hkmaly

Certainly, if the 'open doors' rule counts. If Sarah gained the necessary knowledge and skill to become a surgeon, she could invite her patient into a surgical theatre complete with instruments, prep the patient and cast the spell. She could then operate on the dream version of her patient with no risk to the real patient at all. It might be rather gruesome but she could even make several attempts of the same operation in order to determine the optimum approach. Definitely. I just wanted to say that while she can get interesting information that way, she is unlikely to get the kind of information people are generally interrogated for, like the mentioned example of "where did you hidden the body" or "where did you put the bomb".

Well, the long hair and boobs/curves being Nanase-class is probably something that Sarah would want, given her earlier expressions of envy. It is, however, also what she is generally used to see on her friends, which explains the envy. It's not only Nanase, EVERYONE she knows seem to have bigger boobs than her, at least when female. And the hairs are totally Ellen.

In world where magic transformations are norm, you need to abandon the idea that consent depend on body. Would you think about consent of Marilyn Monroe when your girlfriend will be roleplaying her? No matter the transformations involved, the people who needs to consent are the ones actually present. And the same is true in general. In this simulation, only person actually present is Sarah and only consent-based risk is if she can't control herself. From you, obviously, who else? Luckily for starving teenagers, I suppose they can't keep the spell working long enough OR cast it immediately after leaving it again. Not speaking about the fact that if you actually ARE starving already, your magic might not recover as fast as normally. I refuse to believe characters are "that way" when off-panel too. We never saw them on toilet (well, ok, we did saw Elliot on toilet, but not doing the thing toilet is for) yet it's obvious they go there. Similarly, there is more naughtiness off-panel than on-panel. Obviously. BTW, speaking about OT3 ... the OT3 pinup must've happened this week in simulation. No question about it. Explains the face expression Sarah had in it. Me neither. Especially on first try. But it explains why Pandora said it will be lot of fun. That gets into some interesting scenarios...and not just naughty ones. "OK, Mr. Terrorist, you're just like the real you but you really, really want to tell me everything you know...." We'll have to see if Dan addresses the question of what the spell versions of people know. Dan specifically addressed it in commentary. No, things the people said would be based on what Sarah imagines they said, unusable for interrogation. Unfortunately. I was thinking about that. Anyone around Sarah might be very suspicious if she starts getting all day-dreamy...even more than most teenagers. Still I recall dozing through classes in high school, especially "study halls", not to mention bus rides. Yes. Spacing out while talking with someone to do something with him would be awkward, but doing things when you are just near, like in class or bus rides, should feel normal enough. And yes, while her simulation feels much more real, it wouldn't be THAT different from daydreaming, which she might already be doing (we didn't saw her doing it, but we mostly see her while talking with someone). Even the content of it might be similar The exact limit is probably going to get bigger. Although not in single week ... Or, in other direction, her exact limit might get smaller when she cast the spell first time after removing of ambient magic anomaly (and training enough to be able to cast it at all).

Well we know a persons thoughts can affect the results of spells, it's happened to Elliot on several occasions, Gracelyn and Cheerleadra 2.0 being prime examples, the fact that Rhoda said "and it will be mutual!" might trigger it to affect them both. Exactly. Although I would list Mall girl as prime example

Because chances are, if she doesn't know what the button does, then she'll speculate on it, if she questions whether it might trigger a trap, then it might trigger a trap when it reality it just buzzes room service. That was rhetorical question. Once again: the simulation will change accuracy if Sarah will make direct changes. If she don't, the accuracy would remain NO MATTER WHAT SHE THINKS ABOUT. (Of course, can't be taken literally, as making direct changes is thinking, but both Pandora's explanations and thinks Sarah did so far supports that it needs to be deliberate - unlike the body swap, which is apparently on hair trigger.)

If she was studying to become a brain surgeon, that might work. If EGS brain surgeons are roughly on the same level as ours, they wouldn't help much either. I mean, they will definitely be interested in informations she obtain, but it wouldn't be interrogation: it would be mostly for medicine treatments, analyzing diseases and maybe drugs.

I think it can, but ... Sarah's spell is already S-rank. Having configuration which would be even MORE useful seems unlikely, so unless there is some way in which Cranium spell is less useful ... Yeah. On the other hand, if she meant literally the "accurate recreation" part ... As I said, it's based on the general "world is small" view ... and it would be more fun if, after some time, when Edward Verres finds out, Sarah would confront him and mentions this and Edward would reply "well, that's technically true, you already met agent Cranium". (Assumed, of course, that she will meet Cranium between now and then, because so far, only Grace, Ellen, Elliot and Nanase did. As far as we know.) And it's less crazy than other "world is small"-based speculations like Voltaire being Pandora and Disco Wizard being Edward. That might be easier and make the spell not-S-rank ... Definitely. And it will probably take years before we get answer on this. If ever.

Immortals live longer, there is more opportunities to troll them. You say it like the magic has to choose. The correct answer is always "troll both", of course. She might get more than she wants. Like, successfully shrink Catalina, her clothes and herself. Maybe even her OWN clothes ... or not

She could, you know, just remember the result and tell Tedd. Not speaking about the fact that the experiments I speak about would mostly consist of Tedd preparing something, then Sarah starting her spell, then both Tedd and Sarah would do the experiment (Tedd in reality, Sarah in simulation) and then prove (or disprove) the accuracy by comparing their results. Not even Tedd would know what exactly should Sarah see until he does the experiment. The simulation is supposed to stay accurate until she starts modifying it in "against-physical-laws" way. Opening door will not change the accuracy. Why should pressing some button?

So yeah, no chance of Sarah being able to interrogate anyone with her spell....well...not directly, she could find information through documents she looks through that she could then use to interrogate a real person, but that's it. Hmmm ... ok, busted. So she can't. There is still possibility she can get information by slicing their brain and looking at it by microscope, but she's unlikely to have stomach for it and there likely isn't anyone who could tell her what to look for.

I think it was a simple canceling out not really due to the magic system itself, but how Immortals themselves can give marks, Ashley yearned for the ability to transform herself and others, but the fact that she would refused to use such a power recklessly was stronger than the yearning. Pandora would have been looking at Ashley's personality to know this. If Tedd did that with Elliot, then Tedd probably is on his way to becoming an Immortal. Well, people keep speculating about that for long time (Checked the page and yes Pandora was reading personality there according to Dan's comments. I though she's reading the "possible spells" directly or something.) There are likely some elements that are obvious. Tedd could probably see the links between elements and be like "Ok so this does something to this, but what does that do?" Maybe in the case of Elliot, Tedd noticed that there were elements missing in his morphing ability, elements that allowed for male forms, and wondered why that would be the case. He might be able to see relation between Elliot's spells or something like that, which would make apparent that the spells are related by the "girl" aspect ... I mean, even more obviously than the fact they are all girl transformations. Hmmmm ... I suspect that we will get some more information about Tedd's glowing later. It seems like something which was not properly explained yet. There really isn't a whole lot we know about Craniums ability beyond her being able to observe locations without being there and the example showing her standing outside a men's locker room. It's possible that she enters a simulated snapshot of the area around her and is skilled enough that she can move around efficiently and be able to scan for enchants without affecting the accuracy of the simulation Wasn't she actually scanning for enchants or did she just checked that people look normally? If she was, was scanning for enchants part of her original spell or is that extension spell similar to how Nanase got fairy punch upgrade? I'm still saying it's more likely that Pandora didn't meant "same spell" literally than that there is OTHER agent who knows Edward and has similar spell as Cranium. But maybe DGB only LOOKS as small agency and they actually have lot of agents.

Definitely real, although I would prefer if Grace wouldn't test it with sleeper's hold. She is, however, smelling the illusory air.

They always are. What you expect will change? That they will get into visible superposition? Note: I suspect that shear determination CAN fuel magic. See here.

Maybe they do. It's similar how Pandora was able to find that Ashley can't be marked with transformations because being too good. To me, this actually suggest that in some case he can recognize meaning of element even if he sees it first time ... just not always. Not sure if comparing with Cranium would help. I think he just needs more experiments AND maybe Sarah saying what she will be doing in the simulation instead of improvising. Tedd is unlikely to get any progress while sleeping and she can already visit in other time even without sharing room with Grace. But if you would suggest to them, I'm not going to help them rejecting I don't think he would do that. The best Sarah could probably do is simulate abilities that produce a visual effect, like morphing, although what Sarah did wasn't really a morph, it seemed more like an instant change that the gradual morphs Dan has shown us. Granted it might have been due to a lack of panel space, but I think if Dan truly wanted us to know she could use other people's abilities, he'd have made it more clear if it was a proper morph. This might be less red herring and more Dan trying to NOT make red herring but failing. There aren't many abilities which wouldn't be possible to "fake" using direct change. Generally, what she will fail to reproduce would be LIMITS of those abilities.

The problem is less one of getting answers out of them and more one of them giving the answers that she wants/expects to hear instead of the truth. If she asks them whodunit, they may name someone whom she already suspects rather than the actual person who dun it. Yes. This risk is actually present in normal interrogating as well, only in normal interrogating suspects can only try that if they know what you suspect. Which is why you need to ask correct questions, ideally some which you don't know answer to but can verify. Like, "where is the body".

The problem is the spell FIRST get the informations and THEN Sarah can choose what will she look at (or try with hammer, I still like the idea of practical test for microfractures). She obviously wouldn't look at everything, but potentially ... Depending on what tools can she utilize inside the simulation, the difference between those two might be very small. For start, if mirror works, (optical) microscope likely works as well.

I'm not wondering. (♪ Yo-ou're filled with DETERMINATION ♪) Agree. It's obviously set up for both getting shrunk. For some it's WoW ... ok, that's actually directly from some joke, but computer games MIGHT keep more people from sex nowadays compared to "disco era". Note that just seeing each other naked doesn't result in pregnancy even in heterosexual relationships. Personally I would say Rhoda is just too shy to progress faster. I think I'm "most people" on this. Definitely. Nanase is too bad resisting temptation. Also, with the amount of people she was dating, she either already had sex BEFORE Elliot or at least spent lot of time thinking about it. And Ellen has increased libido and memories of having sex with Archie. I suspect there was some line crossing directly on the birthday party. Or the morning after.

Even that is putting it mildly. Remember the bit about making the illusionary people act with an illusion of autonomy? Sarah could use this to experience any sexual fantasy she can imagine, whether or not it's realistically possible, with no consequences. Well, maybe not ones that involve losing control of herself, but even for that she could pretend. And she has quite good imagination ... It would be hard to argue for those other two cases, but in the eureka instance, he DEFINITELY analyzed spell. It's just that before he used his insight on his insight, he didn't had control over that. Note the "more sure than I should be" line. There was big change between how he analyzed spells before using his insight on his insight - which was matching what you are saying - and AFTER that (see analyzing Susan's fairy spell for example, or, well, the insight itself). Now when he knows what he's doing he can do it better, possibly even overcoming Sherlock Holmes style of deduction - he can understand the spell better than if he would read the (confusing) spellbook about it.

That's why I added that it could just be a reflex for anything Tedd has a strong emotional reaction to. Like for a split second (or a couple seconds) Tedd's emotions cause him to radiate energy, each case shown the glow is either a soft, few seconds long glow, or an intense flash. The flash for the insight on the insight, could be from Tedd's realization that he had a magical insight that was helping him learn about people's spells and such. Also Tedd has on a couple occasions ended up with a rush of energy, one was shortly after a flash, and one without any glow or flash, but it might also be related. Should I try to find synonyms until the relation between "realized something" and "insight" get more apparent? I think that glow is a sideefect of his ability to analyze stuff, which appears (or perhaps only "is bright enough to be visible") when he gets better-than-usually results with it or maybe when it works faster. He was instinctively using his ability in those previous cases as well. Note: just explaining my hypothesis. Of course it's also possible that it's unrelated, emotion-based dangerous rarity ability. "High" might be understatement. "Huge", "Gigantic" or "Enormous" would match better.

That basically brings us back to the debate of whether Sarah could use a computer in her simulation. Yes. Maybe saying it would be "at least hard" would be more correct. The spell can scan all the magnetic 1's and 0's on a disk drive, CD or memory card just as easily as letters in book or physical document. Question is how complicated machinery can Sarah make work in her simulation. So far, the most complicated machinery she tried is mirror, and it's not even real mirror ... and of course door and clothes but mirror might be considered more complicated based on the "how hard it is to do it in computer game" angle ... ... on the other hand, computer is definitely much easier than human body, so if she can make person interact, why not computer? Note that she will definitely NOT be able to navigate browser if the server will be outside her range, which it probably will.

I wouldn't say that interrogating someone would be completely impossible, but it will definitely be hard.

The other cases of glowing....well 2 cases, were related to Grace which seems to reflect Tedd's love for her, a third case was was more of a flash related to the Eureka! moment he had when determining Elliot's magic was overcompensating with the girly spells. For all we know though, the glowing and flashes are probably just involuntary reflexes when Tedd is excited or has an emotional epiphany. I'm actually surprised Grace hasn't pursued why Tedd does it beyond asking about it at her birthday. I'm guessing now that Tedd has used his insight on his insight, he probably knows about the glowing now, but there hasn't really been enough time for him to explain. The love to Grace was red herring. All cases of glowing was when Tedd realized something. Notice that the cases are referenced in commentary below Tedd's using insight on insight. Already talking about it on thread from few days back. It's because for creating the snapshot, the spell needs to scan the surrounding on very high, possibly subatomic resolution. It was even mentioned in canon (or was it Dan's twitter around the time of NP?) that it's the scan taking the energy, not moving inside the simulation. You actually caused me to do a double take there. At first I was looking to see what aspects of Sarah was in the form other than possibly her reaction, then suddenly I got wondering if Dan just reused the Triple Girly Tedd pinup design here, the hairstyle and clothes aren't the same, but it's close. Personally I think it's more mix of Tedd and Ellen. The hair from back especially reminds me of Ellen ... Hmmmm .... on panel 5 maybe ...

This is EGS. The laws of physics are only polite suggestions. You might notice that I didn't say it can't be that way. I actually think that it IS working that way and I'm just keeping score about what polite suggestions it ignores. Also, if Starfleet engineers were able to get around it ...

What makes you think you can't keep the gun? I fail to see anything negative about this... The negative is if you forgot about it and only remember too late.

Illusion would be different kind of magic, so I think your three cases cover everything. Well, there may be also option 2.5 - that depending on where the sample was taken the DNA is Susan, the animal or chimera. While examining the types can be interesting, it doesn't change the possibilities. There is always option the second spell will overwrite the first one. There is always option that the second spell will take result of first spell as starting point (although when combining two type 3 spells, the result might then be dangerously unstable ; but hey, even in Dragon Doctors, where transformations are nowhere as safe as in EGS, some people survived that). And there is always third option, that the combination of spells will produce some unexpected effects like when Susan combined her summoning with Nanase's fairy doll.