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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!

Darth Fluffy

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Posts posted by Darth Fluffy

  1. Posted

    1 hour ago, hkmaly said:

    Near-human form or not, the constitutional protection would disappear the moment you declare they are not humans.

    Who is "you"? Who are you saying has the authority to declare this and override your laws? Is there a "Treatment of Magic Entities" treaty that spells this out, like other treaties and agreements do for warfare?

     

    1 hour ago, hkmaly said:

    It was explicitly said - in the comics commentary I think - that not-Tengu was NOT aberration.

    He's close enough that I wouldn't split hairs. (Well, maybe his, if they're in the way of whatever is being severed.)

     

    1 hour ago, hkmaly said:

    ... the main reason the aberrations are destroyed on stop is not that they are dangerous ; it's because they totally lacks empathy and can't ever get better.

    He fits your first criteria, lack of empathy. Is there reason to think he could get better?

    I would argue that by any reasonable standard, the danger has to be weighed as a factor, and he was out to kill all of Tedd's mom's relatives. That he wasn't feeding on them ("not an aberration") does not go far toward his favor. He was also a threat of a different kind in the mentally coerced cult he was rebuilding. Might he be able to manipulate his guards as well?

    Would you not agree that if you have a known threat, and you choose to hold him rather than execute him, then later he escapes and causes more harm, you bear a portion of the responsibility for that harm?

     

     

  2. Posted

    1 hour ago, hkmaly said:

    How many extraterrestrial species did you saw outside fiction to be so sure about this?

    Fair enough, show me an actual space babe, and I'll believe you. Photoshop doesn't count.

     

    1 hour ago, hkmaly said:

    (Also, yes, in ST:TNG the common ancestor was confirmed.)

    Yes, and it's the ST version of midichlorians.

     

  3. Posted

    1 hour ago, hkmaly said:

    ... you don't need any technology to be inside gravitation field. Compared to reference point on Moon, your personal time is slower. Measurably slower. GPS satellites need to compensate both for lower gravity and higher speed compared to Earth's surface.

    Fair point. 0.999999:1.000000. I met a guy who was making that case back in the late 70s / early 80s. 

  6. Posted

    56 minutes ago, Scotty said:

    (background checks) ... Arthur might have done one himself while he was deciding whether or not to let Ashley have Kevin.

    Arthur might have done a cursory check of available data; a real background check takes a while and involves interviewing people that know you.

     

  8. Posted

    1 hour ago, hkmaly said:

    Actually as far as we know there are no superpowers in EGS, just magic.

    TomAEto, toAHto. Cheerleadra has been compared to a superhero in comic, and flies/floats like a DC super. Anyway, what exactly is a non-magic superpower? Produced by technobabble rather than  * poof * ?  Seems pretty much the same. Plus, we have the Word of Clarke.

     

    1 hour ago, hkmaly said:

    It's likely they CAN contain him, as long as it wouldn't be in Moperville with it's high ambient magic.

    Evidently, they think they can.

     

    1 hour ago, hkmaly said:

    The way Edward was talking about aberrations, I don't think they get a trial ... and I think there is relatively easy and objective way to check if someone is one.

    Also, I think they wouldn't bother loading aberration into car and driving it away. They would destroy it on place.

    I would hope so.

    This came up because  of the argument that all magic violation should have a trial (it was stated to be for Constitutional reasons). Who decided aberrations should not? Most of the ones we've seen have a near-human form. In my mind, not-Tengu has put himself over this line as well.

    To throw salt on this wound, I feel the same way about wild dogs in real life. Feral dogs and dog hybrids lack the healthy fear of man that makes wolves tolerable.

  9. Posted

    1 hour ago, hkmaly said:

    The "lizard brain" theory is totally wrong, by the way.

     

    Fine, call it what you will, your sex drive is linked to a very small piece of nerve bundle/endocrine tissue. It's located where what I would erroneously call the lizard brain would be.

     

    1 hour ago, hkmaly said:

    Lot of women must be pretending, then.

    My admittedly small vs 7 billion sample set says, "Yes, we all mask our true intentions, most of the time." Often from ourselves.

     

    1 hour ago, hkmaly said:

    I'm not sure what you refers to, unless you are equaling "wanting to lose virginity" with "wanting to lose virginity as soon as possible no matter the circumstances". I didn't meant she wants to be raped. Just that she wanted to lose virginity with Elliot (who was her long-term boyfriend) so much she was disappointed he didn't do anything with it ... although not SO much she would directly ask for it.

    Sorry, not meaning that you would be such a bonehead, but there are people, I'll go out on a limb and say primarily male, who hear "Women want to have sex" as "I have permission".

     

    1 hour ago, hkmaly said:

    I find the "abstinence only" education also weird. In fact, how can someone claim to finish sexual education without having sex? That's like finishing chemistry without ever doing any experiment - wait, due to safety concerns, the number of experiments kids are allowed to do is shrinking dramatically ... there might be general trend here ...

    You mean like "How can you murder abortionists because you're pro-life?" ? And there's this.

    You can't buy the chemistry sets commonly sold when I was a child. They are lawsuit bait.

     

     

     

  10. Posted

    1 hour ago, hkmaly said:

    Are you saying banging the alien babe is not normal and/or healthy?

    It worked on Star Trek TOS, but I'm going to say here that it would not be normal or healthy outside of contrived fiction. Possibly merely incompatible, possibly hazardous, almost certainly full of squick; and you're in the uncanny valley if you get close, so much so that even if you had a common past ancestor, at stellar distances, with divergent evolutionary pressure, you may get there anyway. Granted, Grace is cute, but that's the power of fiction.

  12. Posted

    3 hours ago, Tom Sewell said:

    I cut down trees, I wear high heels

     

    Suspendies and a bra

    --The Lumberjack Song

    Canuckistani, I believe. (In spite of the source.)

     

    3 hours ago, Tom Sewell said:

    "Suspendies" or "suspenders" are garters in Britain. A gentleman holds up his trousers with braces, thank you very much.

    Much of the world has belt technology.

     

    2 hours ago, Scotty said:

    I wasn't expecting Sam or Luke to show up anyway because they wouldn't be cleared by Edward, and I don't think Sam would be eager to attend a party at a house who's owner does background checks.

    If Sarah informed him.

     

     

  13. Posted

    1 hour ago, Tom Sewell said:

    Not until Ashley arrives. At this point, it looks to be a party of seven; no definite sign Susan or Diane are coming. However, I might point out that Elliot and Ellen's car, small as it is, seats four.

    Noteworthy, Sarah and Justin are already there, no sign of Luke nor Sam. So it looks like it's not going to extend beyond Ashley.

  15. Posted

    1 hour ago, hkmaly said:

    That's false premise. She may be able to produce the amino acids her body needs from something else. It's not like there is limited amount of amino acids all organisms are using ; there are species which create them.

     

    Nope, missing the point. An amino acid is a member of a family of organic molecules. Earth life uses a limited set of those. It is not much of a stretch to think that life from another world that is similar to ours might not use the same exact set. In turn, the codons that construct the proteins from a different set would themselves also have to be somewhat different. 

     

    1 hour ago, hkmaly said:

    You forgot what lespuko is then. Lespuko is species from Uryuom planet distinct from Uryuoms, something like apes are not humans. ONE of Grace's parent was lespuko.

     

    Apparently so; now that you mention it, I vaguely remember it.

     

    1 hour ago, hkmaly said:

    You forgot that the temporary egg is usually - and possibly originally always - coming from same parents.

    Nope, although I think it was you that pointed out that wasn't true in Grace's case; only one Uryuom parent who provided the egg.

    The constructed egg takes on the role of another stage in reproduction, another sex. It has to filter and assemble a disparate set of genomes into a single viable genome. It does more than just shelter and provide food and environment for an embryo.

     

    1 hour ago, hkmaly said:

    Not at all. It's just that the evolution of the egg STARTED when they were more recently out of the sea than we are.

    Their eggs are reminiscent of egg shelters that sea life builds.

     

    1 hour ago, hkmaly said:

    ... or the related gene is easy to damage ...

    ... or lends itself to being repurposed.

     

    1 hour ago, hkmaly said:

    I would say that ANY sex Tedd has with Grace is banging the alien babe, no matter what form she's in.

    Funny, I'd go with normal healthy sex with his girlfriend , because I think that's how he thinks of her, no matter what form she's in.

     

  16. Posted

    1 hour ago, hkmaly said:

    ... right. I was thinking about something else.

    Although, wait: if you time travel one second per second, it means there are TWO ways to measure time, two time dimensions. This is actually related to some paradoxes shown in movies. Like, Back to the future: Marty is starting to disappear because past is changing. But wait, why is he starting to disappear? Why didn't he disappeared immediately?

    Because the movie would have sucked?

    Don Edwards reacted to this

  17. Posted

    32 minutes ago, hkmaly said:

    Well, I'm not women either.

    That doesn't change the fact that I consider thinking about best date equaling with sex as logical reaction, especially from men.

    Yes, yes, we do have a tendency to think with the tiny lizard brain rather than the huge meat computer. Hmm, I guess "Thinking with the little head" has more than one meaning.

    I have come to find that I prefer a woman that I can also have a conversation with.

     

    32 minutes ago, hkmaly said:

    Note that Sarah seems to be more kinky than average, at least in what she thinks about. She may actually wish to lose virginity even if it's rare for women.

    I think she's fairly tame and conventional. Sorry, dude, but I cringe at the second part of your statement. A desire for sex is normal, if it weren't we would not have a libido. That said, it's not normal in every circumstance, I don't presume, and Good God, "No" means f@#%ng "No".

    In the state where i live, they teach abstinence only. The kids come out clueless and spread various forms of VD. And get pregnant, because they haven't been educated to use contraception.

    Virginity is seriously oversold.

     

    32 minutes ago, hkmaly said:

    You don't need to assume ; it was directly mentioned in canon.

    Ah, so it was.

     

  18. Posted

    5 hours ago, CritterKeeper said:

    You're pretty qick to assume that everyone will just throw out the Constitution at the drop of a hat. I would expect there to be *some* sort of system in place, as close to normal as they can get.

    There are continual challenges to the US Constitution as there are to any other, that's why we have a Supreme Court to defend it. Our own history has a major war over the interpretation of that Constitution that almost tore our nation apart. You will never run out of gray areas to define; as you define them, you create new boundary issues. Many practices of our government have always been controversial; not the same ones all the time, but there are always  those controversies and issues.

     

    5 hours ago, CritterKeeper said:

    Even for the 9/11 terrorists and Guantanamo detainees, much of the debate has been about whether they should be tried in military or civillian court, not whether they get a trial at all.

    I remember seeing a video of a famous trial lawyer (long time ago, I think it was F. Lee Bailey) discussing the UCMJ, and how much fairer it was than the civilian trial system.

    What was particularly unfair about Gitmo, was people being held without charges nor hope of trials. There's still a few.

     

    5 hours ago, CritterKeeper said:

    So yes, if they have successfully taken Not-Tengu into custody, I expect him to receive a trial of some sort.

    We are talking about a universe in which super power exists. What if they know they cannot contain him when he regains his power. Does he still get a trial? Do aberrations get a trial? If not, why not? Who decided? Who gets to say they're not human any more.

    You know that someone d@#% well should.

     

    5 hours ago, CritterKeeper said:

     This is, after all, EGS, where Ellen wasn't taken to a lab for study, ...

    I know, right? They totally messed up discovering the splanch.

     

    5 hours ago, CritterKeeper said:

    Expediency is a very dangerous excuse to bypass due process and constitutional protections.

    I agree, it is. But is is also absolutely necessary. When you have active shooters in a school, the Constitutional rights of the shooters go out the window until they surrender and lay their weapons down. It has to be that way. But it is indeed a can of worms, leading to (some) police abusing their authority.

     

    5 hours ago, CritterKeeper said:

    Again, you see a much darker view of the world than EGS has generally proven to be.  Yes, with an actual active threat, force may be required, but when Mr. Verres went beyond the rules and attacked with greater force than was called for, he was disciplined for it.  There is clearly a system, and good people who work hard to uphold it and weed out the bad apples who would abuse it.

    I'd agree with that, my understanding of how the world works is pretty jaded. EGS is a bit of a Pollyanna universe, refreshing in its own way, but unrealistic at times. Case in point, Dan almost cannot create a negative character, he ends up over time making them sympathetic. Real people aren't like that; they are more like Rich, stubborn and obtuse, set in their ways.

    Mr. Verres's response to Abraham was appropriate for an active threat. He was at that moment a bad cop, because the perpetrator had surrendered and was in custody, and the danger was past. He was acting out of a very personal sense of emotion.

    But had it been not-Tengu, I'm not so sure. At some point he will awaken with renewed power, and he will be an already demonstrated dangerous threat.

     

     

     

  19. Posted

    3 hours ago, ChronosCat said:

    I think it's relevant to the conversation about Grace's fertility and Uryuom reproduction, that according to Mr. Verres Grace could get pregnant in her human form (the one we originally saw her in, with the antennae) but not in her part-squirrel form. Of course, this comic was before the origin of Grace and her siblings was retconned, but it doesn't necessarily mean the factoid is untrue.

    So, with respect to Tedd, does that count as normal healthy sex with his girlfriend, furry f*@#ing, mostly bestiality, or all of the above? Or maybe, in the grand tradition of Capt. James T. Kirk, banging the alien babe; like father, like son?

    I'm not sure I'm mature enough for this comic. Let me check ... nope, definitely not. <shrug>

  20. Posted

    3 hours ago, ijuin said:

    Out of all known mammal groups, only primates lack the ability to produce Vitamin C--we apparently contain a broken (mutated) version of the gene for it.

    It is a weird trait to loose. Our ancestors were eating so much fruit that being able to make our own vitamin C was not longer a factor in survival?

  21. Posted

    1 hour ago, ijuin said:

    The mechanics of orbital flight dictate that any object in a non-geosynchronous Earth orbit must necessarily eventually pass over all points on the Earth that are of a latitude equal to or less than the orbiting object's maximum latitude. That is to say, it is impossible to avoid basically overflying EVERYWHERE without consuming a prohibitive amount of fuel. This is the main reason why nobody tries to deny permission for orbital overflight of their territory--because if anybody denied such permission, then orbiting at all would become a practical impossibility.

    I suspect that "We don't have big enough guns to shoot them down." has something to do with it as well. (If you can't orbit a satellite, you probably can't do asat either.)

     

  22. Posted

    7 hours ago, CritterKeeper said:

    Don't forget that Magus is undoubtedly guilty of kidnapping and accessory to kidnapping.  It wouldn't surprise me if putting a spell on someone against their will counts as some sort of assault, too.  Trespassing on a government facility, destruction of property, heck, grand theft auto -- they can find things to charge him with if they choose.  (I almost added driving without a license but I think Sirleck did all the driving.)  Of course, they may do so more as a means of leverage than with the intention of actually sending him to prison or whatever other punishment they have for magic users.

    Good points, he actually did violate quite a bit of law.

    I am curious what specific "destruction of property" you had in mind; the diamond? I don't think the golem would count.

     

    7 hours ago, CritterKeeper said:

    Arthur didn't hear the parts of the story that were explained in the car, he only saw for himself what was caught on camera.  The "much recapping" from Ellen, Elliot and Ashley may not have been complete, so he may not appreciate just how desperate a situation Magus was in.  And he may be the sort of person who would believe that *nothing* justifies what Magus and Sirleck did, that Magus must pay the consequences of what he did.

    I think they would have had to explain his motivation as best they understood it, plus Sybil's remark says she and Arthur were aware.

     

    7 hours ago, CritterKeeper said:

    Besides, what choice do they have but to try to find Magus?  He's shown himself willing to break the law in this universe (and he likely doesn't even know what all the laws are yet), he's a powerful magic user, and he has the potential to cause a heck of a lot of trouble, whether he means to or not.  If he's stuck here, it's in their best interests to find him and try to get him working for, or at least with, the DGB.  They might be able to guilt-trip him into helping if they can figure out something related to the consequences of his actions that they can draft him into to start.  Or, they might be able to put some sort of restriction or restraint on his use of magic -- whatever it is they plan to use on not-Tengu to keep him under wraps and out of trouble, for example.

    The most expedient way to deal with Magus is to get rid of him by returning him to his universe, assuming that's possible. If he is held and believes he is being treated unreasonably, he seems capable of becoming a significant threat. He's a liability here and an asset there, holding him accomplishes nothing. Some sort of service requirement while they are looking for the means to send him might suit all parties.

     

    7 hours ago, CritterKeeper said:

    What sort of justice system could you have for magic users in this universe, anyway?  Are all cases bench trials, decided by a judge?  Are there enough people in the know to supply a reasonable jury pool?  Do they have magic-resistant prisons, or are all punishments of the community service variety?  Can you use magic on a prisoner during interrogation?  If there's a Calm spell and Sleep spells, what about Anxiety or Agitation spells?  Truth spells? 

     

    I would expect extra-judicial judgement such as used with terrorists. Magical considerations, such as keeping it secret and threat level would override normal procedures. Would you think the aberrations would get a trial? Not-Tengu? (I frankly think he's too dangerous to hold. Tedd's mom apparently agrees.) To hold a not-Tengu or Magus, they would need a magic-resistant prison that also inhibit spell casting. Community service could only apply to people you did not think were an immediate threat, and you'd tend to err on the side of safety, I think.

    I think use of magic would be a given. At some level, it is necessary just for apprehension and confinement, so leaking into other aspects of justice would at least gradually happen. Who's going to object, since they don't know it exists? I think due to expediency within the magical subculture, it would just happen.

     

    17 minutes ago, ijuin said:

    Truth spells theoretically come under two types--"Detect Truth" and "Compel Truth". In the former, the spell allows one to determine when someone is lying, while in the latter, the spell forces the person to be incapable of knowingly saying anything false (like in the Jim Carrey movie "Liar Liar"). The former might be allowable in a court, but the latter would be prohibited by the legal restraint against compelling people to testify against themselves which exists in many countries (as under the Fifth Amendment to the US Constitution).

    I doubt those rules would apply. You can see that in our world, in espionage, counter-terrorism, police dealing with active threats (not to mention the whole cops abusing their authority that Liz brought up).

     

  23. Posted

    8 hours ago, hkmaly said:

    It will mainly get weirder when it actually became useful to have some aircraft in the uncertain attitude.

    The p1$$1#& contest is decades old. Not edge of space but in 1960, you can imagine that the airspace claim was debatable. Followed by these planes. Some folks were not happy campers about being overflown. Spy satellites have pretty much taken over. 

    Space has been useful from the earliest days. Comm sats began early. Landsat began in the early seventies. Imaging deep spae works much better from space. 

  25. Posted

    5 hours ago, hkmaly said:

    You also don't take into account the possibility that originally everything was possible to be transferred, then some sort of keeping it secret developed. Although in such case, Uryuoms might still be able to read human minds ... wait, other way around. Humans might still be able to receive other kind of communication from Uryuoms, while Uryuoms developed ways to prevent that so it can't be used to control or confuse them.

    I mean, transfering memory to someone in way the recipient might not be sure it's not his memory may be dangerous.

     

    Might they even have the ability to plant false memories?

     

    Why would she?

     

    The premise was a non-overlapping set of amino acids, some from earth, some from elsewhere. If nothing on earth normally contained some of the amino acids her body needed, she would need supplements. Even more so for the uryuoms (who, to be fair, may be farming their own off-world veggies locally. I'm not a biologist, but my gut says that the amino acids we use is a sparse set, and this scenario is likely, although it is also likely that we would have some basic ones in common.

    Aliens need not be DNA based, but I'm assuming uryuoms are if we can in any sense breed with them.

     

    Also, it's possible she doesn't need vitamin C in food either. Quite likely in fact considering squirrels don't.

    Cool factoid. Is that true for rodents in general?

     

    Having the ability to produce the uryuom egg means she has all necessary information in herself ; it would make sense if her uterus would have all necessary capabilities as well.

    Not following you. Why can Grace produce an uryuom egg? I don't recall that. The second part makes less sense, I think the egg/uterus is either/or, although like many things, if you dig deep enough you might find exceptions.

     

    In fact, Grace is already hybrid, not pure lespuko, and she might need some of those ability no matter who she would mate with.

    Sorry, lost me again; I'm not seeing the distinction between hybrid and lespuko. (Backing up a second, she's not a hybrid as we understand it in our universe, a produce of two different life forms that are close enough to naturally interbreed. It's all about the egg/blender)
     

    However, speaking about Grace not being human ... are we SURE she's already fertile?

    No, not at all, that was where I was going with the questions you quoted.

     

    It's possible that her reproduction system needs more time to develop due to mentioned specifics, ...

    True. there is much about her that suggests that she is mature, but we don't know because we don't know her biology.

     

    ... and her squicked reaction might match pre-teen reactions to sex.   [maybe] she's PSYCHICALLY not ready for sex.

    That fits her initial level of naivety.

     

    Maybe they STARTED with egg, ...

    Tough to imagine this making evolutionary sense. The uryuoms are then the first sex, defined as sexless (at least by earth standards) and the second sex is the passive, temporary shelter egg, which if not for the genetic maintenance function it must play, would be just a shelter for the sperm-analogs. The implication is that the uryuoms are more recently out of the sea on their world than we are on ours; their mating style is like that of sea life. Without specific sperm and egg, the sperm-analog contributions of the parents must be moderated by the egg shelter, to avoid  immediate inbreeding and to maintain some semblance of how much genetic material does the offspring have. Thus "second sex" as opposed to mere shelter. Contributes nothing directly, but necessary to maintain the generations.

    Phillip Jose Farmer wrote a short story like that, ages ago, a race that required a third party to mate, who was in effect the host for the other two's offspring. Come to think of it, we do that with surrogate mothers. Legally, that can get very sticky.

     

    ... then enhanced it's capabilities with biotechnology (or Uryuom-power-tech) ; maybe it wasn't able to mix in other species naturally, or at least not as different as now.

    ... or number of parents. Seems likely that it's not entirely natural.