IN> Edison's Lightbulb (was Franklin's Kite)

[-=|horsefly|=-]

On Fri, Jun 20, 2008 at 6:03 AM, Randy Finder, SAINT Corporation
<finderrj at saintcorporation.com> wrote:
[snip brilliance]
> Ben Franklin's Kite

This *requires* a response, but as I thought about it, this became
more than just a "neat post." As the ideas fermented, the subject
change became necessary.

"Results! Why, man, I have gotten a lot of results. I know several
thousand things that won't work." --Thomas A. Edison

It must be stated that Edison is both a celebrated mortal inventor as
well as a beloved Saint of Lightning. That being said, Mintoq owes his
Barony of Technology to being in the right place at the right time:
when Edison's first successful lightbulb flicked to life, the Taker
was present, and his joy had nothing to do with a silly talking money
inventing something successfully. No, what Mintoq saw was the chaining
of Lightning to serve as workhorse for any and all future inventions.
Indeed, in the 129 years since, electricity has become so pervasive
among humanity that Jean's Word has undergone subtle shifts yet again,
and has weakened in minor ways. Unnoticeable to most of Heaven and
Hell, but to his prime adversary, this has become substantial. Without
much difficulty, Mintoq salvaged the spent bulb after its famous
thirteen and a half hour lifetime, and returned to Tartarus with his
prize. The light bulb no longer provides *light,* of course. Quite the
opposite: it hangs in a glass case within Vapula's principle audience
chamber, with a quote from Edison inscribed in Helltongue on the
copper threading: "Hell, there are no rules here--we're trying to
accomplish something."

>From Mintoq's hypothesis, as well as the working (well... "worked")
model of a new invention, Vapula fashioned a 'black light.' This has
nothing to do wirh raves. The device appears as nothing more than a
common incandescent lightbulb, but when screwed into a socket and
turned on, it rapidly sucks in all the electricity from whatever power
grid it's on in .00042 seconds. This obliterates the black light,
naturally. It also causes city-wide black-outs. Several industrious
Technologists timed five bulbs' synchronous use in 1965. Jean's direct
rebuff to such tampering was felt in New York City twelve years later.

Black Light
(one time use)
(easily destroyed)
(hidden nature)
(no Essence required for use)
(easily hidden)
[Someone else will have to factor the cost on this one....]

Despite their expense, Vapula maintains a modest production run, and
on occasion uses them in intra-Hell conflicts where Technology has a
better than 80% chance of gaining something from its involvement.
Servitors are fond of them as distractions from pursuers both
corporeal and divine. For practical joking purposes, Kobalites have
offered (and on two known instances actually traded) useful objects to
get some Black Lights of their own.

-- 
-=|horsefly|=-

"It was a different time: a time of blood and guns and killings.... It
was a time when killers needed saints, for so much of God's
good work was being done."
 --SAINT OF KILLERS #4, Garth Ennis