Seraphim and Symphony fishing...

[naraht]

What prevents Seraphim in Heaven from simply information fishing for everything not Superior fuzzed in the Symphony?

By Information fishing, I mean like having a Cherub of Lightning making statements like "There is a Vapulan team within 100 miles of Chicago" in front of a dozen or so 12 Perception Seraphim of Lightning and taking the CD-6 results, reporting them and moving on to asking about Detroit.

[Matthias Wasser]

Nothing, other than the delay that comes with high-CD results. Because going about things this way is super lame, Seraphim should be able to reflect on proposition rather than having to hear someone actually say them, and reflecting on slight variations in propositions shouldn't bring new insights. You might also want to limit how chatty Special Revelation is in general, hopefully in some way that organically incorporates the higher mysteries or whatever rather than having them as a special category.

(The more popular option is to say that the Truth is that your friend is just trying to game the Symphony (the GM smirked,) but that leads in lame conceptual directions if you think about it too much.)

[William]

Because the CD 6 result in that case is that the Truth is an understanding of the methodology of the attempt to fish for information from the Symphony. He isn't attempting to convey information; there's no truth content to the command "Stop!". The Cherub's listeners are aware that he's making a formulaic statement without motivating data.

If he had some reason to believe that there was such a team, and he was really trying to convey this information to the listening Seraphim, then their CD 6 resonance results would indicate the Truth. If that sounds like a paradoxical restriction, remember that resonances are little miracles. Unlike a mundane radar sweep, Seraph resonances take intent into account.

(Further problem: he can't utter this sort of statement in Angelic, so he would have to use corporeal language on Earth, and resonance rolls on Earth eventually draw Infernal Interventions.)

ETA: Ninja'd. Though I prefer the "intent matters" option.

[Jason]

There's another, really good thread on this somewhere here, though I forget where...

The big take-away from that thread for me was this: It's up to the GM to decide what the limits of this power are, but it's not really meant to be used that expansively. The Truth you get on CD 6 is going to be correct, but it's not necessarily the answer to the question you asked.

For instance, you can't just ask an ignorant servitor of Saminga where the nearest Vapulan Tether is and expect to get an address. The Truth you get from that could instead be something like, "He knows of several Tether locations, but is ignorant of Vapulan Tethers in this area."

[Archangel Beth]

Originally Posted by naraht

What prevents Seraphim in Heaven from simply information fishing for everything not Superior fuzzed in the Symphony?

As said: unless there's a connection between the speaker and the Truth, the Truth is, "You're saying that in the hopes that the hand of God touches the Seraphim listening, so you can get information about something you don't know anything about."

Not to mention that -- as said -- in Heaven the only thing the Cherub can do is make a statement that it believes is true. Otherwise, the truth (if not the Truth) of the statement becomes, "I want the Seraphim to tell me if X is true or false."


Now, in some case where there is a connection (something the speaker has, or something the Seraph has), I'd personally allow Symphony-fishing to some extent. But considering that in Heaven, the angelic is pretty likely to include "I'm Symphony-fishing" or "I believe X" as part of the statement... This might work best on Earth!

[JCD]

http://forums.sjgames.com/showthread.php?t=72535