I did say that it was a nice bonus. I am merely suggesting: Don't focus on the creating. Focus on the reasoning.

I mean if I write a play or a philosophy thing, it's completely within Pheebsy and Tulemrah's rights to be like, "Okay, tell me why this is worthy of favor. What's the point."

Criticise the Sentinels, eh? Is the Mayor forgetting who is in charge of making sure all those 'HIGHER THOUGHTS' are appropriate?

@Tulemrah: Llesvelt showed you what I've been trying to do with the Company, didn't he? I'd like to think that from GR3 up, it's a good system. A few requisites tied to Company RP and then optional tasks depending on what they're good at/interested in. We're working on revamping our Conscript->GR3 bit though, and hopefully going to get some Company ceremonies/rituals in soon too.

I'd only add that don't be afraid to give out favours for stuff that isn't in the advancement system. I've been giving out favours for stuff like designing, donating weapons/armour, helping procure a Fire Lord at the arena's opening. I just also track which 'examination rank' they're at, so that when the time comes they don't just skip all that.

It sounds like you could do with something external to work on. For example, maybe a pro-aeromancer quest that allows you to control the weather of the basin for a time. If the quest works out, the areas under your control will have miraculous growths in agriculture. If the quest goes wrong, or the evil side to it mayhaps - the basin would be engulfed in storm (meaning no flying for anyone on prime, severe off-season winter storms, what not)

That is the kind of aeromancy engineering I would think of.
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Also, also, this might help. Think of it as the three engineers. You have the bio-engineers, the mechanical engineers, the electrical engineers. All three are at feuds with each other, with the mechanical and bio-engineers (at least at my uni) shunning the electrical engineers for taking the easy route.
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But as far as theoretical as the institute goes, the Aeromancers ARE better in the functional aspect of things. Take advantage of this. Create a weather machine that controls the basin's weather.

The sentiment is right, but if there's one thing they shouldn't focus on (for the worst reasons, bad code) it's weather. Focus on something else, like the architecture of how Hallifax holds up and floats, or flight machines (there's a lovely one on display in a room in Hallifax), or theories about how the Vernal artifacts like the Throne of Urlach work or were made, or... anything but weather.

I don't really know about this. The fact that you're writing or creating something for a game is one thing, but it becomes annoying when you have to delve into the philosophy behind your philosophy and try to justify something. It always annoys me in an IRE game when someone is going for advancement, and the interviewer asks them impossible metaphysical questions that even they don't know the answer too. How often to you hear authors talk about the symbolism in their own pieces?

If it were Alban he'd probably say that the point was for you to draw your own conclusions. XD

It's fine to discuss the piece, but I shouldn't have to defend getting a favour.

Ah, I wasn't trying to make it something to defend. More, discussing, really. "What's your opinion" is essentially what I'd recommend asking. Doesn't everyone have an opinion, and isn't it true that an opinion is neither right nor wrong?

I'm just throwing out ideas.

Wat.

Deschain you are overthinking this. If an aeromancer asks you, 'Tell me the reasoning why this enriches the guild' they you a) just summarize your work in a few words, and pick one of the elements of your work that fits with the guild's philosophy and point that out. I don't think Phoebus is asking you for a full Thesis Defense.

And besides if someone just slaps down the assignment and says 'where's my guildfavor' without being able to talk about what they wrote briefly I get immediately suspicious about plagiarism.



Plenty actually if memory serves from sophomore high school English. Scott Fitzgerald (The Great Gatsby), Toni Morrison (Sula), Joseph Heller (Catch-22) all talked about the symbolism in their works. But the average player isn't required to be trained formally in English to simply tell someone what they wrote and why it's relevant.

Nope! That's my job.

Institute vs Aeromancers

So there is a lot of discussion about where the demarcation point is between the Scientists of the Institute and the Aeromantic Engineers.

I’m seeing in this thread that some are worrying that the Institute has cornered the market on the scientist-higher education theme, and the aeromancers will be bland without stealing this theme.

To remedy this, let me explain a little about the fundamental differences between scientists and engineers in the real world.

Scientists vs Engineers

Scientists are fundamentally interested in knowledge. This knowledge does not necessarily have to have a practical application.

To obtain knowledge, a scientist asks a question. This question is usually ‘how does a particular phenomena work.’ Often this can be qualified with ‘what are the boundaries of this phenomena’ or ‘what components of the system are essential for the phenomena to function’ etc. Then the scientist scurries off to carry out the experiments and lobby for funding.

In contrast, an engineer is interested in solving a particular problem or refining an existing method. For example ‘what force is required to make a city float’ or ‘what is the optimal frequency for tuning rubies for the maximum explosive force for a shatterplex’ or ‘what materials and what structures are ideal for construction of a floating city’ are all engineering problems.

Here’s an example in the context of biology.

There is a jellyfish Aequorea Victoria. It glows green when exposed to blue light.

A guy named Osamu Shimomura wanted to know why the organism glowed green. So he isolated the protein responsible. It was called green fluorescent protein (GFP).

This is science.

Over the past several years, Cell Biologists have had a problem. To really understand what is going on inside a cell, it would be nice to specifically see whatever proteins or organelles you are studying are doing while the cell is alive. However the cell is (generally) transparent. Usually this problem was addressed by killing the cell and visualizing your protein/whatever of interest by using a variety of dyes that are toxic to the cell.

So how do you specifically label a protein of interest in a living cell in a manner that doesn’t kill the cell?

Enter GFP. Martin Chalfie and Frederick Tsuji figured out how to attach GFP to any proteins they were looking at inside a living bacteria or worm. So if you shine blue light on the organism, only your protein of interest fluoresces green and you can track it in real time as it moves about.

This, I would argue, is an engineering problem solved.

These three gentlemen won the Nobel Prize in chemistry in 2008.

Application

How then can this all be applied to enriching the Aeromancer’s rp without copying the Institute’s shtick?

Well say if Nihmriel writes a thesis on growing crystals for the Institute, I could see an Aeromantic Engineer taking her methods to develop a greatrobes design with organically grown crystals to reinforce the integrity of the armor.

If an Institute member wants to study how the essence of a joule is encapsulated into a glowing mote upon destruction, I could see an Aeromantic Engineer drafting a blueprint or writing a dissertation on a device that optimizes the energy input when a color mote is put into the reactor.

And so forth.

This is actually known though... classified, but known

Well, the "why" is known. Not really the "how," though. joke here.]

It's Science.

And even if it were all known, you could squeeze a dozen degree programs out of simply talking about ways to improve it, cataloging it, figuring out how to use it for other projects, comparing it to the architecture of other places, doing an analysis of the mathematics, exploring what implications it has for other fields, and so on. Do you think civil engineering degrees stopped being handed out when they got truss bridges to work?

Just a small point but something that I thought of after a debate with Llesvelt earlier. If this is something you want to expand on, I think appropriating the concepts of Hallifax's lower and higher emotions for the Aeromancers could potentially work well.

Llesvelt's book 'On Perfection' is also a good work which expands on the subject.

As far as I can see, this aspect of the city has been largely ignored which is a shame. This of course plays more to the Aeromancer's philosophical and artistic foci, than engineering one; though a scientific analysis with those concepts in mind is possible. This focus would also be unique to the Aeromancers, since I don't believe any of the other guilds consider this aspect.

EDIT: Sorry, I forgot to mention that each of the existing schools of philosophy lend themselves to this stance, as each could lead to different conclusions on the topics of lower and higher emotions, leading to further points for debate...