Drasvin

"had". I would assume he's been using that spell pretty much every day - he generally seems a lonely fellow - so he's built up a bit more power by now. How much more, to be determined maybe I'm not entirely sure of that. I imagine he's still been summoning his little friend, but he made friends with Greg and became apart of his social circle. In a later comic, we saw Dex bummed out that the regular game had been cancelled because Greg had a new girlfriend. With a regular social group, he might not be lonely enough to warrant regularly summoning his fairy friend. Though, to be clear, I imagine he still regularly summons her. He did say he liked her, and I doubt many gaming groups would object to having a fairy summon flit around during the game, especially when one of the group members is literally an anime-style martial artist.

Midi-chlorian's aren't the source of the Force. I was I could find the actual quote where he says it, but Qui-Gon describes the midi-chlorians as a connection to the Force, and also describe them as living in all living cells (Similar to mitochondria present in the cells of all life that breathes oxygen). The Force was still an omnipresent field that all life was connected to, just some individuals had a stronger connection, which made them Force sensitive. While I was digging for the connection quote, I found a bit the behind the scenes on midi-chlorians. Lucas had thought of the midi-chlorians in 1977 but hadn't included them in the original trilogy because he didn't think there was time to properly introduce the concept. And the article also states why Lucas felt the need to include them in the mythos: why are only some people Force Sensitive? That's a question that gets dealt with in a lot of settings. Why do only some people have these amazing, reality-warping powers? While it takes time and training to learn how to harness Force powers, the gain is certainly worth the cost, especially if the Sith style of force user is taken into account, which focuses less on intense discipline and more on intense emotion. Moral upstanding people are going to do their best to avoid the Dark side, but there are plenty of immoral criminals and scum that would kill(probably literally) for the kind of edge that force powers would grant. And while the majority of the fan-base weren't asking that question, Lucas himself had asked the question at the start of Star Wars and came up with an answer. And by the time we made Ep1, he pretty much was done with listening to what other people wanted. Though he had put up with the hellish, draining experience of producing the original trilogy while everyone, including himself, expected the first one to fail, and to top it off, his wife left him after his finished the trilogy. (Warning: Tvtropes link) He didn't set out to ruin things for others. He had simply just stopped caring after life pounded him down. I'm honestly not sure the fans complaints had any significant impact on what Lucas did. He reduced Jar Jar's role in the movies, but still kept all the CGI that many of the fans complained about. As I said, Lucas had stopped caring about what others suggested or wanted. He was sick and tired of all the stress and the grief. He was going to make his movie, his way. The original trilogy's quality comes in a significant part due to the variety of voices that went into it's production. It was Lucas's vision. His opinion, his voice, was the main aspect that shaped them but he cared what those around him said and wanted and the movies were better for it. With the prequels, he went from being the main voice that mattered, to the only voice that matter, all because he stopped caring. I think Leia had some degree of Force Sensitivity. When Luke leaves to go save his friends on Bespin, Obi-Wan is worried that Luke could die, or worse fall to the Dark side, and Yoda mentions that 'There is another.' That, along with the revelation that Leia is Luke's sister, sets up the implication that Leia is a potential back-up plan. And while Leia is certainly badass, her being able to kill Vader and the Emperor (and potentially Luke if he turned evil instead of simply dying) without Force powers would be a bit of a stretch. Though, since she never got any training, her force abilities wouldn't have developed beyond their base level.

Midichlorians do not actually explain anything. How does all this law-of-physics-defying power get into this bucket? Well, this bucket contains all these other little buckets. That's nice, how does the power get into those little buckets? And what they purportedly attempt to explain didn't need explaining. It's magic, okay? Certainly. Magic doesn't need to be explained, as long as it's seemingly consistent (or at least consistently inconsistent) and doesn't leave too many plot holes around. Though, if as I posit in the second part of my paragraph, that midichlorians are meant as a means to quantify force potential, then it needs to be explained how this other thing can be used to quantify the magic thing. This is actually plausible, but again, it didn't need that sort of quantifying. One of the greatest Jedi masters ever is saying that this individual is exceptionally powerful even for Jedi - isn't that good enough? Possibly. As I said, there are better ways Lucas could have handled it. For instance he could have leaned into mysticism and had something about the force leading Qui-Gon to Anakin. As for Qui-Gon's word that young Anakin was exceptionally powerful, it could bring up the question of how he knows. Force users can sense other force users, but I don't remember any instances of someone sensing force potential in a person before that person gets training and starts to develop their powers. I'm not even sure they can sense other force users like that unless said force user is actively using the force. Vader didn't make any mention of there being another force sensitive on the Falcon after he killed Obi-Wan. Even though a potential force sensitive traveling with Obi-Wan for an indeterminate amount of time (from Vader's perspective at least) would warrant mention as at least a potential apprentice of Obi-Wan's and therefor a threat. Vader didn't make any mention of the force being strong with Luke until the trench run, when Luke's force abilities were making him hard to aim at. Vader might have sensed Obi-Wan on the Death Star due to Obi-Wan using the force to avoid getting bogged down with the aches and stiffness of old age, just speculating there though. EDIT: I remembered another example: Vader made no mention of Leia being a force sensitive, even though he interrogated her himself.

That's a good question. Do we have any evidence of a Mark-based spell changing before the caster Awoke and lost the Mark? Technically, Dex, but that was really exception. It wasn't really a changed spell. The mysterious fighter of mystery with no name (Noah) confirmed that it was the same spell, just with different amounts of power applied. Theoretically, Dex could summon any kind of creature he wanted if he had enough power. The little fairy is around his limit without Voltaire's power boost (Which makes me hope he's been using his mark enough since then to not need the build-up from the dam to summon her.)

I'll be honest, when George mentioned midi-chlorians as his biggest complaint with the prequel trilogy, I was a little perplexed. At the time I hadn't thought much of the subject, and after quite a bit of consideration, I still don't entirely understand why there's so much vitriol around it (I certainly get there being vitriol. I just don't get the quantity of it). It's a basic explanation of some of the mechanics of the magic of the setting, and while explaining the magic can sap the mystical feeling out of it, there are a lot of settings that explain some of the basics of their magic without the fans erupting in an uproar. And I believe explanation of the magic isn't even the story function of the midi-chlorians. From my perspective, the purpose of the midi-chlorians is to give an in-story identifiable reason why Anakin is important. True, there are other ways to do that, though the one George gives in the comic (simply say 'The force is strong with him') doesn't really hold water in my opinion, because shouldn't the force be strong with all the Jedi? And they have an entire galaxy-spanning monastic order of them, so what is so special about this brat from an out of the way dust ball that they need to go through all the trouble to drag him along and even defy the council? Midi-chlorians introduce a simple measurability. More midi-chlorians means more force potential. And Anakin had more than even Yoda. That certainly marks him as significant enough to drag along. A big reason for this happening is a form of 'echo chamber' effect. If there are no dissenting voice to make the creator step back and reconsider certain points (or if their ego has gotten so over-inflated that dissenting opinions have no effect or the opposite effect), then many bad decisions will make their way into the production. And as the fame and prestige of a creator increases, they gain more leverage to remove or suppress the dissenting voices. An introspective creator can potentially avoid that problem, though in a way, they would be their own dissenting voice. On the flip-side, listening to the fans can also be toxic to a production if the creators aren't careful, because 1) the most vocal part of the community isn't necessarily the largest, just the loudest, 2)what people think they want isn't always what they actually want, 3)focusing on fans can cause the production to become very insular, making it difficult for people outside of the fandom to become invested in the work and therefor part of the fandom (just look at all the complaints surrounding Marvel and DC comics about the significant emphasis on dense continuity and inter-connectedness making them difficult to get started reading) Multiple voices and opinions are important to the health of a production. Not too many, lest the production risk becoming bland and generic as it gets pulled every which way, but certainly enough to weed out the bad ideas and promote the good ones

To most people, mentioning an uncommon and unexplainable power is going to draw correlations to magic, and he mentioned wizards, which further draws connotations of magic. He didn't come right out and directly say that Cheerleadra's power was magic, but he doesn't have to if he can play on people's preconceived notions. Imply something correctly, and you can get people thinking about it without having to actually mention it. (Besides, directly confirming it's magic is likely against departmental policy and could be seen as 'forcing the hand of a god') Also, if he's trying to minimize exposure, why didn't he try to steer the narrative away from magic? And if he'd already given in to the inevitability of the reset, why did he show up to the talk show at all?

To throw in my two cents about Episode 1, I think it was an okay movie. Not a good one, but not really a bad one either. Just okay. The problem was that many Star Wars fans were expecting a great movie. When the movie didn't meat that high bar of quality, that colored their perceptions of it. That's the problem with expectations and hype. The right amount of hype can do good for a production, too little hype can leave the production starving for an audience, but too much hype can poison the production. And it's not just movies that happens to. I've seen it happen to videogames as well.

While it might lead to more incidents, Arthur might be relying on the DGB having more and better organized resources than your average magical criminal. They theoretically have access to any resources that the FBI would have, and maybe more from cross-department assistance. And they might have their own seer on standby (assuming Arthur knows about seers. He knows about the magic resets, but seers are very rare and knowing about one doesn't necessitate knowing about the other) I disagree. I think he's going for a 'Short term loss, Long term gain' strategy. Suffer the losses of what happens in the exposing incidents and the capability that would be lost with the reset, to not have to worry about troubling incidents for a long while and to potentially be in a more powerful position when troubling incidents start to arise again. If he wanted to minimize exposure of magic, then he could have reached into the DGB's bag of tricks to cover-up the magic connection. He wouldn't be able to cover-up the incident itself, due to viral youtube videos, but he could shunt the discussion away from magic, possibly by explaining that Cheerleedra's abilities are likely the result of some sort of super-secret, experimental technology that somehow ended up in the hands of this good Samaritan. Instead he plainly stated that there are people with power that the misinformed would call wizards. Seemingly, he appeared on the talk show to make sure the discussion went towards magic instead of away from it Justin posited that it was to make the magic discussion seem crazy, but, as Mr. Verres pointed out, that would only be a bandage solution at best.

I wonder if the explosion from Susan dismissing her fairies would count as a magic weapon. Homing Fairy grenades? Depending on type of needle the model painter/builder would be OK. How else do you put some of those things together? Glue from a needle. And paint, for very small spots, like eyes of 28 mm scale dudes. That would be tricky to do. You would have to be careful of what kind of glue/paint you use, or it'll clog up the needle.

Unless the person doing the ticking off is a comparably powerful/skilled magic user or has some sort of anti-magic capability(though I'm not sure EGS has anti-magic stuff that doesn't require one to also be a magic user) Then again, ticking someone off typically requires being mean and/or inconsiderate, so it's generally a good idea to avoid, because that's just not polite.

Between Elliot and Jerry, emotions seem to be running a little high in today's comic. I can understand Jerry's case, he's under a lot of stress having to keep on eye on both Susan and Diane and whatever he had a chat about with the scary cloud monster that may or may not have been Pandora over. Ellliot, on the other hand, I feel is being a little over-reactive. While it's entirely possible that someone dropped a full bottle of soda and decided "Oh well, not my problem," it's also possible that the person that made the mess left to get cleaning supplies to clean up the mess. It's rare when messes like that happen within easy view of cleaning materials.

Would be an interesting experiment, though it could end with unexpected results. Susan's fairies are already from the unexpected results that happen when you mix magic from two different people. Mixing in the magic of a third person might cause excessive weirdness. Though we won't know until it's done and weirdness isn't always bad.

Why's Nanase not so trusting again? She's being cynical. She thinks Ashley is being too nice, friendly, and good-hearted and is suspicious because of that.

I'm glad Ashley gets to be a player in this. It would be a little cruel otherwise. It's practically everything is could ever dream of. Safe and friendly transformation shenanigans with no long lasting consequences.

Ashley and her mild-to-moderate disdain for labels saves the day! Or at least this moment of the day. I would be very surprised if her disdain for labels ends up saving the whole day, with the ominous and bad stuff that we know is going to happen later.

That's an interesting possibility, though it would also mean that their parents are terrible when it comes to naming their children. Speculoos is an amusing word.

Happy Tedd is happy.

I would counter that the evilness of the artifact acting upon people without informed consent is proportional to the severity of the action. A simple action that only lasts a few moments and doesn't carry much emotional weight for the subject being acted upon is little more than a prank. Potentially annoying, but not really harmful(unless done repeatedly, but that would be breaking away from the 'only lasts a few moments' part). Though major transformation, even temporary, is a very severe action, especially if mental transformation is involved. If the person isn't ready and willing to undergo something like that, it can lead to some bad experiences. It might not, but there would be far too much risk of harm if the person to be transformed doesn't consent to being transformed.

True, but stuff that is truly random is down at the quantum level. Macroscopic physics are deterministic. (The disconnect between the very small and the very large is a point of frustration for many physicist.) If you can account for every variable and your model is sound, you can accurately predict how a given macroscopic system will play out. Chaotic systems are difficult to predict due to the large number of variables and high degree of complexity. Small errors in calculation get compounded upon, causing the system to veer widely from the predicted path.

To be fair, the manuals for magic in the EGS-verse are a confusing mess. Even nice spells can be hard to decipher. Also, that gets me thinking. Assuming becoming an aberration works like regular magic (which it might not, but we don't have an evidence that it doesn't as far as I know), then it would require the individual to be a wizard and pick up the spell from somewhere (possibly easier said than done, as aberrations are unlikely to help a prospective rival instead of just eating them), or earn the spell the good ol' fashioned way, practice and train your magic till you 'level up' and hope you get the spell you want.

There are few things that are truly novel and original, especially in technology. Most innovations are derived and/or iterated from something that came before. The flint-tipped spear is a based on the basic pointy stick you can find in nature, with a sharp rock tied to it. The chimney started as a simple tube in the wall in Roman bakeries and was steadily iterated upon and improved from there. The automobile is a horse-drawn carriage, made out of metal and with an internal combustion engine instead of a horse. The internal combustion engine draws quite a few principals from the steam engine. The piston design of steam engines was inspired by the safety valve of a steam pressure cooker and early experimental steam engines took ideas from waterwheels and windmills. JavaScript is built from Java, which is one of many programming languages derived from C. The basic concept of the computer, a machine which automates computations, goes back to at least Charles Babbage and his analytical engine. A lot of the discoveries in physics are first predicted by mathematical models and then tested to confirm the model. Innovation is largely about combining principals in new ways and occasionally coming up with a new principal. Cultures could provide more novelty, but just like with technology, a lot of culture is built upon and from what came before. If one looks carefully back through history, you can trace the path of traditions, situations, and reactions to those situation that shape a culture. Drastic cultural shifts are often the result of two or more cultures bumping into each other or some sort of catastrophe happening. Many works of art are derived, in whole or in part, from previous works of art and/or things in the natural world (which many would argue is a work of art itself). The human imagination doesn't work in a vacuum. It draws upon the person's knowledge and experiences to craft the concepts that get turned into art. That said, there is a significant flaw in the concept of an immortal getting bored from the weight of ages. It's easy to look back into history, tracing the paths of innovation and change that led to the modern day, and view it as a deterministic pattern. Since this is the way it turned out, this is the only way it could have turned out. This ignores the fact that the societies of the world are a high-chaos system. Accurately predicting how the system advanced would first require an accurate model of the system (which isn't out of the question. Just extrapolate the model from past events, tweaking the model as new data points become available) and reliable variables. You would then need the computational power to run the model and calculate the variables, quickly enough that the next data point can be extrapolated before said data point can occur. On top of that, with how chaotic the system is, even an extremely small error in computation can lead to a vastly different result. That's why weather predictions aren't always accurate, as a simple rounding error on data entry can result in significantly different results. The human brain simply doesn't have the memory retention and computational power needed to accurately run such a model at the speeds needed to reliably cause boredom. That's why people who try to predict how chaotic systems will progress often let computers do the heavy lifting of computations. Though said limitation might not be true for non-human immortal beings. An non-human immortal might have the mental capacity to run the computations, but still could experience surprises due to flaws in their model or in the variables they have.

I'm not sure Magus was informed about the 'Kill Adrian' part of the plan (He would know that would attract Pandora Chaos Raven, whom he wants to destroy, but it risks pulling her into the thick of things too early, and he would likely tell Sirleck that, which might spook Sirleck from attacking Adrian if he found out his immortal parent wasn't some improperly reset halfwit, but the crazy old and powerful immortal that originally pulled him into this mess), and even if he was, I doubt he would want Elliot and Ellen joining in that fight. For one, that risks losing them to collateral damage. For two, it would diminish the effectiveness of the distraction if the thing the distraction is meant to be pulling attention away from is in the middle of the distraction. It could still work, but with greater risk of the true intent being detected, especially as the main entities that Magus needs distracted likely won't be taking direct action in the distraction. Yeah, the big obviously scary and fanged shadow thing? You know that's a threat to run away from. Scarf dude? You could sit next to him on the train and not know he's a life-stealing monster incapable of empathy. And if you're in the business of hunting down monsters like them, the BOSaF thing is an obvious target that you can gauge the capabilities of relatively easily. Scarf guy? Just another cool face in the crowd, that might be a monster, might be a civilian. And if you do figure out he's a monster, his capabilities are much harder to gauge without confronting him.

I suspect those clauses are things Magus insisted on including. Sirleck is still pretending to be working *with* Magus and being willing to compromise and play by his rules, even if he doesn't understand them. Alternately, he could be trying not to draw the attentions of the government or other "good guy" forces who might interfere. Large numbers of casualties would mean even Arthur Arthur couldn't just stand by and ignore the situation. He also seems to plan on making further use of them, meaning this attack is step one, not the climax, so he doesn't want them all killing each other. Given that he does need them all later, I'm starting to doubt that this is going to be an attack on Adrian or Elliot directly. This first attack is the opening shot, not the final battle. Which leaves the question of who this initial target is.... That's true, Magus could have insisted on minimizing casualties. The large amounts of damage is likely to draw the attention of the government and other "good guy" forces though. Maybe not Arthur J Arthur's division, but regular police and various good Samaritans would certainly pay attention. Which would also serve the ultimate purpose of giving Magus a solid chance to get Ellen to zap Elliot, as anyone that would interfere with Magus's actions are going to be busy paying attention and dealing with the aberrations causing havoc. Also, I'm not sure he necessarily plans on making further use of them. The wording of the bonuses states that aberrations usually don't work together without incentive. Which, if the target is Adrian, the aberrations are going to need teamwork to have a chance of killing him. Without the proper incentive, the aberrations are just going to go at him piecemeal, which would likely fail and alert him to the threat, giving him a chance to be ready against further attacks, at least after the second or third one attacks him.

I'm wondering why Sirleck, a being that explicitly lacks empathy, cares about collateral deaths. My best guess is that he's worried that Elliot would be one of the individuals that gets killed, which would ruin Magus's bid to get his body back, which would ruin Sirleck's plan to steal Magus's body.

As far as I can remember, the curve is fairly gentle upwards, but then goes worse than EVE's after the first cat death. Dwarf Fortress's learning cliff curve is fairly sharp at the start. For one, it's confusing for players that haven't played an old-fashioned ASCII game, unless the player happens to be using a tileset, which typically requires either digging around for one of the starter pack, or finding a tileset and putting it into the game manually. For two, the UI is very user-unfriendly, with information spread out across multiple screens with little in-game indication on how to get information and things you need to do stuff that needs done. Dorf Fort really could do with a UI overhaul and a tutorial. This is why programmers should test things extensively in a development environment before upgrading the live environment. Make sure the upgrades aren't going to break anything, and fix what is going to break, before it affects the system/business as a whole.