Story Wednesday October 12, 2016

[Scotty 1,061]

Just now, hkmaly said:

It's "Dex on his own can summon fairies, and that awakening or gaining more power could allow him to summon other stuff without getting brand new spells for each". Small differences in wording, but ...

Yeah, sorry, anyone marked would need to build up enough power to awaken, Dex could be able to summon animal familiars before he awakened. Fire Golems or something similar...ehh...maybe just before he awakens...maybe just after, bulldog dragons definitely post awakening.

[Don Edwards 548]

4 hours ago, Scotty said:

In the case of Dex, yes he was given a fairy mark, yes he can summon a fairy, but that doesn't mean the spell is limited to only fairies, just that Dex on his own can only summon fairies, and that awakening and gaining more power could allow him to summon other stuff without getting brand new spells for each.

I wouldn't even go that far. I'd stop at "Dex on his own is most likely to use the spell to summon fairies - he may or may not be able to summon other objects of similar size".

[hkmaly 490]

14 hours ago, Don Edwards said:

I wouldn't even go that far. I'd stop at "Dex on his own is most likely to use the spell to summon fairies - he may or may not be able to summon other objects of similar size".

I wouldn't call fairy "object". And I actually think Dex's spell can't summon inanimate objects - that it would be bigger difference than between fairy and dragon.

[The Old Hack 2,448]

21 minutes ago, hkmaly said:

I wouldn't call fairy "object". And I actually think Dex's spell can't summon inanimate objects - that it would be bigger difference than between fairy and dragon.

Hrm. At the risk of starting another computer discussion, what if Magic kinda sorta works like an operating system or a programming language? The messenger himself made that comparison in his warning. If so, magic might consider fairies, fake fire elementals and the bulldog dragon to be mobile objects. (I found it hilarious when I learned that slang for a single monster in an MMO was a 'mob' or mobile object. A one-person mob strikes me as a bit small.) Each mobile object might then have a duration, durability in what it could withstand of damage and so forth. It might also have a desummoning condition like Susan's fairies going boom when she sends them away before they expire naturally.

Don't put too much into this if you aren't interested or convinced, though -- this is just a brain fart of mine.

[hkmaly 490]

10 minutes ago, The Old Hack said:

Hrm. At the risk of starting another computer discussion, what if Magic kinda sorta works like an operating system or a programming language? The messenger himself made that comparison in his warning. If so, magic might consider fairies, fake fire elementals and the bulldog dragon to be mobile objects. (I found it hilarious when I learned that slang for a single monster in an MMO was a 'mob' or mobile object. A one-person mob strikes me as a bit small.) Each mobile object might then have a duration, durability in what it could withstand of damage and so forth. It might also have a desummoning condition like Susan's fairies going boom when she sends them away before they expire naturally.

Such explanation might work but not on fairies. Those tend to have little computer knowledge and sometimes even explode electronic when get near.

Note: Magic and programming tend to have LOT common. Starting with both involving obscure languages uninitiated have no chance to understand The major difference is that programs run on computer: magic runs on reality. I already mentioned that "fairy" components common between Dex, Susan and Nanase's spell might be magic equivalent of shared library.

[mlooney 3,417]

1 hour ago, hkmaly said:

I already mentioned that "fairy" components common between Dex, Susan and Nanase's spell might be magic equivalent of shared library.

Given the wide differences in how their spells work, what you have is 3 libraries each designed to do almost exactly the same thing, with just not quite the same API calls.  Sort of like real life.

[hkmaly 490]

5 hours ago, mlooney said:

7 hours ago, hkmaly said:

I already mentioned that "fairy" components common between Dex, Susan and Nanase's spell might be magic equivalent of shared library.

Given the wide differences in how their spells work, what you have is 3 libraries each designed to do almost exactly the same thing, with just not quite the same API calls.  Sort of like real life.

Or that.

(Note that I was explaining the differences by the fact the library is only PART of the spell.)

[Vorlonagent 442]

On 10/16/2016 at 11:00 PM, hkmaly said:

Or that.

(Note that I was explaining the differences by the fact the library is only PART of the spell.)

The differences aren't that big really.  It's all a matter of implementation.  You have a "fairydoll" class.  It flies and is controlled subconsciously with a method call to determine exact appearance.

Dex' version pretty much instantiates the default class. 

Nanase's version instantiates a heavily-edited child class.  A lot of bells and whistles have been added to the base class, like conscious control, some form of permanent, reusable body, and a personal spell, "fae punch"

Because Susan instantiates her version as a copy/paste code-duplicate without access to the class or class history, hers is wonky version of Nanase's where some default features havereappeared. which keep the code from crashing messily, which still happens when Susan uses the "unsummon" method.

[Scotty 1,061]

1 hour ago, Vorlonagent said:

The differences aren't that big really.  It's all a matter of implementation.  You have a "fairydoll" class.  It flies and is controlled subconsciously with a method call to determine exact appearance.

Dex' version pretty much instantiates the default class. 

Nanase's version instantiates a heavily-edited child class.  A lot of bells and whistles have been added to the base class, like conscious control, some form of permanent, reusable body, and a personal spell, "fae punch"

Because Susan instantiates her version as a copy/paste code-duplicate without access to the class or class history, hers is wonky version of Nanase's where some default features havereappeared. which keep the code from crashing messily, which still happens when Susan uses the "unsummon" method.

I believe this supports my belief that the summon spell is just one spell, but what you can summon is determined by a number of variables person to person, the fairy is common because it's the least complex before added all the bells and whistles, seriously, Nanase's fairy avatar is really a summon: fairy on spice from Dune.

[hkmaly 490]

50 minutes ago, Scotty said:

the fairy is common because it's the least complex before added all the bells and whistles

I find hard to believe something WITHOUT flying wouldn't be easier.

[Scotty 1,061]

8 minutes ago, hkmaly said:

I find hard to believe something WITHOUT flying wouldn't be easier.

I meant that it's small enough to not require a lot of energy, the fact that it flies is a trait of the particular summon. The basic fairy summon that Dex used has the "can fly" and "subconsciously controlled" traits, Susan's fairies has those two, plus "gives feedback" and "can be manually controlled", Nanase's fairy dolls are all those plus "persistent entity" "full control" "has abilities", "can link to others" and a bunch of others.

[hkmaly 490]

Just now, Scotty said:

16 minutes ago, hkmaly said:

I find hard to believe something WITHOUT flying wouldn't be easier.

I meant that it's small enough to not require a lot of energy, the fact that it flies is a trait of the particular summon. The basic fairy summon that Dex used has the "can fly" and "subconsciously controlled" traits, Susan's fairies has those two, plus "gives feedback" and "can be manually controlled", Nanase's fairy dolls are all those plus "persistent entity" "full control" "has abilities", "can link to others" and a bunch of others.

The "gives feedback" and "can be manually controlled" is ONE trait, you NEED feedback for manual control.

On the other hand, "has abilities" is not trait at all. The specific abilities are.

[Scotty 1,061]

5 minutes ago, hkmaly said:

The "gives feedback" and "can be manually controlled" is ONE trait, you NEED feedback for manual control.

On the other hand, "has abilities" is not trait at all. The specific abilities are.

Still, my point was that it can be the same spell but with different traits base on skill level as well as the person using the spell. In this case we have 3 people of varying skill, Dex is a beginner having more recently been marked, Susan had been marked for a while and recently awakened, and Nanase who's been awakened for a while. Other factors include how Susan obtained the ability to summon fairies*,  and the fact that Nanase comes from a family who has very strong connections to magic use.

*Yes it is still debatable whether Susan's fairy summons are still a direct use of the "summon whatever I have in a box" spell, or a new standalone spell, I think it is possible that Nanase's fairy doll in the box created the gateway for Susan to be able to get a standalone version.

[Vorlonagent 442]

1 hour ago, Scotty said:

I believe this supports my belief that the summon spell is just one spell, but what you can summon is determined by a number of variables person to person, the fairy is common because it's the least complex before added all the bells and whistles, seriously, Nanase's fairy avatar is really a summon: fairy on spice from Dune.

I'm not sure I see how what I wrote that would support or contradict a one-summon-to-rule-them-all approach.

I was thinking about how Ed Verres describes Bloodgrems as "a common creature as far as summon spells go".  So it seemed to make sense to say there's a "class BloodGrem" in magic.  So three different fairydoll summons need not be so different when we look at the code and circumstances if they all work off the base class. 

I'd agree that you always instantiate a class the same way but I tend to prefer the idea that you need one spell per class you attempt to instantiate.  To my mind, it seems to fit the EGS magic system better.

[Scotty 1,061]

5 minutes ago, Vorlonagent said:

I'm not sure I see how what I wrote that would support or contradict a one-summon-to-rule-them-all approach.

I was thinking about how Ed Verres describes Bloodgrems as "a common creature as far as summon spells go".  So it seemed to make sense to say there's a "class BloodGrem" in magic.  So three different fairydoll summons need not be so different when we look at the code and circumstances if they all work off the base class. 

I'd agree that you always instantiate a class the same way but I tend to prefer the idea that you need one spell per class you attempt to instantiate.  To my mind, it seems to fit the EGS magic system better.

What if Magic had a mod API?

[hkmaly 490]

3 minutes ago, Scotty said:

Still, my point was that it can be the same spell but with different traits base on skill level as well as the person using the spell.

It's certainly not based just on skill level. Nanase's fairy punch is trait which even counts as separate spell.

Seriously, looking at it using the programming metaphor makes most sense. In fact, I think that there is some virtual inheritance, with Dex's spell and Nanase's spell having different base but with same API, which the "fairy" is built on. Because base of Dex's spell is "something will just appear from thin air", base of Susan's spell is "something will be summoned from chest" and base of Nanase's spell is using the physical persistent fairy doll. Then the basic fairy is put on that, and on top of fairy the traits, basic one like "subconscious control", "manual control" and "full control" (note that Nanase, despite having biggest skill, seem to lack both "subconscious control" and "manual control") or advanced one like fairy punch. Meanwhile, "can link to others" is not going through the fairy at all, it's feature of Nanase's "base".

[Vorlonagent 442]

7 minutes ago, Scotty said:

What if Magic had a mod API?

To my mind, magic does have an API for temporary mods.  But modding costs energy in proportion to the changes being made from the original.  You can store the code and reuse but you have to recompile the changes from the current codebase before each use.   If you're lucky, magic will write your mod into the codebase for your spell. 

Magic itself is the only one who gets to mod for free.

[hkmaly 490]

4 minutes ago, Vorlonagent said:

19 minutes ago, Scotty said:

What if Magic had a mod API?

To my mind, magic does have an API for temporary mods.  But modding costs energy in proportion to the changes being made from the original.  You can store the code and reuse but you have to recompile the changes from the current codebase before each use.   If you're lucky, magic will write your mod into the codebase for your spell. 

Magic itself is the only one who gets to mod for free.

There are apparently multiple levels of modifications, with own storage.

Anyway ... to return back a little but also extend my previous post: I think that Dex's spell have biggest variety in WHAT can be summoned because the "thin air" base is more versatile than Susan's "something from trunk" or Nanase's "persistent fairy doll".

30 minutes ago, Vorlonagent said:

I was thinking about how Ed Verres describes Bloodgrems as "a common creature as far as summon spells go".  So it seemed to make sense to say there's a "class BloodGrem" in magic.

I think Dex should try to summon Bloodgrem, is smaller than the fire guy and being standard might be bonus. On the other hand ... Bloodgrem certainly have it's own intelligence (which is FOURTH method of control, after "subconscious control", "manual control" and "full control") ...

[Scotty 1,061]

5 minutes ago, hkmaly said:

I think Dex should try to summon Bloodgrem, is smaller than the fire guy and being standard might be bonus. On the other hand ... Bloodgrem certainly have it's own intelligence (which is FOURTH method of control, after "subconscious control", "manual control" and "full control") ...

Bloodgrem I can see being a step up from fairy, I said before that I figured it'd progress from fairy to some sort of animal familiar, to something close to humanoid and eventually to the dragon as Dex gained more power. The bloodgrem could be considered an animal familiar, though the fact that it has some intelligence and doesn't loose data (ie the information about Elliot and the nature of the curse) suggests something different, I think the bloodgrem and others like it exist on a separate plane of reality and might take a bit more effort to summon one and have it obey the summoner than it would to summon a semi-autonomous puppet out of thin air.

I just remembered that it had been implied that Susan may be able to take full control of her fairy in a similar manner to Nanase. It hasn't been shown yet so it hasn't been confirmed. Really, the only aspect that has the least likelihood of being doable by all three, is the persistence, Andrea had stated that it was very rare for someone to be able to summon a persistent avatar so I don't see Dex and Susan ever being able to do that.

[The Old Hack 2,448]

1 hour ago, Vorlonagent said:

Magic itself is the only one who gets to mod for free.

Or alternately, has so much power available that any cost would be essentially negligible? *scratches head* Just speculating here, if there is something wrong with this according to your hypothesis, please say so.

[Vorlonagent 442]

Just now, The Old Hack said:

Or alternately, has so much power available that any cost would be essentially negligible? *scratches head* Just speculating here, if there is something wrong with this according to your hypothesis, please say so.

I think there may be a methodological difference.

Magic doesn't need to use energy to distort a spell's effect.  It has the option to change the spell permanently rather than making temporary changes at steep energy costs.  That's why I say "Magic mods for free".

[The Old Hack 2,448]

Just now, Vorlonagent said:

I think there may be a methodological difference.

Magic doesn't need to use energy to distort a spell's effect.  It has the option to change the spell permanently rather than making temporary changes at steep energy costs.  That's why I say "Magic mods for free".

Ah! Yes, that makes sense. You could compare it to the head developer of a system who happens to have a lot of lesser devs modding. When the head dev does something, it goes everywhere and everybody else puts up or shuts up. When a lesser dev does modding, it only fits within their framework and they have to spend a lot of fiddly work (the equivalent of energy cost) to make sure it doesn't either gets tangled and ruined by the official code or alternately somehow gums up adjoining areas -- in which case it would probably crash anyway because Magic wouldn't allow that.

[Vorlonagent 442]

1 minute ago, The Old Hack said:

Ah! Yes, that makes sense. You could compare it to the head developer of a system who happens to have a lot of lesser devs modding. When the head dev does something, it goes everywhere and everybody else puts up or shuts up. When a lesser dev does modding, it only fits within their framework and they have to spend a lot of fiddly work (the equivalent of energy cost) to make sure it doesn't either gets tangled and ruined by the official code or alternately somehow gums up adjoining areas -- in which case it would probably crash anyway because Magic wouldn't allow that.

A slight further alteration would be would Admin privileges vs user privileges.  Makes sense.

[The Old Hack 2,448]

4 minutes ago, Vorlonagent said:

A slight further alteration would be would Admin privileges vs user privileges.  Makes sense.

Hm. Yes. Perhaps there is a hierarchy that kind of works like this:

Magic: Root Admin

Immortals: Admin

Humans/Animals/magical beings: User

[Vorlonagent 442]

2 minutes ago, The Old Hack said:

Hm. Yes. Perhaps there is a hierarchy that kind of works like this:

Magic: Root Admin

Immortals: Admin

Humans/Animals/magical beings: User

I can get behind this.

• magic writes and rewrites spells wholesale and is the arbiter of how the system works.
   
• Immortals are capable of creating custom spells for themselves on the fly.  They can create permanent magical objects (artifacts) and can write one custom spell for a user-level account. (a Mark) according to the rules Magic has set up or Awaken a user-level account under the rules magic has set up.
   
• Humans/Animals/non-Immortal Magical beings can have no interaction with magic, be Marked or be Awakened.  Magic writes new spells and/or abilities for those who are Awakened according to the rules it has set up including the ability to create permanent magical objects and perhaps even Mark others.

I wonder: Magic has only two known functions whereas the others have a lot more.  Can Magic itself Mark someone?  One could argue that most Awakenings are handled by magic,  Can magic create an artifact?  Does magic have other functions besides rule-making that are its province alone?