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      Welcome!   03/05/2016

      Welcome, everyone, to the new 910CMX Community Forums. I'm still working on getting them running, so things may change.  If you're a 910 Comic creator and need your forum recreated, let me know and I'll get on it right away.  I'll do my best to make this new place as fun as the last one!
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NP Friday August 12, 2016

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1 hour ago, WR...S said:

...um.

Let's not get into the debate of whether to call a trans person by their assigned gender or their self-identified gender. That way lie flamewars. People like Rich may insist "you are whatever you were born as", but Larry may be more open-minded--note that Larry still thought that girl-Tedd was hot even after confronted with the idea that Tedd was genderbending.

On Pandora, gambling, and what use an Immortal may have for human money: It's not like she is going to use her magic to conjure up everything that she ever uses. Maybe she likes to go to a restaurant and eat something made by somebody other than herself once in a while. Maybe her magic isn't so good at duplicating super-complicated objects such as computers, so she would buy her own video game equipment to play (she has been shown to be pretty well-versed in current pop culture such as games and television programs, so I wouldn't be surprised if she partakes of such entertainment to stave off the boredom). Having ultra-powerful magic doesn't mean that she never wants to acquire anything made/owned by humans, and she doesn't seem to be the type to simply steal everything if trading for it is possible.

On zombies: Edward explained that classical "undeadness" was not known to be magically possible. It's likely that attempts to do so would result in corpse-golems--they would walk around and perform simple tasks for the Mage who animated them (maybe even acting as a cannon-fodder army), and in general act similar to summoned monsters, but they would not have souls or minds, and would not spread their condition to their victims. (Do take note that "not known to be possible" is not the same as "known to be impossible"--sending things back in time is known to be prohibited, and there's probably magical theories to explain why, but things that are "not known to be possible" may simply be that nobody has ever been proven to have done it.)

 

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6 hours ago, ijuin said:

Let's not get into the debate of whether to call a trans person by their assigned gender or their self-identified gender. That way lie flamewars.

The Moderator: No, it does not. There is no debate on these forums at all. Trans people get referred to by their self-identified gender here. Deliberately denying them their personal identity and lived experience is transphobic and hence against the forum rules. Anyone who does not respect this will first get warned and if they do not heed this eventually banned.

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7 hours ago, ijuin said:

On zombies: Edward explained that classical "undeadness" was not known to be magically possible. It's likely that attempts to do so would result in corpse-golems--they would walk around and perform simple tasks for the Mage who animated them (maybe even acting as a cannon-fodder army), and in general act similar to summoned monsters, but they would not have souls or minds, and would not spread their condition to their victims. (Do take note that "not known to be possible" is not the same as "known to be impossible"--sending things back in time is known to be prohibited, and there's probably magical theories to explain why, but things that are "not known to be possible" may simply be that nobody has ever been proven to have done it.)

 

 

What he said is that animating the dead in the classic zombie fashion- that is, where a bite from a zombie can turn someone into a zombie themselves- is not known to be possible. What probably is possible is some version of a Inferius from Harry Potter- a dead body, animated by someone's magic, that can be given a task.

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13 hours ago, The Old Hack said:

The Moderator: No, it does not. There is no debate on these forums at all. Trans people get referred to by their self-identified gender here. Deliberately denying them their personal identity and lived experience is transphobic and hence against the forum rules. Anyone who does not respect this will first get warned and if they do not heed this eventually banned.

Thank you. I was saying "flamewars" because in the past such arguing has led to much angry shouting, and was citing that as a reason why we should not "go there". I am absolutely NOT in favor of reviving such a conflict.

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20 hours ago, ijuin said:

On Pandora, gambling, and what use an Immortal may have for human money: It's not like she is going to use her magic to conjure up everything that she ever uses. Maybe she likes to go to a restaurant and eat something made by somebody other than herself once in a while. Maybe her magic isn't so good at duplicating super-complicated objects such as computers, so she would buy her own video game equipment to play (she has been shown to be pretty well-versed in current pop culture such as games and television programs, so I wouldn't be surprised if she partakes of such entertainment to stave off the boredom). Having ultra-powerful magic doesn't mean that she never wants to acquire anything made/owned by humans, and she doesn't seem to be the type to simply steal everything if trading for it is possible.

She may still have enough money from her adventuring career. If she put it in bank on good interest ... :)

But Pandora and gambling is NOT about if she needs human money ; in fact, you don't need to be hundred years old immortal to realize that if you play games that depend mostly on chance, you are going to lose more than you win. If anything, she would SPEND lot of money on gambling in attempts to fight boredom. But, if you don't hope to win, then it's much better (and cheaper) to play games on computer. I think she tried lot of games - especially the ones with lot of randomization and/or multiplayer - but didn't really spend so much time with that because they all quickly proved to be too easy to predict for her.

13 hours ago, sstabeler said:
20 hours ago, ijuin said:

On zombies: Edward explained that classical "undeadness" was not known to be magically possible. It's likely that attempts to do so would result in corpse-golems--they would walk around and perform simple tasks for the Mage who animated them (maybe even acting as a cannon-fodder army), and in general act similar to summoned monsters, but they would not have souls or minds, and would not spread their condition to their victims. (Do take note that "not known to be possible" is not the same as "known to be impossible"--sending things back in time is known to be prohibited, and there's probably magical theories to explain why, but things that are "not known to be possible" may simply be that nobody has ever been proven to have done it.)

 

What he said is that animating the dead in the classic zombie fashion- that is, where a bite from a zombie can turn someone into a zombie themselves- is not known to be possible. What probably is possible is some version of a Inferius from Harry Potter- a dead body, animated by someone's magic, that can be given a task.

He MIGHT be referring specifically to the "zombie apocalypse" scenario which involves zombies turning people into zombies. But his "broken machines which falls apart" angle suggest that the issue is with the dead body itself: that dead body is not resilient enough to be used that way. Notice his alternatives were all LIVING bodies.

Note that summons like Bloodgrem DO have mind and own will. Possibly even soul. So that doesn't seem to be the issue.

Most likely, someone determined to make working zombie would be able to do so, but would basically need to use energy to keep it together and/or alter it in way to be in better state. Possibly more energy than needed for summoning some monsters instead. So, unless it being specifically zombie was part of his plan, it wouldn't make sense.

 

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Yes, if you don't have need of a specific dead person, then it would be more practical to use summoned monsters, or perhaps golems made of something tougher than dead flesh, especially if your method of "raising" them does not restore the memories and skills that the person had in life. And if your goal is to spread a plague-like condition that turns people into your servants (or simply disables them), then there are better ways than to have it spread by biting.

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On 8/13/2016 at 0:01 PM, sstabeler said:

it's worth noting that Larry's plan isn't necessarily as flawed as it seems. Magic certainly can transform someone into a girl, and Elliott's Secret Identity Forms prove that transformation can include the mind, so the only actual reason Larry's plan is flawed is that there is no inherent "male way of thinking" and "female way of thinking"- he could be transformed into Grace, and think like Grace ( which raises interesting philosophical questions about if that is functionally death or not- if someone is completely different, should they be considered the same person? ( legally speaking, they are- death is when the brain irreversibly stops working- but are they really the same person? In EGS, I would say yes, since magic is reversible, even if only by using a spell exactly countering the other(in other words, if someone was permanently transformed, permanently transforming them into their original form again.) in the real world? it's debateable.)) but there's no inherent difference between how Larry and Female Larry would think. ( witness Elliott and Ellen. she thought more-or-less exactly like Elliott, barring a joke about men not asking for directions, until she made a conscious choice to act differently, and nurture caused divergence as time went on.)

 

On 8/13/2016 at 3:16 PM, Xenophon Hendrix said:

Body chemistry influences the mind, and men and women have different body chemistries. A transformation as thorough as the TF gun certainly would influence thinking. The question is how much? I would love to do the experiment.

Larry's simple goal (understanding how an attractive woman thinks) certainly opens up a lot of questions that plague TG writers and stories.  Wouldn't the important question here be how Pandora thinks the spell should work?

It seems to me that the spell would have to give him a female personality, as though he had been born and raised as a girl.  F-Larry (Lori?) might even need female memories so that she could dress and act appropriately.  But then when she changes back to Larry, he would need to remember what she was thinking and feeling.  I'm curious what Larry would then do with that knowledge - I assume at least he would be able to get over the hangups so many guys have in talking to girls.

I'd love to see Lori but it occurs to me that Pandora could give him a spell that is purely a mental change.  That would be interesting...

I hope she does actually give him a spell.  I know we did not see it at the card game but maybe he just had not triggered it yet.  

 

 

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Darn it.  I suppose I should not be surprised.  In the last panel she does call the idea a flawed plan, so it's likely she did not do anything with it.

 

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6 hours ago, Circe said:

It seems to me that the spell would have to give him a female personality, as though he had been born and raised as a girl.  F-Larry (Lori?) might even need female memories so that she could dress and act appropriately.  But then when she changes back to Larry, he would need to remember what she was thinking and feeling.

I think that spell creating so much fake memories isn't THAT easy. Note that Nioi didn't created FAKE memories.

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