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Scotty

NP, Monday October 17, 2016

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Sarah does have a few things going for her here with regards to reducing the amount of energy in the area. Even if the chomps are easily filled back in, the overall energy around Moperville will be a bit lower because the flow coming in is probably not that much. When Pandora originally said for Sarah to use the spell 3-4 times a day to exercise her magic, that would probably have a little impact on the surrounding energy field, but not much and the overall energy used would likely be replaced overnight. Now Pandora wants Sarah to use the spell 2-3 times an hour, that should use up energy much faster than is coming into Moperville so the overall amount would be reduced a fair bit each day. It'd basically be like using a 4 litre bucket to empty a pool while a garden hose puts more water in, eventually you'll hard pressed to completely fill the bucket which would fit Pandora's mention of "if it takes longer between uses that means it's working".

Another thing that's more speculation, but with the reduction in overall energy through Sarah's spell use, would that mean the Whale's would come back in again, it's implied that the reason that Tedd hasn't sensed them in over 6 months is because they're on the outer edge of the field trying to minimize the spread so if suddenly the field started shrinking, they too should move in with it. Maybe if they get close enought, Tedd will sense them again?

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3 hours ago, Scotty said:

Another thing that's more speculation, but with the reduction in overall energy through Sarah's spell use, would that mean the Whale's would come back in again, it's implied that the reason that Tedd hasn't sensed them in over 6 months is because they're on the outer edge of the field trying to minimize the spread so if suddenly the field started shrinking, they too should move in with it. Maybe if they get close enought, Tedd will sense them again?

I've assumed they sorta hanged around deliberately to warn Tedd - sure, they were in the general area, but even if the field get smaller they may not go directly to Tedd's basement. Unless they would want to talk to him again I guess.

BTW, just noticed that the whale specifically said the affected area is few square miles. Well, the "peak", at least. IMHO 40 square miles is not "few", so not whole Moperville.

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29 minutes ago, hkmaly said:

I've assumed they sorta hanged around deliberately to warn Tedd - sure, they were in the general area, but even if the field get smaller they may not go directly to Tedd's basement. Unless they would want to talk to him again I guess.

They said that they came to the general area often to feed, but then noticed that Tedd could somehow sense them, so the one continued to stick around in the hopes that Tedd would be able to make contact.

But yeah, there's no guarantee that they would contact Tedd again, unless maybe to give thanks for helping restore the balance, like Andrea and Tara would likely be doing the next time they stop by.

37 minutes ago, hkmaly said:

BTW, just noticed that the whale specifically said the affected area is few square miles. Well, the "peak", at least. IMHO 40 square miles is not "few", so not whole Moperville.

Yeah he said peaked as in the few square miles was saturated as much as it could be, the whale also said that it "will gradually spread" meaning more square miles would become saturated which in over 6 months would have.

If we consider that Pandora has had the nexus between both halves partially blocked for years, possibly as much as it would be letting a little less through than was coming into Moperville, such that it elevated the energy in the area some, but still somewhat manageable by the whales, then completely blocked it shortly after her visit with Adrian, that's roughly 3 and a half months for it to saturate the few square miles and become impossible for the whales to keep up. Another 6 months could put the number of miles in the double digits.

Also there might not be a hard boundary where magic energy just drops either, there's likely a radius where magic is completely saturated, but then an outer region where it gradually becomes less saturated. SO even if maybe 17sq miles of Moperville is saturated by magic, there could still be a radius of 5-15 miles around that with tapering magic levels.

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14 minutes ago, Scotty said:
1 hour ago, hkmaly said:

I've assumed they sorta hanged around deliberately to warn Tedd - sure, they were in the general area, but even if the field get smaller they may not go directly to Tedd's basement. Unless they would want to talk to him again I guess.

They said that they came to the general area often to feed, but then noticed that Tedd could somehow sense them, so the one continued to stick around in the hopes that Tedd would be able to make contact.

Yes. General area.

15 minutes ago, Scotty said:

But yeah, there's no guarantee that they would contact Tedd again, unless maybe to give thanks for helping restore the balance, like Andrea and Tara would likely be doing the next time they stop by.

He didn't do anything :)

Nor did Elliot or Nanase.

17 minutes ago, Scotty said:

If we consider that Pandora has had the nexus between both halves partially blocked for years, possibly as much as it would be letting a little less through than was coming into Moperville, such that it elevated the energy in the area some, but still somewhat manageable by the whales, then completely blocked it shortly after her visit with Adrian, that's roughly 3 and a half months for it to saturate the few square miles and become impossible for the whales to keep up. Another 6 months could put the number of miles in the double digits.

In teens at maximum. And I would expect the levels to be already pretty high ... like, the whale said "we used to minimize it's effect", but also "far more than there should be" ...

20 minutes ago, Scotty said:

Also there might not be a hard boundary where magic energy just drops either, there's likely a radius where magic is completely saturated, but then an outer region where it gradually becomes less saturated. SO even if maybe 17sq miles of Moperville is saturated by magic, there could still be a radius of 5-15 miles around that with tapering magic levels.

It's definitely not hard boundary, but hard to say how quickly it drops (Whales might make it drop quicker ...). Remember that radius 5 miles is 78 square miles, 15 miles is 707 square miles ... meanwhile, radius 2 miles is 12 square miles.

So: When whale said "few square miles" and it included Tedd's basement, it means the centre can't be more that 2 miles from the basement, likely less.

Both boar incident and end of Ellen's magic buildups happened BEFORE timeskip, so in time when the area was just few square miles ... no wonder that "couple miles out of town" was enough to get outside the area. And how near might the park with boar be?

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1 hour ago, hkmaly said:

He didn't do anything :)

Nor did Elliot or Nanase.

That's what makes it funny, at separate moments we have people saying they'd help figure out what's going on and try to fix it, and then, well literally overnight in the case of Elliot and Nanase agreeing to help, Pandora realized she done goofed with the clog and is going to fix it. So Tara and Andrea are either going to come back in a month and be surprised that they don't need to worry about the clog anymore, or (and this will be more likely) they'll noticed that energy is flowing back through and come by to say thanks even though Elliot and Nanase didn't do anything.

1 hour ago, hkmaly said:

It's definitely not hard boundary, but hard to say how quickly it drops (Whales might make it drop quicker ...). Remember that radius 5 miles is 78 square miles, 15 miles is 707 square miles ... meanwhile, radius 2 miles is 12 square miles.

So: When whale said "few square miles" and it included Tedd's basement, it means the centre can't be more that 2 miles from the basement, likely less.

Both boar incident and end of Ellen's magic buildups happened BEFORE timeskip, so in time when the area was just few square miles ... no wonder that "couple miles out of town" was enough to get outside the area. And how near might the park with boar be?

Have I mentioned I might be bad at estimating area? ;)

Anyway my point was the area of complete saturation may only cover the area around where the comic mainly takes place in, at the very least both high schools, the college, the mall and the park with the tower all fall under this, we're not entirely sure where everyone live in relation to these places, I mean, obviously Elliot, Ellen, Tedd, Grace, Susan and Sarah live around MNHS, but I'm not sure if Elliot and Ellen actually live near the border between districts or if that was just an lousy excuse for why Ellen went to MSHS, I'm leaning towards lousy excuse considering Elliot seemed to be a bit panicked when Noah questioned why. Anyway, it's probably safe to say that the main eight's residences fall under the saturated area as well, and the tapering off could extend further out to cover the rest of Moperville and possibly beyond.

I still think you might be referencing the timeskip wrong. If anything Ellen's buildup issues ended DURING the timeskip, like I said before, we have Tedd's contact with the whale June 30th, then we next see him sometime in December, probably the 21st or 22nd, and I figure the case of the were-goat could have been in July or August. I'm certain that Ellen would have likely told Elliot about her buildups ending when she realized it which might have been a few days or so after the were-goat case and suggested Elliot go out of town for a bit then, and it probably would be worked, but considering she was still telling him that he should do it in December, chances are he would have had to go further out.

And as for the boar, I don't believe it would have happened outside of Moperville, it might not have happened inside the saturated area, but it still would have had to happen within the overall field, and as I said there are numerous parks in Naperville that could have Moperville alternates. And the reason why I believe that it'd have to be in the energy field is because Rhoda's first use of the spell was probably augmented by the ambient energy. A size change spell to me doesn't seem like a beginner spell, it's certainly not S rank like Sarah's, but maybe C or B rank to Rhoda being a D rank, so she wouldn't likely have been able to cast the spell on her own the first time.

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20 minutes ago, Scotty said:

Anyway my point was the area of complete saturation may only cover the area around where the comic mainly takes place in, at the very least both high schools, the college, the mall and the park with the tower all fall under this, we're not entirely sure where everyone live in relation to these places, I mean, obviously Elliot, Ellen, Tedd, Grace, Susan and Sarah live around MNHS, but I'm not sure if Elliot and Ellen actually live near the border between districts or if that was just an lousy excuse for why Ellen went to MSHS, I'm leaning towards lousy excuse considering Elliot seemed to be a bit panicked when Noah questioned why. Anyway, it's probably safe to say that the main eight's residences fall under the saturated area as well, and the tapering off could extend further out to cover the rest of Moperville and possibly beyond.

Actually, after reading the note about "few square miles" I'm not sure it really covered ALL of that before timeskip.

21 minutes ago, Scotty said:

I still think you might be referencing the timeskip wrong. If anything Ellen's buildup issues ended DURING the timeskip, like I said before, we have Tedd's contact with the whale June 30th, then we next see him sometime in December, probably the 21st or 22nd, and I figure the case of the were-goat could have been in July or August.

Considering she was out of town for few days, I would assume it happened during summer holiday, yes. Although, technically, it might've been just some longer weekend ...

I said I'm rounding. Even if it happened at end of August, if would be still closer to Whale than to now.

23 minutes ago, Scotty said:

I'm certain that Ellen would have likely told Elliot about her buildups ending when she realized it which might have been a few days or so after the were-goat case and suggested Elliot go out of town for a bit then, and it probably would be worked, but considering she was still telling him that he should do it in December, chances are he would have had to go further out.

The way she is talking suggests it's not first time she mentioned it. And, we don't know: depending on what part of town they live in and which direction she was going for that investigation (as already mentioned), and also depending on where the centre of ambient magic is (although that's not so important considering it can't be that far from Tedd's basement), "couple of miles out ot town" can be anything between 4 and 20 miles from the centre of magic, maybe even more because as American (unlike European) she can call 30 miles "couple".

The way he talks about it suggest that he didn't tried even single mile.

30 minutes ago, Scotty said:

And as for the boar, I don't believe it would have happened outside of Moperville, it might not have happened inside the saturated area, but it still would have had to happen within the overall field, and as I said there are numerous parks in Naperville that could have Moperville alternates. And the reason why I believe that it'd have to be in the energy field is because Rhoda's first use of the spell was probably augmented by the ambient energy. A size change spell to me doesn't seem like a beginner spell, it's certainly not S rank like Sarah's, but maybe C or B rank to Rhoda being a D rank, so she wouldn't likely have been able to cast the spell on her own the first time.

You may believe it, but there is nothing directly confirming it in canon (nor contraindicating it, mind you). As I said, the spell itself is probably easy, but the size difference suggests she didn't cast it at "minimal" settings, so I wouldn't be surprised if it would be over what can D talent cast without help. On the other hand, despite Sarah's experience with magic in Tedd's basement, we can't rule out Rhoda have more magic than Sarah - like, either from something Rhoda does not knowing it can raise magic, or because she has some talent "in blood" (genes). Also, it was dramatic moment, lot of emotions, it might've even saved her life ...

So, we really don't know. It can go both ways. And it's possible that Dan is also bad at estimating area or is not really thinking about map, which would make estimates based on distance even more useless.

Personally, I would consider the park apparent distance argument against the ambient magic helping her, but very, very weak and only worth mentioning because we have hardly anything to go by.

 

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I'd also point out that there are probably perfectly-natural variations in the level of magical energy that tends to settle in one spot versus another spot, and the whales are used to that... but a relatively large area centered somewhere in Moperville was saturated to the high end of the natural range *or above*. The whales would want to work near the line where it starts getting dangerous for ( them | the average non-magical person).

In other words, the peak area the whale referred to could be significantly smaller than the area of enhanced magical energy.

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On 10/22/2016 at 6:39 AM, Don Edwards said:

I'd also point out that there are probably perfectly-natural variations in the level of magical energy that tends to settle in one spot versus another spot, and the whales are used to that... but a relatively large area centered somewhere in Moperville was saturated to the high end of the natural range *or above*. The whales would want to work near the line where it starts getting dangerous for ( them | the average non-magical person).

Well, yes. And I would say that "above". I still think as a sink, it was near the natural maximum even BEFORE the clog.

This is actually important, as it's perfectly possible that at some point AFTER removing the clog, Sarah will be able to cast her spell in Moperville, but NOT in some other location, because she would still need at least little help from outside. It will also affect watches 2.0.

On 10/22/2016 at 6:39 AM, Don Edwards said:

In other words, the peak area the whale referred to could be significantly smaller than the area of enhanced magical energy.

Could be. Or not. We don't know how quickly can magic level drop. The area where magic is enhanced by clog when compared to pre-clog situation will be likely considerably bigger than the area where magic is enhanced to levels bigger than natural.

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13 hours ago, hkmaly said:

Well, yes. And I would say that "above". I still think as a sink, it was near the natural maximum even BEFORE the clog.

This is actually important, as it's perfectly possible that at some point AFTER removing the clog, Sarah will be able to cast her spell in Moperville, but NOT in some other location, because she would still need at least little help from outside. It will also affect watches 2.0.

I would think that if there was a natural area around the nexus where the energy is higher, there's have been some mention of it, like Pandora might have understandably failed to mention it on the first visit, but the second visit she wasn't like "don't worry, even if this works, there'd still be plenty of magic where the clog was to exercise with."

I think that once the clog is removed, it'd be like clearing the drain in the sink, and the amount of water coming from the faucet, goes through the drain just as quickly. I still say the only places where she could exercise her spell would be in area's where magic comes back in from the other half. Actually, faucet would probably not be an appropriate analogy for this situation. I'd guess that where magic comes in is more like a fountain considering Andrea had described the spot on her half that was affected by the clog as having been used by mages and wizards and such, it'd make sense that magic entering the world would create an area of relatively high magic then gets siphoned towards various drains. Something like that would allow for France to have higher ambient energy, of course there might be some place in North America as well that would be an influx point, but it wouldn't be very convenient for Sarah anyway.

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3 hours ago, Scotty said:
17 hours ago, hkmaly said:

Well, yes. And I would say that "above". I still think as a sink, it was near the natural maximum even BEFORE the clog.

This is actually important, as it's perfectly possible that at some point AFTER removing the clog, Sarah will be able to cast her spell in Moperville, but NOT in some other location, because she would still need at least little help from outside. It will also affect watches 2.0.

I would think that if there was a natural area around the nexus where the energy is higher, there's have been some mention of it, like Pandora might have understandably failed to mention it on the first visit, but the second visit she wasn't like "don't worry, even if this works, there'd still be plenty of magic where the clog was to exercise with."

Sorry, I forgot to add that Sarah would be only able to cast her spell in non-empowered Moperville AFTER some training. Like, she will need to cast the spell 100x to be able to cast in in non-empowered Moperville and 200x to be able to cast it 10 miles west from it.

3 hours ago, Scotty said:

I think that once the clog is removed, it'd be like clearing the drain in the sink, and the amount of water coming from the faucet, goes through the drain just as quickly. I still say the only places where she could exercise her spell would be in area's where magic comes back in from the other half. Actually, faucet would probably not be an appropriate analogy for this situation. I'd guess that where magic comes in is more like a fountain considering Andrea had described the spot on her half that was affected by the clog as having been used by mages and wizards and such, it'd make sense that magic entering the world would create an area of relatively high magic then gets siphoned towards various drains.

Hmmm ... if it would be like flat land with fountains and drains, then magic would be basically same everywhere except the fountains.

What I was imagining was some more complicated terrain, with rivers of magic flowing between fountains and drains in some natural "riverbeds" between some "hills", areas naturally low on magic. That would leave area around drain naturally higher than those "hills".

Of course, we don't know which of those is closer to truth. The flat land idea seem simpler ... and would explain that nobody is really paying attention to the level of magic if it's usually same ... Mr. Verres said It is easier to use magic in some key places on the planet, that seem to describe more something like the fountains than more complicated terrain ...

... ok, seems that I my version is less likely.

3 hours ago, Scotty said:

Something like that would allow for France to have higher ambient energy, of course there might be some place in North America as well that would be an influx point, but it wouldn't be very convenient for Sarah anyway.

There is exactly ZERO reason to suspect that France or any specific area of France might be one of the fountains. Wait. Actually, it's NEGATIVE of WHOLE France being fountain - the area with more ambient magic around fountain must be SMALLER than the Moperville anomaly.

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7 minutes ago, hkmaly said:

Of course, we don't know which of those is closer to truth. The flat land idea seem simpler ... and would explain that nobody is really paying attention to the level of magic if it's usually same ... Mr. Verres said It is easier to use magic in some key places on the planet, that seem to describe more something like the fountains than more complicated terrain ...

... ok, seems that I my version is less likely.

If the drains had some sort of pull on magic, like a gravity well but strictly affecting magic, it would explain why magic continued to collect in Moperville despite the clog.

17 minutes ago, hkmaly said:

There is exactly ZERO reason to suspect that France or any specific area of France might be one of the fountains. Wait. Actually, it's NEGATIVE of WHOLE France being fountain - the area with more ambient magic around fountain must be SMALLER than the Moperville anomaly.

Maybe not all of France, but Paris or whatever city Nanase and Susan went too, the reason I kept saying France was because Dan never stated exactly where they went.

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2 minutes ago, Scotty said:
21 minutes ago, hkmaly said:

Of course, we don't know which of those is closer to truth. The flat land idea seem simpler ... and would explain that nobody is really paying attention to the level of magic if it's usually same ... Mr. Verres said It is easier to use magic in some key places on the planet, that seem to describe more something like the fountains than more complicated terrain ...

... ok, seems that I my version is less likely.

If the drains had some sort of pull on magic, like a gravity well but strictly affecting magic, it would explain why magic continued to collect in Moperville despite the clog.

Actually, even just that WOULD make the area having more magic than average after unclogging. Even if the drain is really highspeed and ambient magic is basically unusable when on it because it drains it so fast, there will be natural area around the drain where the "gravity" would compress magic to maximal level and the flow from that to the drain will be slowed by magic from other directions getting in the way.

(This is not visible on water because water flows very fast, able to create flat surface in whole bathtub under one second if you don't count waves. Magic doesn't flow that fast, as proved by Nanase and Ellen.)

13 minutes ago, Scotty said:
32 minutes ago, hkmaly said:

There is exactly ZERO reason to suspect that France or any specific area of France might be one of the fountains. Wait. Actually, it's NEGATIVE of WHOLE France being fountain - the area with more ambient magic around fountain must be SMALLER than the Moperville anomaly.

Maybe not all of France, but Paris or whatever city Nanase and Susan went too, the reason I kept saying France was because Dan never stated exactly where they went.

I suspect it was Paris, I'm from Europe and can't remember anything in France worth visiting which is not in or near Paris :)

(Chartres Cathedral is like 50km from Paris, Palace of Versailles is even closer, Eiffel Tower is IN Paris ... and Disneyland is roughly as far as Versailles.)

But I was saying that there is no reason to assume that the place where Susan killed the Vampire had above average levels of magic. Except, of course, if you want argument for the "just marked people shouldn't be able to cast their spell outside Moperville" idea which is absurd. Hey, Sarah would presumably be able to turn to man in that cave with Jerry, which is unlikely to have above average magic either. If her rationality didn't prevent her from being marked, of course.

 

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28 minutes ago, hkmaly said:

Actually, even just that WOULD make the area having more magic than average after unclogging. Even if the drain is really highspeed and ambient magic is basically unusable when on it because it drains it so fast, there will be natural area around the drain where the "gravity" would compress magic to maximal level and the flow from that to the drain will be slowed by magic from other directions getting in the way.

Maybe equating it to gravity is not the best way to describe it, more like a suction. If you pour a bit of water on a surface, then take a straw and place it near the water but not touching, then suck on the straw, the suction should pull a stream of water to the straw.

25 minutes ago, hkmaly said:

But I was saying that there is no reason to assume that the place where Susan killed the Vampire had above average levels of magic. Except, of course, if you want argument for the "just marked people shouldn't be able to cast their spell outside Moperville" idea which is absurd. Hey, Sarah would presumably be able to turn to man in that cave with Jerry, which is unlikely to have above average magic either. If her rationality didn't prevent her from being marked, of course.

Vampires could be an indication if higher ambient energy though, not saying it is, but it's possible that those who chose that route need a good amount of energy to accomplish it.

It likely doesn't require energy to mark people, Jerry likely knew about the elevated energy in Moperville which would have allowed Sarah to cast the spell. Though the cave itself was special in the Jerry had used his magic to create illusions to hide the cave from non magic users, and then the artifact was being powered by him in that cave too. I would imagine the cave doesn't hold any power whatsoever now but it doesn't really matter.

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4 hours ago, hkmaly said:

I suspect it was Paris, I'm from Europe and can't remember anything in France worth visiting which is not in or near Paris :)

(Chartres Cathedral is like 50km from Paris, Palace of Versailles is even closer, Eiffel Tower is IN Paris ... and Disneyland is roughly as far as Versailles.)

By American standards, the majority of France is "near Paris". Then again, by American standards, "near" means "anywhere that I can drive to and back in one day". This is the land of hundred-mile-each-way daily commutes, after all . . .

3 hours ago, Scotty said:

Vampires could be an indication if higher ambient energy though, not saying it is, but it's possible that those who chose that route need a good amount of energy to accomplish it.

They may need extra energy to become vampires for the first time (i.e. to reconfigure themselves to absorb life from people beyond simply digesting flesh and blood as normal food), but subsequently switching in and out of their monster forms may need much less, given that Vampires are generally Awakened before they become Vampires.

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2 hours ago, Scotty said:
3 hours ago, hkmaly said:

Actually, even just that WOULD make the area having more magic than average after unclogging. Even if the drain is really highspeed and ambient magic is basically unusable when on it because it drains it so fast, there will be natural area around the drain where the "gravity" would compress magic to maximal level and the flow from that to the drain will be slowed by magic from other directions getting in the way.

Maybe equating it to gravity is not the best way to describe it, more like a suction. If you pour a bit of water on a surface, then take a straw and place it near the water but not touching, then suck on the straw, the suction should pull a stream of water to the straw.

Not if you clog it :)

Equating it to gravity might be necessary. Obviously there WAS some force which made concentration of ambient magic in Moperville bigger despite drain no longer being there (because being clogged).

2 hours ago, Scotty said:
3 hours ago, hkmaly said:

But I was saying that there is no reason to assume that the place where Susan killed the Vampire had above average levels of magic. Except, of course, if you want argument for the "just marked people shouldn't be able to cast their spell outside Moperville" idea which is absurd. Hey, Sarah would presumably be able to turn to man in that cave with Jerry, which is unlikely to have above average magic either. If her rationality didn't prevent her from being marked, of course.

Vampires could be an indication if higher ambient energy though, not saying it is, but it's possible that those who chose that route need a good amount of energy to accomplish it.

Except aberrations get that energy from other people. BY DEFINITION.

2 hours ago, Scotty said:

It likely doesn't require energy to mark people, Jerry likely knew about the elevated energy in Moperville which would have allowed Sarah to cast the spell.

Sigh. You, again, make assumption not based on anything in the story, but to support your pet theory. There is no reason to assume Jerry was up-to-date about what's happening in Moperville. Neither did he mentioned Sarah not being able to cast the spell immediately. AND Pandora specifically mentioned Sarah not having enough magic for her talent-based spell between reasons Jerry overlook the talent, which again suggest that it might've been hard for him to mark her on place she wouldn't be able to cast the mark spell on.

Also, is that so hard to accept, with transformation apparently being EASY spell based on how many people have it?

3 hours ago, Scotty said:

Though the cave itself was special in the Jerry had used his magic to create illusions to hide the cave from non magic users, and then the artifact was being powered by him in that cave too. I would imagine the cave doesn't hold any power whatsoever now but it doesn't really matter.

The way he was throwing them out of the cave makes me think the cave wasn't even real and was going to disappear. Although I can't find anything said about it, so maybe not.

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1 hour ago, hkmaly said:

Sigh. You, again, make assumption not based on anything in the story, but to support your pet theory. There is no reason to assume Jerry was up-to-date about what's happening in Moperville. Neither did he mentioned Sarah not being able to cast the spell immediately. AND Pandora specifically mentioned Sarah not having enough magic for her talent-based spell between reasons Jerry overlook the talent, which again suggest that it might've been hard for him to mark her on place she wouldn't be able to cast the mark spell on.

Also, is that so hard to accept, with transformation apparently being EASY spell based on how many people have it?

Jerry would have known about Moperville having high enough energy for Sarah to use whatever spell he could have granted her. It would have mattered whether she could have done it right away in the cave, it could have been possible to cast the spell in the cave because Jerry's energy powering the enchantments and artifact might have created a pocket of high energy, but it doesn't really matter since it wouldn't be there for long. Jerry was probably thinking "these girls are going to be spending much of the time in Moperville, they shouldn't have to worry about energy for a while."

Also, just because a type of spell is common, doesn't mean it's easy, sure there are different levels of transformations, Catalina's being a relatively simple looking because it just did ears and a tail, but a full blown cat form might take much more. Transformations are also common because of the system of how people can get magic, what people yearn for or are highly interested in can steer what kind of spell they get so if a large portion of people think transformations is cool, then a good majority would probably get some sort of transformation spell.

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1 hour ago, Scotty said:

Catalina's being a relatively simple looking because it just did ears and a tail, but a full blown cat form might take much more.

Man should be easier than cat, shouldn't it?

1 hour ago, Scotty said:

Also, just because a type of spell is common, doesn't mean it's easy

... although I must admit that it's true - I mean, that being common doesn't mean it's easy.

1 hour ago, Scotty said:

if a large portion of people think transformations is cool

... the ease and convenience of transformations in EGS have more to do with DAN thinking transformations are cool.

1 hour ago, Scotty said:

because Jerry's energy powering the enchantments and artifact might have created a pocket of high energy

The hammers were already turned off for more than day.

1 hour ago, Scotty said:

Jerry would have known about Moperville having high enough energy for Sarah to use whatever spell he could have granted her.

Not unless his predictive abilities would tell him that ... hmm, ok, maybe they would.

Still, Occam's razors says that D-class talents CAN cast SOME spells even outside Moperville. And if it's not enough for you, ask Dan. Perhaps we will get nice Q&A about it.

2 hours ago, ijuin said:

By American standards, the majority of France is "near Paris". Then again, by American standards, "near" means "anywhere that I can drive to and back in one day". This is the land of hundred-mile-each-way daily commutes, after all . . .

I don't think they had cars in France. They might have bus. But the vampire being able to get Susan out of crowd sort of suggested they walked around, meaning either from/to where the bus was parked to some tourist attraction, or between two attractions.

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5 hours ago, hkmaly said:

Man should be easier than cat, shouldn't it?

Well, changing body structure would vary depending on the form, though switching genders might carry it's own complexities. Easiest transformations would probably be related to hair style, hair colour, eye colour, skin colour, stuff like that. When you start changing shapes and sizes of body parts and messing with internal plumbing, it starts getting more complex.

6 hours ago, hkmaly said:

... the ease and convenience of transformations in EGS have more to do with DAN thinking transformations are cool.

Possibly, but I do feel that even in real life, there are a good amount of people who think that having the ability to transform in some way would be nice.

6 hours ago, hkmaly said:

The hammers were already turned off for more than day.

Jerry still hadn't finished gathering up all his power from the rest of the cave though.

6 hours ago, hkmaly said:

Still, Occam's razors says that D-class talents CAN cast SOME spells even outside Moperville. And if it's not enough for you, ask Dan. Perhaps we will get nice Q&A about it.

If Dan hadn't made all of the people Pandora marked be residents of Moperville, it'd be a lot easier to determine if it's true or not. As it is, at least from a character's perspective, the only reason the marks are on Moperville residents would be because the high energy would guaranteed that they could immediately use their spells if they happened to trigger them like Catalina did. Ashley probably could have had her transformation spree the same day she would have been marked had it not being for her goodness preventing it.

Otherwise, Pandora could have gone elsewhere to mark people, it would have made magic public a lot faster, though it would have also made the Will of Magic change the system sooner too.

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43 minutes ago, ProfessorTomoe said:

Bries on down ... bries on down the ro-oad ...

\me add name to list.

mlooney wants some brie.  All I have right now is some New Zealand cheddar, which is no where near as sharp as they claim it is.

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11 hours ago, The Old Hack said:
16 hours ago, hkmaly said:

I don't think they had cars in France. They might have bus.

Really? I thought the French just rode cheese wheels. :danshiftyeyes:

"They" was referring to the group of student from Moperville's schools, not to French.

Although, it IS possible cars are not allowed in Paris. At least on Sunday.

9 hours ago, Scotty said:
16 hours ago, hkmaly said:

... the ease and convenience of transformations in EGS have more to do with DAN thinking transformations are cool.

Possibly, but I do feel that even in real life, there are a good amount of people who think that having the ability to transform in some way would be nice.

That may be true but you definitely can't guess what amount that will be based on people reading EGS :)

9 hours ago, Scotty said:
16 hours ago, hkmaly said:

Still, Occam's razors says that D-class talents CAN cast SOME spells even outside Moperville. And if it's not enough for you, ask Dan. Perhaps we will get nice Q&A about it.

If Dan hadn't made all of the people Pandora marked be residents of Moperville, it'd be a lot easier to determine if it's true or not. As it is, at least from a character's perspective, the only reason the marks are on Moperville residents would be because the high energy would guaranteed that they could immediately use their spells if they happened to trigger them like Catalina did. Ashley probably could have had her transformation spree the same day she would have been marked had it not being for her goodness preventing it.

Otherwise, Pandora could have gone elsewhere to mark people, it would have made magic public a lot faster, though it would have also made the Will of Magic change the system sooner too.

I think you even already mentioned it, but maybe it was someone else: the reason she marks people in Moperville and she clogged the drain there isn't that otherwise people wouldn't be able to cast at all (not counting exceptions like Sarah): it's because in Moperville they will be able to cast easily and more often, and possibly on higher settings (read: bigger boars). All of those would mean the same number of marked people will cause more obvious "hijinks".

Combined with "doesn't know where the spell came from", not being able to cast spell second time in few minutes after first time might make you doubt it was you who cast it or that anything happened at all.

Also, Adrian is in Moperville. She doesn't care how public is magic in France. She cares about how public is around Adrian.

6 hours ago, mlooney said:

New Zealand cheddar, which is no where near as sharp as they claim it is.

(Imagined sword from cheddar.)

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Quote

Possibly, but I do feel that even in real life, there are a good amount of people who think that having the ability to transform in some way would be nice.

Just in sex-swapping, lots of people would do a round trip once or twice, some people would swap with the intent of it being permanent one-way (although in practice they might have to swap several times before getting all the details squared away for that), and some people would swap repeatedly.

Then there are costuming possibilities.

Perhaps the other interesting thing is, as someone in the Illuminatus! trilogy noted, a fair number of our problems are caused by the fact that people don't change color. (This person was high on acid at the time, and was watching everyone around him change color every couple minutes.) With widespread easy safe body-transformation technology, a lot of forms of prejudice would be harder to maintain.

Quote

If Dan hadn't made all of the people Pandora marked be residents of Moperville,

Actually, we don't know that. All we know is that the people we know about, whom Pandora has marked, are all in Moperville. Of course, Pandora herself hangs around town a lot, and presumably she can't mark people in places she isn't - and probably doesn't bother to mark people if she won't get to see what they do with it.

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9 minutes ago, Don Edwards said:
Quote

Possibly, but I do feel that even in real life, there are a good amount of people who think that having the ability to transform in some way would be nice.

Just in sex-swapping, lots of people would do a round trip once or twice, some people would swap with the intent of it being permanent one-way (although in practice they might have to swap several times before getting all the details squared away for that), and some people would swap repeatedly.

Then there are costuming possibilities.

Perhaps the other interesting thing is, as someone in the Illuminatus! trilogy noted, a fair number of our problems are caused by the fact that people don't change color. (This person was high on acid at the time, and was watching everyone around him change color every couple minutes.) With widespread easy safe body-transformation technology, a lot of forms of prejudice would be harder to maintain.

I can imagine lot of people doing sex-swapping to fight prejudice - or at least try it, before realizing it's not that easy.

But, yes, color totally IS that easy. I mean, there seem to be enough people who are able to completely fail to notice business suit and limousine just to judge person by color.

Then there are things which don't change much but are still technically transformation ... being prettier or slimmer.

I still think that people who think about transformation as first option are not that common. Flying, for example, is very popular.

Not speaking about the difference between "it would be cool to" and desire strong enough to be marked. Although on second though, transformation would be strong desire more often than flying, so ...

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2 hours ago, hkmaly said:

"They" was referring to the group of student from Moperville's schools, not to French.

Don't be mean. I'm sure the French would be happy to let their guests from Moperville use some of their cheese wheels.

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