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Welcome! 03/05/2016
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Drasvin
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Posts posted by Drasvin
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7 minutes ago, Tom Sewell said:Maybe not. Sirleck seems to be particularly well-hidden and well-connected. Bringing in Lord Tedd--or, more likely, getting General Shade Tail to bring in Lord Tedd--might be a pretty darn good way to bring hell down on Moperville, wouldn't it, now?
I doubt Sirleck is that well-connected. Besides, General Shade Tail and Lord Tedd give me 'final boss' vibes. I imagine it will be a while before we get back to them in a meaningful fashion. Just foreshadowing, reminders, and other little nudges.
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2 hours ago, mlooney said:It's a bit strange to me that DGB can't get at adoption papers.
Well, could be either that the adoption papers are either not well kept, or the agency that maintains them is less willing to let FBI agents access them without a good reason and/or consent of the relevant parties. Getting a background check typically requires signing a form to grant permission to access the relevant records. At least that's the case when I've been hired to places that would like to perform background checks on perspective employees.
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2 hours ago, hkmaly said:9 hours ago, Tom Sewell said:Immortals can lie, but I don't think they lie to themselves very often.
Counterexample: Pandora: "I will totally reset when Blaike dies".
Though to be honest, Pandora might have been fully intending to reset when Blaike died, but that was with the assumption that he would live into old age. When Blaike died, it hit her hard. She didn't want to abandon her ten year old son and she didn't want to forsake the memories of her love that she only got to know for 16 short years. If she didn't have to deal with the trauma of losing Blaike so suddenly, she might have reset after Blaike died.
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3 hours ago, Vorlonagent said:Maybe it's just story convenience, but I've never seen an Immortal at a loss for a spell. Contrast to DGB agents, who use wands in order to have a standardized list of spells handy, Immortals have never been seen needing props. They always seem to have just the right spell on hand.
Helena and Demetrius couldn't cast the spell to access knowledge from their past lives, though that was more a result of not remembering how to than not having it. Though Immortals do seem to have generous spell repositories. My guess would be that they can learn new spells as easily as human wizards currently can (maybe even easier) and can carry spells into new incarnations.
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On 8/23/2016 at 4:44 PM, Vorlonagent said:Immortals don't seem to use "spells" the way human magic users do. They just seem to be able to....do stuff.
Supporting thought: Magic is not in danger of resetting for Immortals, just humans and the like.
Jerry used a Serenity spell on Susan. Immortals don't have to worry about magic resetting for them because magic is intrinsic to their nature, like the uryoums. Humans are the only known group that can get access to magic, or magic-like abilities, but magic isn't intrinsic to their nature.
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26 minutes ago, Circe said:I have to wonder, though, why Ashley is not eligible for a spell to transform herself. She seemed interested in the idea when she and Elliot talked on their date. Given that she likes a lot of contrast, I'd expect to see her tf would be a big strong male form, possibly of a different race. So basically Greg.
She might be interested in the idea of being transformed herself, but it might not be a strong enough desire to allow for a magic mark based around that.
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So Ashley has the potential to be a White Mage? Nice.
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5 hours ago, RainbowWizard said:1, Pandora can seemingly shapeshift at will and do so freely. That has strong Prototype-style morphing possibilitied... Are immortals limited by their biomass or can they draw more flesh from magic? Could she plausibly stretch herself big enough to form a planetary shield in a crisis (arguably maybe doesn't break any rules if she just so happens to be that shape whilst an attacker comes I reckon)? If everyone was magic, couldn't she engulf everyone into her mass since they're less mortal potentially?
Immortals are magical beings, not super-viruses. And EGS magic has demonstrated multiple times that it doesn't particularly care about the conservation of mass, as seen with Nanase's fairy doll spell, Rhoda's size manipulation spell, the hair length spell, and the plethora of other transformation magics. No idea just how big Pandora could make herself, though she's been rather big in her chaos monster form when talking with Magus.
5 hours ago, RainbowWizard said:2... The Emissary isn't Tensaided, is he? I'm thinking now because super classic wizard design, but... hmm. Both have majestic hair...
As has been stated, Tensaided has first hand knowledge of the incident at the mall. He also knows Grace in the waking world (he's invited her to play rpgs with his group at the end of the Duel of the Discs arc)
5 hours ago, RainbowWizard said:Wait. Immortal not equals deity, does it?
That depends. What is a god?
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Looks like Pandora is effectively declaring war on Voltaire. I thought one of the major reasons for Immortal law was to prevent them from getting into fights with each other?
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8 hours ago, Scotty said:16 hours ago, Circe said:It makes me wish that there were a darker version of Pandora about, handing out powers. It would be interesting (at least to me) to see Ashley have such abilities and struggle not to use them for selfish/immoral purposes.
I would think that kind of behaviour from Pandora would get her reset by other Immortals pretty quickly.
What she's doing there may be bending the rules, but she's still able to give people marks because it's something they would yearn for are likely to use, her method of questioning is basically getting their permission to mark them. In Ashley's case, and to an extent Sarah's case back in Hammerchlorians, their goodness and maturity negated any fun they could have with the spell. Pandora could in theory still give Ashley the spell, but it would very likely fall under breaking the "empower and guide" rule.
No, Jerry didn't mark Sarah not because he didn't want to, but because he couldn't. He stated, on the page you linked, "You've realized things that negate what would have allowed me to give you the spell in the first place." Also, he wasn't looking for fun (though that certainly would have been a plus), he was trying to be helpful. If Jerry could have given Sarah that spell, she could have used it a lot and eventually been able to awaken and potentially get cool, awesome, useful spells, but he couldn't because she realized things that caused her to grow a little as a person, which unfortunately negated her potential for that spell. A person's growth and maturity can significantly influence what spells the person can be given by an Immortal. The Immortal doesn't get to choose what spell a person can get and for many may not even be able to give the person a spell. They just get to choose whether or not they want to grant the spell that the person might be able to receive.
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6 hours ago, sstabeler said:she would be confined for medical treatment- which could include a forcible reset- rather than convicted of a crime.
I know a reset is likely the only thing that will cure Pandora's madness, but I still find it unsettling for it to be referred to as medical treatment, since resetting for an Immortal is their equivalent of death.
animalia, hkmaly, The Old Hack and 1 other reacted to this -
1 hour ago, hkmaly said:2 hours ago, Drasvin said:The device that converts the small stream of warp plasma to electricity is inside the panel
Why?
Because Federation ships treats the plasma conduits like a modern person would treat power outlets and the supporting wires in their home. It's a system to make the power ready to a wide variety of devices. The EPS tap in this situation is like a computer's power supply. A component meant to take in power from the power grid and convert it into something usable for the device. It just happens that the systems involved can handle much higher tolerances before catastrophic failure (I imagine the plasma is rather hot, even though there is a plasma coolant system to regulate things) so when things do catastrophically fail, it'll be much worse than when a modern computer's power supply fries from a massive power surge.
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14 minutes ago, hkmaly said:40 minutes ago, Drasvin said:Though potentially the heuristic pathways could be tailored for processing specific sets of data quickly. For that to work well, the tailoring process would have to start when the human is young and neural connections are elastic.
If you actually want neural net which you train in way which makes it unable to function as human brain, why are you keeping the rest of human around? Important point in Matrix was that those people 1) are still people 2) lives in simulation resembling reality 3) can be rescued from that simulation.
The rest of the human body is a support system for the brain irl. Why throw out working (barring genetic defects) systems only to replace them. Sure the machines could have cut off limbs and removed unneeded organs, but that could be seen as unnecessary work. Especially given that they don't seem to have problems with people escaping the simulation, as the machine just dumps Neo's pod into the drain where he can be picked up instead of ensuring that he's dead before dumping him. They just have a problem with other people trying to save other people from the simulation, presumably because such a group of rescuers could remove enough people to endanger the viability of the network. Or if the Animatrix isn't being biased, the machines don't want to just kill off humans, but are worried about humans banding together to make war.
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48 minutes ago, hkmaly said:1 hour ago, Drasvin said:Likely the control panels only operate at around 12V and have safety systems to prevent system overload. The panels only explode when damage to the ship causes enough of a power surge to overcome the safety systems.
If LIGHTNING hit cable which is supposed to transfer 12V, it would EVAPORATE - which means it will NO LONGER be conducting electricity. Basically, if the power difference is big enough, every cable behaves like fuse.
The device that converts the small stream of warp plasma to electricity is inside the panel, so if it vaporizes, the panel and the person sitting at it are not going to have good day, as vaporizing solid matter doesn't make it go away, it just converts it into a very hot gas that is going to expand outwards, potentially violently so(i.e. it explodes). Also if the EPS tap vaporizes, it might allow the small stream of warp plasma to flow into the panel before emergency systems cut off the flow of plasma to the panel, making things worse for Ensign Red Shirt.
48 minutes ago, hkmaly said:1 hour ago, Drasvin said:Also interestingly, there are apparently instances where the panel will blow, killing the Red Shirt manning it, only for a Main Character to take over at the same panel. So the control panels are a durable enough design that it remains functional after exploding with enough force to kill someone.
... wait. You may have point here. It's design decision. The panels are INTENTIONALLY build in way to rather kill people than damage itself.
That's implausible. The computer equipment is expendable, especially as the control panels are designed to be able to control any system by loading up the proper control template, and human life is (supposed to be) not expendable. There's also the fact that the Federation in general prefers peaceful methods that preserve life. WHile it was a military ship, the Enterprise's mission was one of peaceful exploration. It has weapon systems because Starfleet knows that not every species in the galaxy is going to play nice. Also I imagine the phaser banks might have some non-violent application, like blowing apart an asteroid for easier mining.
2 minutes ago, hkmaly said:Or, the simplest answer: the redshirts weren't needed for powering the ship. They were, however, needed as a meat shields on missions. Remember that the mission was originally supposed to last 5 years, you need lot of redshirts for shielding that long.
Albeit a cynical way to present it, that's kinda true. Most of the redshirts that died on away missions were security personnel, I believe. Their job was to make sure the rest of the crew didn't get killed.
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15 minutes ago, hkmaly said:42 minutes ago, Drasvin said:GPUs have recently been used to process non-graphical data, such as protein folding or cryptographic equations.
Lot of work happened on those GPUs before they could've been used that way.
General-Purpose computing is reliant on programmable shaders and floating point support on graphics processors, and early GPGPU work is based off of translating the data to be processed into graphical primitives. If they could figure out the computational primitives of the human brain, it's possible that machines could do something similar.
21 minutes ago, hkmaly said:Also, in most situation, the fact that brain only works with approximations would be disadvantage (on the other hand, there probably are tasks where it would help ; like the tasks where you put actual image to sensors).
The brain's approximations are heuristic shortcuts meant to cut down on processing time. It sees something that appears to follow a pattern that it knows, so it uses the pattern to save time and potentially recognize the tiger that's about to tear you apart in time to get away safely, though not as helpful in less survival oriented situations. Though potentially the heuristic pathways could be tailored for processing specific sets of data quickly. For that to work well, the tailoring process would have to start when the human is young and neural connections are elastic.
27 minutes ago, hkmaly said:The major problem here is that if you would use the sensory processing, the person would then SEE your data and not the Matrix simulation. Also, the simulation would actually require more processing power than you get from the person you compute it for ...
That's assuming that the Matrix isn't the data to be processed. There's a number of interesting things to be learned from humans living out their lives when you can poll data at any instant in those lives. Or the simulation could be set up as a way to translate data into easily processable primitives for the human brain. It would also explain why the humans are able to easily bend the rules of the simulation.
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26 minutes ago, hkmaly said:36 minutes ago, Drasvin said:1 hour ago, hkmaly said:I think that either exploding shouldn't be possible unless spectacularly bad manufacturer did them ... but apparently, that manufacturer is very popular. Maybe it's some big company like ACME ...
Well the panels in Star Trek only explode in extraordinary situations (being under attack and taking a pounding) and are really good control panels, being extremely modular and easily customizable. I think it's possible to have a single panel control all the systems on the ship (most of my Star Trek experience comes from TNG and Voyager), assuming you have the permissions to load those models onto your panel and the mental wherewithal to keep track of what amounts to dozens of browser tabs.
We already have computers capable of doing that and operating at 12V or less internally. There is no reason why a control panel should be connected to plasma conduit.
The plasma conduits were the power grid of Federation ships. Everything on the ship was powered by the network of conduits, safely siphoning small amount of warp plasma to distribute it around the ship, where devices convert the plasma to electricity. Likely the control panels only operate at around 12V and have safety systems to prevent system overload. The panels only explode when damage to the ship causes enough of a power surge to overcome the safety systems. Also interestingly, there are apparently instances where the panel will blow, killing the Red Shirt manning it, only for a Main Character to take over at the same panel. So the control panels are a durable enough design that it remains functional after exploding with enough force to kill someone.
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12 minutes ago, hkmaly said:19 hours ago, Drasvin said:It's possible that someone with the hindsight of past industrialization and forethought for the future instead of the present could work to impose checks to prevent magical industrialization from causing wide-spread damage and problems, but I personally wouldn't hold my breath.
Well, either Will of Magic or Pandora. Noone else would be able to force those checks.
Therefore, I hope they won't be needed because magic doesn't flow fast enough.
Not necessarily. Someone with the mind to prevent a repeat of history in industrialization and some political clout could get to ball rolling early on regulation and trade agreements that prevent excessive abuse, enforced through fines and trade sanctions where need be. Though like I said, while I might be an optimist most of the time, I wouldn't hold my breath for that to happen before the damage is done.
16 minutes ago, hkmaly said:Humans are very bad at computing things. Most of our computation capacity is hardwired to our senses and unusable for general computation. Also, it would affect the simulation. Still, I agree it's much better idea than the energy source one.
The human brain is very good at processing sense data and so are Graphical Processing Units, in a way, and human brains are better at parallelization than most computer hardware and software. GPUs have recently been used to process non-graphical data, such as protein folding or cryptographic equations. The trick would be to intercept the flow of raw data from the various sensory organs, inject the desired raw data in its place, and then extract the processed data afterwards.
28 minutes ago, hkmaly said:One thing which humans might actually be able to provide to machines is randomness. Machines are notoriously bad with being unpredictable. So, maybe using humans for seeding random generators?
There are much better ways of generating randomness than humans. Such as measuring the entropy of a laser or measuring the cosmic background radiation.
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21 minutes ago, hkmaly said:I think that either exploding shouldn't be possible unless spectacularly bad manufacturer did them ... but apparently, that manufacturer is very popular. Maybe it's some big company like ACME ...
Well the panels in Star Trek only explode in extraordinary situations (being under attack and taking a pounding) and are really good control panels, being extremely modular and easily customizable. I think it's possible to have a single panel control all the systems on the ship (most of my Star Trek experience comes from TNG and Voyager), assuming you have the permissions to load those models onto your panel and the mental wherewithal to keep track of what amounts to dozens of browser tabs.
The scouters in DBZ were largely crud though.
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My thoughts on the scouters exploding is that it would be like the instrument panels in Star Trek exploding. It shouldn't happen and there are likely safeties in place to prevent it from happening. That's how bad the damage/overload is. Basic safety features are unable to prevent catastrophic failure. As for how the scouter is able to explode from an overload instead of just shorting out, its ability to detect power levels might be dependent on a compound that is normally stable but undergoes explosive decomposition if subjected to enough hea or high enough voltage.
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4 hours ago, hkmaly said:18 hours ago, ijuin said:Anyway, as for magic being widely available, it does appear that magical energy is a limited resource. Living beings can generate internal energy to a point, but any "industrial" type uses would have to draw on environmental energy--and there may be minerals or something that contain a relative concentration of magical energy that could thus be consumed like coal. Universal use of magic thus seems likely to deplete the world's magical energy supply.
No, I don't see any sign of consumable magic minerals. It is possible all magic energy was actually created by living beings, which would point to them generating relatively high amounts ... or for a long time. Of course, it is likely industrial use of magic WILL deplete the supply, especially with how industry generally stops consuming something only when it notices the scarcity.
Considering that the energy clog has caused significant differentials in the ambient magic level on both sides, I doubt that all of the ambient magical energy is produced by living things. Maybe some of it, but I suspect that some other mechanism is responsible for the bulk of the ambient magical energy that flows between the worlds. Though no matter the mechanism for the ambient energy, I agree that unchecked industrialization would majorly reduce the supply. It's possible that someone with the hindsight of past industrialization and forethought for the future instead of the present could work to impose checks to prevent magical industrialization from causing wide-spread damage and problems, but I personally wouldn't hold my breath.
4 hours ago, hkmaly said:18 hours ago, ijuin said:In a more dystopian situation, people or animals capable of generating enough energy to be useful but not enough to be powerful combatants may be enslaved as energy sources
Yes, pooka should be freed. But note that enslaving is only good idea if you need to cut them to parts or force them to do something. If the best way how to get magic energy from person is something like letting him watch interesting movie (I'm thinking creating emotions), I don't think it would come to enslaving. Not worth it.
Considering animals will starve themselves to get rid of an unwanted enchantment, and energy recovery is greatest during sleep, which is when the body's tissues do the most healing as well, it is reasonable to conclude that personal energy levels are generated by biological processes. I'm not certain if we've seen an instance where emotions provide more energy, outside of dramatic instances. So if you want something to siphon energy from, the best candidate would be whatever has the greatest density of biological process. Or if different lifeforms produce magical energy at different rates, then the best choice would be to find the best food to magic ratio.
4 hours ago, hkmaly said:Case in point: even if humans in Matrix would somehow generate more energy than they consume (which is totally impossible without magic), the strategy machines used was flawed: it resulted in unnecessary fight. If they would instead make those cocoons little better looking, did few small modification in that world simulation and make some advertisement, people would be standing in queues to become energy sources ...
If the Animatrix is to be taken as a valid source (which in-setting-wise it's presented by a machine so it might be a biased source), the humans attacked the machines first out of jealousy and fear. The machine's Matrix strategy was both an attempt to produce energy and to quell a hostile force. Though honestly I prefer the original reason for the humans in the pods, the machines were using them to compute things instead of as an energy source. But sadly the executives in charge of the movie thought the average viewer was too dumb to understand that plot thread.
14 minutes ago, mlooney said:Fusion Gun Man Portable tech level 15. Think a machine gun that fires chunks of the sun. The ulimate flame thower.
Sounds fun, but I personally prefer a good ol' drum of chlorine trifluoride. Certainly won't have the same reach or rate of fire, but it'll burn just nicely.
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2 hours ago, hkmaly said:2 hours ago, Vorlonagent said:3 hours ago, Drasvin said:The paranormal investigators of the FBI, like Agent Wolf and Edward, are likely to have favorable odds, and I doubt they would keep a fight to fisticuffs. Notably Edward didn't know how strong Pandora would be, but an average Immortal like Helena and Demetrius would certainly be a possible fight for a powerful human mage.
I misread that. Interesting.
And note that the meaning changes a lot if you realize that Agent Wolf is no novice but one of most powerful wizards in mid-western US.
Agent Wolf is one of the most powerful wizards in the mid-western US, but Edward's statement also included himself and Agent Cranium, and while they are certainly rather powerful and highly trained in their field, I'm not sure if they qualify as being among the most powerful in the mid-western US. They might, but we haven't gotten anything concrete on that (Though if Cranium's special spell is identical to Sarah's special spell, then she is likely a S-rank talent.) So the average immortal can possibly be tackled by your typical highly trained government paranormal operative, assuming fairness and stuff.
Hmm, I wonder how well an Immortal would fair against a tank...
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1 hour ago, Vorlonagent said:"Fair combat" is physical combat. Add magic and a human - Immortal fight tends to go out the window.
The paranormal investigators of the FBI, like Agent Wolf and Edward, are likely to have favorable odds, and I doubt they would keep a fight to fisticuffs. Notably Edward didn't know how strong Pandora would be, but an average Immortal like Helena and Demetrius would certainly be a possible fight for a powerful human mage.
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13 hours ago, ijuin said:As for the possibility that this is how Helena and Demetrius were reset, the immediacy of the penalty makes it sound as though they ought to have collapsed before they had even departed from Susan and Nanase. Did they only realize their guilt in retrospect afterward (e.g. upon seeing how the girls' fight vs. the vampire went), or is there something more here?
A common theory I've seen floating around is that something attacked Helena and Demetrius and 'killed' them. It's been stated that a powerful mortal, like Agent Wolf, can defeat an immortal in fair combat (though they rarely fight fair) and there would be little need for self-defense or worrying about being attacked unless there would be long-term consequences of not defending themselves or retreating.
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1 hour ago, Scotty said:I'm wondering why she needs someone else to help unclog it though, and this whole "de-powering Moperville"...does she mean removing all the marks she's given, or removing everyone's ability to use magic altogether? Ellen was created by magic, what would happen to her?
She needs help to unclog the energy flow because immortals are allowed to "Empower and Guide" but not to depower. They can't take away power unless that power fundamentally belongs to the immortal (like when Jerry took back the power for the hammer artifact). And by "depowering Moperville" she means that unclogging the energy flow would reduce the available power in Moperville. No one that has abilities would lose them (though they might lose access to them if they don't have enough magical potency, like Sarah)
Also, while Ellen was born via magic, she is flesh and blood. She's more intune with her magic due to the method of her birth, but she is still made of regular old flesh, blood, bone, and everything else that makes a person.
Story, Wednesday August 31, 2016
in Comic Discussion
Posted
Six to Eight weeks when requesting information is generally to deal with a combination of waiting list and mailing the information. Depending on how the information is organized, it might only take a few hours to find the information once the request comes up in the queue. DNA tests would likely be similar, with the test itself likely only taking a few hours or so. (You have the ship the samples to a lab. Then the lab does the tests. And then they ship the results back.) If they could contact a DNA lab that doesn't have a big backlog, though might be able to get the results pretty quickly. Though I don't have any personal experience with DNA tests, so I don't know how long the tests themselves take. I have had blood tests that I was able to get email results of a couple days after the blood was drawn though. That said, the DGB's CSIs likely have some magic spells that can identify DNA and stuff.