Comic for Wednesday, Sep 4, 2024

[Darth Fluffy 338]

Comic for Wednesday, Sep 4, 2024

Pandora was exclusively focused on family and Sarah; She locked up many other memories. The last panel, "She didn't even know it was there" says that the Pandora-like figure in Hope's memory is not exactly Pandora.

Hope will look in the box, and will not suffer in the extreme way Pandora would have.

There is a set of engineering terms that seems related to this. Pandora was very insightful, and in most circumstances instantly grasped case and effect consequences, enabling her to adjust her desired actions, i.e., her direction. (She did not do so well with damming in the ambient magic, but she was able to adjust once she had the knowledge.) Hope is still on the early part of the reboot learning curve, and does not adjust quickly.

The differential equations that let a missile fly towards a target (for instance) are described as underdamped if they react too quickly, and overdamped if they react slowly. (Critically damped if they minimize the time to completion.) A problem with underdamped, critically damped, even lightly overdamped systems is overshoot; the system reaches the target value, but passes it and needs to correct back to the target again. If passengers are involved, this will feel like periodic motion. This is why elevators slow as they approach your floor; if they overshot, it would be very annoying, and passengers might feel motion sickness, perhaps some loosing their lunch. (In modern high speed elevators, this is not resolved buy strictly overdamping; rather, a meta control system changes the parameter as your elevator car gets close to the desired floor.) A governor on an engine is a typical overdamped system. The hazard of overdamping is that the system might not be able to keep up, your missile is not as agile as its target.

The hazard of underdamping is different. If you've ever seem a film of rocket experiments in the dawn of the space age, you've seen the hazard of underdamping. The system thrashes between corrections, the error accumulating if the underdamping is extreme, leading to erratic behavior. (In the film, the rockets crash.)

The actual math has additional considerations, unstable points to avoid, and stable points that help stabilize the system. A human in the loop can learn to adapt and provide a high degree of stability, but we tend to react more slowly than a system with no human in the loop.

Pandora was very underdamped, to the point of insane, and Hope is overdamped. She might well be able to handle the information that Pandora could not.

[mlooney 3,594]

Effects on Hope aside, this is another epic art page.  This arc has generated two so far.  

[Pharaoh RutinTutin 1,619]

 

Pandora was known for being overly dramatic 

Is possible that this display is excessive for what it contains? 

 

[Amiable Dorsai 70]

2 hours ago, Pharaoh RutinTutin said:

Is possible that this display is excessive for what it contains? 

In my opinion it's almost certain. Dan's opinion may be different...

[Don Edwards 561]

My suspicion is that this memory either:

a.) relates to the relationship between Pandora and Raven, or

b.) is from two (or more) lives back

[mlooney 3,594]

She knows she looking for a memory about Jay.  That tends to limit to Pandora's life span, and not that long ago.