Story Friday August 5, 2016

[Drachefly 30]

Why didn't Disco Wizard assume that the notes she had from the previous incarnation were themselves preserved from a previous incarnation?

[jmucchiello 8]

So when does she decide she's going to fix this by changing "magic's mind" about magic being open?

[Scotty 1,061]

11 minutes ago, Drachefly said:

Why didn't Disco Wizard assume that the notes she had from the previous incarnation were themselves preserved from a previous incarnation?

Disco Wizard did assume that Immortals had forgotten about magic having a will, plus as he said, the spell he's using only lets him know who Grace is when in her dreams and pretty much only the details of what needs to be said. He knows that he's dealing with an Immortal, but very likely doesn't know which Immortal, and Pandora's probably been able to lay low long enough for most Immortals to have reset at least once or twice, maybe even thrice. The fact that he detected a bit of instability might have hinted to him that she's overdue but he wouldn't really know how long overdue. The fact she was recalling info from her previous life and the fact that he knows when the last change was would be a good indicator of how old she currently is.

Question, is there an event in real history of a warmongering horde surprisingly getting slaughtered by the defense?

[Tom Sewell 268]

13 minutes ago, jmucchiello said:

So when does she decide she's going to fix this by changing "magic's mind" about magic being open?

Doubtful. Doing so wouldn't involve any other of the main characters, except maybe Adrian and Edward, and that's assuming she could make direct contact with "magic's mind." Maybe her best tactic would be getting Edward back in charge of the Wierdness Squad in Moperville or maybe of the whole operation. Arthur's clearly not helping matters.

And who wouldn't like to see Arthur J. Arthur come up against Pandora?

Another great tactic would be taking out Sirleck, because raining down Hell might attract even more attention to magic. While Sirleck seems to know that the immortal working with Magus is a "she," I don't remember him ever mentioning her name, and I don't remember Pandora ever mentioning him. Going back once again to the title page,  Sirleck seems to be behind Pandora, which implies she isn't aware of him. If she was aware of him, he'd be dead now, really most sincerely dead, if for no other reason that he'd be a potential threat to Adrian. Perhaps the reason Immortals hate his variety of abomination most because they have trouble detecting them. Pandora could have assumed Sirleck's host was just another rich old bastard--which he likely was when alive. Sirleck's animation of his brain-dead body might even seem an improvement over the original to his receptionist.

[delta 1]

So, I usually just lurk here, but this update made me wonder something after looking over some old comics recently. 

Assuming that Tedd is one of the "rare type of wizard" who wouldn't be affected by a system change (which seems very plausible), is it possible that just such a change occurred in Lord Tedd's dimension, and helped him become, well, 'Lordly'? I'm doubtful that plot thread will come up again soon, but it strikes me that being virtually the only human left with working knowledge of magic would be a very big advantage if you were interested in rising to power. The chance of other humans being depowered made me question it, but I actually think the only magic users confirmed to be from that dimension were seyunolu (Nioi, and possibly Shade Tail).

[Scotty 1,061]

1 minute ago, Tom Sewell said:

Arthur's clearly not helping matters.

Arthur Arthur may not care about trying to cover up magic's existence anymore, but "the accessibility of magic has always been the real secret." which falls in line with Magic's will to not go mainstream. Does this mean some people in DGB are aware of magic's will and system changes? or is it something that was told to the organization at it's founding and it's become a vague thing that they must do or else bad stuff would happen?

So Arthur and Disco Wizard have similar goals, but at least it seems Disco Wizard wants to try to do it with little to no casualties whereas Arthur doesn't seem to care if there are any casualties as long as the secret is maintained.

[PSadlon 88]

4 hours ago, Aura Guardian said:

http://www.egscomics.com/?id=2223

He So, Pandora confirmed as behind the change? Also, Tedd confirmed as a wizard - but how does Disco Wizard know of that type of wizard?

He speaks for magic and magic would know more about itself than anyone else.

[hkmaly 490]

4 hours ago, Zorua said:

So...show of hands. Who here thinks Tedd "more dangerous rarity" Verres is this rare type of wizard?

Raises hand.

4 hours ago, Arcanimus said:

Did not expect a simple conversation in Grace's dream to have such great plot relevance...

... this was the least likely income I would predict. Pandora doing 180 turn and now going to STOP it?

3 hours ago, Tom Sewell said:

And Grace. Yes, the Q&A before this arc began spent a lot of time explaining how it would be ridiculously hard for Grace to gain human-style magic spells...but that all depends on magic working in the way it is now, doesn't it?

I think it's hard for Grace because how the URYUOM magic works. Just changing earth magic won't help.

3 hours ago, Tom Sewell said:

You know, either Moperverse Earth has a radically different history or a really big reality quake that changed its past. Armies of fire-mages don't seem to have made it into our own history. Oh, it was in the other half of Earth? But wasn't it established by Lady Andrea that both halves share the same magic?

They didn't made it into our history because their magic failed.

Other half of Earth seem to have magic as public knowledge. So, either magic doesn't care how many mages are on the other half but cares here, or the rules ARE different.

2 hours ago, Scotty said:

I don't know if she'll be able to unmark anyone without awakening them, but chances are, those that were marked, like Sarah, might not have enough of their own energy pool to be able to cast their spells after Pandora fixes the clog so they'll likely believe it was just some temporary thing (other than Sarah who had a fairly in depth discussion with Pandora about her spell and stuff). Justin's already been awakened, but it would really depend on how much of an energy pool he had developed in ASMA training.

Poor Sarah ... she barely got the spell ...

But, note that Pandora mentioned how rare such powerful spell is. Most people she marked would have it much easier to cast the spell even without the energy pool. Although ... some might not and others might stop using it if it wouldn't be reliable enough ...

2 hours ago, Scotty said:

I get the feeling though that it won't be easy for Pandora to fix this, and I'm wondering if Voltaire is pro-system change.

I suppose she can unclog the clog ... but would it really be enough? Especially considering even after uncloging it may take some time before the levels of magic got to normal.

2 hours ago, Scotty said:

I'm guessing people like Tedd are rare because they'd be a form of safeguard to prevent magic from being completely forgotten. I wonder if they are born at a certain interval, like 1 every century, or only when there is a possibility of a system change.

While precognition is a possibility, note that Tedd was born before the possibility of a system change appeared. I think they are just rare and in case of magic being completely forgotten they can rediscover it.

1 hour ago, Tuscahoma said:

Of course, there is the matter of how will Pandora fix things?  She wants to give her family a changed world, where Magic is used openly, but Magic doesn't want many people using it.  So... let's eliminate a whole bunch of people?  Let's cause a crash in civilization so most people are too busy surviving to learn about magic

Hmmmm ... would it be possible that on the other half of Earth there is no problem with magic being openly used because the population there is lower?

1 hour ago, jmucchiello said:

So when does she decide she's going to fix this by changing "magic's mind" about magic being open?

... it would be great if Pandora would have such power ... I mean, great for her. And maybe for Sarah and Adrian ... maybe.

27 minutes ago, delta said:

Assuming that Tedd is one of the "rare type of wizard" who wouldn't be affected by a system change (which seems very plausible), is it possible that just such a change occurred in Lord Tedd's dimension, and helped him become, well, 'Lordly'? I'm doubtful that plot thread will come up again soon, but it strikes me that being virtually the only human left with working knowledge of magic would be a very big advantage if you were interested in rising to power. The chance of other humans being depowered made me question it, but I actually think the only magic users confirmed to be from that dimension were seyunolu (Nioi, and possibly Shade Tail).

I think Tedd's magic technology is OP enough to make him Lord even without other magic users being depowered.

26 minutes ago, Scotty said:

Arthur Arthur may not care about trying to cover up magic's existence anymore, but "the accessibility of magic has always been the real secret." which falls in line with Magic's will to not go mainstream. Does this mean some people in DGB are aware of magic's will and system changes? or is it something that was told to the organization at it's founding and it's become a vague thing that they must do or else bad stuff would happen?

You probably meant this link. And while the organization being against making accessibility of magic secret MIGHT be something remembered from it's founding, it's also completely possible they are just afraid what could this knowledge being in open do to civilization.

25 minutes ago, PSadlon said:

He speaks for magic and magic would know more about itself than anyone else.

He speaks FOR magic. He doesn't have all knowledge magic has.

[Tom Sewell 268]

43 minutes ago, Scotty said:

Arthur and Disco Wizard have similar goals, but at least it seems Disco Wizard wants to try to do it with little to no casualties whereas Arthur doesn't seem to care if there are any casualties as long as the secret is maintained.

If Arthur J. Arthur's real goal is keeping the accessibility of magic secret, he sure seems to be doing a lousy job, doesn't he? Maybe the real long-term goal is to provoke The Change and take away all those neat superpowers--uh, magic powers. I wonder if Syndrome has a contract with the DGJ...

[Douglas 16]

Magic whale: Tedd is "not a spellcaster" (exact wording).

Disco Wizard: rare type of wizard unaffected "because they don't get spells in the first--"

 

Yeah, Tedd is definitely this rare type of wizard. My guess is that the basic principle is that Tedd has a more low level and direct connection to magic than normal wizards - a normal magic user has various prepackaged spells that do specific defined things, while Tedd bypasses that and metaphorically tells magic what he wants to do and magic goes and does it, whatever arbitrary thing it happens to be (provided Tedd can supply enough energy).

 

It seems to me that Pandora would normally be very excited about the idea of magic changing the rules - talk about a great source of chaos and unpredictability! The problem is that it would leave Raven unable to use magic, and thus vulnerable, and Pandora wouldn't have any better idea than anyone else about how to teach him the new rules because no one would know the new rules for a while. Very frustrating for her, I'm sure.

[Scotty 1,061]

13 minutes ago, hkmaly said:

You probably meant this link. And while the organization being against making accessibility of magic secret MIGHT be something remembered from it's founding, it's also completely possible they are just afraid what could this knowledge being in open do to civilization.

Whoops, fixed the link, coulda sword I copied that right page, I even linked it to someone else shortly after posting that.

Yeah, it's possible because even without the possibility of a system change, public knowledge of magic and how to get spells would cause widespread chaos, a system change would be much better compared to that. Still seems like a coincidence. Shortly after the first incident with Cheerleadra and the fire golem, someone who we assume is Arthur, says "adapt or die", At first I had thought it meant "well, we can't keep magic a secret anymore so we must focus on keeping it's accessibility a secret." But I'm thinking there's something deeper about it now

19 minutes ago, Tom Sewell said:

If Arthur J. Arthur's real goal is keeping the accessibility of magic secret, he sure seems to be doing a lousy job, doesn't he? Maybe the real long-term goal is to provoke The Change and take away all those neat superpowers--uh, magic powers. I wonder if Syndrome has a contract with the DGB...

I think if Arthur wanted to provoke a system change, he'd be having the agents go out more often, but that would mean him and the agents would be affected by the system change too. Earth has been lucky that the alien contact they've had soo far has been friendly, having magic could have been what had Humans and Uryuoms on even footing if you can compare magic to tech level. Having magic change would be like having the world's powergrid fail, sure they'd be able to get it back eventually, but they're vulnerable until they do.

[SeriousJupiter 49]

To quote Sid the Sloth: "This is either really good or really bad."

So, Pandora realized that her master plan is about to fail and has now decided to fix the damage she's done. Great, but how is she going to do that, exactly? I very much doubt that magic marks can be removed without Awakening their owners. I think all Pandora can do right now is unclog the magic drain, assuming that she's the one who clogged it in the first place, but then what? Will she finally tell Adrian what she's done and ask him to help everyone she's marked? Or will she do something incredibly stupid like try to change the mind of magic?

Hmm... I was under the impression that Pandora had never reset at all, but clearly I was wrong. She had already reset at least once back when she was getting bored with her current life before she met Blaike all those centuries ago. I assume she spent her first life/lives playing with mortals for fun just like she used to do in this life. Perhaps the only truly noteworthy thing that happened during her previous life was the magic system change.

Also, it seems that perhaps Tedd is a wizard after all. An unusual wizard, but a wizard nonetheless. Nice, now I can stop calling him a mutant.

2 hours ago, Scotty said:

Ah ha, Tedd's "dangerous rarity" must mean that he's not only immune to a system change, but would likely be able to quickly determine what has changed and how to adjust.

I'm guessing people like Tedd are rare because they'd be a form of safeguard to prevent magic from being completely forgotten. I wonder if they are born at a certain interval, like 1 every century, or only when there is a possibility of a system change.

It's possible... Or then they are just really, really rare. Like, maybe less than one percent of all wizards are like Tedd, but that doesn't necessarily mean that they are in any way tied to magic system changes.

2 hours ago, Tuscahoma said:

And so Magic gets what It was really after, a little sit down talk with Pandora via It's Emissary, showing that Pandora isn't the only one who can lay convoluted plans.

Of course, there is the matter of how will Pandora fix things?  She wants to give her family a changed world, where Magic is used openly, but Magic doesn't want many people using it.  So... let's eliminate a whole bunch of people?  Let's cause a crash in civilization so most people are too busy surviving to learn about magic?  I know, let's blind people so they can't read and release a whole bunch of carnivorous plants, oh wait, that was Day of the Triffids, different Immortal Tantrum.  Just saying, "fixing things" for an Immortal who is Chaotic and perhaps Insane might not be so fun.

I don't think Pandora is that insane. I still consider her a villain of a sort, but I doubt she would kill everyone she's marked in the past few months just to stop magic from changing. Of course, she's not even allowed to do that and even if she were, there's no guarantee that it would work and she would definitely know that.

1 hour ago, Drachefly said:

Why didn't Disco Wizard assume that the notes she had from the previous incarnation were themselves preserved from a previous incarnation?

Disco Wizard most likely knows more about immortals than we do, so perhaps immortals can only remember information from their previous incarnation.

1 hour ago, delta said:

Assuming that Tedd is one of the "rare type of wizard" who wouldn't be affected by a system change (which seems very plausible), is it possible that just such a change occurred in Lord Tedd's dimension, and helped him become, well, 'Lordly'? I'm doubtful that plot thread will come up again soon, but it strikes me that being virtually the only human left with working knowledge of magic would be a very big advantage if you were interested in rising to power. The chance of other humans being depowered made me question it, but I actually think the only magic users confirmed to be from that dimension were seyunolu (Nioi, and possibly Shade Tail).

That's a pretty good theory. However, I'd like to point out that Lord Tedd, Nioi and Shade Tail are the ONLY people we've even seen from Lord Tedd's dimension. Well, there's also Kaoli, but we haven't actually seen her in person.

[hkmaly 490]

51 minutes ago, Douglas said:

Yeah, Tedd is definitely this rare type of wizard. My guess is that the basic principle is that Tedd has a more low level and direct connection to magic than normal wizards - a normal magic user has various prepackaged spells that do specific defined things, while Tedd bypasses that and metaphorically tells magic what he wants to do and magic goes and does it, whatever arbitrary thing it happens to be (provided Tedd can supply enough energy).

Hmmmm ... so far, he didn't shown anything else than ability to analyze magic and create magic devices. But, would ability to manipulate magic low-level really be so more "gamebreaking" than ability to create wand with any spell?

53 minutes ago, Douglas said:

It seems to me that Pandora would normally be very excited about the idea of magic changing the rules - talk about a great source of chaos and unpredictability! The problem is that it would leave Raven unable to use magic, and thus vulnerable, and Pandora wouldn't have any better idea than anyone else about how to teach him the new rules because no one would know the new rules for a while. Very frustrating for her, I'm sure.

Not only Adrian Raven (in fact, we are still not sure if he would be affected, but probably yes), but also rest of her "family" - with the exception of Tedd (and she might've missed that remark) everyone who she marked would now lose ...

43 minutes ago, Scotty said:

a system change would be much better compared to that.

Better for WHOM? DGB, sure. Adrian Raven, not really.

44 minutes ago, Scotty said:

I think if Arthur wanted to provoke a system change, he'd be having the agents go out more often, but that would mean him and the agents would be affected by the system change too.

Keeping agents inside would STILL make them affected. Magic reboot would put DGB outside business.

45 minutes ago, Scotty said:

Earth has been lucky that the alien contact they've had soo far has been friendly, having magic could have been what had Humans and Uryuoms on even footing if you can compare magic to tech level.

Relatively friendly. As far as we know. But yes: in any contact with aliens, magic would be extremely important, especially if they wouldn't be able to use it just like Uryuoms.

[Douglas 16]

20 minutes ago, hkmaly said:

Hmmmm ... so far, he didn't shown anything else than ability to analyze magic and create magic devices. But, would ability to manipulate magic low-level really be so more "gamebreaking" than ability to create wand with any spell?

In theory, such an ability could go as far as effectively being able to cast any arbitrary spell on zero notice, being the true ultimate in magic versatility. You can't learn and counter his abilities because he can pull new abilities out of thin air at will. Meanwhile, he can perfectly counter whatever you've got the moment he knows about it.

True, Tedd hasn't shown anything beyond analyzing magic, disenchanting himself, and creating devices, and I might be speculating too far, but Tedd himself doesn't know his own abilities and might not have tried to do anything else with magic.

[Scotty 1,061]

29 minutes ago, hkmaly said:

Better for WHOM? DGB, sure. Adrian Raven, not really.

I meant in terms of would you rather have magic disrupted for a decade or two but otherwise life goes on? Or mass destruction because some jerks ended up with atomic breath?

[Stature 96]

5 hours ago, Scotty said:

I'm giving myself all the cookies.

Granted, but you get the ones that went stale a month ago. There are not much guessing games here.

Previous self sounds odd and her eyes dilating looks odd. Granted, Sirleck is not yet around.

[ijuin 572]

6 hours ago, Scotty said:

I'm not saying that Pandora wouldn't try something else for Adrian though but maybe it wouldn't be as extreme.

She still definitely wants a world where he can fight for his ideals in the open, but she's just been informed that the "Make Magic more widespread in general" plan is A Bad Idea, so she is probably going to come up with a new plan.

[PSadlon 88]

5 hours ago, hkmaly said:

He speaks FOR magic. He doesn't have all knowledge magic has.

True though it is highly likely magic granted him a significantly broad amount of access to any relevant information should it prove necessary.

[partner555 170]

9 hours ago, Ranma_2k8 said:

Huh.  So just by explaining to her why her plan is a bad idea, Pandora changes her mind and decides to fix the whole thing.  Who knew the crazy immortal could be so reasonable?

She's being reasonable because now she realises her masterplan has no chance of achieving her desired goal of helping Adrian do whatever he wants.

8 hours ago, inqntrol said:

She better start unmarking the people who got marks from her, there's probably lots of them, besides Tedd, Sarah, good Tom etc.

And would she even unmark someone? Is that even possible?

7 hours ago, Drachefly said:

Why didn't Disco Wizard assume that the notes she had from the previous incarnation were themselves preserved from a previous incarnation?

Pandora said her previous self, she didn't say a previous self. The former phrasing implies it was her directly previous self compared to the latter phrasing, I would think.

[Don Edwards 548]

7 hours ago, Tom Sewell said:

Perhaps the reason Immortals hate his //Sirleck's// variety of abomination most because they have trouble detecting them. Pandora could have assumed Sirleck's host was just another rich old bastard--which he likely was when alive. Sirleck's animation of his brain-dead body might even seem an improvement over the original to his receptionist.

The vampire that Susan and Nanase dealt with in France, modified his own body.

Tengu modified his own body.

Spidey modified his own body.

Sirleck arranges to take over someone else's body.

That makes it MUCH harder for most beings to dispose of Sirleck without also killing an innocent.

At the moment, Sirleck's host is (allegedly) brain-dead anyway, so there may not be a big moral dilemma with killing that host. On the other hand, nobody except Sirleck knows that.

[Scotty 1,061]

5 hours ago, Don Edwards said:

Tengu modified his own body.

Not_Tengu was not a vampire, he was just some jerk that learned he could enchant people to be his slaves and could also shapeshift. He never mentioned anything about needing to feed.

[The Old Hack 2,448]

5 hours ago, Don Edwards said:

At the moment, Sirleck's host is (allegedly) brain-dead anyway, so there may not be a big moral dilemma with killing that host.

Here now! With that sort of attitude, you could just walk into Danish Parliament and start killing from one end of the assembly to the other, and...

...I'm sorry, I thought I had a point but I forget where I was going with it.

[Arcanimus 31]

2 hours ago, The Old Hack said:

Here now! With that sort of attitude, you could just walk into Danish Parliament and start killing from one end of the assembly to the other, and...

...I'm sorry, I thought I had a point but I forget where I was going with it.

The same thing could be said with most politicians' offices.

[Tom Sewell 268]

9 hours ago, Don Edwards said:

Sirleck arranges to take over someone else's body.

That makes it MUCH harder for most beings to dispose of Sirleck without also killing an innocent.

Assuming that "most" beings have consciences, yes. I totally missed the possibility that killing Sirleck would mean killing his host. Totally, and I've seen The Hidden.

[Xenophon Hendrix 47]

23 hours ago, Aura Guardian said:

http://www.egscomics.com/?id=2223

So, Pandora confirmed as behind the change? Also, Tedd confirmed as a wizard - but how does Disco Wizard know of that type of wizard?

Perhaps the Emissary is Edward's subconscious mind. Edward must be gaining some inkling of what Tedd really is by now. When he wakes up from his and Grace's shared dreams, he forgets that he is the Emissary. From a meta perspective, the idea is efficient in terms of character development and plot, and Edward is Gandalf-Merlin, which fits the Emissary's outfit.