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Welcome! 03/05/2016
Welcome, everyone, to the new 910CMX Community Forums. I'm still working on getting them running, so things may change. If you're a 910 Comic creator and need your forum recreated, let me know and I'll get on it right away. I'll do my best to make this new place as fun as the last one!
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Drasvin
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Posts posted by Drasvin
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2 hours ago, Pharaoh RutinTutin said:For example, if winter sports were available in the era of the Classical Greeks, would they have insisted on nude competitors in those games as well?
I would honestly be surprised if the Ancient Olympic were held during the summer, as Grecian summers are horrible and hot. Not good weather for strenuous physical activity. Though it would be outside of the growing season if they took place in the summer.
As for whether or not Classic Greeks would have been nude in actual cold weather games, I'm not sure. On one hand, the Greeks weren't stupid. Ice cold weather can do serious harm. On the other hand, they might have considered that part of the challenge.
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Of course it wouldn't be that easy. Though all they've established is that it cannot be hidden, not whether or not it should be hidden. Most humans would figure that once you establish that a thing cannot be hidden, then whether or not it should be hidden is a moot point, but Magic doesn't think like most humans. It likely wouldn't care about having to reset continuously until the secrecy sticks, which could (and, most likely, would) be never. Maybe if the knowledge of the magic reset spreads to enough people that the reset does not meaningfully reduce the number of people that know about it, then Magic would be forced to abandon the secrecy notion regardless of what it or the seer's think.
23 hours ago, ChronosCat said:The mist around their legs seems pretty strong in the last two panels. I hope that doesn't mean Magic is about to dismiss them.
I doubt Magic is about to dismiss them.
From a Watsonian perspective, Magic wants logic and perspective from the seers. It has deemed the logic it has been presented with so far to be insufficient for magic going public. To send them back now would prevent them from presenting more logic and perspective, especially if the reason the logic is insufficient is because Magic doesn't care about if it could remain secret, only if it should. The seers obviously want minimal changes (even though Arthur is reluctant in that regard), so why not let them present more logic?
From a Doylist perspective, Tedd just won a significant victory by convincing Arthur that changing the rules to keep the secrecy is pointless. To have Magic declare their logic insufficient and boot them home without giving them a chance to supply more information would simple pull the rug out from under her. There a plenty of writers who would do that, but Dan isn't normally that mean to his characters.
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I think Edward's disapproval of Tedd spending time as a girl isn't born of a lack of knowledge, but instead of too wide of a scope. He's worried about how people that don't know Tedd will treat him because he's genderfluid. I don't really have any evidence of this other than when Edward mused about how he should have given Tedd a gender neutral name. To me at least, it wouldn't make sense for someone who considers spending significant amounts of time as the opposite gender harmful to have that thought. Edward certainly worries about things undoing all the healing Tedd has gone through, like when he tried to convince Nanase to not talk to Tedd about Noriko. Similar concerns could explain why Edward hasn't sat down and talked this out with Tedd. Though if this hypothesis is true, then the twist of cruel irony is that because he is worried about all the pain and grief Tedd could get from people reacting to his genderfluidity, Edward is causing Tedd much pain and grief by reacting to his genderfluidity. Edward Verres is a man whose job often asks him to consider the wider picture implications of events and actions, and lets him see many of the terrible things that happen in the world, but a view of the wider picture often blinds a person to the smaller details.
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Another reason for Susan to be acting the way she is, is that she just came off of the forced happiness of the pony form. Some of that high might not have fully dissipated yet, as she gets switched to an energetic form that doesn't care what others think and is loaded with power.
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16 minutes ago, hkmaly said:15 hours ago, Pharaoh RutinTutin said:Lord Tedd was a seer in his world. Saw the magic reset. And convinced (or caused) the other seers to remain silent, which is why he is now the most powerful magical being in his world.
How would he do that? NOONE is able to find the seers before they start using magic. While the possibility of general Shade Tail going after seers seems to match his personality, he wouldn't be able to find them.
Existence of thousand other seers makes Lord Tedd harder to explain ... unless ... maybe all seers became "new royalty". Maybe Lord Tedd is not as unique as he seemed to.
Or there was conventional, nuclear or magic war in his universe causing population drop. Before or after reset.
Likely no one has found seers is because no one has been looking for them. Knowledge of them was lost to all but a few entities (Heka and Voltaire that we know of). They have high level of magical power, crazy good resistance, and lack the ability to Awaken and get spells. Presumably, something like Luke's magic mark spell could be used to detect seers. And even if Luke's magic mark wouldn't work, there's possibly some way to find seers. I don't think there's been any mention that seers can't be found (Tedd's magical aptitude wasn't detected when he was young because the wand scared him and he resisted it)
That said, a simpler possibility is that Lord Tedd became the ruler of his world the "old-fashioned" way. I have speculated (not here, just to myself) that the "royalness" the griffin's saw in Nanase's aura is some of the pieces needed to become a seer. Nanase isn't a seer because she doesn't have all of the pieces/genes/whatever needed to be one. In a world with newly revealed magic, seers would be able to leverage their knowledge, magical power, and abilities to accumulate political and social power. Lord Tedd could have used promises of power to build up a power base and then go conquering. Other seers and magic users would have opposed him, but he had something they didn't. He had General Shade Tail. Someone as disproportionately powerful as Grace with none of her inhibitions against violence and killing (and I suspect the opposite: General Shade Tail enjoys bloodshed). Also Lord Tedd has his gauntlet, which lets him boost the power of his already strong seer abilities. Between Shade Tail's frightening physical prowess and Lord Tedd boosting him further via wands(as in Lord Tedd casting boosting spells from the wand on Shade Tail. General Shade Tail likely would have as much trouble using them as Grace does), they could make short work of just about anyone that would stand in their way, at least long enough to build an army to take on larger threats(And if magic wasn't public in their world and tried to reset to undermine this magic army, Lord Tedd is a seer in the perfect position to reteach his army magic).
10 minutes ago, partner555 said:7 hours ago, Drasvin said:It's not too unreasonable, if Voltaire knows certain points of Pandora's history. He would know that she cares deeply about her family and that when a werewolf killed her husband, she influenced events to eradicate them. All he had to do was nudge events to play out in a way that guaranteed that Pandora would have to break Immortal law to save Adrian's life. Then she would want to do something to protect her family from the threat that almost killed Adrian, and since she doesn't the time to carefully influence things to eradicate the threat, she would have to do something big and drastic. Pandora knew about the connection between Immortals after one breaks the Laws and figured out how to use it to cast her spell, so it wouldn't be out of the question for Voltaire to have figured that out.
Okay, I can buy most of this, except knowing that Pandora would take advantage of the connection. Zeus was surprised that Pandora did, so how would Voltaire know?
Zeus was a fairly newly reset Immortal that hadn't been spending who knows how long building an intricate plan based on the personalities and histories of multiple individuals. Once Pandora had broken the law to save Adrian, she almost certainly would have done something to try to keep her family safe from that threat, especially with reminders of her family around her right then. And the connection was right there. It would give whatever spell she cast the most effective range she could on such short notice.
19 minutes ago, partner555 said:3 hours ago, Drasvin said:Actually, as per the commentary on when that was brought up, Pandora being framed is not the only reason why they have issues. Remember Abraham?
True, though Adrian believing his mother was the one responsible for the attack on the dojo would compound the issues they had, ratcheting up emotions further, and preventing Adrian from suspecting another Immortal might be responsible (like another Immortal that shows up in public trying to get people killed). If Voltaire hadn't framed Pandora, the emotions in that argument might not have peaked as far (or at least as quickly) as they did, and Adrian might have said something or asked the right question and revealed Voltaire's plot.
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25 minutes ago, Vorlonagent said:2 hours ago, ChronosCat said:I always find these breaks for Hanma to explain things a little annoying; I'd much rather see the players playing the game. I suppose it would be pretty hard to follow if we didn't know what the cards do, and Dan can't count on everyone reading explanations in the commentary, so I understand the need, but that doesn't make it less annoying.
On the plus side, we get more of that awesome creepy starburst background. Yay for twisted starburst background in panel three! (And also yay for regular starburst background in panel one, and mini-starburst background in panel two, I suppose.)
Susan is singling Rhoda out because Rhoda was the one to take both of the spaces Susan has lost over the course of the game.
The fascinating thing here is this combination allows Susan to defend territory but not get new spaces. To get new stuff she has to transform herself and break her combo.
She can get new spaces by stealing them from other players, like how Rhoda's been getting points without having to transform herself.
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20 minutes ago, Vorlonagent said:55 minutes ago, Scotty said:Let's see here:
Voltaire knew that Tedd was a Seer. And he knew what the Seers second purpose was and it's involvement is the system change.
Voltaire's original attempt to influence Tedd, by killing Elliot failed, however he later realized that just informing Tedd of the system changing might have done the job.
Voltaire's "Plan CM" involved influencing Sirleck into setting up an incident involving vampires and targeting Adrian Raven in a very public place, an incident that was hinted would be "the last straw".
Voltaire knew who Adrian's mother was, so he knew how powerful she'd be, it's quite possible that the spell she used is known by other Immortals as well so Voltaire probably knew about it.
I think Voltaire intended on Pandora using that spell in order to protect her son, if using the connection to force all Immortals to cast that spell wasn't on his list, it was just an unintended side effect but the main goal of forcing Pandora to do something to get reset in a public place and causing the WoM to possibly change the system so far seems to be successful, the only thing that could throw a wrench in this is if Tedd does something unexpected.
Voltaire seems to know a lot about Pandora. he gave the "pithos" medallion to Dex to control him, which tells us he knew she was around and who she was. He knew Raven was an elf, which suggests he knew who Adrian's mother was. So if he knows all that, he might also know what Pandora did to the Earth's werewolf population. so: provoke Pandora to do something so egregious that Immortals have to call a Rule Committee together. A magic reset lobotomizes earth's mages, leaving the place a playground for Immortals.
As a completely different aside, it took me this long to see that Dan had built a pretty solid "Parent, Adult, Child", or "Superego, Ego, Id" trinary out of Arthur, Tedd and Van.
As another completely different aside, the way to cut beck the number of seers weighing in on the next magic change, broadcast what the Seer's second function is across the internet.The pithos medallion also served to drive a wedge between Adrian and Pandora, causing their emotions to run higher than normal and likely preventing them from calmly discussing things that could lead them to discovering Voltaire's hand in events. I doubt that was accidental.
Also as an aside, I realized that if Tedd not being as traumatized as Voltaire wanted him to be caused his plan to fail, then it would technically be due to the Will of Magic fulfilling it obligation to try to prevent system change by sending the Emissary to Grace's dreams which dominoed into so many other things.
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9 minutes ago, partner555 said:He's frustrated by the limits of Immortals, and clearly wants them gone, or irrelevant.
That's certainly his end goals (provided his end goals aren't a curveball of some sort). It's fitting together the pieces of his plan that's the part that I'm worried about.
10 minutes ago, partner555 said:He also definitely wants Magic to change, given he tried to traumatise Tedd who wants Magic to be public.
That is the most logical conclusion (especially if Voltaire also tried to traumatize Arthur), but Immortals aren't always logical. He also wanted to fill Tedd with contempt and distrust towards Magic and I'm not sure how that would help push the argument towards severe change (though I'm not sure how that would help minimal change either)
14 minutes ago, partner555 said:We can see how he intended to achieve the Magic change, though I'm not sure how what he did ties into the "last straw for Immortals" thing since the forced spell casting was up to Pandora and something he couldn't reasonably predict.
It's not too unreasonable, if Voltaire knows certain points of Pandora's history. He would know that she cares deeply about her family and that when a werewolf killed her husband, she influenced events to eradicate them. All he had to do was nudge events to play out in a way that guaranteed that Pandora would have to break Immortal law to save Adrian's life. Then she would want to do something to protect her family from the threat that almost killed Adrian, and since she doesn't the time to carefully influence things to eradicate the threat, she would have to do something big and drastic. Pandora knew about the connection between Immortals after one breaks the Laws and figured out how to use it to cast her spell, so it wouldn't be out of the question for Voltaire to have figured that out.
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12 hours ago, Vorlonagent said:14 hours ago, The Old Hack said:I consider this to at least potentially to be an argument in favour of the possibility of system change. Dan might have worked out an entirely new magic system on the side and be itching to try it. At least that is a temptation I personally would be able to understand.
But it wasn't all that long ago that Dan spent a lot of EGS: NP time explaining Ellen's magic is great detail. Purely playing the meta game, that information is not likely to be invalidated, so some magic and spells for some people are likely to be salvaged into whatever changes occur.
Besides, we don't know what spell Elliot got after he reached transgender nirvana. That spell is likely to come into play dealing with Sirleck, so at the very least magic can't change anything too drastically until sometime after that Big Reveal.
EDIT: As an aside, I mildly surprised myself, rediscovering that I pulled my avatar from the comic I linked to.
Another thing to consider is that making magic public, and therefor allowing magic for everyone, is the major goal of two characters, Tedd and Pandora. Pandora set the events that built up to this in motion with that in mind (so Adrian would be more free to act) and Tedd started his research into the watches with that in mind. Tedd winning the argument here would be a victorious completion of those arcs. Pandora might have recanted on this objective, but that was only because Magic was being a buttface.
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4 minutes ago, partner555 said:20 minutes ago, Drasvin said:"There have been some unforeseen complications"
Unforseen indeed. I doubt Voltaire was prepared for this either.
I wonder what he thinks of what Pandora did? If his plan failed, do you think he'd attribute it to Pandora being so overt in killing Aberrations that Magic threw its hands into the air and gave up any notion of secrecy, or because Tedd wasn't as traumatised as he thought, again, because of Pandora?
I imagine he would lay the blame on Tedd not being as traumatized as he thought. Unfortunately, I think he'll benefit from the Unspoken Plan Guarantee. We don't know which outcome he's trying to cause, only that it needs Tedd traumatized (and possibly Arthur now that I think about it. Something bad happened to Arthur or someone he cares about. I wouldn't put it past Voltaire to have arranged that, though again, that's just speculation) and somehow relates to the Immortals and their laws.
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Since being a seer is related to having just the right heritage, this revelation gives us a glimpse at how common wizards are as well, as presumably, seers require both parents to be wizards among other things. Though since a vast majority of seers have never used magic, their parents are either not Awakened or are really good at hiding their magic from their children, with them not being Awakened is much more likely as children tend to be inquisitive and have a knack for getting into places their parents don't want them in.
4 hours ago, partner555 said:6 hours ago, The Old Hack said:Also important: if they do NOT go with a severe system change, the 995-some other seers will not be informed about the existence of magic and the new rule system. Ironically, the best way to slow knowledge of magic from spreading will be to choose to go public. That way at least they will avoid a huge amount of new seers starting to spread the word.
No way to put the genie back in the bottle, but that way they may at least be able to slow it enough to allow them to prepare a little for the coming magocalypse.
Wonder how he's going to explain to his boss that his plan failed?
"There have been some unforeseen complications"
1 hour ago, wanderingmagus said:If keeping magic secret is futile, then as I said, what of simply giving out the "harmless" stuff like self gender transformation or balls of light or minor telekinesis like candy, and then making anything actually powerful like fireball cost a ridiculous amount of money, time, effort, power and teamwork/organization along with a great deal of rationality?
Unfortunately, Tedd, Arthur, and Van aren't there to discuss how Magic should change, but to simply discuss whether it should change severely to maintain secrecy or if it should change minimally to prepare for going public. They might be able to suggest things to Magic, but that's not why they are there.
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The talking pony!Susan head really reminds me of Banjo-Kazooie for some reason, even though the other talking head icon didn't remind me of that.
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6 minutes ago, ChronosCat said:I'm not sure what you mean about the depletion of magic being inevitable if new magic was not generated. Animals and plants make heavy use of water without ever significantly diminishing the worldwide water supply; water shortages are the result of water moving from one place to another, as well as in some cases rising human demand, not water being destroyed. Why would magic be different?
Sorry, someone had mentioned Larry Niven in the thread, who is notable in Fantasy for his 'The Magic Goes Away' series and my brain got confused, especially as I tend to conflate the idea of limited magical supply and threats of magical depletion. That said, we've seen cases of ambient magic energy being lowered significantly, both when Nanase and Ellen fought Not-Tengu and when Sarah used her spell to lower level to make the dam safer to remove. If they were simply moving the energy around instead of expending/destroying it, that shouldn't be possible as they are inside the area of high concentration that the energy is flowing towards. There is the possibility of converting the energy into some kind of waste energy, but that would still run risk of depletion of usable magical energy if there isn't some means to refresh the energy, and to someone that doesn't know about or doesn't fully understand the cycle, it would seem like new magic is being generated. To use your water analogy, if someone doesn't understand how the water cycle works, evaporation would seem like water being destroyed by the heat and rain would seem like water being generated from the clouds. Also, if the rate of renewal is less than the rate of use, then shortages and localized depletion could become an issue. Natural processes can generate new fossil fuels from dead things, but only really on a geological timescale.
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It seems like Susan's gone full villain mode with evil laugh and everything.
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I'm going to need more popcorn.
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1 hour ago, mlooney said:As much as I hate to say it, I about 80% on with Arthur J Arthur about keeping magic secret.
Magic in EGS does seem to give spells out based on who you are, not a set list of spells. Bad Tom gets magic, any bets he gets "Charm Person" or something like that? Want to live in a world where he and other twits like him have that? And that's just a fairly harmless option. There are actively evil people out there as well, even in the EGSverse as given. Notice that one of the vampires was also a mage. Not Good.
Unfortunately, keeping magic secret wouldn't prevent vile individuals from getting spells that could do terrible things. We already saw a "Charm Person" like effect (well more of a Dominate Person effect) with Not-Tengu. All of the vampires are magic users (one needs magic to become an aberration in the first place) and as you pointed out, can be even more dangerous if they happen to be a wizard on top of that. While keeping magic secret could minimize the number of vile people getting vile spells, it also minimizes the number of good people getting good spells, along with minimizing the potential answers to the vile people who do happen to get vile magic. Guns might work on most magic users, but something unexpected can leave people mentally off-balance and ill-capable of responding in the most effective manner. And there's always the possibility of someone getting a shield or armor spell that's good enough to protect against most guns. Or heck, just a bulletproof vest would improve their chances long enough to crack off a few spells.
Also, there's a pretty good chance that some bad people would get magic in the new system despite the attempts at secrecy. Magic wants to be used dramatically and doesn't really understand corporeal existence. The easiest way for big, dramatic use of magic is battle between heroes and villains. Conflict drives drama, and the more intense the conflict is, the greater the drama will be.
1 hour ago, Tom Sewell said:2 hours ago, partner555 said:If he was, wouldn't he be aware of his status of Seer then?
He'd certainly be aware that he can see how magic works, teach magic to others, and make wands, staffs, etc. And while he was aware that a Change was likely soon and that the revelation of magic was likely to bring it on, he didn't necessarily need to be aware that the Will of Magic has special purposes for Seers before the WoM spoke.
If he didn't know about the second purpose and had used magic (as an Elf he would know about magic, and seer abilities are more or less instinctual to the point that Tedd was using them without realizing it), then he would have been eligible for the second purpose at the last reset which would have made him ineligible for the current reset, since the WoM tells the seers their purpose when it calls on them.
1 hour ago, Tom Sewell said:About the only thing in canon that would support my theory is that the flamethrowing horde that provoked the last Change is the only really epic abuse of magic by humans we know about. How much work would it be for Dan to create another comparable incident? And how could it have been covered up? We don't even know how the historical memory of the horde was lost. And Arthur doesn't just say he knows what can result when magic falls into irresponsible hands, he says he's seen it, which implies that he's witnessed it. Contrast that with how he vetoed sending agents to deal with the bulldog dragon. If he's not a complete villain and/or lying, what he's seen has to be much worse than one Tercel-sized dragon.
An event doesn't have to go big to be worse for a person. On the contrary, smaller, more personal events tend to have greater mental and emotional impact. Death of a loved one is going to weigh more heavily on a person than death of dozens of people they don't know. And there are fates much worse than death, even before the nigh-infinite possibilities of magic is added to the mix.
20 minutes ago, Scotty said:I don't think the fact that Arthur tried to have Adrian deported on the technicality of Adrian's reported vs actual age is enough to believe that Arthur hates Adrian, Arthur could have very much been following proper procedure at the time, Adrian entered the country with false information and Arthur called him out on it. Maybe Arthur was a rookie at the time Adrian came to the US, the fact that Adrian didn't get deported means that someone higher up must have stepped in to allow it.
That does make me wonder why Arthur tried to have Adrian deported to Russia.
2 minutes ago, animalia said:I wonder if Dan has read JoJo's Bizarre Adventure?
I don't know, though if this Q&A is anything to go by, Dan has exclusively read books about wizards named Harry. (I think he's mentioned on Twitter reading more books since then, but I don't remember)
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20 hours ago, Tom Sewell said:Aberrations by definition have given up humanity, so they shouldn't be governed by the WoM at all.
Though Aberrations are by definition no longer human, they are still using the human system of magic for spells and such as it's the magic they had before they gave up their humanity. Presumably they would lose any spells they had before the change, but the WoM wouldn't touch the magic that's sustaining their existence.
Also a thought I just got, WoM might be only changing magic for humans because the way magic works for them is not intrinsic to their nature. For Uryuoms, their transformation magic is intrinsic to their nature (and explicitly something different, yet similar to Earth magic). For Immortals, the way their magic works is intrinsic to what they are. For humans however, magic isn't inherently part of their nature. Potential for magic is intrinsic to humans, but how that magic works isn't. That also fits with why people with hereditary talents wouldn't lose the talents even if they lose their current spells related to the talent. The talent is an intrinsic part of the person.
20 hours ago, Tom Sewell said:So, why does the WoM exist at all? Story-wise, it's there to make our heroes and villains more exceptional.
I think it's less about making the heroes and villains more exceptional and more about making the magic system more exceptional. There are many people that feel that a wide spread magic system would cause it to lose that special spark and become something banal and mundane, which I don't really agree with, though a magic system with a limited pool of use is easier to make it feel special. The WoM is also a semi-logical extension of magic's flair for the dramatic and tendency for trolling. If dramatic flair and humorous pranks matter to magic, then making it sentient isn't too much of a stretch.
20 hours ago, Tom Sewell said:That unarmored horde of flame-throwing idiots wouldn't have done very well at Agincourt or Carrhae. The problem that Magic had with them was that they put on too much of a show.
Pandora's memoir mentioned they rode into battle without weapons, but didn't mention them not having armor. Admittedly, riding into battle without any weapons is rather foolish, though their flame magic might have been enough had magic not changed on them. Fire weaponry can do terrible things to living things and carries a heavy psychological element to it as well.
14 hours ago, ChronosCat said:I was also assuming that people do not actually create new magic, they simply store it in their bodies, much like a wand; in this case people would not be able to replenish their magic if the ambient magic level was too low. As for the Space Whales, magic would need to be like water for them, not food; if they're taking magic in and not returning it later, there would need to be something actively creating magic, in which case my theory gets a little shakey
If new magical energy was not generated, then depletion of it would be inevitable, regardless of how many magic users there are. The only difference would be how quickly it is depleted. The magic supply is shared with the other half of the Moperverse, which has open magic and presumably a plentiful number of users, which should lead to greater concern with the dam at the Moperville exchange point than it did. On top of that, the fact that animals can sustain enchantments by eating and need to starve themselves to shed enchantments implies that magical energy can be generated by biological processes. That also make sense with sleep being the time of greatest energy regeneration, as the body increases processes related to healing and such while asleep. The ambient energy levels might even be refilled by natural dissipation of magical energy by living beings. In many settings, magic is closely connected with life and it would explain why energy build-ups are harder to deal with in areas of high ambient energy. It's more difficult to dissipate energy when the area is already highly saturated with that energy, similar to how it's difficult to cool down on a hot day. People that don't have to deal with energy build-ups would have greater regulation of their energy generation, so difficulty in dissipation would be much less of a concern.
Though magic depletion is a significant consideration on a short-term scale. Personal energy can be exhausted and ambient magic used up, depriving people of their magic until either personal energy regenerates or the ambient magic refills. Though based on what happened to Nanase and what Agent Wolf said, completely exhausting one's personal energy might be hazardous to one's health for reasons other than not being able to use spells (Another interpretation of that would be that it's not how much of her personal energy supply she expended but simply the total volume of energy she expended that was dangerous).
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14 hours ago, Haylo said:Would the magical equivalent of a Dyson sphere be a series of "empowering shelters" laid out along the paths magic follows (does EGS have ley lines?) where magic users can sleep and absorb some usable magic before it finds it's way to a "drain" area like Moperville and gets recycled?
While ambient magic would have currents of flow between 'springs' and 'drains,' I think that flow might be too diffuse. A better plan would likely to build the collectors around either the drains or the springs, where magical energy is going to naturally be more concentrated. As for what the collectors should be, I think spell catalysts refill from the ambient energy. If you could find a spell to transfer energy from a catalyst to another catalyst or a person, then you could set up very large catalysts imbued with the spell to transfer energy out of them as the collectors.
14 hours ago, CritterKeeper said:If all of the energy went into ambient, then any given area could run out of magic if too many people are casting too many spells. I do picture ambient magic as flowing like water, so that a depleted area will eventually refill, but it would take time.
And the importance of spell catalysts would increase in this scenario, as spell catalysts are capable of storing energy in them. Though without personal energy, once both the stored energy and the ambient energy are spent, the catalyst is useless until it recharges, which places heavier importance on large catalysts (as size is important in determining storage capacity) or multiple catalysts (similar to how some people would carry multiple flintlock pistols to minimize the need of reloading between shots)
14 hours ago, CritterKeeper said:If, on the other hand, ambient magic was sharply curtailed, and all magic came from the spellcaster, then it would be very difficult to become Dreaming and to Awaken, because those who didn't already have a big enough pool of personal magic to cast simple spells with a wand would have to hope training such as ASMA would work for them.
Wands would likely still have an internal energy storage, as there needs to be a way for 'non-talents' to use magic (and eliminating the internal storage would also decrease the usefulness of wands and, by extension, wandmakers), though the mechanism for recharging that storage would probably change if ambient magic was sharply curtailed.
14 hours ago, CritterKeeper said:Someone like Sarah, who can get a spell but doesn't have enough personal energy to cast it, would be no better off than someone with no spell at all.
That's not entirely true. As was seen with Dex and the fire monsters, it's possible for an external source, like an Immortal, to pump energy into a person. It's an incredibly risky avenue, but it does give a person with a spell a way to use it to train with it if they lack the personal energy to cast it themselves. Since such a person can use ambient energy(or the energy stored in wands) to train up their magical capability and awaken, I don't see why they could do so with other external sources, outside of the already mentioned risk of letting something pump power into them.
7 hours ago, Stature said:9 hours ago, Tom Sewell said:Of course, he is really old, so he isn't likely to have a long post-Change career.
Immortal much? Then again, would an Immortal be a Seer? No, right? Right?
Immortals would make poor Seers, at least as far as the second purpose goes. They've been shown to struggle with human concepts such as morality, which would limit the perspective they could give to Magic on how it should change for humans. Though they could be really good at the first purpose. A bigger problem would be that being in charge of a human organization would likely be beyond what "Empower and Guide" would allow. Besides, I doubt the Paranormal Division would be foolish enough to put an Immortal in charge in the first place (they're pretty easy to figure out when on the physical plane if you know what you're looking for, as their magic is completely non-detectable)
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I really like the design on the pony form.
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We're going to get a good in-depth debate at the pros and cons of magic for everyone.
Also a (sort of) explanation of why the Will of Magic is talking to the seers as a disembodied voice, instead of creating an avatar of some sort. An avatar would mislead the seers into thinking they're dealing with a singular entity, or if the avatar was a crowd of people, it would mislead them into thinking they were dealing with a plurality. Also Magic doesn't really understand people, so it's avatar(s) would seriously risk diving into the uncanny valley.
8 hours ago, Scotty said:I've no idea how Van would be of any help here, he'd need to come up with something to add to Tedd's argument not just echo it like what just happened but considering his age....I know Akiko's smart for being 8 (probably 9 now) but I've seen plenty of 8-10 year olds that speak without thinking or thinking about themselves rather than considering how others might feel.
Van could add an emotive angle to the discussion, especially if he realizes that a severe magic change could put his mum in significant danger. If she happens to be actively fighting a monster at the time of system change, she'll lose her means to fight, which could very likely get her killed if her opponent isn't a human that will also lose their magic (or her opponent has a mundane back-up). I don't know if that would help the discussion, but Magic is an entity/collective/thing beyond corporeal understanding. Maybe a child worried about his mum would appeal to it/them/<insert pronoun here>
7 hours ago, Tom Sewell said:8 hours ago, Pharaoh RutinTutin said:And remember, Arthur has honed his position by debating with Liefield, Politicians, TV Talk Show Hosts, and your father.
Leifeld is a Bureaucrat, a character class known more for skill in blame avoidance than in anything else. And Tedd's dad already exposed Arthur's agenda in front of Tedd, if Tedd thinks about it.
Though Leifeld is not your typical build for a Bureaucrat, as evidenced by his exceptional Muscles stat. And he has been skeptical of Arthur's plan before, especially as his plan pretty much required shirking responsibility by doing nothing.
3 hours ago, Haylo said:Arthur is in an excellent position for an Appeal to Force "argument": He can threaten Tedd's father's job; Tedd's access to alien technology; and possibly Tedd's, his father's, and his friends' freedom.
Of course, the Will of Magic just might recognize really blatent coercion and stop listening to the person using it...
He can't threaten Edward's job, as Edward is the head of Paranormal Diplomacy, which is not subordinate to Paranormal Investigations. He also has enough friends and connections (including Leifeld, Arthur's superior) that Arthur pretty much can't touch him anyway (Edward avoided getting fired after using potentially lethal force on a suspect that had already surrendered. And really the only reason Edward was 'promoted' out of Paranormal Investigations was because we was becoming too personally attached to the goings on). Threatening the main cast's freedom is going to run into oversight problems from Leifeld, who is unlikely to be willing to let Arthur lock up people (especially people closely connected to Edward) without a good enough reason. Arthur might be able to restrict Tedd's access to alien technology, but Tedd has uryuom friends in Will and Gill. They could potentially buy him the parts he needs to build gadgets like the TFG. And the CMD that was the basis for the first TFG wasn't acquired through official channels, but from Will and Gill directly when they needed someone to upgrade it to provide them with fully human morphs.
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19 hours ago, Vorlonagent said:On 1/25/2018 at 0:19 AM, Scotty said:Considering Van knows about his mum being a monster hunter, it's probably safe to say she's still in his life. Still curious to know if she's aware of what Van is or at least knows that he'd be a wandmaker, like maybe if Tedd didn't resist the detection wand, Edward and Noriko might have learned something about what Tedd would be capable off, not the whole being a Seer bit but being able to make wands, Pandora certainly made it sound like the wand would have said something if Tedd didn't resist it. If Van didn't resist a scan (though it's assuming a scan was done) what would it have said?
THIS is a good point I forgot about. If Van was subjected to a magical potential detection process that wasn't frightening (and therefore reflexively resisted) then Noriko would have a reason to think Van is different from Tedd.
Given that Edward still has the scary-noisy detection wand, then it likely belonged to him, so Noriko would have to either pick up a new detection wand, which might not be as scary sounding, or learn a detection spell, which would likely not make such a scary noise.
That got me thinking about whether or not Edward has a detection spell, before I remembered that he does, and why he would use the detection wand if he does. I also really want to see what kind of stuff is in Edward's spellbook.
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The 'if any' part implies there have been cases of magic changing and there being no eligible seers, which is kind of concerning given that WoM doesn't really understand corporeal beings that well. Also this sort of leads to an explanation as to why magic on the other half of the Moperverse is out in the public. Some time in their past, a Seer managed to convince their Magic to become more public during a change.
7 hours ago, Scotty said:7 hours ago, hkmaly said:I don't think the knowledge would be forgotten. In today's word, losing something this important is unlikely to happen. It MIGHT've happened in past, yes, but if magic reveals itself now, it will be forever.
I do suppose there will be some changes preventing magic becoming too widespread, but not enough to cause wizards and magic users to die out. For start, magic likely can't remove hereditary magical talents. It can make harder to awaken them though, so only determined people will became magic users in future and the number won't go so high. Relatively.
... because there are a lot more people than in the past and unless it stops growing, eventually the number of wizards will be in millions no matter how hard it will be.
Well it may not be forgotten but if magic made it harder for new magic users to awaken, then at some point magic use will become rare occurrences again, heck magic users are probably still rare enough or at least don't have their cover completely blown yet, at the moment it's just been revealed to the world that magic exists and that there are magical beings living on Earth, but it's unknown how many people can use it and aside from the global lightshow, most of the publicly known incidents happened in Moperville. If many of the magic users and organizations like the Paranormal Division kept out of the public eye, then maybe things would calm down after a while and people could be made to believe that these incidents were due to some once in a millennia phenomenon, that it had happened in the past and may happen again far into the future, but will eventually taper off.
If Magic goes public, the Paranormal Division and similar organizations might have trouble staying out of the public eye. People are going to want to know what law enforcement agencies (or maybe even militaries) are doing to protect them from magical threats, including people in government that have oversight of said law enforcement agencies. The Paranormal Division might be compelled by the higher ups in the FBI to address the public's concerns and actually get out there and do their jobs. And if the number of public incidents increases, then the Paranormal Division is going to have to increase recruitment to handle them (Given how rare magic users currently seem to be, with the exception of Moperville, the office in Moperville, might very well be the Midwest office), which would mean they would have to train the recruits in how to use magic. Unless they want to take on that burden all by themselves, they would need to include magical training courses at some law enforcement academies (which said academies might want anyway to better prepare their students for that risk in the line of duty), reducing the chances of magic use tapering off.
6 hours ago, Tom Sewell said:7 hours ago, hkmaly said:He even found something about reset!
Maybe someone told him... someone who likes white suits and fedoras. Take a look back at the meeting between Assistant Director Leifeld and Arthur. Why are they talking in a gym? Arthur works for Leifeld; if he wanted a confidential meeting, why not meet in one of their offices? Looks kind of like this scheme to let magic reset is just between them, doesn't it? Well, them and a that guy who likes white suits and fedoras.
If this turns out to be true, and Raven finds out...
Given that Arthur was objecting that the gym was not the most secure place to discuss matters, it seems that Leifeld was the one that insisted on meeting there. Maybe he didn't want the meeting to interrupt his workout schedule? He seems like the kind of guy that would care a lot about keeping a consistent workout schedule.
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4 hours ago, Don Edwards said:20 hours ago, Vorlonagent said:I thought about that. It would mean Tedd crafted all his watches especially poorly.
No it wouldn't. It would mean that the watches are, overall, of low quality.
Now consider what Tedd was likely to start with. He has more than just one or two watches. He gives them away. And while Mr. V isn't poor, he doesn't show signs of being extremely wealthy, so Tedd probably doesn't have a couple dozen spare $50 watches. Most likely he bought a box of "watches" from the toy department at a cost of noticeably under $5 each - perhaps he found them at a dollar store. Cheap plastic cases on cheap plastic bands that aren't even replaceable.
He bought them in bulk. They're toy gadget watches that are meant to be cheap prizes for arcades. He just bought a bunch of them and started sticking magic into them. They're not even functional timepieces, just a plastic button on a plastic or rubber watchstrap. Presumably blank so the arcades could add their own decals to them cheaply.
19 hours ago, Vorlonagent said:The question then is what Ted did with them. Did he use them as-is?
Presumably he used them as-is. His plan was to change the world with them and give everyone magic. A plan with that wide of a scope would require some form of mass manufacture. If he needed to use hard to get components in the watches themselves, it would severely hamper the effectiveness of his plan, especially if those components require government clearance to obtain like most Uryuom tech parts would.
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32 minutes ago, Scotty said:42 minutes ago, Vorlonagent said:I read that comic and acknowledged the possibility. But as the rest of the comic makes clear it comes down to energy input, not some other intrinsic limit.
Maybe magical implements can only use their own internal magic supply and cannot draw off the user's energy. Tedd's watches would have such a vanishingly small supply due to size that they wouldn't operate anywhere else. In that case, if you could give the watch a magical jumpstart with the users energy, they'd probably work fine.
I feel that's based on the assumption that Tedd originally made, that the watches worked because people had some energy to use them, but meeting the whale proved that to be a false assumption.
The assumption Tedd originally made was that the watches required so little energy that even someone that is incredible magically impaired (as he originally believed himself to be) could use them. This Q&A states that the watches can give someone access to the spell, they just lack the capacity to do anything more than that. All of the energy for the watch's spell has to come from the user and the page after the whale tells Tedd that the watches are too small, it tells him that one of the effects of the build-up is that "spells require less energy"
Story, Monday February 12, 2018
in Comic Discussion
Posted
Magic called on the Seers to provide it with a human perspective, but didn't give them the perspective needed to properly provide their own perspective.
And subtlety is hard even when you don't have the perspective of a diffuse entity spread across an entire planet(or more)
Voltaire wanted Tedd bitter and distrustful towards Magic. If she was distrustful towards Magic, she likely wouldn't have believed what it said about Pandora coming back, meaning she wouldn't have calmed down and likely would be unable to convince Magic to go public while so filled with anger and pain. Magic calming her down required a level of trust from her.
Also, plan CM was likely never intended to traumatize Ted (though Voltaire certainly considered that a bonus) The purpose of Plan CM was probably an attempt to discredit technology as a significant threat vector for Magic's reveal, which it did (or almost did, depending on what Tedd says in the next comic)
Well, freelance Monster hunting likely doesn't pay well in the modern era, so she needs some way to pay her bills.
I doubt he would take that route. For one, he wouldn't get to enjoy the benefits of all his hard work (his next incarnation would, but that would be a new person). And for two, he went through a lot of effort to maneuver Pandora into breaking the Laws. If he was willing to break the Laws himself, he could have just done that and not have dealt with Plan Complicated Mess at all. He could have just killed Elliot himself instead of trying to get Tara to do it for him.