hkmaly

While the idea of Raven and Edward getting "spoils of war" after the attack on the company producing Hedge and Grace is funny, I don't think the timeline fits and Raven is unlikely to be part of such attack force. More likely, Max and Jeremy are results of independent experiments with uryuoms egs. Yes. Or, the same effect which makes Grace age slower (I think it wasn't explained WHY does she age slower, was it?).

Of course Sarah would be upset, but I not so sure about Ashley. Susan, of course, would find it sexy. Sarah might be upset, but considering they did break up, she can't say anything. Ashley might say something but she wouldn't be nearly as much upset. Susan ... I'm not sure, do we have confirmed she finds Elliot's woman form sexy? Also, she definitely likes Catalina more than Carol ... so, she may find it sexy but not as much as the Catalina event. I think this is better ... but comparing pinups gets harder and harder. Like ... this is extremely unlikely to ever be canon. Nanase + Fox? I'm sure it already happened and Ellen was the PoV character.

Makes sense. Jeremy might never be zapped.

Pandora never really finished her statement about it, so we don't know what she meant when she started saying "and now the other enchantments are..." Are they what? Tied to Rhoda's energy pool and she only has the ability to maintain 4 instead of 5? Is there a maximum number of enchantments a person can have and Rhoda and Catalina's close proximity and their enchantments being linked push past the limit so 1 or 2 enchantments need to go away? This is why I was upset that she didn't finished the sentence. Something like "connecting as well" or "starts to interact" would IMHO work better as continuation of that sentence. Note that from story telling standpoint, her not finishing that sentence makes sense only because what we see happening is exactly what she was talking about and we will see what she meant in few strips. Which might unfortunately mean Wednesday or even after that fat-guy-resembling-st.-Nicholas-delivering-gifts-just-after-solstice-is-somehow-making-everyone-think-of-Jesus holiday. Also, in Moperville high ambient magic area, S-rank talent like Rhoda is likely able to power more "easy" enchantments like those transformations. I mean, only the resizing of Catalina seems to be hard, others seem to be easy because they are not breaking physical laws so much.

Note that Adrian might be aware of it and approve it. Hmmm ... fourteen years ... even if he met Pandora before he wouldn't remember much. Technically, Raven might already told him about her, but based on their previous conversation, probably didn't. That scene only proved she believes that. It can still be bad idea and not really helping. However, Raven seems to accuse her she only pretends to him, and I think we can safely say that's not true. If she pretends, she does it well enough to convince herself. Even if she wouldn't do it for him it would still be within the rules. She would be in danger of being reset for rule breaking only if he would successfully convinced her that empowering Moperville doesn't count as "empower and guide" - and even then, maybe "I though it was ok when I was doing it" works good enough.

The might have been farther, when Catalina first transformed, they were in or near the food court, we don't know for sure how far they went to find dressing rooms that didn't have a lot of traffic nearby, they could have ended up on the second floor and the exit they parked near was on the first floor. Yes - it's not like they didn't moved at all, it's just they are not moving in the right direction. That's the thing, I can understand Rhoda's latest enchantment affecting Catalina because of her being in very close physical contact. I just don't get how the other enchantments would get pulled into the mix since they were done separately and there was no contact between Catalina and Rhoda at the time. And I don't see them averaging either, Rhoda seems to be returning to normal size, Catalina might be returning to normal size as well but it could also be the pocket getting smaller for her. We will likely see on Monday if Catalina got bigger. That would also make sense, but wouldn't match Pandora's description.

Even without the "owner"/employer, if a job requires cooperation of multiple people of different specialization, person better at choosing the other specialization people can outperform another who is better at his job but worse at finding the group. That's hard to do if the criteria for high-producing worker are hard to evaluate. Either because noone is doing exactly same thing so you have no comparison or because it takes years to see measurable progress. (Often it's both AND there is luck involved.) Nature is good at finding that level IN LONG SCALE. And species dying out IS one of possible result of nature "finding" the balance. True, however I'm not exactly sure how is this supposed to make me feel better. One jerk can steal LOT of credit. (Although I shouldn't complain so much. The company I'm working for is not exactly producing anything, so while I'm working hard enough I'm likely part of the problem. Not that our competitors produce anything - whole field is useless. But hey, NASA wasn't hiring.)

That's not limited to Moperville. Transformation safety is a whole-universe law.

I think they're still inside. They were inside here, and it had shrubbery. ... actually, that looks like EXACTLY the same place. Which means they didn't get so far ... I am rather confused as to why it would be gradual though, I guess maybe because Catalina's in the pocket still and Magic's giving them a chance for her to get out before any damage is done, but it's still weird that it'd be like that. I'm not. Gradual change make sense if the enchantments are linked and are just averaging.

Ok. So yes the resizing enchantments started cancelling each other. I still hope Rhoda will get cat ears. ... are those trees? Are they already outside?

http://www.egscomics.com/egsnp.php?id=551 So it's getting even more complicated? And Pandora is getting even more sexy?

Didn't you mean these experts?

Yes. Which I personally don't consider good. Or sustainable. In long term, it will mean that the ability of whole population to generate resources will diminish, and unless scarcity of resources reverts the trend (which is unlikely, people most thriving in such situations are usually the worst scum from the "talkers") the population will die.

I'd hazard he'd do that more as a safety advisory, rather than a simple "uncool, bro, uncool...." (Scooter, BL2) I don't think Adrian is supposed to have fourth wall piercing powers. Pandora on the other hand ... Also, I wouldn't be surprised if she recognize we are looking and deliberately took a fan-service form. And then possibly switch to monster form just to play with us. Any relative size change will result in Catalina being unable to hide in the jacket. But somehow I more expect the catgirl enchantment leaking ... because the size would be too obvious to both Catalina and Rhoda. Remember: empower and guide. She is quite limited in what she can do to you ... at least directly ...

Well, in my case it is of the "dripping onto everything and literally wringing the liquid out of my t-shirt several times per hour" level, which means also that I do not want to do it if I do not have immediate access to showers and change of clothes afterward. Well, I sort of meant "in public or without the way to shower and change clothes before going to public". Dripping is no problem if you take care that "everything" doesn't contain anything electronic and/or impossible to wash. I would challenge the effectiveness of 17th century firearm against elephant or hippo, but neither is predator ... You apparently don't count MRSA and several others which are resistant to most of mentioned "poisons". But, even that is completely different game than we were playing before. It's not our evolution against evolution of diseases. It's our technology against evolution of diseases. Bacteria have ability of horizontal DNA transfer, which used to give them big advantage ... but horizontal DNA transfer is slow compared to technology's ability to develop a substance, send it's composition over Internet, synthesize it and deploy widely. And even the small merchants and service technicians are measured more by their "people" skill than their work itself. Actually, there are still limits how much you can conceal lack in Strength, Constitution and Dexterity. Problem is, that there seem to be no such limits for concealing lack of Intelligence and Wisdom, as well as experience. And that's speaking in terms of DnD. In real life, everything is not divided in only six basic attributes, meaning person can lack in even more areas and still successfully parasite on people actually having those attributes, skill and experience.

I don't see why there would be...? My point is, we already know exactly what rule is preventing Pandora from depowering Moperville herself. That rule is "only guide and empower". We know exactly what she has to do to depower Moperville: she has to get a mortal (or multiple mortals) to do it, by guiding and/or empowering them (or, perhaps, find some other way that qualifies as only guiding and empowering). There's no reason to believe that there's anything more to it than that. I agree with this explanation. Although Dan DID mentioned that empower and guide is oversimplification because he can't see how can having child be counted as either.

We evolved brains capable of inventing such things, and hands capable of creating them, or of creating tools that can create them. That's true, but not the same as evolving the stuff directly. In game terms, human brain is OP on border of cheating. It completely changes the rules. Actually, it completely changes the GAME - rules, objectives, map ... But brains which aren't capable of using and creating new technologies are at a definite disadvantage, and thus less likely to pass on their genes. If only. It used to work that way, then it changed to work by communities, but now we have global world and everybody can take advantage of all technologies regardless if he can understand them. Couch potato can watch satellite programme (satellites wouldn't work without theory of relativity) on his plasma TV (which wouldn't work without quantum physic) and still believe God created word in 7 days and Grand Canyon was created in Great flood after 40 days of rain. Terrorist can use machine guns and explosives and still believe that there is only single book worth reading and all the rest should be burned. Man with brain capable of creating new technologies may be busy working in laboratory and his neighbour is meanwhile working on reproduction with his wife. (Note: those are just examples. I'm sure you can find examples of human stupidity in any religion or non-religious ideology, if you look at extremists version of it. I also don't want to imply woman wouldn't be capable of inventing, it's just much harder to convince her she reproduced when she didn't. She can still be too busy to reproduce.)

I'm going to bet he just looks at her disinterestedly and then goes back to sleep. Oh. The Brownie approach.

Or just not having as many successful children. To pick what's probably a far exaggerated ratio, if you have four, and they have two, and that ratio continues each generation, you'll wind up with a lot more descendants, even if the competition is succeeding at replacing themselves. If one of your kids mates with one of theirs, maybe they'll have three successful kids, or maybe some sort of synergy between traits will lead to the combination having five or six. Where is that huge number of descendants going to go? America? There was lot of natives dying involved in that one. Alpha Centauri? No matter if gene is dominant or recessive, statistically, if you have at least two children there is big chance both version of that gene will get to next generation. Usually, you have to swim to where you find the food, dive to get it, and swim to where you left your bucket to put the food in, before swimming back to get more. Oh. Right. Cavemen likely didn't had much of a boat ... I'm not that sure about the bucket actually. Basket, more likely. But we *have* evolved traits useful for elderly individuals. We know how to make dentures and implants, how to slow progression of arthritis and treat its pain to keep people mobile far longer, how to build canes and walkers and braces and.... That's TECHNOLOGY, not evolution. We didn't evolved it, we invented it. Just like we invented weapons capable of killing any predator (or anything else, except cockroaches). Note that technology does NOT work on dying. Ideas can spread horizontally. In 9 months it takes to produce single genetic descendant you have plenty of time to spread new invention to whole population.

Old enough that Star Trek TNG would have been in syndication for at least a decade? That wasn't what I meant, although with the weird progress of time in EGS (as visible on the phones), even this can be an issue ... She can watch it at any age, but I don't think it can have that strong effect on her at age of 4. 7, maybe.

Actually it's completely possible Pandora will be only one aware of how much hijinks happened. It DOES seem like there is cascade in making, but it is possible it will go off without other people noticing it (or at least realizing how big hijinks it were, technically Akiko already noticed). I think if Mr. Verres would be involved, they would react differently on Cheerleadra in mall. Luke, on the other hand ... there might be potential here ...

I would think letting him know now would be better than to surprise him with it at the time needed to complete the task, I imagine he would need to prepare and that could take some time as well. On one hand, yes. On the other, I can see her wanting to postpone as much as possible. I can see Adrian attempting to call her out on it, she gets confused as to what he's talking about, and then Adrian being flabbergasted at finding out she doesn't know the pithos/box detail of her own namesake. I'm really looking forward to it. I think conspiracy might work. But apparently not as well as unkindness ...

Probably, I wouldn't be surprised though if Susan started watching it shortly after catching her father as well and it because a way for her to escape the drama of the divorce and such. It is canon that Susan wears a Star Trek shirt when she's upset and she was preoccupied with thoughts of her father when she wore one. ... how old was she when she caught her father again?

Nope, evolution works by reproductive success. If something you do helps you kids' children have more or more successful offspring, or your brother's children, or any other close relative, that is what counts. It's RELATIVE reproductive success. Which usually means someone is dying to make space for your children (or your brother children etc). But I mentioned dying specially in context of "evolving out" negative stuff. Evolution will not cause people who have trait X to have children without trait X - well, few of them, possibly, but the majority will get rid of trait X simply because people with trait X will die with less offspring and eventually die out. But diving is not exactly swimming in terms of muscle usage. In fact, diver might gain from having less muscles to lower oxygen consumption. Not really, tigers are excellent swimmers. ;-) ... hence you need to swim faster ... seriously? I though cats don't like water ... oh. I see. Cheetahs, leopards and lions avoid water, tigers are exception. Ok, make it "lot of lions" strategy. You got a source for that? Mine is my biology degree and all the lectures that led to it, as well as keeping up with the literature since then. Four dead teeth. Oh. Sorry. Might've lost context. With context, it's "It's apparently not effective enough to evolve traits useful in higher age, like third teeth or better defense against age-related diseases".

I did expected he will be the one. But I expected she will tell him later, after Sarah will get rid of enough of the ambient magic, so this appearing so soon surprised me as well. But she's not happy. (Possibly because she noticed the title of arc. "Unkidness", hmmm ...)