Don Edwards

In all fairness I must point out that Tetris bears more than a passing resemblance to the construction techniques on display in SimLife.

Both of which have legitimate medical uses, and one of which is significantly less dangerous than a certain other recreational drug which has been legal in the US for decades and in Europe for much longer.

Well, all the aberrations we've seen were wearing clothes that fit them reasonably well. Spidey's had some serious custom tailoring (which he may have done himself, but then he'd still have to acquire fabric, thread, buttons, and preferably a sewing machine and a reasonably-secure work space). They may prefer to not live outside in the rain and cold. They may need to eat ordinary food to maintain their bodies, more often than would be satisfied by their need to drain victims of life-force. Most probably need to travel every so often to avoid attracting too much attention. They may have ambitions beyond living a really long time - Sirleck for example. Money would be useful. However, if I were an aberration and learned that someone was trying to draw a lot of aberrations to Moperville, I'd be careful to stay well away from that city. Preferably on another continent. Because the expected consequence of a concentration of aberrations is a concentrated aberration-hunt.

Well, no; there could be a lot of things in the category of "we think this is probably impossible, but we aren't absolutely certain". With TFG and actual permanent shapeshifting (as Tedd can now do), I doubt that an intact non-decomposed body would be absolutely required. Not having one would probably raise the difficulty and reduce the number of people/organizations that can do it. That is, of course, assuming that the number of people that can do it under ideal circumstances is nonzero. However, you also get into questions of what constitutes a person, whether there is an afterlife,... Considering how unspecific and generically inoffensive the religious references in the comic have been so far, I seriously doubt that Dan will go there.

Not really. It's a few more numbers to look up and add, but computers are really good at that sort of thing.

I thought the point of the breaker designation was that the character can, deliberately and at his own discretion, change what powers he has. Simply being Awakened would be a very weak breaker power because the change - acquiring new spells - is slow, unreliable, one-way, and with no control over what the new spells would be. Fairy-form is a much greater Breaker power because Nanase can do (and undo) it at will, quickly, and (assuming she's up-to-date on the contents of her spellbook) knows exactly what powers she will get. And I thought the point of the trump designation was copying, altering, or suppressing SOMEONE ELSE's powers.

Certainly there is. If people could plausibly think that character A would answer X, while other people plausibly think that character A would answer Y, then both answers give SOME degree of weight to the idea that the respondent is like character A. And not necessarily the same weight. In fact, there can be NEGATIVE weights. A respondent who maybe is a little bit like Tedd, but would "reluctantly, if ever" use at-will sex-change ability, is a little bit LESS like Tedd. In principle, there's some weight (positive or negative) assigned to each combination of character and answer. It's just that a fair number of those weights will be zero (in an additive system).

That depends on what one considers an "altered state". Going from having N spells to having N+1 spells is indeed an alteration of one's state. And Nanase was deliberately triggering it by frequent surreptitious magic use, so to some extent she was altering herself. However, it's a one-way alteration - as far as we know - and her control is really weak. As I think I said earlier, going to the library and reading a how-to book (supplemented by going to an appropriate store for any necessary tools or supplies) is a better Breaker power, because one can control both what new ability is acquired and when.

Just because Adrian did not call Edward, does not prove he didn't pass word to someone else in the organization..

We could build it today from existing stuff, but it wouldn't be inexpensive. I'd add the Dr. Scholl's foot-orthotics scanning devices... 3D printing is actually sufficiently expensive that it makes more sense to factory-make a bunch of shoes in various common sizes and ship them. Considering that shoes get made by the tens or hundreds of thousands. For just one or two really unique pairs of shoes, 3D printing might be more practical.

Think in terms of what makes for a good comic. "Your mother was sighted in this forest over here. {Recap.} Do you have any idea what she's up to?" "I haven't talked to her in over 80 years. Sorry, no, I can't help you. If she does show up I'll let you know, but don't hold your breath." ... no, even if it's true, it wouldn't show up in the comic.

You're right about Sarah being in the wrong place, but from what I've seen it isn't so much that Ellen is reluctant to be male as that other people are reluctant to suggest it to her. Granted, Ellen might also be reluctant, but we haven't seen it. Maybe it would be better to give this question no weight at all for Ellen. Tedd is in there more than once because it isn't just about which answer is the BEST fit for THE CHARACTER, it's also about if someone else gives a specific answer which character(s) is that similar to? For Tedd "enthusiastically and routinely" is the best fit so that answer would be the stronger weight for "you're Tedd", but anyone who just says "enthusiastically" is also somewhat like Tedd. For the same reason he possibly should also be on "routinely". Elliot probably should only be on "routinely". He doesn't hesitate to change when there's a reason, but so far as we've seen he rarely if ever changes JUST to be female for a while. He's changed because Tedd was a klutz, for the sex-swapped party, because of energy buildups, to prevent energy buildups, because he needed the superhero power set, and to entertain Ashley...

Actually, I worded the question wrong. So I'll do it over, with the above two corrections. The list of names in parentheses is which characters one is more like if one gives that answer. Note that this way, one answer can match several characters AND one character can match several answers. You have the option of being subject to temporary sex changes more or less at will. You would do so: Reluctantly, if ever (Justin, Susan, Sarah, Mr. Verres) Occasionally (Nanase, Ellen) Routinely (Elliot, Grace, Tedd) Enthusiastically (Ashley, Tedd) Enthusiastically and routinely (Elliot, Tedd)

The difference between US adult/child shoe sizes - assuming same sex and age-category - is that 1 size is 1/3 inch. However, size 1 is rather larger than 1/3 inch in ALL cases.

Pretty much everyone in the story is going to be in the same place as the rest of the cast most of the time. It's hard to write a story where a major character never interacts with any of the other major characters (unless there is only one major character). And minor characters who don't interact with the major characters in some significant way (whether direct or indirect) don't show up in the story at all.

How does the character feel about sex-changing transformations? Reluctant Enthusiastic Routine Enthusiastic and routine Okay Unknown Ashley: 2 Diane: 6 Elliot: 3 Tedd: 4 Grace: 3 Susan: 1 Sarah: 1 Nanase: 5 Justin: 5 Ellen: 5 Mr. Verres: 1 Jeremy: 6

According to the PRT power classification list that was linked to early on in this thread, a Breaker "Has the ability to alter themselves to a different state in which they maintain different abilities. Appends other powers, but only in this state. Can also include general altered states." I think the point of the name is that your knowledge of the character's powers is suddenly and significantly broken. Someone who violates the laws of physics could be in any of several categories (in fact, it's possible to come up with a power that violates the laws of physics for almost all of the categories). I would not count your "living smoke" guy as a Breaker unless there are things he can do in that condition that he CANNOT do otherwise (or vice versa) and are not part of the inherent differences between large solid objects and smoke (the ability to pick up an object would not qualify). Mister Smoke is a Changer (changes his own body) and a Stranger (can infiltrate). Cancelling momentum of an incoming projectile sounds like a Brute (enhanced strength or durability). Nanase's fairy spells, which she can't use in non-fairy forms, make her power of going into fairy form a Breaker ability. The fact that she loses the ability to go into fairy form (along with all her other spells) when she invokes her guardian form makes the latter also a Breaker ability (of course, so do her increased durability such as blocking swords with her tails, her high-speed flight, her battle awareness... - all of which don't work in non-guardian forms..

As I read the suggestion, it wasn't coincidental at all - it was deliberate action on Raven's part. And sure, by now any one of Raven's father's siblings, or Raven's half-siblings by his father and a human woman, would almost certainly have either no descendants (which isn't interesting) or a great many descendants, but Raven could be following any of a number of possible bloodline rules including but not limited to primogeniture to choose which relative(s) to be near.

Diane, Susan, and Nanase go out to lunch together. The title of the arc is "Mange à 3". (I originally typed "Natani" rather than "Nanase". Now THAT would be interesting!)

An Awakened gaining a new power is a Breaker ability, not a Trump ability. And I'd rate it as Breaker 0 - at most - because there's so little control over both when the new power will be acquired and what the new power will be. Seriously, a shopping trip that includes at least one of {library, bookstore, hardware store, hobby shop, craft store} is a greater Breaker power. (This is just about the fact of being Awakened and the ability to gain new spells thereby. Not about the spells the Awakened individual might have - which may include some more-serious Breaker abilities.)

Stock-market technical analysis, at its best, is statistical psychology.

I would add a third condition: reasonably good communications.The movable-type printing press was invented in Germany about 1440 (according to some reports the Chinese invented it earlier - but kept it to themselves and didn't do much with it). By 1492 it was probably pretty common around Europe's major capitals and other intellectual centers. Printing presses had been used before, but they were done with single-piece printing plates; every letter had to be hand-engraved in the plate, and any error meant throwing out the plate and starting over. The movable-type press made printing VASTLY easier and less expensive, facilitating the spread of accurate information across the continent. According to a book I read many years ago, one of Columbus' captains had actually been to the New World previously - when he was a cabin-boy, and aboard a ship that got blown way off course in a storm. Figure 20 years earlier. The notion that printing presses took longer than 1440 to 1470 to reach Madrid, but were there by the 1490s, is extremely plausible. Scholars and early scientists figured out that the earth probably is round, not long after they figured out that a lunar eclipse is the moon passing through the earth's shadow. They'd watch a few eclipses, and read about other people watching eclipses, and notice that no matter where the moon is relative to the horizon, or where on the earth the observer is, the edge of the shadow always appears to be part of a circle. The simplest shape for the earth that would produce this consistency is spherical. The shape of the earth actually mattering in the day-to-day lives of ordinary people is rather a newer phenomenon.

Well, Voltaire did sort of imply (but didn't actually say) that Raven is the child of one of the two French immortals. And Sirleck is also aware of Pandora, but has no reason to specifically think that Raven is Pandora's child. Now I'm wondering if Voltaire is aware of Raven's actual parentage. If not, the can of worms he's trying to open might turn out to be a supertanker...

It really didn't help Galileo that, in his book, the spokesperson for the geocentric theory was a rather recognizable caricature of one of the most politically powerful and religiously influential archbishops of the time... and, in the book, named "Simpleton".