[HOE] Junkman Cometh

["Jeff Shoffner" <shoffner@usit.net>]

Finally got my copy of Junkman Cometh--definitely well worth the price.
Heck, I got a 20% discount at my local store; Shane, you want me to send you
a check for the rest?  :)

Couple of things popped up while I was reading before my brain started
melting over the "how to make (whatever)...."

First off, when you make a complex gadget, do you call up one tech spirit or
several depending on what powers you use?  Like sya you got ambitious & made
a fighter aircraft; is that a gun spirit, car spirit, or a whole bunch of
spirits that make the complex whole?

Reading up on the tech spirit story made me wonder about a few things.  It
states when a gadget is destroyed, the machine "gives up the ghost" so to
speak.  So when is the gadget broken?  I mean, they show pics of cars
rusting in a junk yard with the tech spirits hovering around, & some dude
who crashed his car with its spirit floating away, so when does the spirit
go completely away & you have to start over again?  Would a rusted out
junker somewhere on an interstate still have its spirit, just looking for
someone to fix it up?

These spirits strike me as being ,well, vain.  I saw the Finish trick in
there; is there a bonus given to a gadget that has been spiffed up?  I mean,
what tech spirit would allow its face to be seen in a piece of junk that
looks like someone welded a bunch of rusted sheet metal together when it
could be racing around in fully restored '65 'stang?


All of this gives me an idea to rip off Steven King.  How about an adventure
that revolves around a Christine clone?  Come to think of it, just what kind
of spirit would Christine be?  Off the bat, I'd say gun, but she's a
car--does that mean she'd be a damaged car spirit?  I can just see it now--
the posse goes after the driver, thinking he's the one doing all the
killing, trash his car, & then horror of horrors, the thing starts to REPAIR
itself!!  Talk about an abomination!!  ooooohhh!!!  Instead of a '57
Plymouth Fury (too obvious), say the Christine spirit went on to inhabit a
new car body-- a 2091 Cadillac El Diablo!  Complete with El Diablo horns on
the hood. (there's a relic out there of having El Diablo horns on a car)

Jeff S