Vorlonagent

Someone needs to tell the kid this.

I can get behind this. magic writes and rewrites spells wholesale and is the arbiter of how the system works. Immortals are capable of creating custom spells for themselves on the fly. They can create permanent magical objects (artifacts) and can write one custom spell for a user-level account. (a Mark) according to the rules Magic has set up or Awaken a user-level account under the rules magic has set up. Humans/Animals/non-Immortal Magical beings can have no interaction with magic, be Marked or be Awakened. Magic writes new spells and/or abilities for those who are Awakened according to the rules it has set up including the ability to create permanent magical objects and perhaps even Mark others. I wonder: Magic has only two known functions whereas the others have a lot more. Can Magic itself Mark someone? One could argue that most Awakenings are handled by magic, Can magic create an artifact? Does magic have other functions besides rule-making that are its province alone?

A slight further alteration would be would Admin privileges vs user privileges. Makes sense.

I think there may be a methodological difference. Magic doesn't need to use energy to distort a spell's effect. It has the option to change the spell permanently rather than making temporary changes at steep energy costs. That's why I say "Magic mods for free".

To my mind, magic does have an API for temporary mods. But modding costs energy in proportion to the changes being made from the original. You can store the code and reuse but you have to recompile the changes from the current codebase before each use. If you're lucky, magic will write your mod into the codebase for your spell. Magic itself is the only one who gets to mod for free.

I'm not sure I see how what I wrote that would support or contradict a one-summon-to-rule-them-all approach. I was thinking about how Ed Verres describes Bloodgrems as "a common creature as far as summon spells go". So it seemed to make sense to say there's a "class BloodGrem" in magic. So three different fairydoll summons need not be so different when we look at the code and circumstances if they all work off the base class. I'd agree that you always instantiate a class the same way but I tend to prefer the idea that you need one spell per class you attempt to instantiate. To my mind, it seems to fit the EGS magic system better.

The differences aren't that big really. It's all a matter of implementation. You have a "fairydoll" class. It flies and is controlled subconsciously with a method call to determine exact appearance. Dex' version pretty much instantiates the default class. Nanase's version instantiates a heavily-edited child class. A lot of bells and whistles have been added to the base class, like conscious control, some form of permanent, reusable body, and a personal spell, "fae punch" Because Susan instantiates her version as a copy/paste code-duplicate without access to the class or class history, hers is wonky version of Nanase's where some default features havereappeared. which keep the code from crashing messily, which still happens when Susan uses the "unsummon" method.

It'd be worth a shot. Not my fault there's a method to her madness and I pick up on it. Edit: By Immortal law, I completely DO get away with it unless Pandora can completely convince herself I started it

Maybe, maybe not. Voltaire is powerful and knows how Pandora operates. What's more she's been a lot calmer since the older strips where she appeared as the creepy girl that crashed Rhoda's TV interview or shredded Magus' astral form for not making Ed Verres kill Abraham. I did say this was an idea I was playing with but hadn't committed to.

I'd tell her she had a style that stood out as "her" style...

Not to my speculation, not. I mostly use it as an extrapolation tool. I have harder time with speculation that doesn't spring from a basis in continuity. We can reasonably deduce that Voltaire knows Pandora is around. If he marked Dex, we cna further assume he knows the style with which she marks people and conclude that he was attempting to frame her for Dex. There's no reason to imagine any long history between them until there's evidence for it. At least give me points for suggesting a multiple personality complex so profound it produces multiple physical bodies....

That was Ellen's beam that wouldn't affect the goo. We're talking about Elliot, whose be-a-girl spell is taken from the effects of the TF gun but is otherwise earth-magic. Ellen's handbeam mymics the uryouom energies of the TF Gun so it really doesn't apply here. Or I simply don't know what you mean by bringing it into the discussion. FV5 transofrmation seems to the heart of Eliot's be-a-girl spell, which has since evolved to encompass non-FV5 female humans and clothing transformations (or always included the stuff and Elliot sucks at reading his spellbook). It could evolve further to having Elliot turn into female non-humans, but I see that as outside his spell's current definition so the spell would need to be to be pushed, warped or deformed to do a female griffin. Oh yes. Occam's Razor is not an absolute. But it tends to be a good way to bet. There's no way to start with "where did my car keys go?" and end up with "Cherleadra gets cell phone powers" unless you're just taking random guesses. Of course Occam's Razor fails. When there's no way to anticipate the change, there's no simplest explanation for Occam's Razor to give you. One word: "Midichloreons" When the world's creator goes completely against what he has put forward, we are completely allowed to call him on it. Dan hasn't dome anything like Lucas so the example is hypothetical. I still disagree. The special case of a Mark made by Pandora or impersonating a mark made by Pandora does give us useful information because that's how she marks people.

This lends support to a theory I am toying with but haven't committed to. Voltaire is Pandora. Specifically a breakaway piece of her psyche that has assumed its own body and identity. Or even that Voltaire is most of Pandora and the part we see talking to Sarah is the part of her that's still...if not sane, but "nice" in outlook.. The idea is a physical separation between benign Panadora and nihilistic Pandora has occurred, perhaps sometime within the run of the comic. Nihilistic Pandora has renamed herself "Voltaire" and appears masculine when manifesting on the physical plane. I toyed with the idea of Voltaire being active only when Pandora is asleep, and it's still remotely possible, but Pandora visiting Sarah then Voltaire showing up at Ed Verres' place leave a narrow amount of time between.

I chose to take hkmaly's question as implicitly reading "What makes you think he can't do griffins? (as a default function of his "be a girl" spell)"

Elliot's spell is derived from having been FV5ed. Again, no spell without limits. Elliot's spell does female human, probably favoring FV5 body measurements, though Elliot apparently has the ability to tweak those. I choose to take an occam's razor approach to gray areas of canon like this. All Dex' Mark needs to be is capable of being pushed, pulled and warped into summoning fireguys and dragons, therefore that is likely all there is to it. We can imagine extra extensions and abilities encoded into Dex' Mark and I can't prove the negative. Only Dan can do that. But I don't have to buy them either. The key is in what needs to go into Dex' mark, which is obviously intended to make fairydolls, and get fireguys and dragons out the other end. I don't think he needs a "summon anything" mark to do that. I choose to believe EGS magic is a pliable thing. Spells have hard and fast default definitions but those definitions can be temporarily altered with the application of enough power. From this perspective, all Dex needs is a simple "summon fairydoll" spell. The Immortal who is guiding and empowering him is doing the rest to summon fireguys and dragons. The occam's razor result changes if spells are not changeable. At that point, Dex' mark needs a a lot more moving parts to do what we've seen it done.

I have never seen an open-ended "anything I want" spell in EGS. There's always a limit or caveat. Susan can summon anything she wants...as long as it can be fit into a medium-sized box or chest. The closest to an "anything I want" spell is Elliot's original "be a girl" spell. But even there it's not a open-ended shapeshift spell. It's being able to turn into any girl he can imagine sufficiently well. Elliot can't do males, Uryuoms or griffins (for example) without using energy to warp the spell. The same way Voltaire through Dex warped Dex' fairdoll spell to summon fireguys and dragons.

That's Plan "C"...

"My name is....Slartibartfast." "Slartibartfast?!?" "I told you it wasn't important."

[sigh] We all know a Mark can take any shape. Comparing the shape of Dex' mark to Susan's Mark misses my point. My point is that we also know Pandora made her marks descriptive. Susan was not marked by Pandora so the shape of her mark is meaningless when discussing the shape of Dex'. In the case of Dex, Tedd, Justin, Rhoda and the others marked by Pandora, form does follow function, so if Dex has a mark that says "I summon fairydolls" (and he does), we can reasonably expect it to mean that summoning fairydolls is what it was indented to do. Pandora still makes a mark's shape descriptive even if she is also trolling with it. Sarah's mark Sarah's Mark is very good at answering questions. Allow me to anticipate the objection that Voltaire may have marked Dex. The medallion we now know Voltaire gave Dex has a pithos on it...what the mythical Pandora opened before we changed it to a box. We can reasonably assume that Voltaire was trying to pin Dex's actions on Pandora, which means if Voltaire gave Dex his Mark it would still be descriptive because Voltaire would be mimicking Pandora's marking style.

I disagree. It's just a weird combination of magical effects. If Susan pulled Nanase's fairydoll out of her box, she would lose the ability to summon it. If she kept the ability before awakening, only then could it be considered an evolution of Susan's Mark.

I don't remember Susan's Mark evolving. Are you referring to her version of Nanase's faiydoll?

The creature that Dex's Mark summoned was at the whim of the Immortal that marked him. If Dex really liked the interplay of Celida and his fairy, Dex could be playing Mario Kart when he was Marked and still get a fairy.

All EGS continuity I'm aware of says Ellen's emotional state made her standard FV5 beam behave differently. It's possible Ellen gained a new spell at that moment and used it instead but that's speculation. As far as I know, Vllad was hit by Ellen's FV5 handbeam and Something Weird Happened. I don't see a reason why a spell held by an awakened magic user can't evolve, either. I am not as sure that a Marked spell can, and remember we're talking about Dex and his Fairydoll.I agree that if Dex were to Awaken, all bets are off for what he could summon. I'd expect that fireguys and dragons might even be likely summon spells he might get.

Agreed that the Mark need not be definitive. It could be a random blob. But we can't ignore the fact that it *is* definitive. The Mark accurately represents what Dex can do with it. What I'm saying is that spells in EGS are innately changeable. The process by which a summon manifests is the same, but change the template fro what you're manifesting and you'll change the result. But changing the template takes power. The new result may have power demands of its own. We know when Ellen pushed her FV5 beam against Vllad, she turned him completely human in a way her spell shouldn't have been able to do. Extra power behind the effect warped the result. Same thing with taking a fiardoll summon that only summons fairydolls and warping it to summon a fireguy or dragon. That is what I am saying.

"Could be". That's a lot to pull out of a Mark Especially one so clearly marked "Hi, I summon Fairydolls". I'd argue that the metaphysics of summoning a fairydoll are identical to those needed to summon a fireguy or bulldog-dragon, but I don't think summons are a one-spell-fits-all thing. I acknowledge the possibility, but don't buy it. I'd argue there are minor changes and major changes and the two have different requirements. A minor change would be things like colors or hairstyles. A summon with hair has to have a style of some kind and a summon with clothing has to have some kind of color to the clothes, so altering from default would be fairly close to effortless. You just have to want to make the change happen A major change would be something like scaling the fairydoll to human-size. You're warping the spell's intended output much more severely with a commensurate power cost. We're really close to agreeing since I am acknowledging that there's a definite spectrum from hairstyle changes to having a cold-fire body. What I'm saying is there's only so much change you get for free or even for minimal cost and fireguys and bulldog-dragons are a couple miles past that. Agreed on size, but not just size, but also weaponry. Both the fireguys and the bulldog-dragon had a spell of their own, letting them breathe fireballs. Dex' fairydoll has nothing comparable. I'd argue that adding a non-default spell to a summon should cost a bit as well. I'd argue that warping a fairdoll into a firegy should cost more for the same reason it takes more effort to write a sentence, then edit the words to make it say something else. Writing out a fireguy to start with is simpler and easier.