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Aura Guardian

Story, September 20, 2017

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So not only confirmed what we suspected about him (well, some of it, we suspected a lot) but his secretary / assistant also knows ...

But we still don't know why he assumes magic changing will be good way to prevent more incidents. Because it can also end up with MORE incidents and them being less able to interfere.

(I mean, there may even be specifically incidents related to magic users failing with casting spells they currently use.)

3 hours ago, Aura Guardian said:

A surprisingly rational way of dealing with beings which could pass for gods.

Yeah ... actually, even not interfering might be something the Will of Magic could notice.

1 hour ago, Stature said:

Yet I have to rethink Sybil's agenda.

She may be asking just because she wants to understand why he is not doing something which would help his stated objectives. But the option of her having own agenda is also here, yes.

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10 hours ago, Stature said:

Arthur is civil. I like him a lot now.

Yet I have to rethink Sybil's agenda.

Hmmm.  Could it be that she is the real big bad?

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2 minutes ago, Tom Sewell said:

Arthur and Sybil are talking about dealing directly with an Immortal with godlike power. Unless Dan is going to bring in a dark horse candidate, that means either Voltaire or Pandora.

I think Arthur is talking about the Will of Magic.

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5 hours ago, mlooney said:

Hmmm.  Could it be that she is the real big bad?

You mean she would be the big bad they will fight after finishing less powerful bosses like Voltaire and general Shade Tail?

5 hours ago, Sjmcc13 said:
12 hours ago, ProfessorTomoe said:

Apocalyptic scenario example. No one wants a Deathless Army of Rage on their front lawn.

Am i the only one that was disapointed Dan did not link to that in the comments?

No. Although I think this wasn't the worst apocalyptic scenario Edward prevented.

4 hours ago, Vorlonagent said:
4 hours ago, Tom Sewell said:

Arthur and Sybil are talking about dealing directly with an Immortal with godlike power. Unless Dan is going to bring in a dark horse candidate, that means either Voltaire or Pandora.

I think Arthur is talking about the Will of Magic.

Certainly. Comparing immortal to god wouldn't surprise anyone.

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10 hours ago, ProfessorTomoe said:
10 hours ago, Baldrickk said:

Quick question:

 

What is the known quantity?

The appearance of the fake Cheerleadra.

More like Cheerleadra in general, people already knew she existed so more sightings wouldn't have much of an effect on the overall knowledge of magic as say, the existence of magical intelligent griffins, Immortals and soon Vampires.

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5 hours ago, Vorlonagent said:

I think Arthur is talking about the Will of Magic.

Arthur may know about the Will of Magic, but I think his most likely Immortal contact is Voltaire. By setting up a mass vampire attack Voltaire is creating the kind of incident that could trigger a change in magic--and probably planning on influencing what that change will be like.

By the way, if Arthur is the one who ratted out Adrian to Voltaire, there's going to be a job vacancy in the Paranormal department by the end of Sister III.

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1 hour ago, Scotty said:
12 hours ago, ProfessorTomoe said:
12 hours ago, Baldrickk said:

What is the known quantity?

The appearance of the fake Cheerleadra.

More like Cheerleadra in general, people already knew she existed so more sightings wouldn't have much of an effect on the overall knowledge of magic as say, the existence of magical intelligent griffins, Immortals and soon Vampires.

Actually, people already know about griffins and Immortals too :)

But yes, "known quantity" refers to the fake Cheerleadra sighting not revealing anything new.

1 hour ago, Tom Sewell said:

Arthur may know about the Will of Magic, but I think his most likely Immortal contact is Voltaire. By setting up a mass vampire attack Voltaire is creating the kind of incident that could trigger a change in magic--and probably planning on influencing what that change will be like.

I don't think he has ANY Immortal contact. I think his informations are from indirect sources (he read some book about it). Of course, Voltaire might lead him to the book but in a way so Arthur doesn't noticed he's led somewhere.

1 hour ago, Tom Sewell said:

By the way, if Arthur is the one who ratted out Adrian to Voltaire, there's going to be a job vacancy in the Paranormal department by the end of Sister III.

So far it seems magic reset will happen ; in such case he would be fired, so yes there would be a job vacancy. If there would be any Paranormal department left.

Adrian is not hiding himself so well ; I don't think anyone needed to rat him out to Voltaire. Voltaire only PRETENDED he just found about him - in fact, he knew about him probably BEFORE he (Adrian) arrived in Moperville.

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1 hour ago, hkmaly said:

You mean she would be the big bad they will fight after finishing less powerful bosses like Voltaire and general Shade Tail?

Right.

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35 minutes ago, Tom Sewell said:

Arthur may know about the Will of Magic, but I think his most likely Immortal contact is Voltaire. By setting up a mass vampire attack Voltaire is creating the kind of incident that could trigger a change in magic--and probably planning on influencing what that change will be like.

By the way, if Arthur is the one who ratted out Adrian to Voltaire, there's going to be a job vacancy in the Paranormal department by the end of Sister III.

 

I doubt Arthur is in contact with Voltaire, the paranormal division know what Immortals are capable of. Also I doubt Voltaire would need to be told who Adrian is, if he's been following Pandora's actions closely as he seemed to be (which the pendant Dex had is very strong evidence of it) he likely knew about Adrian's relation to Pandora before Arthur took over Edward's position. I would believe that either some record of the last change survived the centuries, either through various monastic organizations (Knight's Templar>Freemasons for example?)

I don't think Arthur wants magic to change, originally it seemed like he wanted to minimize exposure, but after the mall incident he knows there's nothing he can really do to prevent it so he's taken the stance of just letting it happen rather than forcing it to happen sooner. That's the vibe I'm getting.

1 minute ago, hkmaly said:

Actually, people already know about griffins and Immortals too :)

I was referring to the mall incident making them known, though the public would have been aware of magical beings that can appear out of nowhere through Pandora's appearance on the news, the mall incident gave the people a name for them and some probably heard the talk about guiding and empowering.

8 minutes ago, hkmaly said:

Adrian is not hiding himself so well ; I don't think anyone needed to rat him out to Voltaire. Voltaire only PRETENDED he just found about him - in fact, he knew about him probably BEFORE he (Adrian) arrived in Moperville.

I dunno about Voltaire knowing about Adrian before Adrian arrived in Moperville but that's probably not important anyway. And Voltaire pretended to be Abner who just found out about him, big difference. :)

 

 

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On ‎9‎/‎20‎/‎2017 at 3:46 AM, hkmaly said:

But we still don't know why he assumes magic changing will be good way to prevent more incidents. Because it can also end up with MORE incidents and them being less able to interfere.

While it might lead to more incidents, Arthur might be relying on the DGB having more and better organized resources than your average magical criminal. They theoretically have access to any resources that the FBI would have, and maybe more from cross-department assistance. And they might have their own seer on standby (assuming Arthur knows about seers. He knows about the magic resets, but seers are very rare and knowing about one doesn't necessitate knowing about the other)

12 hours ago, Scotty said:

I don't think Arthur wants magic to change, originally it seemed like he wanted to minimize exposure, but after the mall incident he knows there's nothing he can really do to prevent it so he's taken the stance of just letting it happen rather than forcing it to happen sooner. That's the vibe I'm getting.

I disagree. I think he's going for a 'Short term loss, Long term gain' strategy. Suffer the losses of what happens in the exposing incidents and the capability that would be lost with the reset, to not have to worry about troubling incidents for a long while and to potentially be in a more powerful position when troubling incidents start to arise again. If he wanted to minimize exposure of magic, then he could have reached into the DGB's bag of tricks to cover-up the magic connection. He wouldn't be able to cover-up the incident itself, due to viral youtube videos, but he could shunt the discussion away from magic, possibly by explaining that Cheerleedra's abilities are likely the result of some sort of super-secret, experimental technology that somehow ended up in the hands of this good Samaritan. Instead he plainly stated that there are people with power that the misinformed would call wizards. Seemingly, he appeared on the talk show to make sure the discussion went towards magic instead of away from it Justin posited that it was to make the magic discussion seem crazy, but, as Mr. Verres pointed out, that would only be a bandage solution at best.

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Aside from seers, I don't see a reason to think that magic-users under the old rules are more likely than random people to be magic-users - and learn about their powers - under the new rules.

The only sure reason DGB would have an advantage is that they are *already* organized with established communication links... assuming a sufficient share of said links are non-magical in nature.

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7 hours ago, Drasvin said:

I disagree. I think he's going for a 'Short term loss, Long term gain' strategy. Suffer the losses of what happens in the exposing incidents and the capability that would be lost with the reset, to not have to worry about troubling incidents for a long while and to potentially be in a more powerful position when troubling incidents start to arise again. If he wanted to minimize exposure of magic, then he could have reached into the DGB's bag of tricks to cover-up the magic connection. He wouldn't be able to cover-up the incident itself, due to viral youtube videos, but he could shunt the discussion away from magic, possibly by explaining that Cheerleedra's abilities are likely the result of some sort of super-secret, experimental technology that somehow ended up in the hands of this good Samaritan. Instead he plainly stated that there are people with power that the misinformed would call wizards. Seemingly, he appeared on the talk show to make sure the discussion went towards magic instead of away from it Justin posited that it was to make the magic discussion seem crazy, but, as Mr. Verres pointed out, that would only be a bandage solution at best.

Thing is, Arthur didn't say anything about magic, what he was saying made it sound like the "people with power" weren't common and that their power wasn't explainable. Basically what I took from it was "Yes what happened happened, there may be others with special abilities, but it's not what you may think it is". He had stated later that the existence of magic couldn't be denied for much longer anyway, it was accessibility to magic that was the main secret.

If you think about it Moperville has had weird things happen a lot, the students of MSHS never questioned how Nanase could float and the physics teacher was more annoyed that she could rather than curious as to why she could. It would seem like, for the most part the population of Moperville has gotten to the point where weird stuff is going to happen and they're just rolling with it, after Pandora's appearance on TV it started attracting more people to the city which meant exposure was going up so Arthur's initial response would be to reinforce the "just roll with it" mentality and hope that people eventually get bored with it. If Arthur at some point realized that an Immortal was going around marking people, he might feel that his original interview was useless, and that more people were gaining access to magic anyway.

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8 hours ago, Drasvin said:
On 9/20/2017 at 10:46 AM, hkmaly said:

But we still don't know why he assumes magic changing will be good way to prevent more incidents. Because it can also end up with MORE incidents and them being less able to interfere.

While it might lead to more incidents, Arthur might be relying on the DGB having more and better organized resources than your average magical criminal. They theoretically have access to any resources that the FBI would have, and maybe more from cross-department assistance. And they might have their own seer on standby (assuming Arthur knows about seers. He knows about the magic resets, but seers are very rare and knowing about one doesn't necessitate knowing about the other)

I'm SURE that if DGB knew enough about seers to actually have one on standby they would at least consider the possibility Tedd is one. Also, Pandora's talk about "forgotten seers" suggests that everyone forgot - she WOULD be likely to notice if it would be "common knowledge" in DGB.

I find more likely Arthur is misinformed regarding what exactly will happen on reset.

8 hours ago, Drasvin said:

He wouldn't be able to cover-up the incident itself, due to viral youtube videos, but he could shunt the discussion away from magic, possibly by explaining that Cheerleedra's abilities are likely the result of some sort of super-secret, experimental technology that somehow ended up in the hands of this good Samaritan. Instead he plainly stated that there are people with power that the misinformed would call wizards.

Exactly: hiding it wouldn't really help, but he could always blame technology or possibly suggest something like mutants from X-men appears. Instead, he was talking about wizards, which hints a lot about how it may work despite not saying anything directly about magic. He also strongly hinted he has such powers himself.

1 hour ago, Scotty said:

Thing is, Arthur didn't say anything about magic, what he was saying made it sound like the "people with power" weren't common and that their power wasn't explainable. Basically what I took from it was "Yes what happened happened, there may be others with special abilities, but it's not what you may think it is". He had stated later that the existence of magic couldn't be denied for much longer anyway, it was accessibility to magic that was the main secret.

X-Men scenario would send lot of people on incorrect track. Totally missed opportunity.

1 hour ago, Scotty said:

If you think about it Moperville has had weird things happen a lot, the students of MSHS never questioned how Nanase could float and the physics teacher was more annoyed that she could rather than curious as to why she could.

What makes you think the physics teacher never questioned it? This obviously wasn't first time he caught Nanase floating. I find more likely he asked, although she probably didn't told him much and made clear she won't tell him more.

1 hour ago, Scotty said:

It would seem like, for the most part the population of Moperville has gotten to the point where weird stuff is going to happen and they're just rolling with it, after Pandora's appearance on TV it started attracting more people to the city which meant exposure was going up so Arthur's initial response would be to reinforce the "just roll with it" mentality and hope that people eventually get bored with it.

Note that Carol mentioned weird stuff happens in Moperville. Although Pandora's appearance on TV was likely first even people from outside the city believed.

1 hour ago, Scotty said:

If Arthur at some point realized that an Immortal was going around marking people, he might feel that his original interview was useless, and that more people were gaining access to magic anyway.

I think he would go with it anyway. Pandora doesn't seem to be particularly effective in marking people ...

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14 hours ago, Scotty said:

Thing is, Arthur didn't say anything about magic, what he was saying made it sound like the "people with power" weren't common and that their power wasn't explainable. Basically what I took from it was "Yes what happened happened, there may be others with special abilities, but it's not what you may think it is". He had stated later that the existence of magic couldn't be denied for much longer anyway, it was accessibility to magic that was the main secret.

To most people, mentioning an uncommon and unexplainable power is going to draw correlations to magic, and he mentioned wizards, which further draws connotations of magic. He didn't come right out and directly say that Cheerleadra's power was magic, but he doesn't have to if he can play on people's preconceived notions. Imply something correctly, and you can get people thinking about it without having to actually mention it. (Besides, directly confirming it's magic is likely against departmental policy and could be seen as 'forcing the hand of a god')

Also, if he's trying to minimize exposure, why didn't he try to steer the narrative away from magic? And if he'd already given in to the inevitability of the reset, why did he show up to the talk show at all?

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7 hours ago, Drasvin said:

To most people, mentioning an uncommon and unexplainable power is going to draw correlations to magic, and he mentioned wizards, which further draws connotations of magic. He didn't come right out and directly say that Cheerleadra's power was magic, but he doesn't have to if he can play on people's preconceived notions. Imply something correctly, and you can get people thinking about it without having to actually mention it. (Besides, directly confirming it's magic is likely against departmental policy and could be seen as 'forcing the hand of a god')

Also, if he's trying to minimize exposure, why didn't he try to steer the narrative away from magic? And if he'd already given in to the inevitability of the reset, why did he show up to the talk show at all?

As I said, Arthur never once said anything about magic, he said "the misinformed would call them wizards". it's pretty much saying "you might think that they're wizards, but they aren't" because saying that they are wizards or mages would imply the ability to learn because people who think wizards would think of learning spells by studying and such. But instead it sounded like he's saying these people just one day realized they could do amazing things.

The main thing Arthur was trying to do make people believe that getting powers like that was rare and not something one could do themself. Maybe he was hoping that the majority of people would assume comic book examples like Mutants or something.

I maintain that Arthur has realized that his announcement had failed, and there isn't anything more he can do to prevent the system change, either the majority of people eventually forget about it, or they push things and cause the change. This comic basically reinforces that, Arthur believes that if the FBI stays out of things, then people wouldn't figure out just how easy it is to get special powers as well as keep the fact there are whole organizations that had known for ages.

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Dan is being cute here. He isn't giving us a clear idea of what Arthur is really trying to achieve.

If Arthur is talking about the Will of Magic as a thinking being, he might have a justification for what he's doing. That is, he's working toward what he thinks is the best interest for the most people, or at least the best interests of the agency. If so, he's not a jerk, just terribly mistaken. Why?

If magic changes for humans, Immortals will still have magic, and Immortals can be big trouble. Now there are human mages like Edward who can actually overpower at least some immortals. After a Change, there will be few or none. In other words, unilateral disarmament. It would be like trying to get North Korea to give up nukes by destroying all of ours.

But if Arthur does see the folly of forcing a Change, he's really turned to the Dark Side.

One other thing: I don't think there's any proof in canon about Arthur actually having magic. He's never done any magic in front of us, and no one has said he has powers. All we really know is that he knows a lot about magic. Dressing up like Gandolf doesn't make him a wizard. This could be the reason he hates Adrian so much. It could be that Arthur, who trained Edward, felt that Adrian had stolen away his protege. Kind of like a dad who pushes his kid into becoming a sports hero and then losing the child's affection to some hotshot coach or trainer.

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