Story: Wednesday, April 13, 2016

[InfiniteRemnant 141]

 

2 hours ago, Cpt. Obvious said:

Only question is how much effort they have to put into using their clairvoyance. Is it a free automatic action, or does it require intent and some effort and time to use?

if grace's managing to render jerry temporarily speechless by repeatedly surprising him when they met is any indication, their precognitive/clairvoyant/whatever abilities definitely aren't passive or instant. they need to try, otherwise he would have known already whether he wanted to or not, and if they were instant he could have just 'checked' instead of asking questions.

[Scotty 1,061]

Well Jerry's clairvoyance was apparent when he was "flinging wisdom around" about Grace and Susan suppressing negative emotions. I'm guessing it's not so much looking at a person and knowing their entire history, but as Tara put it, more like looking at their auras and knowing what the colour or intensity means. When Abraham was searching for Ellen he showed the bloodgrem the auras for both Ellen and Elliot and stated having difficulty telling which was which. My guess is Diane and Susan, being twins with the same innate talents for vampire hunting, would also have identical auras, which if Helena and Demetrius saw either Diane or Susan first, they wouldn't have thought that either had a sister until they happened to see the other's aura and be like "hey wait a minute, I've seen this aura before." That's probably how Jerry knew that Diane was Susan's sister too, he happened to be watching Nanase and Diane caught his attention. If Jerry knew back when he first met Susan that she had a sister that she didn't know about, he withheld that information, then again he likely felt that it wasn't his place to tell her. Young Jerry obviously wasn't too worried about leaving hints for both Nanase and Diane to pick up on so maybe he feels that getting the two together needs to happen sooner than later.

[SeriousJupiter 49]

I am very much not comfortable with the idea of immortals messing with relationships and trying to fix people up just to make their own jobs easier, so I trust you'll forgive me for not believing in that particular theory.

[Pharaoh RutinTutin 1,586]

1 hour ago, SeriousJupiter said:

I am very much not comfortable with the idea of immortals messing with relationships and trying to fix people up just to make their own jobs easier, so I trust you'll forgive me for not believing in that particular theory.

When the Olympians gathered in celebration, Eris had not been invited.  So the goddess of discord delivered a golden apple inscribed with the message "For the fairest".

Paris (a human with a lot of Gaul) was selected by Zeus to judge between Athena, Hera, and Aphrodite.  All three goddesses offered bribes to Paris.  Aphrodite's bribe was to let Paris meet Helen, the wife of the King of Sparta and the most beautiful woman in the world.  Then Aphrodite would make Helen fall in love with Paris.

Immortals messing with relationships and trying to fix people up just to satisfy their own petty vanity.

[Scotty 1,061]

26 minutes ago, SeriousJupiter said:

I am very much not comfortable with the idea of immortals messing with relationships and trying to fix people up just to make their own jobs easier, so I trust you'll forgive me for not believing in that particular theory.

In Jerry's case, he might consider getting Diane and Susan to meet as part of the debt. I think he might also understand what Susan's suppressed negative emotions are from and feels this is needed for Susan to deal with those. Mind you it's going to take a lot for Susan to come to terms with this.

For Helena and Demetrius, I'm still going with the safety net idea. Elliot is special for some reason and needs to be protected and there'd have to be contingencies in place to insure protection is maintained should Helena and Demetrius be unable to for a time.

 

[hkmaly 490]

On 04/16/2016 at 0:54 AM, Scotty said:

I don't think they'd attempt to set up Elliot with Susan, if they did then they failed miserably.

Well maybe they did. They are not perfect.

On 04/16/2016 at 0:54 AM, Scotty said:

Or maybe they predicted Elliot meeting Ashley. Who knows what would have happened if Elliot wasn't on a date with Ashley when Tara found him. The Colonel might have succeeded in getting Tara to kill Elliot if it wasn't for Ashley interfering.

I'm not sure Pandora would be able to predict Ashley in time of France incident.

12 hours ago, Cpt. Obvious said:

Only question is how much effort they have to put into using their clairvoyance. Is it a free automatic action, or does it require intent and some effort and time to use? Pandora seems to use it a lot, even when she'd prefer not to.

Based on what we saw, it seems that both amount of information from clairvoyance AND the how easy it is to use it get better with age. Jerry still seemed to concentrate a little when analyzing Susan and Grace, and he didn't do both at once. (Also, Grace surprised him repeately, yes.) Meanwhile, for Pandora, using clairvoyance is like hearing that catchy tone over and over in your mind: it's hard to NOT do it.

2 hours ago, Pharaoh RutinTutin said:

3 hours ago, SeriousJupiter said:

I am very much not comfortable with the idea of immortals messing with relationships and trying to fix people up just to make their own jobs easier, so I trust you'll forgive me for not believing in that particular theory.

When the Olympians gathered in celebration, Eris had not been invited.  So the goddess of discord delivered a golden apple inscribed with the message "For the fairest".

Paris (a human with a lot of Gaul) was selected by Zeus to judge between Athena, Hera, and Aphrodite.  All three goddesses offered bribes to Paris.  Aphrodite's bribe was to let Paris meet Helen, the wife of the King of Sparta and the most beautiful woman in the world.  Then Aphrodite would make Helen fall in love with Paris.

Immortals messing with relationships and trying to fix people up just to satisfy their own petty vanity.

Not only half of stories with Gods involves Gods messing with relationships, let's look at the other immortals: Fae. What is the most known classical story about Fae and their court, the one names Demetrius and Helena are from? A Midsummer Night's Dream by Shakespeare. And what happens in that story? Immortals messing with relationships.

[ijuin 572]

13 hours ago, InfiniteRemnant said:

 

if grace's managing to render jerry temporarily speechless by repeatedly surprising him when they met is any indication, their precognitive/clairvoyant/whatever abilities definitely aren't passive or instant. they need to try, otherwise he would have known already whether he wanted to or not, and if they were instant he could have just 'checked' instead of asking questions.

Immortal precognition can't be "true" seeing of future events, because that would be equivalent to information traveling backwards in time, which is forbidden in EGS. I think it's more like "ultra-accurate weather forecasting"--as Immortals grow more powerful and perceptive, they can integrate finer and finer details until they develop a Sherlock Holmes-like ability to get a whole picture from just a few obscure-seeming clues. At Pandora's level, she can probably also "see the threads of fate"--i.e. fully construct entire alternate scenarios based on options A, B, C, etc., and determine their approximate probability of coming to pass.

[The Old Hack 2,448]

21 minutes ago, ijuin said:

Immortal precognition can't be "true" seeing of future events, because that would be equivalent to information traveling backwards in time, which is forbidden in EGS. I think it's more like "ultra-accurate weather forecasting"--as Immortals grow more powerful and perceptive, they can integrate finer and finer details until they develop a Sherlock Holmes-like ability to get a whole picture from just a few obscure-seeming clues. At Pandora's level, she can probably also "see the threads of fate"--i.e. fully construct entire alternate scenarios based on options A, B, C, etc., and determine their approximate probability of coming to pass.

There was something similar in 'Doc' Smith's classic Lensman series. In the Lensman books, the Arisian super-intelligences had such advanced mathematics that they could predict the future with great exactitude -- at least, until the point where their breeding program had succeeded in creating intelligences superior to their own whose actions and abilities they were incapable of predicting. (Which was the whole point of everything they did. They knew that as a race, they could not defeat the Eddorians. They deliberately worked to make themselves obsolete in order to save the Galaxy from what they perceived as a pernicious and destructive race of tyrants.) In one rather terrifying example, Mentor -- an overmind created by a fusion of four Arisian minds -- predicted that Virgill Samms five years from the moment they spoke would be at a barber shop and receive a small accidental nick caused by a cat jumping into his lap, jostling the barber. And added that the real challenge would be to determine how each individual hair fell as it had been cut, where it would land, which would in turn depend on air currents, temperature and pressure, the barber's mood that day...

The Arisians could make mistakes, and did. But by and large they did not make many.

[hkmaly 490]

15 hours ago, The Old Hack said:

There was something similar in 'Doc' Smith's classic Lensman series. In the Lensman books, the Arisian super-intelligences had such advanced mathematics that they could predict the future with great exactitude -- at least, until the point where their breeding program had succeeded in creating intelligences superior to their own whose actions and abilities they were incapable of predicting. (Which was the whole point of everything they did. They knew that as a race, they could not defeat the Eddorians. They deliberately worked to make themselves obsolete in order to save the Galaxy from what they perceived as a pernicious and destructive race of tyrants.) In one rather terrifying example, Mentor -- an overmind created by a fusion of four Arisian minds -- predicted that Virgill Samms five years from the moment they spoke would be at a barber shop and receive a small accidental nick caused by a cat jumping into his lap, jostling the barber. And added that the real challenge would be to determine how each individual hair fell as it had been cut, where it would land, which would in turn depend on air currents, temperature and pressure, the barber's mood that day...

The Arisians could make mistakes, and did. But by and large they did not make many.

While Hari Seldon's Psychohistory was nowhere near as good, I think it should be mentioned.

16 hours ago, ijuin said:

On 04/17/2016 at 7:52 PM, InfiniteRemnant said:

if grace's managing to render jerry temporarily speechless by repeatedly surprising him when they met is any indication, their precognitive/clairvoyant/whatever abilities definitely aren't passive or instant. they need to try, otherwise he would have known already whether he wanted to or not, and if they were instant he could have just 'checked' instead of asking questions.

Immortal precognition can't be "true" seeing of future events, because that would be equivalent to information traveling backwards in time, which is forbidden in EGS. I think it's more like "ultra-accurate weather forecasting"--as Immortals grow more powerful and perceptive, they can integrate finer and finer details until they develop a Sherlock Holmes-like ability to get a whole picture from just a few obscure-seeming clues. At Pandora's level, she can probably also "see the threads of fate"--i.e. fully construct entire alternate scenarios based on options A, B, C, etc., and determine their approximate probability of coming to pass.

Technically true, but note that even if universe is not completely deterministic, events which are both important AND random are rare. If you take weather as example, it seems that the hard part isn't to actually compute how it will change - the hard part is to describe present correctly and in enough details, because small inaccuracy in what you put in the algorithm as "current state" will have gigantic effects on result. Also known as Butterfly effect.

Grace surprised Jerry because he didn't knew her good enough to predict her, despite her standing just in front of him, under his likely supernatural senses. It was much less surprise for us and it wasn't really random.

Also, Sherlock Holmes already often seem clairvoyant despite certainly not having ESP or seer abilities. Any better perception, while technically not seeing future events, is easier to describe as clairvoyance instead of trying to explain HOW did they found out. But it's true Pandora herself uses terms like predicted and see everything coming.

[Scotty 1,061]

27 minutes ago, hkmaly said:

Also, Sherlock Holmes already often seem clairvoyant despite certainly not having ESP or seer abilities. Any better perception, while technically not seeing future events, is easier to describe as clairvoyance instead of trying to explain HOW did they found out. But it's true Pandora herself uses terms like predicted and see everything coming.

Yeah a lot of the clairvoyance would be in looking at "If A does B then C should happen, if D gets involved then E or F could happen, but if I do G to A then D should go to H." Having higher clairvoyance would mean being able to see more possible outcomes and even speculate a number of "what ifs". Being able to predict outcomes like that isn't the kind of thing you'd use to buy lottery tickets but it is more like "I saw that coming a mile away." which is why Pandora is so easily bored.

 

[hkmaly 490]

1 hour ago, Scotty said:

1 hour ago, hkmaly said:

Also, Sherlock Holmes already often seem clairvoyant despite certainly not having ESP or seer abilities. Any better perception, while technically not seeing future events, is easier to describe as clairvoyance instead of trying to explain HOW did they found out. But it's true Pandora herself uses terms like predicted and see everything coming.

Yeah a lot of the clairvoyance would be in looking at "If A does B then C should happen, if D gets involved then E or F could happen, but if I do G to A then D should go to H." Having higher clairvoyance would mean being able to see more possible outcomes and even speculate a number of "what ifs". Being able to predict outcomes like that isn't the kind of thing you'd use to buy lottery tickets but it is more like "I saw that coming a mile away." which is why Pandora is so easily bored.

... personally, I don't think existing lotteries are using random enough mechanism to not be predictable by Pandora. Paradoxically, stuff like roulette started by human would be harder to predict than fully automatic mechanism. On the other hand, maybe guessing all numbers at once is hard enough, but still boring.

[The Old Hack 2,448]

13 hours ago, hkmaly said:

While Hari Seldon's Psychohistory was nowhere near as good, I think it should be mentioned.

Agreed, and a very good example! And with a similar limitation -- it worked fine as long as it dealt with ordinary humans, but add in the superhuman Mule and suddenly it fell apart.

[hkmaly 490]

8 hours ago, The Old Hack said:

22 hours ago, hkmaly said:

While Hari Seldon's Psychohistory was nowhere near as good, I think it should be mentioned.

Agreed, and a very good example! And with a similar limitation -- it worked fine as long as it dealt with ordinary humans, but add in the superhuman Mule and suddenly it fell apart.

It worked bad for single ordinary humans as well, and wasn't able to predict other sapient species. It was only able to predict large groups of humans.

[The Old Hack 2,448]

4 hours ago, hkmaly said:

It worked bad for single ordinary humans as well, and wasn't able to predict other sapient species. It was only able to predict large groups of humans.

Correct. It only worked with enormous masses of humans and could only be used to predict trends. Its real use was in determining where these trends could be altered and sent in different directions -- what was called 'Seldon Crises' in the books. For example, it could predict that the fall of the Empire was inevitable but not who would be emperor in any given year or what their policies would be like.