Story Friday July 29, 2016

[The Old Hack 2,448]

To be fair, in Methuselah's Children one of the main reasons Lazarus Long started to feel worn down by his centuries wasn't because he had gotten bored with life but because of the constant and repeated injury of outliving the people he loved. This, at least, is what I see as a main danger of near immortality -- once you have lost someone close to yourself again and again and again, you start to grow wary of getting that close to people.

Maybe it is because I've just lost a close friend of my own. But it seems to me a more likely factor than mere boredom.

[Tom Sewell 268]

3 hours ago, The Old Hack said:

To be fair, in Methuselah's Children one of the main reasons Lazarus Long started to feel worn down by his centuries wasn't because he had gotten bored with life but because of the constant and repeated injury of outliving the people he loved.

Okay, for those of you on this forum who are asking themselves "Methuselah's Children? Lazarus Long?", The Old Hack is referring to a work and a character created by Robert Heinlein. Lazarus Long is pretty clearly an alter-ego of Heinlein, who may have felt he'd outlived his own time when he created the character.

[hkmaly 490]

11 hours ago, Drasvin said:

His stated goal is to prevent the magical system change and Pandora is one of, if not the main cause of that threat. If he can, by some shred of luck or miracle, convince her of the gravity of the consequences of her apocalypse and get her to stop, then he's completed his objective before things get too out of hand.

Technically true. But he may also assume convincing her is not possible, view her as enemy and trying to hide information from her because of that.

11 hours ago, Drasvin said:

19 hours ago, hkmaly said:

Did she really put anyone in danger if she predicted with 95% they will survive? Or maybe 99.9999% ... (that's the precision she predicted her sleep with).

Assuming she didn't do anything to induce uncertainty into the situation, maybe. Maybe not. She can predict wrongly and has been surprised before, and I don't trust her to not induce uncertainty into the situation. She cares deeply for her family, but she's also crazy and dangerously unstable.

That only means the "if" needs to be taken literally instead of rhetorically. I would assume that she's less likely to introduce uncertainty into situation when her family might be in danger, but on the other hand, she's crazy, so we can't count on that.

11 hours ago, CritterKeeper said:

Note that, as a long-time fan of Highlander, Methuselah's Children, and Forever Knight and a number of other series with near-Immortal protagonists, I've thought about this more than I probably should, and I don't find this a likely outcome.

Generally, yes. Pandora (EGS immortals) case is specific because the boredom is not caused just by living too long, but also by getting more powerful and better at predicting. Magic predicting, not just the Sherlock Holmes kind (we will ignore now that in many cases, even Sherlock Holmes predicted things without enough information to explain it by intelligence alone).

7 hours ago, The Old Hack said:

once you have lost someone close to yourself again and again and again, you start to grow wary of getting that close to people.

Note that while avoiding getting close to anyone might be psychologically dangerous, some immortals DO have the option to only get close to others of their own kind. Not the Highlander ones, maybe, but Helena and Demetrius may be good example in EGS.

[Tom Sewell 268]

2 hours ago, hkmaly said:

Helena and Demetrius may be good example in EGS

Helen and Demetrius might be siblings. If they are, they have parents, which raises the question, who? It's never been said that Adrian is Pandora's only child.

The Shive has only shown us five Immortals so far; Helen and Demetrius are the only ones who've been shown working and apparently living together. From what Jerry said, it seems Immortals usually avoid one another. Why would they do that? Well, if Immortals are magic-dependent, they might need ambient magical energy just to exist, or at least to function at "full power." Perhaps the "convention" at the Mall was made possible by that pesky magic clog. 

[hkmaly 490]

1 hour ago, Tom Sewell said:

Helen and Demetrius might be siblings. If they are, they have parents, which raises the question, who?

MIGHT. The question of if immortals have parents and can have immortal children is still open.

1 hour ago, Tom Sewell said:

Helen and Demetrius are the only ones who've been shown working and apparently living together.

Yes. On the other hand, five immortals are not exactly big group if we try to make assumptions ...

1 hour ago, Tom Sewell said:

Why would they do that? Well, if Immortals are magic-dependent, they might need ambient magical energy just to exist, or at least to function at "full power."

... or they just usually can't stand each other for long.

But yes, it's good question: do immortals need ambient magic? Did Pandora caused the clog just so people she marks will have easier access to magic, or does she need some magic for marking itself and higher ambient magic is helping her?

1 hour ago, Tom Sewell said:

Perhaps the "convention" at the Mall was made possible by that pesky magic clog. 

Definitely no. The "convention" lasted few minutes top and the immortals were barely doing anything.

And Helena and Demetrius (yes, Helena, the "a" is there) were already together in France, so it can't be THAT much problem for two immortals being together.

 

[StarCreator 2]

So I did a reread of the past few arcs and have started to wonder... we have no reason to doubt Disco Wizard believes he's the emissary of magic, but what if this belief is a deception? Perhaps on the part of another Immortal that we have known to be deceptive?

[CritterKeeper 1,102]

18 hours ago, The Old Hack said:

To be fair, in Methuselah's Children one of the main reasons Lazarus Long started to feel worn down by his centuries wasn't because he had gotten bored with life but because of the constant and repeated injury of outliving the people he loved. This, at least, is what I see as a main danger of near immortality -- once you have lost someone close to yourself again and again and again, you start to grow wary of getting that close to people.

Maybe it is because I've just lost a close friend of my own. But it seems to me a more likely factor than mere boredom.

I see this with pets all the time.  Someone has a beloved pet for fifteen years, and they tell me, "That's it, this is the last time, it's just too hard losing them."  And then they show up about a year later with a new puppy or kitten.

We need time to mourn and heal after a loss.  But the joys and rewards of having someone in our lives far outweigh the pain of losing them.  Someone who's twenty could look at someone who's sixty and feel sorry for all the people they've lost, but the ninty-year-old is looking at that same sixty-year-old and seeing all the life they have left to live, all the friend they'll make and places they still have time to go,

Maybe someone who's lost their tenth spouse will mourn them for a decade or two, but eventually, they'll meet someone they click with.  Love isn't something you can avoid forever.

11 hours ago, hkmaly said:

Pandora (EGS immortals) case is specific because the boredom is not caused just by living too long, but also by getting more powerful and better at predicting. Magic predicting, not just the Sherlock Holmes kind

Now this I can see.  If magic is constantly whispering spoilers in your ear, it's a lot harder to enjoy seeing the story unfold.

11 hours ago, hkmaly said:

(we will ignore now that in many cases, even Sherlock Holmes predicted things without enough information to explain it by intelligence alone).

Sherlock may just not have shared all of his sources of information. ;-)

[The Old Hack 2,448]

12 minutes ago, CritterKeeper said:

I see this with pets all the time.  Someone has a beloved pet for fifteen years, and they tell me, "That's it, this is the last time, it's just too hard losing them."  And then they show up about a year later with a new puppy or kitten.

We need time to mourn and heal after a loss.  But the joys and rewards of having someone in our lives far outweigh the pain of losing them.  Someone who's twenty could look at someone who's sixty and feel sorry for all the people they've lost, but the ninty-year-old is looking at that same sixty-year-old and seeing all the life they have left to live, all the friend they'll make and places they still have time to go,

Maybe someone who's lost their tenth spouse will mourn them for a decade or two, but eventually, they'll meet someone they click with.  Love isn't something you can avoid forever.

I understand your viewpoint and to a large part I agree with it. I think it is just a little harder for me right now because I am in the middle of it. In a year or so I may feel like that again.

[Tom Sewell 268]

19 hours ago, hkmaly said:

The "convention" lasted few minutes top and the immortals were barely doing anything.

Hmm. Doesn't that actually support my hypothesis? That they weren't able to do much, even remain visible for more than a few minutes?

It's all up to The Shive, of course.

[hkmaly 490]

7 hours ago, Tom Sewell said:

On 07/30/2016 at 0:28 AM, hkmaly said:

The "convention" lasted few minutes top and the immortals were barely doing anything.

Hmm. Doesn't that actually support my hypothesis? That they weren't able to do much, even remain visible for more than a few minutes?

No. Because we don't know if they weren't ABLE to do much or if they simply choose to not do much because it wouldn't help. Specifically, they remained visible as long as they needed (not speaking about the open question if being visible - or NOT being visible - requires energy from them; maybe they only require energy to change state).

20 hours ago, CritterKeeper said:

Quote

(we will ignore now that in many cases, even Sherlock Holmes predicted things without enough information to explain it by intelligence alone).

Sherlock may just not have shared all of his sources of information. ;-)

Yeah, like those seers working for him

I don't remember where it was, but I read some explanations with examples how some things wouldn't be possible to deduce ... but note I'm not sure if it referred to original Sherlock Holmes or some later adaptation.

[CritterKeeper 1,102]

54 minutes ago, hkmaly said:

I don't remember where it was, but I read some explanations with examples how some things wouldn't be possible to deduce ... but note I'm not sure if it referred to original Sherlock Holmes or some later adaptation.

Probably a newer adaptation.  I speak as a Past President of the Double-Barreled Tiger Cubs, the U of I's Sherlock Holmes club.  It was mostly run by one particular staff member, with the presidency given to student members to retain access to campus facilities and give them something for their résumés, but even just being a member for four years I learned a lot.  There are people who make a game out of explaining everything in the books, taking it varying degrees of seriously, and they've had more than a century to work on this.  Take a look at The Annotated Sherlock Holmes some time, it's mind-boggling how much people have come up with through the years.  I'm pretty sure that any inconsistencies or discrepancies have long since been explained away.  Geekdom has been around a long time!  :-)

 

(The Tiger Cubs name comes from a scene shortly after Dr. Watson meets Mary, his future wife.  He got so flustered talking to he that she swears he told her a moving anecdote from his war days about how a musket peeked into his tent, and he frightened it away by firing a double-barreled tiger cub....)