Cpt. Obvious

Depends on just how much energy summoning that dragon takes. Greg and Grace could probably take care of a single dragon without too much trouble. At least if Grace could summon up the determination to actually do some harm to the poor creature. We know that Grace is reluctant to harm any being, and that would most probably include a small dragon. But if whoever was behind that attack was someone like Sirleck then they are unlikely to even consider the possibility that she wouldn't take it out with extreme prejudice, leaving nothing to regenerate. I'm thinking that Greg probably would be about as effective as Noah at keeping one dragon occupied, but the regeneration would mean he would have a hard time disposing of it. So if the "man behind the curtain" didn't know and understand enough about Grace then summoning a horde of cheep fire dudes might have seemed a better idea than bringing in another dragon or two, or four, but not three, five or six because that would be ridiculous...

It's more valid as Edward is a character in the EGS universe that is supposed to have a lot of knowledge about magic and magic users of all kinds. We in the peanut gallery on the other hand only knows what has so far been said in the comic, and even then we're not always certain exactly how to interpret that or if the information is true. It doesn't mean that what Edward is saying has to be right, only that to the best of his knowledge it's possible.

No I'm not insisting on D&D annything, just that something has to restrict wizards or they would trample anyone trying to oppose them. Checks and balances, and having the DGB (and it's sister organizations in other parts of the world) sweeping up all wizards doesn't sound plausible. If they had that kind of firepower then the aberrations wouldn't stand a chance, not to mention that the market for monster hunters would be extremely small.

Ellen didn't copy any spell. She copied Nanase in her current form, and it was only temporary. Far from being as overpowered as if she had been able to copy the actual spell. And no I wasn't talking about a video game or computer game but of magic systems in rpg's of the dead tree kind. I also noted that I'm not expecting to be right, but having said that I can't see how DGB would have any hope of keeping the lid on the knowledge of magic if wizards were as overpowered as they soon would become if learning a new spell was as simple as seeing someone cast it. The same if they could just steal a glance at some awakened's spell book, which would become quite easy for a wizard after learning a few spells the other way. After all most awakened wouldn't be able to prevent even a relatively unexperienced wizard from just breaking in and grabbing their spell book at will. No, logically there has to be something that keeps these wizards from trampling everyone else, and no the DGB keeping a few tame super wizards isn't enough. If they had those resources then the vampires and other aberrations wouldn't even be nuisance.

I'd like to say that I find it highly improbable that simply watching a spell being cast is all a wizard needs in order to learn it. It just sounds too easy. If it was that easy it would be quite easy for a wizard to become incredibly powerful in a very short time. So far we've been told that wizards can learn new spells that they observe, but nothing about how long it takes them to get that spell working right. If this was a game system it would require a lot of research and experimentation, and the result would not be guaranteed to replicate the original spell exactly. On the other hand a wizard that got his hands on a spell book would be able to copy the instructions and use the spell, albeit probably a bit awkwardly at first. Next up is the question if an awakened's abilities is a regular spell or just a spell like ability. I'm thinking that in the EGS universe they are spell like abilities, and that a wizard observing one of these probably can see the energies being used and what forms they take, but doesn't gain any direct knowledge of the "spell" behind it. So learning this ability will take research an experimentation. As for reading an awakened's spell book it might be helpful, but I doubt that there is a complete "recipe" in there. All of this is based on my dislike of unbalanced magic systems, so it probably doesn't threaten my 99% and some rating of being wrong.

Probability theory is funny. Roughly speaking everything is possible and nothing is impossible, they are just more or less probable. If we look at the birthday problem the probability that two people share the same birthday in a town as large as Moperville is certainly approaching 100%. Even if we limit ourself to the high schools it's quite high. That two girls in high school were born within 24 hours of each other is also large, but when we start adding complications the numbers change. First complication is that we are not talking about sharing just the same day and month but the same year. The birthday paradox only is talking about day in the year, so the numbers change. If my information is correct then High school in the US usually is grades 9 through 12, so statistically that leaves just one quarter of the students in the pool. Next we are just interested in about half of the population, namely girls, so the base numbers are halved. Of the remaining only those who are natural blonde need apply, for the US that's statistically somewhere between 2% and 10%. Either way it cuts the number of candidates quite drastically. And then there is the time of delivery, because not only were they born within 24 hours of each other, but actually within 20 minutes (afair). Statistically that leaves 1 out of 72, or 1.3%. Then there is things like eye color, length (hard to quantify due to magic intervention on Susan's part), body type, shape of the face and the eyes, and I'd say it's a pretty amazing coincidence if it turns out that Susan and Diane isn't twins. Note that "an amzing coincidence" isn't impossible, just highly improbable, but then the Three Mile Island incidence had a probability calculated to be so low that it was basically impossible, and yet it happened...

Well hearing his father say that people doesn't want Cheerleadra to be a man hits kind of close with regards to his own powers and interests. I'm pretty certain that he's not told dad about this new power. Knowing that using the transformation gun to turn female makes his dad uncomfortable I'd guess he's not in a hurry to tell him that now he can do it at will... (and now I'll get flamed about the gratuitous use of pronouns...)

I'd like to offer an alternative interpretation of the "defective" comment. Isn't it quite likely that what Diane was referring to as being "defective" was his non interest in buying her things. In the eyes of the Diane of this old strip that should be more of a concern than his sexuality. After all she's not intending to go any further than teasing with any boy at the moment. Now it's possible Rhoda could misinterpret that comment, but given how long she's been around Diane I don't think that's likely. And I've got an alternative idea for just why Diane keeps Rhoda around... It's to protect her. Rhoda has been shown to be shy, quiet and rather timid to the degree that she's giving off a submissive vibe. We've also seen Diane ready to pounce on anyone who might scare, intimidate or who is making Rhoda feel inferior. Diane knows Rhoda is just as nice as she appears and is not going to let anyone take advantage of that, not that she'd ever admit it. Diane will have no problem accepting Catalina once she knows she's not going to abuse Rhoda and is just as protective as Diane herself. Not the most well researched theories, but they work for me so far... edit: And being a tad slow I managed to miss all the elegant and finely crafted links showing Diane leaping to Rhoda's defense, rather viciously (and well deserved) in case of the talent scout.

What if it turned out that Pandora is scared of Mama Kitsune? She might be an incredibly powerful immortal, but Mama Kitsune is not only from a family known for their monster hunters, but she's got Mom powers on top of that. Her frown is enough to cause thunder... Yea... Not likely, but it would be hilarious seeing Pandora on her tippy toes trying to avoid annoying Mama Kitsune...

Immediately made me think of Sara. She knows him very well but might not be able to act like him if, or rather when things go wrong. Nanase or knows him well, but might be to hot headed to not do something irrational when things go wrong. In the end I think Justin is most suitable to act as Elliot. He knows him well, has rather subdued powers, nothing as flashy as flying, floating or throwing beams around, and has had the same martial arts training as Elliot. When things go south he can be as athletic as Elliot has been shown to be but still not show superhuman traits.

These sunglasses?

I've seen a clip about a man who was able to do advanced arithmetics in his head faster than most people are able to enter them into a calculator or computer. They did some experiments trying to learn how he was able to do this and found that his brain was wired a bit differently from most peoples. For instance, working on complex math activated a large part of the brain that in most people is used for hand eye coordination tasks such as catching or throwing a ball. Catching a ball is a surprisingly complex action that most of us doesn't have much problem with, yet we have to see the ball, determine the speed, angle, wind speed and how much it will drop so we can move to catch it. Get some spin on it and it's even harder. Unfortunately they didn't talk about how good his hand-eye coordination was so I have no idea if his ability to compute numbers and the way his brain is wired might make other tasks harder.

I had quite fun looking those up. There are quite a few gems amongst the earlier pages that I enjoyed finding again. I will of course forget where they were, so next time I want to use one of them I'll have reason to submerge into that archive again.

And I can't believe I'd forgot about that page!!! Thank you for the link.

Actually The List can have many uses, some more ominous than others...

My guess is that he can't possess several hosts at the same time, and his current host is the identity that has access to all of Sirleck's money. Most probably he either couldn't leave his host without having it either dieing on him or having it try to sabotage his money laundering scheme, or leaving a host will always kill it. So Sirleck has to prepare a transfer carefully if he want to have access to his wealth after. And from what we've seen personal wealth is very important to him.

That's how I've always read it. The idea that the host might actually be clinically brain dead didn't occur to me until some in this forum posted that view.

I'm feeling it might be a good thing if we were to call it the Great Crash of 2016, or GC2016, to help remind us of what's been lost and when. With my bad memory I need every little help I can have to remind me of things like this. And if Murphy at some future date decides to throw some more spanners at the server it would save us from having to relabel the event...

As DBG has apparently been active for long time they probably has a secret number of vaults filled with secrets, in secret places, their existence and location only known to a secret number of peolpe who is very secretive about the issue. Add to that all the secret aliens and magical beings that DBG has hidden in plain sight and you have a lot of people depending on the DBG to keep their true nature secret. Just cutting the Red Tape would either mean that all those secrets are lost to the organization, or they risk being exposed. Neither sounds like a good idea. So all that Red Tape, as cumbersome as it might be, does serve a purpose as it's keeping the DBG working slow, and minimizes the risk to society.

That's one of my favorite theories, that Magic itself can't do anything about how an individual uses magic, only what the general rules for using magic is. So Magic can rewrite the rulebook for how magic works for all humans, but can't single out one individual or a small group of humans.

Turing wasn't the sole reason they managed to break all those codes, but he was important. This didn't help saving him from being prosecuted for homosexual acts in 1952 and being forced to go through chemical castration. A few years later he died from cyanide poisoning. It was determined to be suicide. That was a very sad end for a brilliant man, and not a shining moment in the history of Great Britain. In GB homosexuality between two adults of the age of 21 years or more was illegal up until 1956, and if you wanted to bring a third partner into the bedroom and stay legal you had to wait until 2003... So while I'm glad Alan was around to help with breaking those cryptos, he would probably have had a happier life if he had been born some forty years later, and possibly still be alive...

And for some reason my brain suddenly decided that I think Catalina's "cat-like" power is the ability to sleep for 18 hours a day... Anyone got a good deal for a new or a low mileage used brain? I'm afraid mine is a bit defective...

You're probably right on both accounts. As for immortality there's lots of examples in myths where immortal means that you will not die by age or disease, and most ordinary wounds are little more than a nuisance. You might even be able to regrow that chopped off arm, but loose your head, heart or what ever vulnerability you've got and it's game over. Vampires has been called both undead and immortal depending on the author, and yet in all versions I've heard of they are very much possible to kill. Even gods are sometimes disposed of, usually by other gods but occasionally by uppity mortals who dare to take out some (usually) minor deity. So depending on what Dan wants, these immortals can be anything from impossible to just incredibly hard to kill, for a human at least.

Ehr... She was born? As far as I can remember there's been nothing said to suggest that immortals are some kind of eternal beings. So they were most probably born just like they are able to give birth, something Pandora has done at least once.

Yes, that's correct. The .18 update was a security fix, and quite unexpected as the company had declared that no more updates would be released for version 12. While this browser still works as well as ever it does lack support for some of the new web standards, most importantly the latest update to HTTPS, which is a bummer.