Sanctum assault on the CS

[Killer Cyborg]

The magic pigeon is a long duration effect.
It is the energy being expended.
The source of the energy is the mage.

RUE 145 (bolding added)
If the energy is being continually expended, like a series of magic or psionic attacks, or is of a duration/effect longer than one melee round (15 seconds), the Dog Boy can trace it to the source (i.e., the character or creature using the psionics or magic) with relative ease.

The pigeon is the magic, not the character or creature using the magic.
THAT would be the caster.

I'm not sure I like where this is going KC.

Me either.
I'm just looking at what the books say.

Ignoring the vulnerability this places on pigeonmakers who have far off friends, this effectively means anyone who has made an indefinite or year long magic like a talisman/scroll/zombie/mummy/golem/sanctuary/amulet/wards/dpocket/denvelope/bone staff/goblinteethnecklace will always be sensible at higher ranges as if actively casting magic even when they aren't?

I don't know what it means exactly.
I've been reading and rereading the Psi-Stalker and Dog Boy sections, trying to figure it out.

This would dissuade many mages from doing such magic if they wanted to operate in CS territory.

I guess this could explain why scrolls are.rare, since they lead the CS to scroll creators.

What has to be in range though? The mage or the magical creation?

If the mage is miles away.then it wouldn't matter if the pigeon is in range because the mage isn't.

I can't argue with your interpretation though... But was it always.this way? Might be.one of those Ultimate rewordings which applied since 2005 instead of 1990.

RUE 109
If a psionic power or magic is being used within the range of sensitivity, he will sense that too. If the energy is being continually expended, like a series of magic or psionic attacks, or a long duration effect, he can track it to the source with ease.

This seems to imply that if a psi-stalker or dog boy has access to a spell effect, he/she can use it to track the mage that created that effect. So if you cast Enchant Weapon (Minor), and a dog boy or psi-stalker gets hold of it, they can try to track you.
I do think that the "with ease" part is based on an assumption of somewhat close range, though, and it seems that the "when tracking a psychic scent, roll percentile dice every 1000 feet to see if the hunter is still on the trail" would apply.
So if you're hundreds of miles away, there could be a lot of tracking and backtracking, a lot of losing the trail then picking it back up again involved in tracking you.

What this means with Magic Pigeons is, I currently believe, that the tracking would depend on the dog's/stalker's ability to carry a pigeon with him/her.
Which means that unless they're working with a mage, or unless they have access to psionic means of trapping the pigeon, or unless they find some other kind of exception to the "normal weapons can not harm or capture the pigeon" clause, then tracking the pigeon's creator would not be very likely if they're many miles away.

Or a more logical answer is that the 'continually expended' for a long duration effect is that the effect is expending energy (in other words it is radiating detectable magic)
Since this would both fit the exact text perfectly, is a perfectly valid linguistic interpretation,

I don't think that it does, nor is.
"If the energy is being continually expended, like a series of magic or psionic attacks, or is of a duration/effect longer than one melee round, the Dog Boy can trace it to the source (i.e., the character or creature using the psionics or magic) with relative ease," linguistically speaking, means (among other things) "If the energy is of a duration/effect longer than one melee round, the dog boy can trace it to the character or creature using the magic with relative ease."

[Killer Cyborg]

i find it more plausible that i.e. was used incorrectly, in place of "for example" (which is a fairly common error).

I suppose that is possible.
But since that part is added, it seems more likely that it was added specifically to clarify the meaning of the text, not to simply add a single example that neither changes nor highlights the meaning of the previous version of the text.

if the caster is always the source, that leads to a lot of really weird, unintuitive scenarios that i would need to see explicitly stated to believe they were in any way intended.

For example?

[Killer Cyborg]

If you have a talisman and it let's you trace that back to the talisman maker...

Possibly, but not necessarily.
The phrasing is: "the character or creature using the psionics or magic."
If a mage makes a Talisman, and gives it to another person who wears it, then it's perfectly arguable that the person wearing it is the "character using the magic."

What if a Shaun the Shifter makes a talisman of magic pigeon and gives it to Vinnie Boatman the Vagabond Boogieman and VB uses the talisman to sent magic pigeons at Chi Town to find "my girlfriend Betty Took the Boogiewoman Thief hiding somewhere in the.sewers" and the pigeon flies through miles of sewage trying to find her?

Could the dog boys track the pigeon back to the Shaun or to Vinnie? The talisman empowered or the talisman user?

It's not clear.
But for the moment....
I think that if a Dog Boy could capture that pigeon, then it could track the energy back to Vinnie, because Vinnie is the one using the Talisman.

[Eagle]

Nope that isn't what I said in the slightest.
The use of the spell is not being changed. I am not rewriting the spell and giving it new powers. Nor am I changing how the CS works in some way.

Apples and Oranges

If you will read the entire thread though I DO say that the Magic Pigeon span doesn't happen because of a formal reason.
That formal reason is not that it doesn't work, it does work. That reason is Plot Armor. The plot requires that a perfectly valid tactic not be used, because using that tactic would invalidate the books. Therefor PA is invoked and the tactic will never be used by any NPCs.

The end result (no mass pigeon attacks) is the same. But the way you get to them is different.

Well, the spell implies that you have to send the pigeon to where the guy actually is. So I think you are re-writing the spell a bit.

[Killer Cyborg]

Well, the spell implies that you have to send the pigeon to where the guy actually is. So I think you are re-writing the spell a bit.

More or less.

The Magic Pigeon is able to deliver a spoken or written message to anyone, anyplace in this world (same dimension). However, the spell caster must know at least the general location of the recipient of the message and a specific person (or two) to receive the message. Upon reaching its destination, the pigeon seeks out that person and immediately delivers the message. If the recipient of the message is not at the prescribed destination it will wait until he returns or until the spell duration elapses and the pigeon fades away.

In order to send the pigeon anywhere, the mage must KNOW at least the general location of the intended recipient.
That knowledge itself, along with knowing of a specific person or two, are the only mentioned way of the mage directing the spell.
At no point in the spell description does it say that the mage gets to choose the location that the pigeon flies to--only the person that it flies to, and that targeting is dependent on accurate knowledge of the person's general location.
The spell description specifies that the pigeon can deliver a message "to anyone, any place in this world." It does NOT say "to anyone or to any place."
It can only target a person.

So if the mage knows of a person who lives in Chi-Town, then he can cast the spell, the pigeon will fly to Chi-Town, and it will seek out the target.
In that case, the mage can not send the pigeon any place other than Chi-Town, because the pigeon is flying toward a person, and that person is in Chi-Town.
If, after the spell is cast, the target leaves Chi-Town, and stays away long enough for the pigeon to arrive, then the pigeon will wait for the target to return.

But what happens if the mage is wrong about the target's location?
The pigeon couldn't be sent anywhere, according to the spell as-written. The mage must KNOW the target's general location.

[Axelmania]

Hey KC if you knew that gods like Amon / Cihuacoatl / Thoth sometimes visits Atlantis, couldn't you send a pigeon there to wait for them to show up and then wing-rush them during their semiannual backgammon sessions with Splynncryth?

if one reading makes the power operate the way it has been used by the game books for decades and one use suddenly requires saying that much of the canon is actually wrong...

That's the thing though, can we say that the game books support one or the other? What other material are we looking at? I'm not sure if the idea of tracking longlasting spells like zombies to their casters has ever actually been addressed. While I'd like to assume that tactics like this would be brought up if they were feasible, there are a LOT of potential applications of magic or anti-magic counters which don't necessarily get touched upon in setting discussion.

Pulling out the RMB... for Stalkers on 105:

If the energy is being continually expended, like a series of magic or psionic attacks, or a long duration effect, the predator can track it to the source with ease.

and Hounds on 109:

If the energy is being continually expended, like a series of magic or psionic attacks, or a long duration effect, he can track it to the source with ease.

So the long-duration effect (LDE) text has existed from the start...

I'm still not sure if that means that only the effect has to be in range or the mage though. I'm thinking the mage. Just if they haven't cancelled all their magic, if any spell is ongoing for them (since 'long' duration is subjective) they simply radiate magic more. So any mages who want to get close to psi-stalkers had better cancel all their stuff.

This could explain why higher level mages with long duration magic might keep further away from the CS. It would give the CS better sensing range (30+20LEV > 600+100LEV stalkers, 45+5LEV > 500+50LEV hounds) making their sensor webs capable of being more spread out if they only have to worry about mages who never created a permanent magic thing getting through.

...then I am going to say that the first one is the correct reading and the other is wrong.

This is thinking I'd like to see adopted in missile arguments

So we both agree that spamming Magic Pigeon doesn't work then? Because allowing it to bring down the CS' defenses would invalidate every bit of canon in the books?

Having a magic pigeon being active making you more easy for hounds/stalkers to smell isn't the same thing as it not being a feasible tactic.

The plot requires that a perfectly valid tactic not be used, because using that tactic would invalidate the books. Therefor PA is invoked and the tactic will never be used by any NPCs.

That or mages do use this tactic, but vanguard target pigeons with Negate Magic or launch the occasional Anti Magic Cloud at clusters, or the CS has a squad of BTS-style Nega-Psychics with a natural equivalent to the Negate Magic spell to nuke them.

[Killer Cyborg]

Hey KC if you knew that gods like Amon / Cihuacoatl / Thoth sometimes visits Atlantis, couldn't you send a pigeon there to wait for them to show up and then wing-rush them during their semiannual backgammon sessions with Splynncryth?

You'd have to know that they were there, not that they were sometimes there, or that they might be there.

[flatline]

Hey KC if you knew that gods like Amon / Cihuacoatl / Thoth sometimes visits Atlantis, couldn't you send a pigeon there to wait for them to show up and then wing-rush them during their semiannual backgammon sessions with Splynncryth?

You'd have to know that they were there, not that they were sometimes there, or that they might be there.

No, I think that's too strict an interpretation since it defeats the intended purpose of the spell.

If I want to send a message to my brother who lives 600 miles away, I think it's perfectly within the intent of the spell for me to send the pigeon to his house even though I have no way of knowing that at the time of the casting if he's actually at his house at that moment. Nor do I know that he'll be in his house 20 hours from now when the pigeon arrives. The exceedingly long duration of the pigeon allows me to send a message to my brother at his house and have a reasonable expectation that he will eventually come home to receive his message even if he travels away from his house for weeks or months at a time.

In a fantasy setting which is where magic pigeon came from, letters were sent to where you expected the person to eventually be, not where they were now because you had no way of knowing where they actually were now. In medieval times, messages might wait for weeks or months before the recipient came by to receive it or someone who had specific knowledge of where the recipient was took it to them. Similarly, if a message was urgent, it was not uncommon to make several copies of the message and send it to different locations in the hope that the recipient might receive one of the copies sooner than if you'd just sent one message.

With that in mind, if the caster has a reasonable expectation that someone might go to the burbs within the duration of the magic pigeon spell, then the caster should be allowed to send the magic pigeon to the burbs.

Call it house rules if you want to, but by the strict interpretation proposed by KC, nobody would ever be allowed to send a magic pigeon unless they had line of sight with the recipient which is completely at odds with the long duration and obvious asynchronous intent of the spell.

--flatline

[Killer Cyborg]

Hey KC if you knew that gods like Amon / Cihuacoatl / Thoth sometimes visits Atlantis, couldn't you send a pigeon there to wait for them to show up and then wing-rush them during their semiannual backgammon sessions with Splynncryth?

You'd have to know that they were there, not that they were sometimes there, or that they might be there.

No, I think that's too strict an interpretation since it defeats the intended purpose of the spell.

If I want to send a message to my brother who lives 600 miles away, I think it's perfectly within the intent of the spell for me to send the pigeon to his house even though I have no way of knowing that at the time of the casting if he's actually at his house at that moment. Nor do I know that he'll be in his house 20 hours from now when the pigeon arrives. The exceedingly long duration of the pigeon allows me to send a message to my brother at his house and have a reasonable expectation that he will eventually come home to receive his message even if he travels away from his house for weeks or months at a time.

It's a strict interpretation. I don't know that I'd say it's TOO strict.

Personally, as a GM I'd interpret "know" to mean "reasonably believe to be fact."
In your brother's case, if you fully and reasonably expected him to be somewhere in the vicinity of his house, then you could send the pigeon.
If you believed that he probably wasn't home, or somewhere in the general vicinity, then you couldn't send it.
If you had no idea whether or not he was home, or somewhere in the general vicinity, then you couldn't send it.

That's not RAW, of course, just my take on the spell.
RAW would be that you have to know where he was.

In a fantasy setting which is where magic pigeon came from, letters were sent to where you expected the person to eventually be, not where they were now because you had no way of knowing where they actually were now.

Magic Pigeons aren't letters.
The spell description does not say anything about where you expect them to eventually be.

by the strict interpretation proposed by KC, nobody would ever be allowed to send a magic pigeon unless they had line of sight with the recipient which is completely at odds with the long duration and obvious asynchronous intent of the spell.

Rifts doesn't work RAW.
That's why everybody house rules things.

[Eagle]

Rifts doesn't work RAW.
That's why everybody house rules things.

Truer words have never been spoken.

The best way to play Rifts is to take what you like, and leave the rest. I don't want an overpowering Coalition in my games, but I don't want them to be stomped either. Therefore, narratively, any kind of cheap shot that can be fired away at the Coalition from long range and complete safety, just will not be successful. On the other side, the Coalition can't take its 5 million man army, have them stand shoulder to shoulder, and just walk across the magic zone, shooting anything they see.

[Vrykolas2k]

Ok, I'll throw in my hat to this argument.
Say you have a high-level mage or even an adult dragon who decides to wreak some hell in Chi-Town. He sends a minion, some normal guy with a camera or two, on "vacation" to Chi-Town. Maybe even a psychic, who decides to do the permanent registry thing and get the bar-code, and try to sign up for citizenship. Could even be someone who honestly hates most non-humans.
He goes around taking photos of normal, everyday stuff. Nothing sensitive. "Oh, look, here's a park. See how happy the humans live here?" "Hey, here's a happy shopping-centre."
That kind of thing.
He goes around, makes some "friends", discovers that ISS and so on have probably a 15 minute response-time (which is logical, given how big the city is--they're not omnipresent in force or anything). He goes home.
The mage/ dragon has been spending time making scrolls. Say, 5 minute's worth of reading. Possibly with some helpers.
The mage/ dragon casts some protective spells, or has helpers do it. Teleports to the park or whatever. Starts reading scrolls. Things like Ballistic Fire and Annihilate. A bunch of civvies die, some damage is done. The mage/ dragon teleports home.
The teleporting happens maybe twice a month. Prosek declares martial law to keep the civvies from rioting. It isn't safe, after all and isn't that his job, to keep a black ball of magical energy from erupting in a school?
The riots happen anyway. Some civilians are killed, but lets pretend that not all CS soldiers are anarchist or evil, as they're stated to be, and a lot of them refuse such orders. Civil war ensues.

That's the kind of thing where Clairvoyance would come in handy.
Also, general security measures could detect that the spy was a problem, and he might not come back. Another could be sent, of course--that's how this kind of thing goes.

Now, when you say "a bunch of civvies die," you DO know that many civvies in Chi-Town are City Rats, yes?
At least in the lower levels, where a tourist spy is likely to be able to access.
So even with civilians, there'd be some mega-damage resistance to a dragon on a murder spree. The attacker wouldn't have to just deal with the CS, but also with downsider gangs. Which may or may not make much difference, depending on any number of factors.

And the rioting?
I don't see that happening much. When terrorists attack Israel and kill civilians, do the Israelis riot against their own government?
Or do they, after receiving yet another reminder of how inhuman their enemies are, dig in a bit harder, hate their enemies a bit more, and become even more fundamentalist?
I gotta go with Option B, especially after recently reading up on how the British population reacted to Nazi bombings.

What security measures determine some random, normal/ slightly psychic guy who is willing to submit to bar-coding is a problem?
I think a lot of people assume too much CS omniscience... Also, if tourists only get to see the areas where gangs live.... ya, no, I doubt that.
And we have plenty of examples in the real world where people who fail to do their jobs end up on the wrong end of riots (or perhaps the nation of France escapes some peoples' history lessons).

[Killer Cyborg]

Ok, I'll throw in my hat to this argument.
Say you have a high-level mage or even an adult dragon who decides to wreak some hell in Chi-Town. He sends a minion, some normal guy with a camera or two, on "vacation" to Chi-Town. Maybe even a psychic, who decides to do the permanent registry thing and get the bar-code, and try to sign up for citizenship. Could even be someone who honestly hates most non-humans.
He goes around taking photos of normal, everyday stuff. Nothing sensitive. "Oh, look, here's a park. See how happy the humans live here?" "Hey, here's a happy shopping-centre."
That kind of thing.
He goes around, makes some "friends", discovers that ISS and so on have probably a 15 minute response-time (which is logical, given how big the city is--they're not omnipresent in force or anything). He goes home.
The mage/ dragon has been spending time making scrolls. Say, 5 minute's worth of reading. Possibly with some helpers.
The mage/ dragon casts some protective spells, or has helpers do it. Teleports to the park or whatever. Starts reading scrolls. Things like Ballistic Fire and Annihilate. A bunch of civvies die, some damage is done. The mage/ dragon teleports home.
The teleporting happens maybe twice a month. Prosek declares martial law to keep the civvies from rioting. It isn't safe, after all and isn't that his job, to keep a black ball of magical energy from erupting in a school?
The riots happen anyway. Some civilians are killed, but lets pretend that not all CS soldiers are anarchist or evil, as they're stated to be, and a lot of them refuse such orders. Civil war ensues.

That's the kind of thing where Clairvoyance would come in handy.
Also, general security measures could detect that the spy was a problem, and he might not come back. Another could be sent, of course--that's how this kind of thing goes.

Now, when you say "a bunch of civvies die," you DO know that many civvies in Chi-Town are City Rats, yes?
At least in the lower levels, where a tourist spy is likely to be able to access.
So even with civilians, there'd be some mega-damage resistance to a dragon on a murder spree. The attacker wouldn't have to just deal with the CS, but also with downsider gangs. Which may or may not make much difference, depending on any number of factors.

And the rioting?
I don't see that happening much. When terrorists attack Israel and kill civilians, do the Israelis riot against their own government?
Or do they, after receiving yet another reminder of how inhuman their enemies are, dig in a bit harder, hate their enemies a bit more, and become even more fundamentalist?
I gotta go with Option B, especially after recently reading up on how the British population reacted to Nazi bombings.

What security measures determine some random, normal/ slightly psychic guy who is willing to submit to bar-coding is a problem?

The same kind that catch the occasional guy with a bomb before he detonates it in the real world, or other criminals. Intel, police work, and so forth.
Spies CAN get caught, in spite of their best intentions.

I think a lot of people assume too much CS omniscience...

I said "could," not "would."
I'm not assuming omniscience on the part of the CS; I'm just not assuming perfection on the part of the spy.
Things don't always work the way we plan.

Also, if tourists only get to see the areas where gangs live.... ya, no, I doubt that.

I haven't put a lot of thought into the tourist industry of Chi-Town, but the higher the levels, the more the security.
Which means the more chance that something goes wrong.

And we have plenty of examples in the real world where people who fail to do their jobs end up on the wrong end of riots (or perhaps the nation of France escapes some peoples' history lessons).

I don't remember any anti-government riots in France caused by outside enemies the nation is afraid of attacking the nation.

[Axelmania]

Hey KC if you knew that gods like Amon / Cihuacoatl / Thoth sometimes visits Atlantis, couldn't you send a pigeon there to wait for them to show up and then wing-rush them during their semiannual backgammon sessions with Splynncryth?

You'd have to know that they were there, not that they were sometimes there, or that they might be there.

Know, or just think? What if you thought a source was reliable but it wasn't?

Or what if you had a clairvoyance vision of Amon / Splynncryth having a biowizardry gab session and sent a pigeon saying "hey Amon, I'm a follower of Thoth, I don't like you very much, come get me in Dweomer" to Atlantis? You woudn't know the exact time of the vision, just that they would meet at some point in the future, so it would make sense to send the pigeon there to wait for that meeting.

[Killer Cyborg]

Hey KC if you knew that gods like Amon / Cihuacoatl / Thoth sometimes visits Atlantis, couldn't you send a pigeon there to wait for them to show up and then wing-rush them during their semiannual backgammon sessions with Splynncryth?

You'd have to know that they were there, not that they were sometimes there, or that they might be there.

Know, or just think? What if you thought a source was reliable but it wasn't?

Technically, RAW, you'd have to KNOW.
Which would mean that you could use Magic Pigeon to determine whether or not your beliefs were true.
Like, if you wanted to assassinate Prosek, and were trying to find him, you could try sending a Magic Pigeon to Chi-Town because you assume he's there.
If the pigeon doesn't fly, then you know he's NOT there.
Then you could try the next location that you believed in, and if it didn't work, then you would know he wasn't there.
And so on, until the pigeon flew away. Then you'd know where Prosek was at that particular time.

BUT overall, I as a GM would allow "know" to mean "reasonably believe to be true."
You could "know" that Prosek was in Chi-Town, because that's what you heard from a source that you considered to be very reliable.
It wouldn't have to be true--but you'd have to believe that it was true.

Or what if you had a clairvoyance vision of Amon / Splynncryth having a biowizardry gab session and sent a pigeon saying "hey Amon, I'm a follower of Thoth, I don't like you very much, come get me in Dweomer" to Atlantis? You woudn't know the exact time of the vision, just that they would meet at some point in the future, so it would make sense to send the pigeon there to wait for that meeting.

Knowing the location of somebody has a chronological connotation to it.
If I "know where you are," then that means "now," not "where you will be in the future at some unknown time."

[Eagle]

Technically, RAW, you'd have to KNOW.
Which would mean that you could use Magic Pigeon to determine whether or not your beliefs were true.
Like, if you wanted to assassinate Prosek, and were trying to find him, you could try sending a Magic Pigeon to Chi-Town because you assume he's there.
If the pigeon doesn't fly, then you know he's NOT there.
Then you could try the next location that you believed in, and if it didn't work, then you would know he wasn't there.
And so on, until the pigeon flew away. Then you'd know where Prosek was at that particular time.

I disagree. RAW, you must know where he is to even cast it. No trial and error allowed. No experimentation. You have to KNOW. The pigeon waits for him because he might leave the location before the pigeon gets there.

[Axelmania]

But people don't really know anything, they just think things and sometimes what they think is correct and other times what they think is not correct.

The concept of knowing is simply faith in one's beliefs. One can believe something strongly and be wrong, or believe something conservatively and be right.

I think the bit about knowing the general location is simply expressing the common sense wisdom that you have to know a general location for a pigeon to go, or else it won't be able to find the target, so it was pointless.

Except in this case, missing the target's entirely the point, so the pigeon stays around.

[Killer Cyborg]

Technically, RAW, you'd have to KNOW.
Which would mean that you could use Magic Pigeon to determine whether or not your beliefs were true.
Like, if you wanted to assassinate Prosek, and were trying to find him, you could try sending a Magic Pigeon to Chi-Town because you assume he's there.
If the pigeon doesn't fly, then you know he's NOT there.
Then you could try the next location that you believed in, and if it didn't work, then you would know he wasn't there.
And so on, until the pigeon flew away. Then you'd know where Prosek was at that particular time.

I disagree. RAW, you must know where he is to even cast it.

That was my initial take as well, but the first line of the spell description is:
Through the means of a special incantation the spell caster is able to create a mystic facsimile of a pigeon.
That is what the spell does: it creates a pigeon.

The next line explains a function of this pigeon, that it is able to deliver messages.
The next line places a caveat on that function, not on the casting of the spell itself.

The pigeon waits for him because he might leave the location before the pigeon gets there.

Agreed.

[Killer Cyborg]

But people don't really know anything, they just think things and sometimes what they think is correct and other times what they think is not correct.

Do you know that for certain?

The concept of knowing is simply faith in one's beliefs. One can believe something strongly and be wrong, or believe something conservatively and be right.

I think the bit about knowing the general location is simply expressing the common sense wisdom that you have to know a general location for a pigeon to go, or else it won't be able to find the target, so it was pointless.

Except in this case, missing the target's entirely the point, so the pigeon stays around.

The pigeon doesn't target a location; it targets a person.

[Axelmania]

It targets the location where you think someone is, more like, which is why it waits there for them instead of automatically homing in on wherever else they may have travelled.

The fallibility of people's belief in knowledge is the closest I feel to knowing something. By rejecting knowing, requiring I know my reasons contradicts the concept..I just believe in them strongly.

[Killer Cyborg]

It targets the location where you think someone is, more like, which is why it waits there for them instead of automatically homing in on wherever else they may have travelled.

No.
It targets the person. It can MISS if you have bad information, but it's the person that it's targeting.
It gives the message to a person, not a place.
It waits for a person, not at a place.
When it gets to the general location, it seeks out that person.

[eliakon]

It targets the location where you think someone is, more like, which is why it waits there for them instead of automatically homing in on wherever else they may have travelled.

No.
It targets the person. It can MISS if you have bad information, but it's the person that it's targeting.

I think it is doing both.
It is targeting both a person and a place.
Not just one, or the other.
You have to have a target recipient, and a location that the person is in.
Then you send the pigeon out and it goes to the location and finds the target.
two step process, with two separate 'foci' neither of which is more or less important than the other.

[Killer Cyborg]

It targets the location where you think someone is, more like, which is why it waits there for them instead of automatically homing in on wherever else they may have travelled.

No.
It targets the person. It can MISS if you have bad information, but it's the person that it's targeting.

I think it is doing both.
It is targeting both a person and a place.
Not just one, or the other.
You have to have a target recipient, and a location that the person is in.
Then you send the pigeon out and it goes to the location and finds the target.
two step process, with two separate 'foci' neither of which is more or less important than the other.

Instead of arguing, at this point I'll simply ask:
If each foci are equally important, does that mean to you that both foci are necessary?

[eliakon]

It targets the location where you think someone is, more like, which is why it waits there for them instead of automatically homing in on wherever else they may have travelled.

No.
It targets the person. It can MISS if you have bad information, but it's the person that it's targeting.

I think it is doing both.
It is targeting both a person and a place.
Not just one, or the other.
You have to have a target recipient, and a location that the person is in.
Then you send the pigeon out and it goes to the location and finds the target.
two step process, with two separate 'foci' neither of which is more or less important than the other.

Instead of arguing, at this point I'll simply ask:
If each foci are equally important, does that mean to you that both foci are necessary?

Yes.
You have to designate a person to receive the spell, and designate a place for the pigeon to go to look for that person.
That sort of means that both are necessary.
You can't send the pigeon off to central park to tell the first person it encounters something
You can't send the pigeon off to find Timmy and have it unerringly home in on him regardless of which well he is down.
That sort of means that yes, both are needed. That said, you do not have to be clinically precise with this.
You can send a message to someplace you suspect a person is, or where you think that they will be eventually, or where you last knew they were. Or even to every location you have ever known them to be in hopes of one of them reaching the subject.
You can send a message to a location as generic as a "Chicago" or "The Salt Lake Valley" though you probably can not send one to "Texas" or "The Amazon"

[flatline]

It targets the location where you think someone is, more like, which is why it waits there for them instead of automatically homing in on wherever else they may have travelled.

No.
It targets the person. It can MISS if you have bad information, but it's the person that it's targeting.

I think it is doing both.
It is targeting both a person and a place.
Not just one, or the other.
You have to have a target recipient, and a location that the person is in.
Then you send the pigeon out and it goes to the location and finds the target.
two step process, with two separate 'foci' neither of which is more or less important than the other.

Instead of arguing, at this point I'll simply ask:
If each foci are equally important, does that mean to you that both foci are necessary?

The algorithm is pretty clear from the description.
1. go to the location.
2. look for the person.

Both are necessary for the spell to function. One is not given priority over the other since only one is active at a time.

A slightly more advanced magic pigeon might deliver the message to the person if it sees the person before it reaches the location, but if you're dead set on a strict interpretation of the description, you'll use the first algorithm.
(going from memory here...maybe the description is slightly different than I'm remembering).

--flatline

[Killer Cyborg]

We might be all close to the same page on this.
The upshot of my view is that in order to spam Chi-Town, you must know a person or persons that you at least strongly believe are IN Chi-Town.

[eliakon]

We might be all close to the same page on this.
The upshot of my view is that in order to spam Chi-Town, you must know a person or persons that you at least strongly believe are IN Chi-Town.

Or that they will be in the Burbs.
Or that you don't know where they are but that they are sometimes in the Burbs.
Or that the last place you knew they were was the Burbs.

All of which would let you legally cast the spell on a whole laundry list of people who may, or may not be in the burbs (and at least some of whom wont be) but are perfectly valid targets.
And which will generate a pretty large backlog of pigeons fluttering around waiting for "George Walker Smith" to arrive in the burbs... because he is currently assigned to Lone Star. Or Tolkeen. Or dead.

[flatline]

We might be all close to the same page on this.
The upshot of my view is that in order to spam Chi-Town, you must know a person or persons that you at least strongly believe are IN Chi-Town.

You may see that as an upshot. I see it as an unnecessary limitation.

I would rather empower the players unless it somehow ruins the game.

--flatline

[Axelmania]

The necessity seems to be in the text, and the dilemma isn't very limiting considering you can give a talisman of Magic Pigeon to anybody and feed them misinformation on the location of the person they want to contact so that they really do think the person is in Chi-Town even though the engineer of the pigeon knows they aren't.

You could even magically compel someone to strongly believe someone is in chi town when they aren't.

If belief is all that is needed, I'm not even sure the person needs to exist.

If I brainwashed a peasant into thinking that J.R.R. Tolkien was actually a dragon and he's still alive today and hiding in the Chi-Town burbs, they should be able to send magic pigeons to the burbs asking him to write new books.

[Killer Cyborg]

We might be all close to the same page on this.
The upshot of my view is that in order to spam Chi-Town, you must know a person or persons that you at least strongly believe are IN Chi-Town.

Or that they will be in the Burbs.
Or that you don't know where they are but that they are sometimes in the Burbs.
Or that the last place you knew they were was the Burbs.

Those don't fit the description of the spell. Except possibly the last item, if you had no reason to believe that they'd left.

[Killer Cyborg]

The necessity seems to be in the text, and the dilemma isn't very limiting considering you can give a talisman of Magic Pigeon to anybody and feed them misinformation on the location of the person they want to contact so that they really do think the person is in Chi-Town even though the engineer of the pigeon knows they aren't.

You could even magically compel someone to strongly believe someone is in chi town when they aren't.

If belief is all that is needed, I'm not even sure the person needs to exist.

If I brainwashed a peasant into thinking that J.R.R. Tolkien was actually a dragon and he's still alive today and hiding in the Chi-Town burbs, they should be able to send magic pigeons to the burbs asking him to write new books.

It wouldn't work RAW, because being told something isn't strictly knowing it.
But as a GM, I'd allow these things.
They seem like a reasonable workaround.

Really, though, if you want to disrupt things, you could just spam pigeon messages to Prosek@Chitown.
If he's not there, the pigeons would stack up.
If he IS there, then he'll be distracted by hundreds (or however many) pigeons giving him messages.
(Unless the CS has ways to stop, remove, or destroy the pigeons, etc.)

[Axelmania]

Sending them to Desmond Bradford in Lone Star perhaps?

[Blue_Lion]

Sending them to Desmond Bradford in Lone Star perhaps?

Black vault might even have a whole wing of magic pigeons they captured.

[Killer Cyborg]

Sending them to Desmond Bradford in Lone Star perhaps?

Black vault might even have a whole wing of magic pigeons they captured.

That would be pretty awesome, actually.
The PCs bust in, hoping to loot the place... but they only find room after room of pigeons!

[Blue_Lion]

Sending them to Desmond Bradford in Lone Star perhaps?

Black vault might even have a whole wing of magic pigeons they captured.

That would be pretty awesome, actually.
The PCs bust in, hoping to loot the place... but they only find room after room of pigeons!

I see it more as birds in boxes, or crates so the PCs find sealed crates open them up and the birds escape from the shoe boxes.

[Killer Cyborg]

Sending them to Desmond Bradford in Lone Star perhaps?

Black vault might even have a whole wing of magic pigeons they captured.

That would be pretty awesome, actually.
The PCs bust in, hoping to loot the place... but they only find room after room of pigeons!

I see it more as birds in boxes, or crates so the PCs find sealed crates open them up and the birds escape from the shoe boxes.

[Axelmania]

How do you capture one? Telekinetic force field? Can't recall if they can move through barriers.

[Killer Cyborg]

How do you capture one? Telekinetic force field? Can't recall if they can move through barriers.

Technically, "normal weapons" cannot capture them.
We're not told if TK counts as a "normal weapon," nor if boxes do.

[Blue_Lion]

How do you capture one? Telekinetic force field? Can't recall if they can move through barriers.

They do not specify that it can fly though barriers. It does say they can be magical entrapped by things like magic net and carpet of adhesion. So to some level it can be affected by its environment.

We do know as a general rule magic can not be cast to the outside of something like a enclosed vehicle. So it might be able to be trapped by a simple box if it flies inside it. (it says weapons normal weapons can not trap it but is a box a weapon?)

SoT does seam to imply that magnetic fields may affect spells.(with things like the penalty for mettle armor.)