, 27 February 2008 (EST)

== What happens ''after'' 2020? ==

Point one: Computer programs are never ''intrinsically'' equipped with an off-switch. Rather, a shutdown condition must be explicitly coded into a program -- and any program which ''lacks'' an explicit shutdown condition, will continue to chug merrily along until something hardware-ish gets in the way.

Point two: The Change is the result of a 'furry virus", ''i.e.,'' a '''computer program'''.

2020 is when the entire planetary population will be furry... but who's to say the 'furry virus' won't ''continue'' to do its thing, Changing people year in and year out, with each year's quantity of Changes being double that of the year before? We know that being Changed is ''not'' an absolute protection against the 'furry virus' -- the setting rules themselves ''explicitly allow'' previously-Changed people to get hit with another dose of Change, after all -- so ''either'' (a) the 'furry virus' ''does'' have an explicitly-coded off-switch, or else (b) starting in 2020, an ever-increasing number of people are going to end up Changing ''two or more times in any given year.''

If the 'furry virus' ''has'' a built-in off-switch, that begs the question of what, exactly, its shutdown condition ''is.'' Does it stop spreading/infecting when there's no unchanged Human left, is it waiting for some specific event or combination of events before it quits, or what? Perhaps the guy who wrote the 'furry virus' did so with the specific intent of encouraging ROB to make [insert specific changes here] in ROB's virtual world, such that the results of those changes are the virus's 'off-switch'?

If, on the other hand, the 'furry virus' has ''no'' built-in brakes, things can get weird, fast. People have already floated the notion of Changes happening "out of season"; what if these 'unscheduled' Changes are merely a harbinger of things to come, in which people can be re-zapped at any time of year, an arbitrarily large number of times per year? It may be instructive, or at least amusing, to extrapolate the data given in "The Numbers", and divide each year's expected number of Changes by the expected population for that year: In 2020, there's 1.12 Changes per person (perhaps every human being Changes, regardless of their current state, and there's a 12% chance of one guy Changing ''twice?).'' Since we're basically talking about a doubling function, it only takes until 2024 for every ex-human to be an involuntary member of the Change Of The Month Club (because there's a touch over 17 Changes per person that year), and the Change Of The '''Day''' Club starts up in 2029 (during which year there's a bit less than 514 Changes per person per year). In 2034, the extrapolated number of Changes per person for that year is significantly over 15,000 (which works out to about 7/4 of a Change ''per hour,'' every hour, for every human being); by 2040, we hit 1.75 Changes per ''minute;'' 2046 is when every human being starts to hit 1 Change per ''second.''

To repeat what I said above: Things get weird, fast.

Obviously, the above figures are ridiculous, since they're derived from mindless extrapolation of an exponential curve. Perhaps the most sensible way to go is to presume that ROB manages to ''do'' something about the metatstasizing 'furry virus' no later than 2025 or so. In any case, one hopes said figures at least provide a bit of food for thought... [[User:Cubist|Cubist]] 05:03, 10 March 2008 (EDT)

== Change and the Media ==

It's probably a sign that I watch WAY too much TV, but it's a theme that's been in the back of my mind (man that back area's getting mighty crowded with ideas). As the Change progresses, even with the Veil in place, more and more effects of the Change will start showing up in other ways, and it will become more and more 'public' even if the Unchanged won't really know what is going on. I suspect TV shows especially will begin to show a lot of these.

This is just some of my rambling thoughts on what the TV Cable signals might be sending to the screens of the Changed near-Future.

Reality TV in all its forms will probably be the first to really start showing the effects of the Changed, since they tend to have the fastest turnaround time and the most contact with non-actors. Court shows (like I wrote in my short story case) will have more and more cases of Changed vs Norms and even weird Changed vs Changed cases. "He won't share the nail clippers!" "She gifted me the money for the vacation to Alaska in January")

Gameshows also will start having more Changed contestants, especially popular ones like Price is Right.

And then you have the Survivor types. Show's like "Top Model" and "Bachelor(ette)" and "Blind Date" (especially given the Change's habit of giving the Changed Eye-turning bodies) will probably have the most Changed on a show early on (whether intentionally or unintentionally).

Home Makeover shows may start seeing even weirder designs as designers/homeowners remake rooms to give room for antlers or bigger buttons for hoof fingers and such. (We thought Frank's designs on Trading Spaces were weird BEFORE he Changed... :P )

Amazing Race may have a Changed Team soon; a few Changed in the Big Brother House (probably intentionally put in there by a Changed Studio staffer), and the next Survivor or two would probably have some contestants.

Once the Field comes down, I fully expect CBS to roll out a "Furries vs Normals" Survivor while they can.

Now onto more tasteful TV. (arguably :P )

Cartoons? (what few new ones that are made) will likely start having more and more of a furry bend to them. Hallowe'en specials may turn 'human' toons into furry ones as experiments to transition shows.

Soaps? Expect Change stories fairly soon I dare say. I don't watch them myself, but from what I've heard of some storylines they've done in the past, the Change isn't all that strange. These writers will probably be chaffing at the restrictions of the Field the most.

Sitcoms will probably start getting Changed in-jokes fairly quickly as more Changed writers and actors come on staff. Some of the jokes may verge on Veil-breaking too, but viewers would discount as visual FX.

Procedurals/Drama's, business as normal but more Change-related stories. Maulings and gorings investigated on CSI's (along with strange fingerprints/bootprints, hair samples, etc...), Without a Trace investigating people who disappear after Change Day, maybe even a TG mystery. Numb3rs maybe touching on the Change rate (imagine Chris brought in as an advisor for an ep ? :) ). House or ER dealing with a Changed patient and/or Changed doctors/nurses.

And finally (for now) Sci Fi/Fantasy shows will probably find themselves in a very difficult position. On the one hand, they'd be ideal to start exploring the Change itself. On the other hand, as long as the Field is in effect, they can't really explore them since they'd have to turn normals into Furry's (or dress furry's in fursuits). Plus, a show's setting may not exactly be ideal for adjusting to the Change. "SG-1/Atlantis" may be able to adjust (turn it into an Ori curse or something), but Terminator would have a harder time. Heroes could probably pull it off, but BSG? Unlikely. (Imagine them finding 'Earth' but it's a Furry Earth... Hmmm...)

Anyways, that's just some of my rambling thoughts on the TV of the near future, for what its worth.

:There's a simple way to make furries show up in Television. Simply use the polarized lenses as featured in Open Secrets on the video camera units. The image of the furries would pass through the polarized lenses onto the film. The film would record the true image in the same way that people would see the true image. Boom, RDF circumvented. --[[User:MatthiasRat|MatthiasRat]] 12:26, 28 January 2009 (EST)

:: True those would work. But everyone involved for those scenes would have to Know or questions would be raised. Depending on the scene and production. (Thouhg some could be handwaved, as long as the producer/editors Know. "Bob's gonna play the part of a man-rat for this scene. We'll CG-replace him in Editing afterward"

::--[[User:Jetfire|Jetfire]] 12:33, 28 January 2009 (EST)

::: Well, at the very least, the cameraman is going to be in the know fast! Actually, I could see something like this being done once things go public. We could have a documentary on the early Changed (while you can still get human actors!), and you'd have some cameras with the filter on it and some without so you could show what the Changed sees and what the unsuspecting humans around him see. --[[User:98.236.12.68|98.236.12.68]] 05:14, 29 January 2009 (EST)

:::: That is happening to some extent, though not with the filters yet. Shiloh (and her new boyfriend newly Changed this year) are doing what they can to document the Change and how it affects lives as it happens (on the side from their main jobs), and I'm sure she's far from alone on this.

:::: Once more Documentary makers get ahold of this and it goes public, I'm sure there will be more too.

::::--[[User:Jetfire|Jetfire]] 10:33, 29 January 2009 (EST)

== Furries in Space? ==

OK Time for even more thoughts from me. :) Endeavor's launch last night triggered this thought.

I'm not going to elaborate, but is anyone watching the ISS crew for change symptoms? Or the shuttle crew if they're up? A Change up there could be Veil breaking just because of the amount of attention and lack of privacy those people have. (not to mention the extreme circumstances they'd be under).

The Change itself could very well spell the end of Manned space flight for the next few decades in the end.

Not sure if it would spell the end of manned space flight but yeah even just an examination of the air filter would find stuff that couldn't have gotten up there any other way.--[[User:Devin|Devin]] 19:16, 11 March 2008 (EDT)

:I'm sure it'd be the end of manned space flight for quite some time simply for economic reasons if nothing else. This is going to be rather disruptive and there'll probably be a bit of a budget pinch. [[User:Bryan|Bryan]] 19:21, 18 March 2008 (EDT)

==The Reality Distortion Field is Real ==

Sadly, not the one you have in mind: http://apple.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/03/18/2117208 :) [[User:Bryan|Bryan]] 19:21, 18 March 2008 (EDT)

== Bats? ==

Just a question about the species: I've noticed you put aside birds for now, but what about bats?--[[User:142.68.130.19|142.68.130.19]] 23:52, 1 April 2008 (EDT)

:Bats will put a huge strain on the Veil. If/when they do show up, it might be coming down by then anyway. --[[User:JonBuck|Buck]] 00:36, 2 April 2008 (EDT)

== Farming in Paradise ==

Just shooting an idea in here for later. [http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/04/080410153658.htm This is the technology] widely deployed it the Paradise setting. But put the clock back ten years (1997 discovery, widespread global deployment by 2008). Biochar/agrichar. With any luck, the Green Revolution will be replaced with the Black Gold Revolution quickly. --[[User:JonBuck|Buck]] 03:27, 15 April 2008 (EDT)

== BioFuels ==

Jon, you're beginning to scare me a bit. :P

This was just on Slashdot this morning: [http://www.utexas.edu/news/2008/04/23/biofuel_microbe/ New Source for Biofuels Discovered by Researchers At The University of Texas at Austin]

Basically, some bacteria that can make cellulose which can be turned to fuel, and the cellulose can be harvested without harming the bacteria.
--[[User:Jetfire|Jetfire]] 06:10, 25 April 2008 (EDT)

:I read about this yesterday. They hope to increase production efficiency 17-fold because otherwise, you'd have to cover the ''entire'' Midwest with this. Unfortunately it won't happen fast enough to prevent the shortages I know are coming.

:I read about this stuff every day. I mean, ''every'' day. --[[User:JonBuck|Buck]] 14:19, 25 April 2008 (EDT)

Another bit of news: [http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article4133668.ece "Scientists find bugs that eat waste and excrete petrol."] --[[User:JonBuck|Buck]] 11:12, 15 June 2008 (EDT)

== The Chicago Ghost Killer ==

After having seen countless videos of Persona 3 on youtube, and having played the .hack//GU games, and having read about this setting repeatedly, this idea was born out of my skull. It doesn't really fit with the setting per-say, (people dealing with expected changes in their lives and the changing of culture as truth becomes harder and harder to keep hidden), but it's still interesting.

Imagine if once the number of furries hits the thousand mark or close to it (1997), a strange series of murders begin in Chiago and wander outwards. To normal police and investigators these people have -nothing- in common, just random innocent people. But the furries know that every single person killed was a furry! Now this is where things start to get weird.

When seen by furries, the killer is a lanky laid back twenty something raven haired young man whose expression almost always remains passive wearing semi-formal dark clothes with a revolver in one hand and spare bullets in the opposite pocket.

When the police just about anyone else whose effected by the perception filter see him, they see 'Average Joe' or 'Face You Can't Help But Forget' and never ever notice the weapon he's holding unless he hits them with it or shoots them or something just as drastic. It is also is picked up by metal detectors the same as any metal gun. In other words, his existence, is like the existence of furriness to normal humans, his existence effects them, but they can't notice him directly.

This guy always knows a furry when he sees one regardless of media or medium, or reads one, this include file records of people TGed by the virus. When he spots one or finds out about one, he calmly location that person, in order of him learning about them, and shoot that person in the head without fanfare then simply move on to the next one.

Physically his strength and speed are all perfectly average human, meaning a bear or tiger furry could easy tear him apart.

Strange thing is that if profiled, no records of him will turn up, anywhere!

Also, he might even begin to appear DIFFERENTLY to people who are under the effect of the perception filter. He can't appear as a furry, and can NEVER EVER appear as a precise person (he can't appear as someone's mother or brother). But he can ultimately change how people look at him, they see a five year old girl with a teddy bear opposed to a man with a revolver even if he STILL can't fit in a toy car for the life of him and that 'bear' might go off if someone else 'hugs' it, (which he'd avoid someone doing at all posts). He could also appear as a fire fighter or police officer if he gets clever enough. Though furries will -always- see through this disguise. Along with any human whose able to see furries without effort.

The Chicago Ghost Killer never attacks non-changed humans, and will never take a shot if there's a reasonable chance of shooting a non-changed person.

He travels by mundane methods, he always travels by the most practical and speedy method and always has the correct change or ticket (this is not an illusion). His taxi, train, or airplane never crash.

If detained for questioning, he might just walk straight out of the police station unless some of the cops are furries. If stripped of his weapon and ammo next time he shows up he'll have a new set perfectly identical to the last one down to the imperfections in the casing.

Now this is where things get ambiguous. I don't know if he's killed he just appears in Chicago the day after the change again each year, or weather two different people with abilities similar to his appear in his stead these armed with a crossbow and another one shot distance weapon.

Since deleting the entire universe is not an option, The Chicago Ghost Killer might be an emergency fail safe to try and cut off the infected flesh from the system.

His name comes from where he started killing (strangely the same place as the changes began) and the fact that to normal humans he IS like a ghost, there yet not there but decidedly felt.

I know this doesn't really fit with the setting at all, but I just had to share it with the only people who'd appreciate it.

Thank you.

- Alex Warlorn. 2008 06 15

:And his name is Agent Johnathan Walker Smith, is it? Seems like a Matrix Agent to me... (unsigned comment)
::Actually I don't think he'd -have- a name, or even know the true nature of the world, he'd just know what he -had- to do and how to do it and how he can do it.-- Alex Warlorn

== Octuplets born in California ==

Things that make you go Hmmmm....

8 babies at once
Planning to breast feed them all.
Names not being released (yet).

Could we have a changed couple hiding out there from the glare of the media spotlight? :)

--[[User:Jetfire|Jetfire]] 15:25, 27 January 2009 (EST)

=='''Future RDF Failure'''==

I'm starting to work out ideas about how the RDF would fail. My current thinking is that it will work on a small scale first. Visually, there would be a "refraction", like seeing your own eyes through your glasses. Or your leg halfway in a pool. This is the "Refraction Effect". These are places where the RDF has been removed, like a section of glass, revealing the Real World underneath. It's gone. The visual effect makes it clear a border's been crossed. I'm not sure ''when'' this is going to happen. Probably sometime near the US Gov wants to go public. --[[User:JonBuck|Buck]] 07:57, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

===Weirdness Censor?===

I've been thinking about an "RDF Lite" that could basically act as a Weirdness Censor instead of the full blown see-furries-as-humans version that exists right now. There'd still be social upheaval, but not the civilization-ending type that would most likely happen. I'm very likely going to do this in After Hours, but I want to do it right. --[[User:JonBuck|Buck]] 23:37, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

==The "Posthuman" World ==

In order to differentiate this setting from WoC more, I'm going to keep a certain number of regular humans in the furry world that results when the virus runs its course. Same rules as other furry types as far as parent-child species. --[[User:JonBuck|Buck]] 19:41, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

:No offense, but that feels like a cop-out to me. As someone else pointed out, a computer virus is NOT going to simply 'burn itself out' a computer virus continues like any program infinitely unless it's directly ordered to. Once it runs out of humans to transform, it'll start to transform furries into other species, and become even more chaotic as time progresses. I just feels cheap the virus suddenly just stops, and it doesn't make sense form a programming point of view either since it would open MANY MORE cans of worms anyway. -- Alex Warlorn June 15 2009

::Okay. How to address this? A lot of my ideas for this setting comes from Charles Stross's work, which can get pretty mind-bending at times. ''Accelerando, Glasshouse, Singularity Sky'', and ''Iron Sunrise'' all come to mind. One of my basic assumptions is that the Furry Virus is itself sentient/sapient, but it's not ''quite'' as smart as the transhuman intelligence running the Simulation Space that is our universe (down to the Planck Length).

::The RDF was a last-ditch effort to maintain the experiment as it was. We're all a bunch of microbes, as far as ROB is concerned. But It's not the type of Being to just chuck the whole experiment into the incinerator and start over. At this point ROB has scrapped the original experiment in favor of trying to prevent our little petri dish universe from going completely bad. So, 1) contain the Furry Virus, and 2) prevent it from doing any more damage beyond 2020 by creating a specific End State. The FV remains, but it becomes an uncommon chronic disease.

::Frankly, now that furries and the TGed have been Outed ROB may even stop the history editing. More obvious actions include: Refilling dead oilfields, creating social conditions so humans aren't really surprised at the Change. There are probably all kinds of countermeasures ROB has done that I haven't thought of in order to keep people from going ''crazy crazy'' and incinerating their own petri dish. --[[User:JonBuck|Buck]] 03:57, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

:::I was thinking of a similar idea, but in a programming context as opposed to a biological one, and ''very'' limited. Think of every person as an element of an array, i.e. Human[]. An algorithm designed to change the values of every element, like the furry virus is doing, would most likely go from 0 to some constant POPULATION_HUMAN. In that case, ROB might be able to circumvent the effects for the virus for a select few by assigning people to special values: NULL, NaN, -1, MAX_INT, INFINITY, or other predefined numbers, even those that aren't considered "special" to humans. The purpose of this would be to preserve ''some'' unaltered "data" for purposes not important to us, and it can't be done for all humans because of the effort or memory required to "manually" fix so many values.

:::Conversely, perhaps ROB will let the virus run its course so It can then safely run a variation of the virus to turn everyone back into humans. That would be another interesting take: when the world's furry in 2020, how will everyone feel when they find out they'll all be human again by 2054, and perhaps if the same thing happens in 70-year cycles? ...

:::...Or if it turns out that life has been this way for a long, ''long'' time. -- [[User:MisterBackground|MisterBackground]] 05:31, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

::Well, to be fair, this is a post-Singularity virus. Nobody ever said it was strictly one-function only. For all we know, it may have a behavioral change programmed into it. "Take Z action until condition A is met, then switch to taking Y action until condition B is met, etc." Or heck, the virus itself may be a sentient/sapient digital life form with free will, fully able to "change its mind" when it wants to. Certainly there is some intelligent agency at work behind the Reality Distortion Field that has already shown the ability to change its own behavior or react to changes in infected people's situations (changing TG furs' "ghosts"—and all extant records—from male to female when they get pregnant, for instance). No reason the virus can't be the same way. —[[User:Robotech Master|Robotech Master]] 23:32, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

:How is that going to work? I'm not sure how humanity can propagate by the "same rules" as other furry types given that it's been established humans and furres are not able to interbreed. Perhaps there might be an inverse of the Sleeping Sickness (a Waking Sickness? :) which causes furries to randomly mutate back into human in addition to the other types of furry form? —[[User:Robotech Master|Robotech Master]] 22:31, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

::Two thoughts: 1) In 2021 there's a group of humans worldwide who don't Change. They're simply the one species among many. After this point they can breed with furres because the RDF is down anyway. Perhaps they can already do this in Bubbled areas in 2010. 2) Human forms can be a recessional trait that shows up on occasion, between two furres.

::Furry babies already look ''very'' human due to a type of neoteny. Even the herbivores like horses and deer have very stubby muzzles. It looks more like a mask when they're born. Within two years those muzzle stubs grow the "baby animal" proportions, then as normal. They're generally more thinly furred for those first two years also. I keep thinking of puppies. No matter what the breed, they all look ''extremely'' similar when newborn. Same will be true in this setting. --[[User:JonBuck|Buck]] 23:55, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

Additionally, TG and TF will continue. I'm thinking of something akin to Matthias' character, with random changes. It'll be considered a chronic disease. And the severe forms ''can'' kill you. --[[User:JonBuck|Buck]] 06:40, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

== Possibly the first occurance of ROB ==

As I mentioned when I introduced him, ROB (Random Omnipotent Being) comes from some other message boards I regularly view/visit. Well someone seems to have found what may have been the first occurrence of ROB. [http://forums.spacebattles.com/showthread.php?t=53955] Pretty humble beginnings for him if you ask me. :) (His brother, COROB (Crossover Obsessed Random Omnipotent Being) similarly had humble beginnings a month or so later. [http://forums.spacebattles.com/showthread.php?t=55397] )

Art archives

2009-02-07T04:35:17Z

MisterBackground: Removed Mashiro's Castle link, as it is down.

This list contains links to other sites where transformation-themed art is archived. It is deliberately indiscriminate and is organized alphabetically (with the exception of grouping DeviantArt sites). Users are invited to create other lists organized by theme or quality.

*[http://atfa.transform.to Anime Transformation Archive] - Contains Anime images revolving around physical transformation
*[http://bahamutslair.furvect.com/frame.html Brutal Beast Studio] - This site contains transformation art by Bahamut, Sold Asp, Ranzab, and Havoc. Most of the art is of furry transformations.
*[http://conjoineddreams.net/ Conjoined Dreams] - Focusing on the somewhat specialized subgenre of conjoinment transformations, this site has both image galleries by various artists and a story archive.
*[http://osprey.tfcentral.com/DevTFs.htm DeviantART] contains a large list of Deviant Art artists with TF-themed material.
**[http://akuoreo.deviantart.com/ Aku Oreo] - This has some various animal and transgenger TFs drawn in an Anime like style.
**[http://bilious.deviantart.com/ Bilious] - Various animal and furry TFs, slightly cartoonish but quite good quality.
**[http://cluedog.deviantart.com/ Cluedog] - A lot of good transgender comics and sequences.
**[http://ealadubh.deviantart.com/ Eala Dubh] - Eala Dubh, the Black Swan. His art is generally black and white and covers a wide range of TF subjects. One of his images is on Shifti as a story illustration, with permission; [[:Image:SeaFever.jpg]]. See also his [http://www.transfur.com/Gallery/Artist.aspx?Artist=Ealadubh&Page=1 Transfur archive].
**[http://enchantress-lele.deviantart.com/ Enchantress-LeLe] - Enchantress-LeLe is involved in an "Island of Doctor Moreau"-based roleplaying game and has been producing illustrations of various human characters as they progressively transform into animal-people.
** [http://grandstorm.deviantart.com/ GrandStorm] - Grandstorm has done a large collection of animal, age regression, plushie, and Pokemon-related TFs. The quality's a bit low.
** [http://black-rat.deviantart.com/ Keannon Woods aka Black Rat] - Much nice color drawing of dragons and lions and various other furry TFs.
** [http://lessthanhuman.deviantart.com/ Lessthanhuman] - This appears to be Kurt's new site. A lot of extremely good photomanipulation TF images here, mostly of women into various anthro forms (felines appear to be a favorite but there's wide variety) but some men too.
**[http://mikewulf.deviantart.com/ Mike Wulf] - Has some various animal TF drawings.
**[http://sutibaruart.deviantart.com/ Sutibaru Art] - Has a few transgender drawings.
**[http://tfproxy.deviantart.com/ TF Proxy] - Various animal and furry TF drawings, some rather exotic. Almost all are colored and of good quality.
**[http://werekat-meow.deviantart.com/ Werekat-meow] - Two year Rookie with several Animal TF artworks. Many revolving around Cats, Wolves, and Foxes (though currently expanding species list); Mostly Anthro or Werecreature works.
*[http://edmol-life.sakura.ne.jp/transformation/Transform.htm Edmol Life] - Art by the Japanese artist Edmol, featuring Manga-style girls (and a few boys) turning into a wide variety of animals.
*[http://foxx.furvect.com/ Foxx's Transformation Art] - A variety of end-forms, including foxes, rhinos, goats, and Disney characters. Includes some transgender and inanimate TFs as well, and pretty good art for the more recent archives.
*[http://goneallwild.com/ Gone All Wild] - A series of plot-free transformation comics done in a very unusual and somewhat abstract art style that might not be to everyones' taste. The archives are subscriber-only, but new stuff is posted for free for a while.
*[http://gryf.feathers.net/albums.php Gryf's Pix] - Various transformation art by Gryf, a highly talented artist. Mostly mammals, avians and reptiles.
*[http://mintz.furvect.com/ Mintz's World] - Mintz Buck's personal transformation site, with artwork and stories by him and guests. Upated infrequently. It will be someday, he swears.
*[http://www.nagasden.com/ Naga's Den] - Art by Naga. Transgender, inanimate, mythical, and misc. Updates infrequently, last updated in July 2007.
*[http://mamabliss.com/niftyTF/Vicous_circles_1.html Nifty TF] - This is the companion site to Gone All Wild (listed above). More plot-free transformation comics done in the same slightly abstract art style. Mostly human to furry TF with some other TF aspects occasionally mixed in. Nifty TF was created because some of Gone All Wilds comics featured content that violated CC-bills content restriction policy (such as situations that CC-bill considered to be bestiality) and the comics had to be removed from the pay site, Gone All Wild, which CC-bill handled. As a result, Nifty TF is free and requires no subscription membership, unlike Gone All Wild. However, this also means that the comics that Nifty TF contains are not merely mature, but are also of a particularly explicit and edgy nature that may not appeal to many, and will likely upset more squeamish individuals. Updates to Nifty TF are infrequent and occur only via commission, for commissions that cannot be run on Gone All Wild due to content restrictions, or whenever CC-bill occasionally alters its content restriction policies and more comics must be removed from Gone All Wild to keep compliant.
*[http://tgcomics.com/ TG Comics (and Stories)] - Run by Femur, this site contains archives of modified pictures and several original TG comic strips.
*[http://www.thrashwolf.com/ Thrashwolf] - Many various transformations, mostly into animals but a few others as well, but it hasn't been updated in some time.
*[http://www.transfur.com Transfur] - A central clearing house for transformational artwork, Transfur contains all manner of subject matter.
* [http://www.tgfa.org/ Transgender Graphics and Fiction Archive] - As the site's name suggests, this archive includes a large number of transgender transformation art from various sources. May be defunct -- hasn't updated literally in years -- but still good to browse through for what's already there.
*[https://ti.erazor-zone.de/gallery2/main.php/v/ Transgenetic Industrial] - Contains TF art from various artists, mainly photomanipulations but also including other styles. Free registration required to view most of it.

==Photomanipulations==

Photomanipulation is one technique often used to create transformation art. Typically, this involves the artist taking one or multiple stock images, and using various programs and tools to change the images such that the subject of the resulting image appears to be undergoing, or appears to have undergone, a transformation.

Different artists make use of different techniques to achieve the appearance of transformation. The simplest such technique is colour alteration - this is often used for images representing transformation to stone, for instance. Another common simple technique is direct pasting of part of one image onto another image, often resulting in a human with an animal face or other, similar images.

Photomorphing software can also be used to achieve photomanipulation effects. Such software can be used to produce an image that appears to be a blending of two source images, but distorted so that the resulting image looks somewhat reasonable. This is often used in muscle transformations and some animal transformations. A variant of this uses the "warping" capability of such software to distort the shape of the image.

More complex techniques exist, and tutorials can be found that can instruct budding artists in how to perform these techniques, often focused on the use of photoediting software such as Photoshop and GIMP. Two examples of such tutorials are shakealicious' [http://shakealicious.deviantart.com/art/Kitty-Tutorial-part-I-65569284 Kitty Tutorial] for Photoshop and Aielyn's [http://aielyn.deviantart.com/art/GIMP-TF-Photomanip-Tutorial-83938605 TF Photomanip Tutorial] for GIMP, both found on DeviantArt.

There are a number of places where photomanipulation TFs can be found.

*[http://www.deviantart.com/ DeviantART] contains a large list of Deviant Art artists with TF-themed material, including the following:
** [http://aielyn.deviantart.com/ Aielyn] - (someone please replace this description - this is my deviantart, I shouldn't be the one to write the description of it)
** [http://altairtf.deviantart.com/ AltairTF] - A moderate size gallery of quality female transformations, often into felines.
** [http://blacksliverdragon.deviantart.com/ Blacksliverdragon] - A lower-quality gallery of men into various animals.
** [http://cyrinphin.deviantart.com/ cyrinphin] - A gallery consisting primarily of men transforming into aquatic creatures and cows.
** [http://diabolo-spinner.deviantart.com/ Diabolo Spinner] - A small gallery of good quality.
** [http://draysonite.deviantart.com/ draysonite] - This gallery is rather large, and of very good quality. Predominantly consists of males transforming into dogs, although a wide variety of other animals, and the occasional female, appear.
** [http://elp1001.deviantart.com/ elp1001] - A small gallery of female transformations, including a number of full scenes with multiple characters.
** [http://espilonarge.deviantart.com/ Espilonarge] - Just a few images.
** [http://geokee.deviantart.com/ GeoKee] - A small gallery of female transformations.
** [http://gotnirvana.deviantart.com/ gotnirvana] - A large gallery of transforming males, of varying quality.
** [http://hellhoundgld.deviantart.com/ HellhoundGld] - A small gallery.
** [http://hmh452002.deviantart.com/ hmh452002] - A moderate size gallery of males transforming into donkeys.
** [http://jaywolf1985.deviantart.com/ JayWolf1985] - A small gallery.
** [http://lessthanhuman.deviantart.com/ Lessthanhuman] - This appears to be Kurt's new site. A lot of extremely good images here, mostly of women into various anthro forms.
** [http://loboleo.deviantart.com/ LoboLeo] - Just a few images, but high quality.
** [http://modman38.deviantart.com/ modman38] - A large gallery of a wide variety of transformations.
** [http://psivamp.deviantart.com/ psivamp] - A large gallery with a lot of surreal scenes and doll transformations.
** [http://shakealicious.deviantart.com/ shakealicious] - A large gallery of high quality.
** [http://skyjaguar-tfproject.deviantart.com/ SkyJaguar] - A growing gallery of quality TF images.
** [http://something-wild.deviantart.com/ something-wild] - A moderate size gallery of varying quality.
** [http://taoming.deviantart.com/ Taoming] - A small gallery of male transformations.
** [http://werekatt.deviantart.com/ WereKatt] - A large gallery.
** [http://weremoose.deviantart.com/ Weremoose] - A gallery consisting mostly of unusual and entertaining transformations, of high quality.
** [http://wolfgurll.deviantart.com/gallery/ WolfGurll] - A moderate size gallery.
** [http://zafuyu.deviantart.com/ zafuyu] - A small gallery of mediocre quality that shows some promise.

Story archives

2009-02-07T04:25:06Z

MisterBackground: Removed some links that no longer worked.

This list contains links to other sites where transformation-themed stories are archived. It is deliberately indiscriminate and is organized alphabetically. Users are invited to create other lists organized by theme or quality.

*[http://www.ararchive.com AR Story Archive] - An Archive of Age Regression and Age Progression stories and images.
*[http://www.chaos-keep.com/Stories.html Chaos Keep] - Fox Cutter's List of stories
*[http://www.cyoc.net/ Choose Your Own Change] - A large archive of various transformation stories of all types. Many consist of transformation vignettes or soft (or hard) porno, but there are some gems in the rough if you dig. There may occasionally be some fun in the chatrooms
*[http://transform.to/~cubist/ Cubists TSA-ish website] - Cubist maintains a website archiving "List Transformed", "Tales of the Blind Pig", and other stories.
*[http://dragon.furvect.com/main.html Dragon's Transformation Stories] - Mostly by Dragon, but also with an archive of others' works.
*[http://www.many-realms.net/LTBSA/ The Legacy of Timeless Beauty archive] - A large collection of statue, mannequin, doll, android, and other similar inanimate TF stories.
*[http://www.mermaidstail.info/ Mermaid's Tail Gallery] - Primarily a photomorph site, but most of the pictures have stories written for them. They're not all mermaids either, though aquatic forms are heavily represented.
*[http://metamorkeep.com/ Metamor Keep] - The master archive of ALL stories in the "Metamor Keep" story universe.
*[http://transform.to/~ravenb/stories/index.html Raven's Lair - The Stories] - A large collection of "Tales of the Blind Pig" stories, "Metamor Keep" stories, and lots of other unique stuff, including the results of a number of story contests.
*[http://www.sapphireplace.com/archive.html Sapphire's Place] - A large and regularly updated archive of trans-gender stories.
*[http://socks.furvect.com/misc/ Socks' Furvect page] with various miscellaneous TF stories.
*[http://transform.to/~mwbard/tbp/index.html Tales from the Blind Pig] - An attempt to create an archive of ALL the stories in the "Tales of the Blind Pig" story universe.
*[http://www.furry.org.au/aatheus/taurtails/taurtails.html 'Taur Tales - A repository for four-legged literature] - A collection of 'taur stories, some with more than four legs.
*[http://tsa.transform.to/ Transformation Story Archive (TSA)] - The venerable TSA, the first major online repository of general transformation stories. Hasn't been updated in recent years, but spawned a community of transformation fans.
*[http://tsat.transform.to/ Transformation Stories, Art and Talk] - A bimonthly ezine (now deceased) whose 48 issues feature original transformation stories and other related material.
*[http://www.transplantedlife.com/ Transplanted Life] - a TG story in LiveJournal format that's been running continuously since July 2003.
*[http://yiffstar.com/index.yiff?action=authorsearch&authorsearch=Von%20Krieger Von Krieger's Yiff Star site] featuring a large collection of stories by Von Krieger, many with TFs in them.
*[http://woc-archive.xepher.net/index.php Winds of Change Archive] - The master archvie of ALL the stories in the "Winds of Change" story universe.
* [http://www.lionking.org/~brian/ The Winds of Change Round Robin Page] - Two massive ongoing stories with rotating authors set in the "Winds of Change" story universe. Sadly no longer updated.
*[http://www.unicorn-dream.co.uk/destrier/stories.html If WisheRs were Horses... Stories] - A collection of various equine (all types) transformation stories.
*[http://www.dcr.net/~stickmak/Stories/ Rodford Edmiston's stories] - More than a decade's worth of tales, most of them involving transformation.

=Interactive Story Archives=

*[http://catprog.org/Story.html Catprog's Interactive Stories] - A collection of interactive stories.
* CYOC also hosts [http://www.cyoc.net/stories/ interactive stories], where authors can write their own chapters.
* [http://furrventure.yiffstar.com/ Furrventure] - Another interactive collection of TF-related stories.
** [http://www.themasterplan.net/furrventure/ Previous iteration of Furrventure]
*[http://www.transformationlist.com/story/ Phaedrus' Interactive Stories] - Another collection of interactive stories.