story STORY: Wednesday April 27, 2016

[Xenophon Hendrix 47]

There might be few laws about magic and magic tech in general. Didn't the author say that magic can do anything but time travel? It's difficult to pass laws about something like that. The prime rule might be, "Don't let the mundanes know how easy magic is to get, or we will end you." Otherwise, kidnapping is still kidnapping, and bank robbery is still bank robbery, even if you use magic to commit the crimes.

As for Tedd specifically, he is the son of a big wheel, but he is also someone DGB certainly wants on their side and a good guy. As long as Edward is keeping an eye on what he is up to, Tedd might have a whole lot of latitude to do as he wishes. For all the readers know at this point, Tedd's magical analysis ability might be rare enough that DGB is happy that he is carrying out his research.

Heck, for all we know, Edward is fully aware at just how much of a "dangerous rarity" Tedd is but hasn't been saying anything so as not to influence Tedd's choices.

[hkmaly 490]

On 05/01/2016 at 0:13 AM, Scotty said:

Jerry felt that Helena and Demetrius shouldn't have marked Susan regardless of their reasons so he might avoid doing so

Jerry felt that Susan shouldn't be sent to fight the vampire. He might not object to marking her.

On 05/01/2016 at 0:13 AM, Scotty said:

This is another stretch, but there might be a 4th source of Diane's mark, Voltaire, but my guess is he'd only do so if he believes it would aid in his goal of killing Elliot.

His goal is not to kill Elliot. That was only one way to that goal and he already rejected it. Also, Diane killing Elliot is not likely, but still more likely than Susan.

21 hours ago, Drasvin said:

And presumably, any magic object could be used to hurt vampires, just non-weapons probably would do spectacular damage.

Hammer can do serious damage even if it's tool and not weapon (weapon-hammer and tool-hammer don't differ that much anyway). High heels can kill someone if you step on his head. Frying pan is used as popular improvised weapon in several anime. Unless her spell will be limited to summoning powder box, it can be classified as summoning weapons.

7 hours ago, ijuin said:

But to be serious, a saucer shape is good for a landing craft--edge-on it behaves as a lifting body, and flat-on you can use the underbelly as a heat shield for atmospheric entry.

Most flying saucers are showing manoeuvres proving they don't really NEED something as primitive as heat shield.

7 hours ago, ijuin said:

Anyway, when Will and Gill spoke about the TF-Gun being illegal on the Uryuom homeworld, to me it seems that they were speaking in a manner that implied that even on Earth they weren't sure that they were 100% out of the reach of the long arm of the law of the homeworld governments. This would imply that it is not a journey of multiple years to travel between the Uryuom planet and Earth. Also, since we have not been told the human name for the Uryuoms' native star, it is probable that said star is not one of the ones that has a well-known name among humans (e.g. Tau Ceti or Altair or Vega), but rather is one that we only know by a catalog number (e.g. Lalande 21185 or Glise 581).

It was more like Edward being not sure that they were 100% out of the reach of the long arm of the law, but yes, if it would be multiple year journey the law would likely not bother.

Wolf 359 is less than 8 light-years from Earth and it still doesn't have "well-known name" (of course, after the massacre, it is known pretty well). Granted, it's red dwarf, so not exactly visible with naked eye and unlikely to have habitable planets, but in general, if you are implying the star being far away because it was not named it wouldn't hold. Also, we might not be given the name for Uryuoms' native star for same reason we were not given exact year the story is happening in.

7 hours ago, Scotty said:

I'm guessing he never told his superiors in the FBI about it or the fact that his son was reverse engineering it, or, if the FBI does know about it, I'd wonder why they haven't tried to take it away from Tedd. Does Edward have that much pull in the FBI, or in the world in fact, that no one dares try to do anything?

I'm guessing that he DID reported it but did it in a way which didn't attracted attention to it. Pandora might not be entirely truthful when she talked about full disclosure but her explanation makes sense and Edward can't really afford someone discovering he was hiding something from FBI. Also, as a head of paranormal division, working inside the system was much more effective than trying to hide it completely.

I think Tedd is classified as contract worker for FBI or something like that somewhere. And result of his reverse engineering is on file. And maybe he already build few more copies for FBI internal use.

Remember that DBG was not supposed to be enemy. And we are still not sure if it changed with Arthur Arthur - Edward doesn't agree with his goals but may still trust him with the informations.

7 hours ago, Drasvin said:

Well, Mr. Verres does have enough friends in high places to make him effectively immune to being outright fired from his job, even for something as bad as almost killing a suspect that had voluntarily surrendered. He also is likely to be rather trusted by his superiors as he's been rather open about the various abilities that the main cast has.

Well ... it was just almost and it wasn't anyone important. Keeping secrets - proving he can't be trusted - will be worse.

7 hours ago, Drasvin said:

Also the TFG might not be outright illegal, just regulated. Authorities that are in on the masquerade have the means of confirming identity even through spells and such that would conceal it, even something like Elliot's Cheerleadra and alter-egos spell, which has clauses that can mess up other spells relating to identity, such as Nanase's fairy doll spell. I could see Edward bending things a little to get his son the licenses and such that would be needed for ownership and/or manufacture of the TFG (probably holding the actual licenses himself as Ted is/was a minor and the US government doesn't let minors hold most licenses)

It's not official regulation - officially nothing like TF gun exists. So there is not official license either. Which likely makes easier for Tedd to be allowed to own it and manufacture it.

Remember the ID Tedd shown to security guard of PTTAPUTASF? Maybe the reason he had any relevant ID was BECAUSE the TF gun.

14 minutes ago, Xenophon Hendrix said:

For all the readers know at this point, Tedd's magical analysis ability might be rare enough that DGB is happy that he is carrying out his research.

Remember that only reason DGB knows about the high levels of ambient magic in Moperville is that Tedd told them. Even without knowing the details about his magical analysis ability, his research is extremely valuable for them.

[ijuin 572]

1 hour ago, Xenophon Hendrix said:

There might be few laws about magic and magic tech in general. Didn't the author say that magic can do anything but time travel? It's difficult to pass laws about something like that. The prime rule might be, "Don't let the mundanes know how easy magic is to get, or we will end you." Otherwise, kidnapping is still kidnapping, and bank robbery is still bank robbery, even if you use magic to commit the crimes.

Legally speaking, use of magic in committing a crime may just be an extra "enhancement" to the charges, like how robbery, assault, or battery charges are strengthened when the offender used a "deadly weapon".

 

47 minutes ago, hkmaly said:

Most flying saucers are showing manoeuvres proving they don't really NEED something as primitive as heat shield.

(snip)

I'm guessing that he DID reported it but did it in a way which didn't attracted attention to it. Pandora might not be entirely truthful when she talked about full disclosure but her explanation makes sense and Edward can't really afford someone discovering he was hiding something from FBI. Also, as a head of paranormal division, working inside the system was much more effective than trying to hide it completely.

I think Tedd is classified as contract worker for FBI or something like that somewhere. And result of his reverse engineering is on file. And maybe he already build few more copies for FBI internal use.

Remember that DBG was not supposed to be enemy. And we are still not sure if it changed with Arthur Arthur - Edward doesn't agree with his goals but may still trust him with the informations.

Well ... it was just almost and it wasn't anyone important. Keeping secrets - proving he can't be trusted - will be worse.

It's not official regulation - officially nothing like TF gun exists. So there is not official license either. Which likely makes easier for Tedd to be allowed to own it and manufacture it.

Remember the ID Tedd shown to security guard of PTTAPUTASF? Maybe the reason he had any relevant ID was BECAUSE the TF gun.

Remember that only reason DGB knows about the high levels of ambient magic in Moperville is that Tedd told them. Even without knowing the details about his magical analysis ability, his research is extremely valuable for them.

Edward very well may have told his superiors that Tedd is tinkering with Uryuom Cosmetic Morphing Devices and exploring their applications to Humans, but not that the device in question is banned by Uryuom governments. He may have also omitted the fact that Tedd has mastered techniques for creating "clone forms" that may be able to spoof biometric security measures such as cameras, voiceprint, fingerprint, eyescan, and possibly even DNA analysis.

As for the flying saucer heat shields thing, any time that you're moving faster than 2 km/s or so through atmosphere, you're going to heat up, so it's worthwhile to be able to survive it even if "heat shield" means "coated with super-resistant ceramic that lasts a hundred years of service" rather than "sacrificial ablative material". Also, aerobraking is free delta-v, so unless you're packing so much propulsion in your landing craft that the 8-20 km/s that you would save with each aerobraking reentry is completely irrelevant, then you may as well not look a gift horse in the mouth.

[hkmaly 490]

41 minutes ago, ijuin said:

Legally speaking, use of magic in committing a crime may just be an extra "enhancement" to the charges, like how robbery, assault, or battery charges are strengthened when the offender used a "deadly weapon".

The fact you are going to special facility for holding magic-capable criminals might be strengthening enough. Also, I guess in lot of cases magic does count as "deadly weapon".

41 minutes ago, ijuin said:

Edward very well may have told his superiors that Tedd is tinkering with Uryuom Cosmetic Morphing Devices and exploring their applications to Humans, but not that the device in question is banned by Uryuom governments.

It's technically not. He's not even lying.

41 minutes ago, ijuin said:

He may have also omitted the fact that Tedd has mastered techniques for creating "clone forms" that may be able to spoof biometric security measures such as cameras, voiceprint, fingerprint, eyescan, and possibly even DNA analysis.

The spoofing of cameras is obvious and likely tolerated. Posing as specific person requires scanning that person: it doesn't seem to be easy to do without consent and even if it is, Edward may downplay the risk. Posing as simply "someone else than you" is already possible by lot of methods and in cases where it really matters magic-based identification is used. BECAUSE Edward insisted.

Remember: art of speaking a lot and telling little. If someone objects that the clone forms were not mentioned, Edward can say they were. Sure, the sentence "it can spoof biometric security like voiceprint, finterprint and eyescan" is not included in the description, but the wording is ambiguous enough Edward can claim the information is there.

41 minutes ago, ijuin said:

As for the flying saucer heat shields thing, any time that you're moving faster than 2 km/s or so through atmosphere, you're going to heat up, so it's worthwhile to be able to survive it even if "heat shield" means "coated with super-resistant ceramic that lasts a hundred years of service" rather than "sacrificial ablative material".

So what? Don't. Flying 1.6km/s directly up gets you through the atmosphere in minute. Sure, it means that when you are out of atmosphere, you need to do right angle turn and accelerate to stable orbit speed, but ...

41 minutes ago, ijuin said:

Also, aerobraking is free delta-v, so unless you're packing so much propulsion in your landing craft that the 8-20 km/s that you would save with each aerobraking reentry is completely irrelevant, then you may as well not look a gift horse in the mouth.

If you have engines capable of doing 50-150g and inertial dampeners to protect crew and cargo, you don't care. And yes, that's exactly what several UFOs seems to have. (This one goes 122g.)

With chemical propulsion, we can't really afford it, because both going up, then right angle turn and accelerating to orbital speed and decelerating from orbital speed, then right angle turn and directly down is wasting lot of fuel. (In fact, the "going directly up" itself is not so easy, as you need to match angular speed of earth rotation.) But for more advanced engines this may not be problem. Or at least less problem than the aerobraking damaging your stealth.

(Also, shape of ship is irrelevant if you have some sort of "shields".)

 

[The Old Hack 2,448]

5 hours ago, hkmaly said:

Wolf 359 is less than 8 light-years from Earth and it still doesn't have "well-known name" (of course, after the massacre, it is known pretty well). Granted, it's red dwarf, so not exactly visible with naked eye and unlikely to have habitable planets,

It used to have one, but Krypton exploded.

[InfiniteRemnant 141]

6 hours ago, hkmaly said:

Also, we might not be given the name for Uryuoms' native star for same reason we were not given exact year the story is happening in.

the coexistence of large video rental stores and smart phones limits it to between 2008-2012

If someone can find a list of all earthquakes that have ever occurred on April first in the us we can narrow it further...

[Xenophon Hendrix 47]

30 minutes ago, InfiniteRemnant said:

the coexistence of large video rental stores and smart phones limits it to between 2008-2012

If someone can find a list of all earthquakes that have ever occurred on April first in the us we can narrow it further...

It's an alternate universe from ours.

[CritterKeeper 1,102]

Besides, I still pass a large Family Video every time I visit my doctor's office.  Unless there is a highly localized time warp, that would seem to run counter to the claim that such places don't exist beyond 2012.

[The Old Hack 2,448]

38 minutes ago, CritterKeeper said:

Besides, I still pass a large Family Video every time I visit my doctor's office.  Unless there is a highly localized time warp,

That would depend on precisely which doctor you are visiting. Would it happen to be the Doctor?

[InfiniteRemnant 141]

4 hours ago, CritterKeeper said:

Besides, I still pass a large Family Video every time I visit my doctor's office.  Unless there is a highly localized time warp, that would seem to run counter to the claim that such places don't exist beyond 2012.

I was going by when large chains like blockbuster were dying out. smaller localized companies are harder to keep track of because they won't show up in news articles.
That said, Susan's workplace definitely looked like an analog to the large chain stores, and all three of the ones i was familiar with were dead or dying by the end of 2012.

[Don Edwards 548]

As for Diane realizing that Nanase suspects she and Susan are sisters:

Nanase is talking about Diane having an inherited characteristic that is not in any way apparent to normal senses. And she's speaking as if she's confident of what she's saying. It's a very logical conclusion that Nanase believes she knows (or knows a fair amount about) one of Diane's blood relatives. Diane knows that Nanase knows Elliot and that Elliot knows Susan, whom Diane already suspected is her sister. This is not a hard set of dots to connect.

[Pharaoh RutinTutin 1,586]

4 hours ago, The Old Hack said:

That would depend on precisely which doctor you are visiting. Would it happen to be the Doctor?

Not which doctor.

Witch Doctor

 

[Scrapyard_Dragon 5]

2 hours ago, Pharaoh RutinTutin said:

Not which doctor.

Witch Doctor

 

If Dan ever has a character try to use magic words we can only hope he references this song.

[Scotty 1,061]

3 hours ago, InfiniteRemnant said:

I was going by when large chains like blockbuster were dying out. smaller localized companies are harder to keep track of because they won't show up in news articles.
That said, Susan's workplace definitely looked like an analog to the large chain stores, and all three of the ones i was familiar with were dead or dying by the end of 2012.

It's possible Tensaided only has that one store and that it's not part of a franchise. Also we don't know if streaming services like Netflix exist in EGS, at least I don't recall seeing mention of any, so maybe video stores still have a good market hold.

[hkmaly 490]

18 hours ago, The Old Hack said:

23 hours ago, hkmaly said:

Wolf 359 is less than 8 light-years from Earth and it still doesn't have "well-known name" (of course, after the massacre, it is known pretty well). Granted, it's red dwarf, so not exactly visible with naked eye and unlikely to have habitable planets,

It used to have one, but Krypton exploded.

Wasn't Krypton orbiting Gilese 581? Oh wait, that planet didn't exploded.

17 hours ago, Xenophon Hendrix said:

17 hours ago, InfiniteRemnant said:

the coexistence of large video rental stores and smart phones limits it to between 2008-2012

If someone can find a list of all earthquakes that have ever occurred on April first in the us we can narrow it further...

It's an alternate universe from ours.

As proved by the coexistence of Uryuom and magic users. I'm sure if you type "Moperville superheroes" into google in THAT universe, top answer will be video. This universe? Moperville returns shiveapedia (our wiki) and Naperville stuff like this.

[ijuin 572]

12 hours ago, Scotty said:

It's possible Tensaided only has that one store and that it's not part of a franchise. Also we don't know if streaming services like Netflix exist in EGS, at least I don't recall seeing mention of any, so maybe video stores still have a good market hold.

Tensaided seems to act as though he is the supreme authority in his store, with no corporate overseers who might overrule his eccentricities.

[Stature 96]

13 hours ago, hkmaly said:

Wasn't Krypton orbiting Gilese 581? Oh wait, that planet didn't exploded.

Either it imploded or was discombobulated.

[The Old Hack 2,448]

3 hours ago, ijuin said:

Tensaided seems to act as though he is the supreme authority in his store, with no corporate overseers who might overrule his eccentricities.

Alternate. Universe.

And Tensaided is a law unto himself.

[Drasvin 123]

15 hours ago, Scotty said:

It's possible Tensaided only has that one store and that it's not part of a franchise. Also we don't know if streaming services like Netflix exist in EGS, at least I don't recall seeing mention of any, so maybe video stores still have a good market hold.

We don't know if Netflix and it's equivalents exist in EGS, but Youtube does and has enough popularity that the FBI Paranormal Division can't reasonably stop the secrecy leak that resulted from Cheerleadra and Justin versus the Fire Monster getting recorded by all the patrons of the comic shop, forcing a paradigm shift away from discrediting the existence of magic. In real life, Youtube and video streaming services like it were in many ways the forerunners of services like Netflix and Hulu. So it's possible that the movie streaming (and home delivery) services exist in the EGS-verse, just Moperville has a larger than average number of people that prefer going to the store to rent things.

I'm not sure about other rental chains, but Blockbuster died due to bad business decisions in the face of a better alternative. Their punishing late-fee policy, Loading up on too many new releases to the determent of their other sections, among other things. Presumably, Tensaided understands his customer base well enough to make coming to his store a pleasant experience in itself. Either that or his customer find his antics enjoyable. Maybe both.

[ijuin 572]

We also saw customers being attracted by viewing Elliot and Susan's antics entertaining.

[Sjmcc13 42]

1 hour ago, Drasvin said:

I'm not sure about other rental chains, but Blockbuster died due to bad business decisions in the face of a better alternative. Their punishing late-fee policy, Loading up on too many new releases to the determent of their other sections, among other things. 

I use to find it easier to just wait till they would start clearing out the new releases, and buy their 2nd hand copies rather then rent and risk a late fee. It was often cheaper if I did not get a rental back in time as well. I miss rental places because I enjoy the extra extra features like deleted scenes you do not really get through streaming services. There is still a rental store in the town I live in now, but I am in a remote location where the internet is expensive and limited (the highest plan in town I know of is 50GB / month and over $100) so many people have not bothered switching to netflix. 

[CritterKeeper 1,102]

Our local public library has an extensive DVD collection, including both popular movies and more obscure, PBS specials to the latest HBO dramas.  It's quite popular.  There are also those little Red Box stations at drugstores and groceries which charge a dollar a night.  That happens to be the late fee for the library's DVDs, so I sometimes tell people who mention renting from RedBox that I get the same deal, except the first week is free!  (Often the first three weeks unless it's new stuff....)  And, as I said, there's a Family Video near here which seems to be doing quite well.

I'm a little surprised the On Demand and streaming services haven't offered any of the extras that are on the DVDs, but I suspect it's in the contract for the DVD releases that such material be restricted to their format, as a way to get people to buy the DVDs.  And it works, too -- the main reason I buy DVDs these days is for the extras, going so far as at get Doctor Who DVDs from the UK because they have more commentary tracks than the American releases.

[RainbowWizard 35]

http://imgur.com/wKqjYy3

 

Hello 2046 people!

[ijuin 572]

1 hour ago, CritterKeeper said:

  And it works, too -- the main reason I buy DVDs these days is for the extras, going so far as at get Doctor Who DVDs from the UK because they have more commentary tracks than the American releases.

ehahe

 

I've been wondering about compatibility issues regarding buying DVDs from UK/Europe--do you need only a DVD player with the correct region encoding, or do you also need a TV set that can display PAL or whatever digital format has replaced it? As far as I know, my own TV can only display ATSC/NTSC . . .

[hkmaly 490]

4 hours ago, ijuin said:

6 hours ago, CritterKeeper said:

And it works, too -- the main reason I buy DVDs these days is for the extras, going so far as at get Doctor Who DVDs from the UK because they have more commentary tracks than the American releases.

ehahe

 

I've been wondering about compatibility issues regarding buying DVDs from UK/Europe--do you need only a DVD player with the correct region encoding, or do you also need a TV set that can display PAL or whatever digital format has replaced it? As far as I know, my own TV can only display ATSC/NTSC . . .

Legally, you are not supposed to buy DVD from other regions at all. Technically, you should ignore DVD players, buy a computer DVD drive, rip the DVD, convert to MPEG4 and watch where you want.