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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!

chridd

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Posts posted by chridd

  2. Posted

    14 minutes ago, Don Edwards said:

    I'd suggest she imagine into "existence" a blanket-like object that, when thrown over a person, makes that person partly transparent (and most of the blanket also becomes transparent), with a dial on it to adjust how deep the transparency goes. (It could be extended to objects as well. Even the ground, creating a virtual window into possible underground openings.)

    Imagining things into existence decreases the accuracy of the simulation, so she might see what she expects to see rather than what's actually there.

    19 hours ago, CritterKeeper said:
    23 hours ago, Vorlonagent said:

    I dunno.  I'm not sure the scan part of Sarah's ability does retain information outside it's scan radius.  Otherwise it would be in the simulation to begin with, right?  Sarah could pull the car out but her imagination might have to supply the details for what the other half is like.

    I think I agree that the result would depend on whether Sarah meant to see the car segment as it was scanned, or to pull an intact car through.  If she sticks with what's scanned, the cut-off point of the car would be a cross-section, like a split dog model in anatomy class.  If she tries to pull the whole car with the intent of pulling an intact car through, the missing section would be based on her imagination and expectations, but it would not be based on reality, because the spell doesn't have any data from beyond the cut-off.

    ...but what she expects or intends won't matter if she's just pulling something.  (Also, she might not be able to pull objects that are partly outside the simulation; they might act as if they're attached infinitely strongly to the "wall" at the edge.)

  3. Posted

    45 minutes ago, WR...S said:

    ...I really hope he doesn't do what he's thinking of doing in the fifth panel.  It seems to really fly in the face of everything he is; I'm surprised he's even considering it.

    Honestly, "I wish!" seems like a very Elliot thing to say...

    I'm kind of hoping Tedd will do something that makes him reconsider that.  That, and I hope he doesn't do that before seeing Tedd.

  4. Posted

    1 hour ago, weirdee said:

    Seriously, is anybody in this discussion right now trans or genderfluid? He doesn't have to necessarily pick a gender, he's picking what his base body will be like without modifications, which may or may not happen to align closely with feminine/masculine forms. It doesn't even need to have a majority of characteristics specifically locked to the concept of the gender binary. Also, there isn't even a "scale" or anything, it's just a combination of preferences which are based on his needs, not anybody else's. It feels like I'm reading a discussion between a whole lot of cisgender guys speculating on how this works like people don't already face these kinds of decisions on a daily basis.

    Are you saying he could have a base form with a combination of male and female traits?  That might be optimal, and might be what would happen in real life (with technology rather than magic), but from what we know about the spell, he doesn't have that option (unless he creates a watch or something with a variant of the spell, rather than using the spell he was given); he can only choose between keeping his current (male) base form and switching to this (female) base form (although both his options happen to be fairly androgynous-looking).  Of course, he can also have much more thorough temporary changes than are possible in real life.

  5. Posted

    11 hours ago, Scotty said:

    Cranium's a wizard too, right?

    She might be, but unless you remember something I don't, I don't think we've seen any indication that she is.  We know that she has at least two spells (seeing things, and hair color change), suggesting she's awakened*, and if her spell is the same as Sarah's then she has a really powerful spell, but neither of those make her a wizard; and we know that at least some agents in that department aren't wizards because that's why they need wands, so being an agent in that department doesn't mean she's a wizard either.

    * although, as the wiki points out, she might have used a wand for the hair color change, so we don't even know that much for sure

  6. Posted

    Might as well post this piece of speculation about why Tedd's magic is weird (not necessarily things I think are likely, but some ideas I've been thinking about):

    So, as far as I can remember (combined with looking it up on the wiki), these are the people who we know are wizards (based on who's been explicitly called a wizard):

    • Mr. Raven (male)
    • Abraham (male)
    • Magus (male) (though he's from a different universe, potentially with a different magic system, so might not count for this)
    • Agent Wolf (male)
    • the emissary of magic (male)

    So what if wizards are all supposed to be male?

    A couple possible ways this could result in Tedd being magically weird:

    • If this is the case, then it would be rare for two wizards to have a kid together (assuming sex-change magic isn't that commonly used outside Tedd's group of friends)... so perhaps Noriko was born a wizard with a male body and transformed at some point into a female body, and had a kid with Edward, also a wizard, and since Tedd was the son of two wizards, he became a dangerous rarity. If transformations affect genetics/can be passed on to kids, then this might also explain Tedd's feminine traits (e.g., if the transformation included making her face more feminine, this might result in a gene for feminine faces in general), and it could also mean that Mrs. Kitsune meant her "I have no sister" line literally (if she considers Noriko her brother).
    • Or it could be something about Tedd's own gender—perhaps magic sees him as partly male, so made him partly a wizard. This could be simply due to his genderfluidity and/or androgyny; or perhaps Tedd's parents used some sort of magic before Tedd was born to make him male (so he could be a wizard), and that's why he's somewhat feminine and not cisgender and not a normal wizard.
    ijuin reacted to this

  7. Posted

    Going to school as a girl might have another consequence: Elliot is depending on people not thinking/wanting to believe that someone male would turn into a female superhero, but if he's hanging out with someone who just became female...
    (Although maybe people would start to suspect Tedd of being Cheerleadra?)

  9. Posted

    49 minutes ago, mlooney said:
    1. I assume that the EGS universe is fundamentally the same as ours, aside from Magic and "Aliens", with the same legal systems in place. You know that thing that y'all keep telling me about "conservation of detail"? Yeah, that's what I'm invoking here.
    2. You have to legally define person and individual, as a base point in your legal system.
    3. If there is a masquerade in place publicly available documents can't even hint about non Homo sapiens intelligent life forms.
    4. Trying to get tricky with what is a Homo sapiens means you have to get tricky with a carp ton of life sciences texts, which means bringing a lot more people into the conspiracy than is safe.  Scientist that aren't kept isolated from the rest of the world1 tend to talk a lot, and publish papers that get read and commented on by other scientists.
    5. Trying to get tricky with scientific technology in legal documents is doomed to fail, mainly because most law makers aren't scientists and don't fully understand science or engineering.  Way to much evidence of that in the real world, from both the left and the right.
    6. I will grant that it might not be exactly USC 1¶8 in universe, but there is no reason to assume that there isn't something like it in the first chapter of the USC, in fact basic legal logic says there must be some thing like that.

    1Like say, keeping them all in the desert of New Mexico to build a bomb.

    This entirely ignores my second point, though.  You can speculate all you want about this, but we won't know for sure until the issue actually comes up, which it hasn't.  If it comes up, the author could agree with you; he could give perfectly logical reasons why you're wrong (possibly including things that haven't been brought up yet); he could give a handwavy explanation why you're wrong; he could just say "screw logic" on this issue.  We don't know yet.  Also, perhaps even more importantly, it's not relevant to anything that's occurred in the story so far.  Putting it on the page like that, with no indication that this is speculation or anything, implies that this is something that's actually come up in the story or at least been addressed or hinted at somehow, and it hasn't.

  10. Posted

    Also, if Edward's department can get Ellen to be legally over eighteen, they should be able to get uryuoms to be legally Homo sapiens.  Also, we don't really know much even about how the law applies to humans in EGS, so it's hard to make conclusive statements about how they'll apply to non-humans.

    In any case, we don't know how laws in-universe deal with uryuoms etc. until something about it is said in the comic or author commentary.  We can make arguments about which makes more sense or seems more likely, and we can perhaps determine what would happen in our universe if uryuoms were real, but neither of those are enough to say for certain how the law applies to these beings, especially when the idea that uryuoms etc. are treated differently by the law hasn't even been hinted at in the comic.

  11. Posted

    Do we actually know that US Code 1¶8 exists in universe in the same form that it does in ours?  Unless something in the comic or some author commentary addresses the issue, I don't think we can assume it does.  People who know about uryuoms, immortals, etc., could probably get the law to be more vague without attracting too much attention, and even without that, there could still be differences in the law from our universe (just like there are differences in natural hair colors—not everything non-magic is necessarily the same as our universe), not to mention the possibility that cases involving such beings are handled by a different court system that does consider them to be equivalent to humans.  And, of course, William said he could run for president (and nothing in the comic gave any indication this was false).

    (That said, I would suspect the law wouldn't cover immortals, since they have their own laws, don't really need much protection from our laws, and I doubt a human justice system could effectively punish an immortal.  I don't think this applies to uryuoms, though.)

  12. Posted

    I don't think you linked the right place in that first link (I don't have access to your desktop...).

    I started reading EGS earlier this year last year (darn new year, making everyone make mistakes...), and finished reading it just in time for the most recent Q&A.  (Although I think I saw a few strips that were linked a few places, and some page images on TVTropes, before that.)

    51 minutes ago, Tom Sewell said:

    That last line was from Robert Di Niro as Travis Bickle in Taxi Driver. It occurs to me that that movie is older than most of you likely to be reading this. Depressing.

    *looks up movie* Yay I feel younger now!

  13. Posted

    46 minutes ago, Vorlonagent said:

    There's probably a rule against messing with an empowerment, even if it's your own empowerment...

    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.

  14. Posted

    11 hours ago, ijuin said:

    I was using "must get consent from the people who would be depowered" as a hypothetical reason why depowering would not be as straightforward as empowering under Immortal Law.

    Immortal Law is "only guide and empower".  Depowering isn't as straightforward because she needs to get someone else to do it; that's the only way she can do it.  Doing the depowering herself isn't "not as straightforward"; it's simply not allowed at all (unless it can somehow count as guiding or empowering).  (Depowering isn't special in this way; the same is true for anything that isn't guiding or empowering.)  [There may be exceptions, but we don't have any indication of this, and they're probably not relevant here because otherwise we'd probably know about them by now.]

  15. Posted

    8 minutes ago, ijuin said:

    I thought that Pandora placed the clog herself, but she needed someone else to remove it because Depowering has different rules about it than Empowering? (e.g. she couldn't Depower Moperville and all of the Mages in it without getting permission from a large enough majority of them first, which in turn would require way more time and explaining than doing it this way?)

    Nothing about permission from a majority (that we know of).  She (like all other immortals) can't do much herself except guiding and empowering.  If she wants anything else done (whether that's depowering, saving a life, killing a vampire, committing murder, defeating a cult leader, or anything else), she has to get a mortal to do it (and she can provide guidance and empowerment to the mortal to help them accomplish the task).  She could place the clog herself, because placing the clog is itself empowering.  Removing the clog is not empowering, so she has to get someone else—in this case, Sarah and (presumably) Mr. Raven—to actually remove the clog.

    hkmaly and Xenophon Hendrix reacted to this

  16. Posted

    11 hours ago, Tom Sewell said:

    When to get together could be an issue. How late has it gotten? It's Sunday, the night before Monday; parental units tend to frown on their children being out on the eves of school days. Unless, maybe, this happens to be the Sunday before Martin Luther King Day, which would place this Sunday at January 19th.

    I think it's still morning, or early afternoon.  It's at the very least a time when Susan would otherwise be at work (and therefore otherwise be out of the house), and it's shortly after she got to work (though we don't know what time she works).  She also contacted Elliot the same time Sarah did, which was probably right after talking to Pandora, which in turn was probably shortly after Pandora talked to the emissary (when Grace was asleep or had just woken up).

  18. Posted

    15 hours ago, Tom Sewell said:

    I kinda think Jerry could sense an extradimensional immigrant, since Immortals seem to travel freely between dimensions.

    I don't think we have any evidence at all that immortals can travel between universes (other than the fact that they're super powerful and that traveling between universes is possible for mortals; it would make sense for them to have that power, and it wouldn't be surprising if they did, but we don't know that yet).  I don't think Voltaire ever even claimed to be from the other half.  (They can travel between planes, but I don't think that's the same thing.)

    15 hours ago, Tom Sewell said:

    Say, why was Jerry at that party, anyway? Isn't he mostly hanging around Susan? Neither Nanase nor Ellen have told Susan about Diane, even her name, until now. The only reason I can justify to myself is that Jerry picked up on not-Tengu hanging around and decided to do something about it. Jerry would "remember" something about Nanase from the story of how Susan got her mark, and if he's been watching Susan for awhile, would have seen Susan with Nanase or at least heard them talking through web or phone.

    1. Nanase was part of the vow.
    2. We don't know that he's spending most of his time hanging around Susan (or other people involved in the vow); he could spend most of his time doing other things unrelated to that vow (related to his own interests, or to other vows that aren't relevant to the plot), coming to Susan only when he thinks he's needed, and/or checking on her regularly.
    3. He didn't necessarily figure it out at the party.  If he happened to see Diane at any point during the months between the vow and the party, and he noticed her magic affinity, he might have already had reason to believe they were related.  (For that matter, after the reset while looking for Susan to be her ally, he might have found Diane first and initially confused the two.)

  19. Posted

    1 hour ago, The Old Hack said:

    It depends on precisely how old 'that age' is. Dan's art was rather stylised at the time; Susan might have been anywhere from five to eight years old. I do not think I would have understood the precise mechanics at age eight myself but I do think I would have understood what was going on, had it been me. I'd read enough at the time to have an idea. But then I'd been a voracious reader since I was six.

    It wouldn't surprise me if the first time I found out that people cared about fidelity was in high school (~14-18 years old), though I don't think it would have occurred to me before then that people would do such a thing.  (I'm basing this partly on the fact that I don't remember thinking about the subject before then, so I'm not sure what I would have felt, or if I knew about it and just don't remember.)

  20. Posted

    She said that things were good before that, but I'm not sure why that would have any relation to the thing in question... Does she think it's not possible for someone to do what her father did and still get along with their child?

    (Relatedly, am I the only one who thought it seemed odd that she would know at that age that what her father was doing was bad?  I'd expect that, if I were in that situation at that age, I'd be confused as to why dad was keeping it such a secret and why mom was so mad about it.)

    In any case, when is someone going to bring up the possibility of magic already?

  21. Posted

    53 minutes ago, hkmaly said:

    That would be plausible but would present even MORE danger to Elliot. I would assume that while knowledge and intent is important, you can't fool it easily by being lazy in gathering information. Because it's about what he believes and not about what he can justify.

    In Voltaire's case, though, it doesn't matter; Voltaire's vow is explicitly about intent ("I vow to not attempt to have Elliot killed.").

    (Also, PCR Box sounds like it should be some sort of scientific equipment.)

  22. Posted

    2 hours ago, hkmaly said:

    And yes: immortal being wrong about a statement of fact related to a vow? That's sounds DANGEROUSLY close to Voltaire being able to kill Elliot after vowing not to. If the vows are good for something and as big deal as they are presented to be, then Jerry CANT be wrong.

    Regardless of whether Susan and Diane are somehow related, Jerry protecting Diane doesn't break his vow, unless that would somehow harm Susan (which seems unlikely; or, if this is the case, Jerry probably doesn't know about it).  If they're unrelated, it doesn't matter (as far as his vow is concerned) whether he protects Diane; if they are related, then protecting Diane would be necessary, and not protecting her would break the vow.  Being wrong in the other direction could result in breaking the vow; protecting Diane is safe either way.

    Besides, it wouldn't surprise me if the immortal's knowledge and intent, whether he believes that he's breaking the vow, mattered, since that's how immortal law works (and thus it would matter that he believes they're sisters, rather than whether they actually are).

  23. Posted

    40 minutes ago, Xenophon Hendrix said:

    We know Susan and Diane are at least sisters, because Jerry said they were. Why all the hints about them being twins? If the author hadn't wanted to leave that hint, he wouldn't have had them born twenty minutes apart.

    We don't know that.  Jerry could be wrong.  We also don't know that they're not twins; Susan and Edward could both be wrong.  And identical appearance and similar birth times could be explained by e.g. being alternate universe counterparts.  They could be twins; they could be half-sisters; they could be more distant relatives; they could be people who coincidentally look the same; they could be alternate universe counterparts or magic duplicates or the result of a permanent transformation or something else magic-related that we don't know about yet; we don't know, they don't know.

  24. Posted

    17 hours ago, Pharaoh RutinTutin said:

    But to the point, which dangling thread will be followed?  Ellen, Nanase, & Diane?  Elliot & Ashley?  Another PCR Box appearance?  Edward (with or without the FBI)?  Adrian?  Justin?  Carol Brown?  Helena & Demetrius?  Charlotte?  Greg & Dex?

    If I had to guess, something involving Susan.  The characters split into three groups, and we've seen what happens with one of the groups; the remaining groups are Ellen, Nanase, and Susan (unless something prevents them from meeting), and Ashley and Elliot.  Ashley and Elliot might just be Elliot passing on information that we've already heard without much issue—Ashley already knows most of what happened, and "someone's going to fake a Cheerleadra sighting" isn't really that shocking (though of course something important/interesting/unexpected might happen anyways)—there's a possibility the discussion won't be shown at all.  On the other hand, we know there's going to be something surprising to Susan, we don't know how she's going to react, and of course at some point she's probably going to actually meet Diane.

    Of course, I could be wrong.  Maybe Sirleck attacks Adrian next, or something happens to Elliot and/or Ashley, or Magus finds some way back, or....

  25. Posted

    We don't know that emotion and immortals are the only ways to (naturally) awaken.  It could be that simply having enough energy from using the spell enough (possibly combined with some genetic tendency to be better at magic) can cause someone to awaken (with a greater requirement for awakening from this alone than is needed to awaken if something triggers it).  (And Edward did say that awakening can be triggered by training hard, though we haven't gotten any further information what that means.)  Nanase isn't necessarily a good comparison here because she didn't have a magic mark; prior to awakening, her only magic experience (that we know of) was Anime Martial Arts, which I don't think uses as much magic.