IN> Question about Seraphic Resonance

[Michael L Wilson]

On Sat, 10 Nov 2007, Michael L Wilson wrote:

> On Sat, 10 Nov 2007, theheretik wrote:
> 
> > On this I'll disagree.  For one thing it's something I'm exploiting hopelessly in Mile Higher Club--the lie of omission.
> 
> Oh, I'm not trying to defend it.  In fact, I detest the notion.  However, 
> I'm having trouble converging my conception of the seraphim to a 
> self-consistent set of rules.
> 
> Here's a really twisted notion.  What's to stop a group of Hellspawn from 
> inventing a synthetic language that sounds suspiciously like english but 
> has subtle differences?  Then they can make literally true statements to a 
> Seraph that are wildly deceptive.
> 
> If you tell the Seraph's player that there's no false note, they're going 
> to be very upset later - and I think they'd have justification.  If you 
> tell them that the speaker is attempting deception, that's the most 
> consistent...  But once again, how are they to know that it isn't English, 
> but a specialized language designed specifically to cause grief for 
> Seraphim?

Doh.  I just answered my own scenario.  At that point the synthetic 
language itself is a lie - it's trying to disguise itself as english.  
Thus, the Seraph will register that the language isn't english.  She'll 
know that there was an attempt to deceive.  She _won't_ know what was 
actually said.

That also cures the other problem, "I don't know nothing!"  The attempt to 
use idiom to hide the true meaning is itself an attempt at deception and 
should ring false.

There are multiple lies present, one in the medium of communication and 
possibly one in the actual comminication content.  We still run into the 
problem of which one counts as the "biggest" lie in the mind of the 
target, but that's all in the mechanics already.

-Mike Wilson