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Story Wednesday December 20, 2017

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1 hour ago, Drasvin said:

I've wondered how the secret of elves having children works with a female elf. That can't be played off as their partner cheating on them. And there only being male elves (or only male elves being able to conceive children) feels too contrived (Though it is the answer my own brain echoed back at me whenever I thought on this conundrum).

I wonder just how common Elves are? What if Adrian is the only one alive, and there haven't been any other Elves since the knowledge was suppressed? Alternately, if there have only been a handful since that time, the female ones could have all died young or decided to be celibate (though that would be quite the coincidence).

Then there's more paranoid theories like someone actively hunting down and killing Elves before they can reproduce, though that would require someone willing to gain the wrath of Immortal parents... Which leads to the thought, maybe there's a personal reason why some Immortals seem so intent on hunting down Aberrations...

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3 minutes ago, ChronosCat said:

Then there's more paranoid theories like someone actively hunting down and killing Elves

You mean like the Spanish Inquisition? The Salem witch trials? Pogroms? Maybe not so paranoid.

One reason for inventing that lie could be that even without pointy ears, children of Elves might not age like regular humans. Another could be that they do age like regular humans. Imagine knowing you would outlive every child you ever have.

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5 minutes ago, Tom Sewell said:

One reason for inventing that lie could be that even without pointy ears, children of Elves might not age like regular humans. Another could be that they do age like regular humans. Imagine knowing you would outlive every child you ever have.

Based on how Heka told Pandora "You're actually a perfect example of why they did", I would guess fairies have a strong tendency to become deeply invested in familial ties. And her threatening Zeus to make him protect Susan and Diane reinforces that perspective. It's simply too dangerous for a fairy to get that invested in a bloodline, especially as the bloodline grows larger.

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8 minutes ago, Drasvin said:

Based on how Heka told Pandora "You're actually a perfect example of why they did", I would guess fairies have a strong tendency to become deeply invested in familial ties. And her threatening Zeus to make him protect Susan and Diane reinforces that perspective. It's simply too dangerous for a fairy to get that invested in a bloodline, especially as the bloodline grows larger.

Seems plausible, if over-the-top. Basically that's saying "Love is dangerous." But a life without love?

However, Pandora is a widow. Widows are allowed to hook up. Maybe Pandora should.

And then we could have a whole new angst-driven arc about how conflicted Adrian feels about that. Hey, maybe Pandora has hooked up. Remember that new girlfriend Greg has that we've never seen him with?

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16 hours ago, Tom Sewell said:

Seems plausible, if over-the-top. Basically that's saying "Love is dangerous." But a life without love?

Well, if true, the fairies weren't trying to impose a life without love on their future incarnations, but are instead trying to prevent the familial connection from growing beyond their immediate offspring. Pandora refused to reset because she didn't want to leave Adrian alone in the world. Elves are unaging, but they can still be killed, either by accident or intent. If Adrian had died at any point, Pandora would have gone berserk and tried to exact her vengeance, but then she would have reset, either forcibly as repercussion of her actions in grief or willingly once she no longer has ties to the world to keep her in her current incarnation.

With an extended bloodline, her familial connections would just get passed down the generations, more and more excuses piling up as to why she wouldn't reset until either her mind collapses into total chaos (Which would end badly for everyone) or she has an epiphany and lets go. (And considering it took a massive mental shock to bring about her current epiphany, I image such an occurrence would be rare)

16 hours ago, Tom Sewell said:

However, Pandora is a widow. Widows are allowed to hook up. Maybe Pandora should.

That's entirely her decision, but she's rapidly approaching the end of her life and she has a lot of emotions and stuff on her plate that she has to work through before she dies. (And she has a lot of emotions tied up in Blake, which makes me think she's the type that likely wouldn't go searching for new love) She could certainly seek out love after her reset/refresh, but that would for all/most intents and purposes be a new person, not the old Pandora.

Edited by Drasvin
Fixed some oddities in my first paragraph

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1 hour ago, Drasvin said:

That's entirely her decision, but she's rapidly approaching the end of her life and she has a lot of emotions and stuff on her plate that she has to work through before she dies. (And she has a lot of emotions tied up in Blake, which makes me think she's the type that likely wouldn't go searching for new love) She could certainly seek out love after her reset/refresh, but that would for all/most intents and purposes be a new person, not the old Pandora.

I'm getting that vibe too.  That Pandora will soon reset. 

I have an image in my head of Adrian Raven taking in a confused and improperly reset Pandora whose only memory from before is that Raven is her son.

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5 hours ago, Vorlonagent said:

I have an image in my head of Adrian Raven taking in a confused and improperly reset Pandora whose only memory from before is that Raven is her son.

More likely for her to think of Raven as her father.

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11 hours ago, Tom Sewell said:

summoning Nanase would be a great kludge about now, and summoning Noriko would be an awesome gotcha! I'm talking the level of Luke calling Leia back at the end of Empire gotcha!

Does Noriko have a Millennium Falcon?

 

11 hours ago, Tuscahoma said:

JerZeus knows that humans can be related to Immortals (thus know that Half-Immortals can have children)? 

More than likely this is just wild speculation on his part.

9 hours ago, Tom Sewell said:

Hey, maybe Pandora has hooked up. Remember that new girlfriend Greg has that we've never seen him with?

No, I still think that mysterious she is Vladia.

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1 minute ago, Pharaoh RutinTutin said:

No, I still think that mysterious she is Vladia.

Not a hunter, but at least as effective as Susan's hammers. Greg? I wouldn't bet against it; no one else in canon has a personal force shield.

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I actually had a mechanic in mind for summoning Noriko. Diana desperately wants Nanase because she knows Nanase helped Susan kill a vampire, but Magic decides she really wants Noriko, who is a true hunter, and who is the spitting image of Nanase. I would only bet a very small cookie on that happening, but I can hope, at least until Friday.

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19 hours ago, Tom Sewell said:

Okay, honest, this is a thought I really did not have at all until the end of that first paragraph: The one in real danger is Pandora herself. She knows that as soon as things go really pear-shaped with any of Adrian, Susan, or Diane she'll use her forbidden powers and probably get reset.

Seems like only way how to be SURE only one is in danger ... unless she's using her clairvoyance again.

19 hours ago, Pharaoh RutinTutin said:

Pandora has resigned herself to a forced reset.

She "knows" that she can not fight the vampires directly.  But when things go badly for Adrian or the girls, she will intervene.  This may force her to reset.  And this may be her plan.

When she left Hecka, Pandora was trying to decide on a way she could maintain enough of her memories to keep her connection to Adrian and his (recently discovered) extended family while setting aside enough power and other knowledge that she was no longer on the edge of madness.  She may have come to the conclusion that this was not possible, and that the fresh start of a forced reset would be the best way to atone for the damage she has caused.

First, if she WANTED forced reset there are simpler ways to do it.

Second, I think she still plans to do her best to maintain enough of her memories ... or reset improperly trying.

19 hours ago, Scotty said:

But after she spoke with Tedd, she had resolved to "Refresh" rather than "Reset", a forced reset doesn't seem like it would work as a refresh since getting one's knowledge run through a blender would not be ideal for someone who desires to maintain all their memories of the people she cares about.

Yes.

19 hours ago, Scotty said:

The death of Adrian were certainly warrant that, but Pandora did not try to stop Adrian from running in to fight the vampires, I don't think that means she's resigned herself from attempting to refresh, she would be doing more to prevent his death if she knew it would cause her to snap.

She didn't tried to stop him because she's confident he's not in much danger, while Diane and Susan were.

18 hours ago, Tuscahoma said:

Before that happens, she can provide support in the form of Empower and Advise.  So, she could grant more power to Susan, who could summon more hammers, swords and fairies without running out of juice (I can't imagine she won't come out of this combat without gaining another spell related to fighting vampires, but for the life of me, I also can't imagine which it would be, upgrade to hammers, swords or fairies or something even more exotic; battle fairies with their own swords?).  She can also see the aberrations coming and warn Adrian and Susan.  Honestly, an immortal being present at the battle might make the aberrations think twice about attacking.

She can definitely do a lot - in fact, considering her age and how far can empower be stretched, she may be able to wipe out all vampires in Mall THROUGH Susan with single spell.

18 hours ago, Tom Sewell said:

I can't believe that Pandora hasn't given Diane a mark by this time. Maybe she can kill vampires by hugging them now.

Even marked, Diane would need at least little practice before being combat-effective.

18 hours ago, Tuscahoma said:

Oy, happening in the midst of battle that would be game changing but it might not eliminate but change aberrations to follow different rules.  Wonder how that would affect Magus inhabiting Elliot's body; might throw him out or worse, make it permanent.

I think the magic reset is not fast enough to actually happen in middle of battle. Last time, there were sign it will happen hours before the battle.

18 hours ago, Tom Sewell said:
18 hours ago, Tuscahoma said:

Wonder how that would affect Magus inhabiting Elliot's body; might throw him out or worse, make it permanent.

In that case it could have already happened during the car ride in Part 21. Oops.

... also this. Obviously, Magus and Sirleck didn't noticed anything. Well, they did noticed SOMETHING actually ... but not something happening to them.

18 hours ago, Tom Sewell said:
18 hours ago, Scotty said:

Joking aside, what would Diane be able to do if she was just now given access to magic?

How about a castling spell? That is, an analog to the chess move where you shuffle the position of your king and a rook. Say, Diane switches places with Susan.

Or perhaps even more appropriately, a spell to summon Nanase.

Hmmm ... spell summoning other people MIGHT be within the summoning talent ...

17 hours ago, The Old Hack said:
21 hours ago, Scotty said:

While one can say that Kronos was afraid of his children replacing him one day, maybe Zeus was all for the possibility of a child of his rising to godhood and the more children he had, the better the chances?

You could say that. You could also call him a horny old goat who would screw anything female and didn't view consent or lack thereof as a major factor. As a particularly nice touch, whenever Hera claimed her vengeance, it would invariably be against the victim or the child. This was not a legend written to make the Gods look good.

Hera didn't have power to do anything against Zeus. She attacked the victim or the child to indirectly harm Zeus in only way she was able to.

17 hours ago, Tom Sewell said:
17 hours ago, Scotty said:

While Nanase would even the playing field here, as I said before, she might be occupied with finding Ellen. Also I'm not sure if Dan is ready to drop Noriko into the mix during this arc, I think she's better dealt with in a future storyline that focuses more on Tedd.

Hmm. Magic about to change; Tedd has a critical function for a magical change; Only time we saw Tedd with his mom she was with Adrian. Yeah, I'm sure there's a much better time later.

Yes.

17 hours ago, ChronosCat said:

Alternately, he might "know" that Elves can't have children, but be more willing than Pandora was to think that bit of info is wrong.

Seems very likely to me.

16 hours ago, Drasvin said:

I've wondered how the secret of elves having children works with a female elf. That can't be played off as their partner cheating on them. And there only being male elves (or only male elves being able to conceive children) feels too contrived (Though it is the answer my own brain echoed back at me whenever I thought on this conundrum).

Perhaps the female elves never tried. Seems more likely than not existing at all. Although not so much more ...

14 hours ago, Drasvin said:
15 hours ago, Tom Sewell said:

One reason for inventing that lie could be that even without pointy ears, children of Elves might not age like regular humans. Another could be that they do age like regular humans. Imagine knowing you would outlive every child you ever have.

Based on how Heka told Pandora "You're actually a perfect example of why they did", I would guess fairies have a strong tendency to become deeply invested in familial ties. And her threatening Zeus to make him protect Susan and Diane reinforces that perspective. It's simply too dangerous for a fairy to get that invested in a bloodline, especially as the bloodline grows larger.

It also usually makes them not reset, probably. Which is dangerous by itself - A LOT.

14 hours ago, Tom Sewell said:

And then we could have a whole new angst-driven arc about how conflicted Adrian feels about that. Hey, maybe Pandora has hooked up. Remember that new girlfriend Greg has that we've never seen him with?

You mean Vladia? :)

14 hours ago, Drasvin said:

With an extended bloodline, her familial connections would just get passed down the generations, more and more excuses piling up as to why she wouldn't reset until either her mind collapses into total chaos (Which would end badly for everyone) or she has an epiphany and lets go. (And considering it took a massive mental shock to bring about her current epiphany, I image such an occurrence would be rare)

Rare or coming too late.

12 hours ago, Vorlonagent said:
14 hours ago, Drasvin said:

That's entirely her decision, but she's rapidly approaching the end of her life and she has a lot of emotions and stuff on her plate that she has to work through before she dies. (And she has a lot of emotions tied up in Blake, which makes me think she's the type that likely wouldn't go searching for new love) She could certainly seek out love after her reset/refresh, but that would for all/most intents and purposes be a new person, not the old Pandora.

I'm getting that vibe too.  That Pandora will soon reset. 

I have an image in my head of Adrian Raven taking in a confused and improperly reset Pandora whose only memory from before is that Raven is her son.

Pandora definitely plans to reset "soon". Soon by how she views the time. This year, maybe. After she explains everything, make sure Adrian will take care of both Susan and Diane and Tedd ... and shreds Voltaire into pieces.

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13 hours ago, Vorlonagent said:

I have an image in my head of Adrian Raven taking in a confused and improperly reset Pandora whose only memory from before is that Raven is her son.

She would also have a compulsion to seek out Sarah, though she wouldn't quite know why, similar to how Helena and Demetrius have a compulsion to follow Elliot around.

That brings something to mind. If H&D have a vow to stop Magus's plan (or keep Elliot safe or whatever) does that mean Magus succeeding is going to cause them to be constantly barraged by unwanted thoughts?

1 hour ago, hkmaly said:
16 hours ago, Drasvin said:

Based on how Heka told Pandora "You're actually a perfect example of why they did", I would guess fairies have a strong tendency to become deeply invested in familial ties. And her threatening Zeus to make him protect Susan and Diane reinforces that perspective. It's simply too dangerous for a fairy to get that invested in a bloodline, especially as the bloodline grows larger.

It also usually makes them not reset, probably. Which is dangerous by itself - A LOT.

That was the point I was trying to build towards. :)

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2 hours ago, hkmaly said:

She didn't tried to stop him because she's confident he's not in much danger, while Diane and Susan were.

That doesn't mesh with the "only one of us is in danger" unless she already assumes Diane is safe, then Pandora's taken it upon herself to make sure Susan is safe and then that would leave Adrian in danger again, but in the previous page it really sounded like Pandora was hoping that Susan could help Adrian, so again it makes me wonder if Pandora knows that Adrian is the target.

2 hours ago, hkmaly said:

... also this. Obviously, Magus and Sirleck didn't noticed anything. Well, they did noticed SOMETHING actually ... but not something happening to them.

There was supposed to be a signal to kick off the vampire attack, those lights could have been the signal, but the fact that Sirleck and Magus didn't know what those lights were wouldn't make any sense if it was.

1 hour ago, Drasvin said:

That brings something to mind. If H&D have a vow to stop Magus's plan (or keep Elliot safe or whatever) does that mean Magus succeeding is going to cause them to be constantly barraged by unwanted thoughts?

I had thought their vow was to protect Elliot from actual harm, because of how it might affect Tedd, but after what Magus said, maybe they had jumped to the conclusion that Magus was an AU Elliot that didn't belong in their realm and might have been the danger they were warned about?  Or they were just trying to cover all the bases and considered everything a  potential threat to Elliot.

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If H&D were supposed to protect either Elliot or Tedd, you'd have thought they would have done something more about Voltaire; instead, he was just lectured. :P 

Personally, I'm figuring Adrian doesn't die from this encounter, especially based on how needing to kill a character affects Dan's health (see commentary from when Blaike was killed); I think Dan would do his best to avoid it. Besides which, having him die *just* as Pandora was going to give him important imformation would probably also prevent said information to be given to Susan/Diane, and it would at least eat at Susan forever.

Not to mention the effect it would have on Tedd:

"My son is your Godfather"

"I have a Godfather?!?"

"Yes, and he just was killed, sorry about that. Forget I said anything, I'm going to go violently reset now."

Granted, if that's what Voltaire was after, then hey, great! Mission accompished!

But yeah - given how badly that would snowball to effect various players, I don't see Adrian dying from this encounter. However, given the last fight he was in, I feel it wise to point out that "you'd be surprised what you can live through" definitely applies to the EGS-verse. ^^;

Hopefully, the shiny lights Magus and Sirleck were discussing were either Susan or Adrian casting something used to take out multiple abberations at once. Or Rhoda shrinking multiple abberations at once! :D We shall wait and see. :) 

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5 minutes ago, Kazzellin said:

If H&D were supposed to protect either Elliot or Tedd, you'd have thought they would have done something more about Voltaire; instead, he was just lectured. :P

Considering their knowledge is still messed up, they probably don't know what Voltaire's plans are if they even knew them before the reset, plus they're likely nowhere near powerful enough to actually do anything to Voltaire.

 

8 minutes ago, Kazzellin said:

Not to mention the effect it would have on Tedd:

"My son is your Godfather"

"I have a Godfather?!?"

"Yes, and he just was killed, sorry about that. Forget I said anything, I'm going to go violently reset now."

Pandora's already told Tedd about Adrian being his godfather, but telling him Adrian was killed before Tedd could actually meet him (given that Tedd was too young to remember seeing Adrian before) might still be hard on Tedd.

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1 hour ago, Scotty said:

Considering their knowledge is still messed up, they probably don't know what Voltaire's plans are if they even knew them before the reset, plus they're likely nowhere near powerful enough to actually do anything to Voltaire.

Bah. Discount Immortals. Real Immortals solve their disputes through beheading one another. :demonicduck:

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16 minutes ago, The Old Hack said:

Bah. Discount Immortals. Real Immortals solve their disputes through beheading one another. :demonicduck:

Considering Dan's thrown around Highlander references in the past, I would not be surprised if that's part of Pandora's "rip them to shreds" promise.

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22 hours ago, Drasvin said:

I've wondered how the secret of elves having children works with a female elf. That can't be played off as their partner cheating on them. And there only being male elves (or only male elves being able to conceive children) feels too contrived (Though it is the answer my own brain echoed back at me whenever I thought on this conundrum).

Well, perhaps females elves are more rare than male elves, who are already rare.  Perhaps the lie that elves couldn't reproduce was accompanied by a lie that one should avoid having a female elf because of some potential bad outcome, so Pandora magically chose to have a male child.  Or perhaps it is not very likely for female elves, or even elves in general, to have children.  Or perhaps children only occur under certain conditions.  We may simply have a paucity of counter-examples for elves not being able to bear children.

Of course this starts us on the line of questions regarding the whether Immortals can reproduce with each other and the origin of Immortals, but then we start asking other questions such as why are the French Immortals paired when others are singular, why do Immortals seem so solitary, how do they come to agreements for each universe, etc. 

But that way lies madness...

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5 hours ago, Drasvin said:

That brings something to mind. If H&D have a vow to stop Magus's plan (or keep Elliot safe or whatever) does that mean Magus succeeding is going to cause them to be constantly barraged by unwanted thoughts?

No "whatever". Exact content of the vow will be important. If it's about Magus's plan, they might be constantly barraged without the possibility of doing anything with it. If it's about keeping Elliot safe, they may end up ok because Elliot WILL be safe. If it's about stopping Magus, they may end up with very hard choice as with a body, Magus would likely be protected by immortal laws BUT they would still be compelled to fight him.

4 hours ago, Scotty said:
7 hours ago, hkmaly said:

She didn't tried to stop him because she's confident he's not in much danger, while Diane and Susan were.

That doesn't mesh with the "only one of us is in danger"

Yes it doesn't. Therefore, I still don't understand that comment.

3 hours ago, Kazzellin said:

Personally, I'm figuring Adrian doesn't die from this encounter, especially based on how needing to kill a character affects Dan's health (see commentary from when Blaike was killed); I think Dan would do his best to avoid it. Besides which, having him die *just* as Pandora was going to give him important imformation would probably also prevent said information to be given to Susan/Diane, and it would at least eat at Susan forever.

Not to mention the effect it would have on Tedd:

"My son is your Godfather"

"I have a Godfather?!?"

"Yes, and he just was killed, sorry about that. Forget I said anything, I'm going to go violently reset now."

Granted, if that's what Voltaire was after, then hey, great! Mission accompished!

But yeah - given how badly that would snowball to effect various players, I don't see Adrian dying from this encounter.

Yeah it totally makes sense as Voltaire's plan. Also, yes it's probably too far in Lord Tedd's direction to actually happen.

1 hour ago, Scotty said:
2 hours ago, The Old Hack said:

Bah. Discount Immortals. Real Immortals solve their disputes through beheading one another. :demonicduck:

Considering Dan's thrown around Highlander references in the past, I would not be surprised if that's part of Pandora's "rip them to shreds" promise.

Nevertheless, it's probably "only" going to force-reset him.

After all, we already know they are not real immortals but fairies.

1 hour ago, Tuscahoma said:

Well, perhaps females elves are more rare than male elves, who are already rare.  Perhaps the lie that elves couldn't reproduce was accompanied by a lie that one should avoid having a female elf because of some potential bad outcome, so Pandora magically chose to have a male child.  Or perhaps it is not very likely for female elves, or even elves in general, to have children.  Or perhaps children only occur under certain conditions.  We may simply have a paucity of counter-examples for elves not being able to bear children.

Even for humans, having child is easier for male than for female. Female needs to be in correct phase of her ovulation cycle to have children, and this might be harder to time correctly for elves, OR female elves might be able to stop the cycle completely and would be likely to do so if they don't plan to try having children ...

 

 

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