NP, Friday July 29, 2016

[hkmaly 490]

4 hours ago, Scotty said:

17 hours ago, ijuin said:

Pandora could give you a gun, and could say all sorts of things to persuade you to use it, but the actual trigger-pull is your own action.

That's pretty much what she did with Sarah, gave her a mark and access to a spell, warned of possible dangers of having it, and then said go nuts.

There are some similarities but luckily Sarah's spell can't be used destructively. At least not directly.

[Scotty 1,061]

5 minutes ago, hkmaly said:

There are some similarities but luckily Sarah's spell can't be used destructively. At least not directly.

There is a potential of Sarah being able to learn the launch codes for ICBMs with her spell if the wrong type of people get a hold of her.

[Amiable Dorsai 70]

October before Goo, huh. Wasn't that about the time Eric left the ASMA dojo?

[Pharaoh RutinTutin 1,586]

4 hours ago, Amiable Dorsai said:

October before Goo, huh.

I thought this was the October AFTER Goo.

In the time skip between Hammerclorians and Squirrel Profit.

The opening note in this arc mentions this taking place in "Late October the Previous Year".  I took that to mean last October, not October two years ago.

[Scotty 1,061]

3 hours ago, Pharaoh RutinTutin said:

I thought this was the October AFTER Goo.

In the time skip between Hammerclorians and Squirrel Profit.

The opening note in this arc mentions this taking place in "Late October the Previous Year".  I took that to mean last October, not October two years ago.

Pretty certain it is last October, the one we didn't see because of the 6 month time skip.

 

[The Old Hack 2,448]

2 hours ago, Scotty said:

Pretty certain it is last October, the one we didn't see because of the 6 month time skip.

 

Meh. We could have seen it easily if we had just bothered. It's just a jump to the left, and then a step to the right...

[CritterKeeper 1,102]

1 hour ago, The Old Hack said:

Meh. We could have seen it easily if we had just bothered. It's just a jump to the left, and then a step to the right...

So that's what really drove you insane!

[Vorlonagent 442]

Let's do it again!

[hkmaly 490]

23 hours ago, Scotty said:

23 hours ago, hkmaly said:

There are some similarities but luckily Sarah's spell can't be used destructively. At least not directly.

There is a potential of Sarah being able to learn the launch codes for ICBMs with her spell if the wrong type of people get a hold of her.

There is a potential of Sarah to learn the launch codes for ICBMs with her spell, which can be used destructively if wrong type of people get a hold of her. But that's not "directly".

 

[The Old Hack 2,448]

2 hours ago, hkmaly said:

There is a potential of Sarah to learn the launch codes for ICBMs with her spell, which can be used destructively if wrong type of people get a hold of her. But that's not "directly".

 

If the wrong type of people get hold of someone with that spell and can somehow control her, they are so powerful they don't need her to get at the codes. If the wrong type of people get hold of Sarah and only think they can control her, they are in a lot more trouble than they can possibly imagine...

[Pharaoh RutinTutin 1,586]

Didn't "the wrong type of people" see Sarah throw that couch?

They would need to be beyond clueless to think they could control her.

[Tom Sewell 268]

On 8/1/2016 at 7:02 PM, hkmaly said:

Only one who can apparently change shape freely is Elliot.

Didn't Grace transform into a half-Jeremy form without the TF gun? The pigtailed-form Tedd transformed into in Squirrel Prophet might have been a form he created with his weird tech earlier, but he doesn't remark on that, despite having huge insights into his new power, including the power to transform others. And Ellen's copy spell can copy anything alive, including cats.

Gee, do you think maybe they all could have a shapechanger ancestor back there somewhere? Maybe even the same one?

[ijuin 572]

Grace has been explicitly stared to have the ability to use any form that she has been previously zapped with. Tedd zapped her with the half-Jeremy form way back before the first Sister arc, so it is part of her list of available form templates.

Elliot, meanwhile, has been shown to be able to change into virtually any "girly" form that he can envision. We do not know the exact limits on size, musculature, proportions, etc., but Elliot may be capable of any form that is reasonably within the bounds of "human woman".

I do not think that any of the Main Eight besides Grace need to have shapeshifter genetics for their transformations--it is all part of their own spells.

[CritterKeeper 1,102]

1 hour ago, ijuin said:

Elliot, meanwhile, has been shown to be able to change into virtually any "girly" form that he can envision. We do not know the exact limits on size, musculature, proportions, etc., but Elliot may be capable of any form that is reasonably within the bounds of "human woman".

Don't forget, Elliot has apparently met the conditions for getting non-girlie spells, too, now.  It might just be that he can assume male forms too, he just hasn't tried it yet.  (Or read his dang spellbook, but to be fair, he definitely has *not* had the chance to since that humming noise from the book.  He gets a pass.  This time. (But he'd better read up on at least the cell phone spell tonight!))

[mlooney 3,417]

7 minutes ago, CritterKeeper said:

Don't forget, Elliot has apparently met the conditions for getting non-girlie spells, too, now.  It might just be that he can assume male forms too, he just hasn't tried it yet.  (Or read his dang spellbook, but to be fair, he definitely has *not* had the chance to since that humming noise from the book.  He gets a pass.  This time. (But he'd better read up on at least the cell phone spell tonight!))

Don't for get that once he said he loved his Cheerleadera form and that it cute and sexy and he was happy with that, his "A Totally Normal Book" went VMM

I'm fairly sure that wasn't the cell phone spell or the GPS upgrade.

 

[Don Edwards 548]

1 hour ago, ijuin said:

Grace has been explicitly stared to have the ability to use any form that she has been previously zapped with. Tedd zapped her with the half-Jeremy form way back before the first Sister arc, so it is part of her list of available form templates.

Elliot, meanwhile, has been shown to be able to change into virtually any "girly" form that he can envision. We do not know the exact limits on size, musculature, proportions, etc., but Elliot may be capable of any form that is reasonably within the bounds of "human woman".

I do not think that any of the Main Eight besides Grace need to have shapeshifter genetics for their transformations--it is all part of their own spells.

And Ellen can transform into any female (possibly restricted to mammals, but definitely not restricted to humans) within line of sight, or V5 herself.

[Scotty 1,061]

2 hours ago, Don Edwards said:

And Ellen can transform into any female (possibly restricted to mammals, but definitely not restricted to humans) within line of sight, or V5 herself.

Ellen is more restricted by the fact that she needs to be nearby the person or animal she wants to copy, if she's in a crowd, not a problem, but alone... Elliot at least has the freedom to change whenever which helped him get out of those ropes at The Nest.

[hkmaly 490]

20 hours ago, The Old Hack said:

If the wrong type of people get hold of someone with that spell and can somehow control her, they are so powerful they don't need her to get at the codes. If the wrong type of people get hold of Sarah and only think they can control her, they are in a lot more trouble than they can possibly imagine...

Well I don't know. You think Sarah would be resistant to that punch not-Tengu was giving out?

Of course, considering who Sarah have for friends, their best strategy would be quickly get the codes, make her forget and pretend they give up (or that it was mistake) and return her.

3 hours ago, Scotty said:

Ellen is more restricted by the fact that she needs to be nearby the person or animal she wants to copy

Yes. It's definitely not "line of sight". She needs to be close.

[mlooney 3,417]

Sarah is tactical, not strategic or operational level recon,  at least with out an infiltration team as support. All 3 are vital, but tactical is normally more urgent, as in "is there a machine gun nest around that corner?"  Life or death sort of things, not "Is Russia having internal disagreements about policy foo" (strategic level) or even "Where are they parking their missiles", which is operational intelligence.  There are 3 levels of warfare and all of them need accurate intelligence, Sarah is optimized for tactical as she is right now, as part of an infiltration team, she could also be useful in strategic  and operational level, in that the team would just need to get close, not actually in side the Place Where The Secrets Are Kept.

[hkmaly 490]

On 08/04/2016 at 2:55 AM, mlooney said:

Sarah is optimized for tactical as she is right now, as part of an infiltration team, she could also be useful in strategic  and operational level, in that the team would just need to get close, not actually in side the Place Where The Secrets Are Kept.

I though launch codes for ICBMs are stored in briefcase carried by some aide just few meters from president. Sarah can go to any public event with president speaking, find the aide, get near but still not near enough to make anyone from secret service suspicious, cast the spell, jump to the aide, rip the briefcase open, look at the codes, end spell and write them down.

Considering not even Pandora can observe what is she doing inside the spell, I'm not sure how would DGB be able to stop her, even if president is in the know.

... of course, that's assuming she will get enough power to cast the spell without being in Moperville. Or that president would visit Moperville.

[ijuin 572]

They can't stop her from obtaining information in that manner, but they can make sure that she is not passing it on to any hostile organizations.

[hkmaly 490]

18 hours ago, ijuin said:

They can't stop her from obtaining information in that manner, but they can make sure that she is not passing it on to any hostile organizations.

I meant they wouldn't even NOTICE she obtained that information.

[ijuin 572]

Exactly. Since they can not tell whether or not she has obtained a given piece of information (short of interrogating her near-constantly with some reliable lie-detection method), they are forced to assume that she might know the contents of ANY document that she comes within range of. That puts them in the dilemma of either exercising prior restraint (i.e. keeping her FAR AWAY from anything that they want to keep her from reading), or else watching to be sure that she is not in communication with any enemies that she might pass sensitive information to. The only alternative to this is to gain her loyalty to their own side sufficiently that they will be able to trust her.

[Don Edwards 548]

Grrl Power has a similar (not identical) problem in that Sydney can use her TrueSight orb to bypass illusions - so they are taking the approach of introducing her to what's behind the illusions under controlled circumstances.

Of course, if they can actually keep something physically out of her sight, then Sydney doesn't see it. That doesn't necessarily work with Sarah.

[mlooney 3,417]

17 minutes ago, Don Edwards said:

Of course, if they can actually keep something physically out of her sight, then Sydney doesn't see it. That doesn't necessarily work with Sarah.

Yes as Peggy demonstrated with a piece of paper made in to a very bad mask.