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Scotty

Story, Friday February 9, 2018

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6 hours ago, hkmaly said:

And Monday will help you how? ... could easily be weeks before we get Voltaire's reaction.

I was mainly talking about what Tedd would say next with this new revelation.

6 hours ago, hkmaly said:

Only if it paid attention to that conversation. ... although, going by how much it seems to know, I would say it DOES know, but maybe don't understand ...

I would expect that since the WoM tasked Disco Wizard with contacting Grace for the purpose of getting Pandora's attention, it would be watching fairly carefully to what happens in Grace's dreams. It's not really like Disco Wizard could just report back afterwards, since he doesn't have any memory of who Grace even is and what they talked about when he's awake.

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46 minutes ago, Scotty said:

would expect that since the WoM tasked Disco Wizard with contacting Grace for the purpose of getting Pandora's attention, it would be watching fairly carefully to what happens in Grace's dreams. It's not really like Disco Wizard could just report back afterwards, since he doesn't have any memory of who Grace even is and what they talked about when he's awake.

So what? There is no need for report back. WoM doesn't care if the task fails because Disco Wizard won't be able to contact Pandora or because Pandora won't stop.

(As I said, I suppose it DID paid attention. But it didn't NEEDED to.)

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I just had a rather disconcerting thought that might shed light on WoM's attitude. What happens when it finally selects minor changes and going public? For one thing, that could result in magic not needing to change ever again, rendering the Will at the very least partially obsolete. It might be a situation where the existing Will of Magic retires -- or dies -- to be replaced by something else that is then put in charge of the new paradigm. Possibly something like Immortal death and reset. This could help explain why the Will is taking a lot of convincing.

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Ok, Magic has a point that without Pandora there almost certainly won't be another singularly spectacular event such as the mass slaughter of aberrations.

However:

Weren't things heading towards a reset even before that?

Didn't Pandora achieve all previous progress towards a reset by, in essence, helping some (dozens?) people gain magic in one small area and then letting human nature take its course?

Isn't that something that all seers will be able to do?

What percentage of seers does past history suggest will attempt to do so, specifically seeking to expose magic far and wide?

How many seers does that work out to with current world population, and is it really so few that they can't collectively match Pandora's marking spree?

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7 minutes ago, Tom Sewell said:

Catspaws has gone on for a year and a half now and we still haven't dealt with the cat.

Well, we need to see what the catspaws do first, then deal with the cat.

1 minute ago, Douglas said:

However:

Weren't things heading towards a reset even before that?

Didn't Pandora achieve all previous progress towards a reset by, in essence, helping some (dozens?) people gain magic in one small area and then letting human nature take its course?

Isn't that something that all seers will be able to do?

What percentage of seers does past history suggest will attempt to do so, specifically seeking to expose magic far and wide?

How many seers does that work out to with current world population, and is it really so few that they can't collectively match Pandora's marking spree?

I think that's the convincing argument Magic needs to decide minimal changes and then no more.

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9 minutes ago, hkmaly said:

So what? There is no need for report back. WoM doesn't care if the task fails because Disco Wizard won't be able to contact Pandora or because Pandora won't stop.

(As I said, I suppose it DID paid attention. But it didn't NEEDED to.)

It just seems like it would have been unnecessary to do if the WoM wasn't trying to gather information or trying to guide. Contacting Grace in her dreams weren't guaranteed to work. Yes, she figured out that the creepy girl on TV was marking people, she might have even remembered the warning of magic changing eventually if Pandora (Box) hadn't told Sarah to tell Tedd about the dam and such but it might have been too late, and Disco Wizard himself said that the whole thing was never about talking to Grace.

Just now, Tom Sewell said:

Catspaws has gone on for a year and a half now and we still haven't dealt with the cat.

Yes we did. ;)

Just now, Douglas said:

Ok, Magic has a point that without Pandora there almost certainly won't be another singularly spectacular event such as the mass slaughter of aberrations.

However:

Weren't things heading towards a reset even before that?

Didn't Pandora achieve all previous progress towards a reset by, in essence, helping some (dozens?) people gain magic in one small area and then letting human nature take its course?

Isn't that something that all seers will be able to do?

What percentage of seers does past history suggest will attempt to do so, specifically seeking to expose magic far and wide?

How many seers does that work out to with current world population, and is it really so few that they can't collectively match Pandora's marking spree?

The goo incidences didn't seen to do much in terms of get people attention towards magic, if anyone were to try to explain those it'd be like "Yeah, alternate realities are real, and sometimes there's an evil version of one of us that sends things over here to cause trouble, but it's very rare and we've been able to deal with it." That doesn't put magic in any danger of being revealed. The points that have put Magic in danger was Abraham's attack and Pandora's appearance on TV, the fire golems and bulldog dragon as well as the appearance of a super hero. Claims of a giant boar, then the two incidences at the mall.

The thing is though, only 3 of the magic related incidences that were directly Pandora's doing, her appearance on TV, the boar and the last one with her light show. And technically, the fire golems and bulldog dragon we only a tiny bit her doing because she marked Dex, but everything else about that was Voltaire's doing and the first mall incident was all Voltaire, and the last incident wouldn't have happened if Voltaire wasn't meddling.

Maybe if Voltaire didn't get involved, it's possible that human nature might have taken to the idea of magic easier, making the idea of the WoM being convinced of minimal changes being more possible. But Voltaire created some situations where loss of life was possible, property damage was definitely done, that would put people on edge about magic and the potential danger in the wrong hands which has been Arthur's main worry. I dunno

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11 hours ago, Douglas said:

Didn't Pandora achieve all previous progress towards a reset by, in essence, helping some (dozens?) people gain magic in one small area and then letting human nature take its course?

Isn't that something that all seers will be able to do?

What percentage of seers does past history suggest will attempt to do so, specifically seeking to expose magic far and wide?

How many seers does that work out to with current world population, and is it really so few that they can't collectively match Pandora's marking spree?

In the world as it currently exists, there will probably be at least 300 seers *any one* of whom can cause a magic outbreak, not merely locally, but *worldwide*.

And if each of those 300 seers tries to keep magic a secret, but does teach two friends how to use magic, that means there are 600 non-seer people capable of doing the same thing.

We know of one seer who is likely to directly teach at least six others, and possibly eight or more others. At least one of the six would teach another person who is part of a separate magic-using group of unknown size. There are four others edit for clarification: other seers who were previously aware of magic and probably (definitely, in one case) part of their own magic-using groups. Some of the other 995 are likely to say, "Oh, THAT's how my friend was able to do such-and-such".

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10 hours ago, Douglas said:

Didn't Pandora achieve all previous progress towards a reset by, in essence, helping some (dozens?) people gain magic in one small area and then letting human nature take its course?

Isn't that something that all seers will be able to do?

I suspect seers would only be able to give magic to talented people. However, ...

10 hours ago, Douglas said:

How many seers does that work out to with current world population, and is it really so few that they can't collectively match Pandora's marking spree?

... I feel lot could be done by few seers working together and searching for talents on fantasy conventions or similar events, where high concentration of people likely to be eager to get magic will be available.

And, obviously, that's assuming people will at least TRY to keep magic relatively secret. Because otherwise, ...

1 hour ago, Don Edwards said:

In the world as it currently exists, there will probably be at least 300 seers *any one* of whom can cause a magic outbreak, not merely locally, but *worldwide*.

... there only need to be like two or three people - not seers, just magic users - who decide to go to TV with their abilities and make money on big shows like David Copperfield. Not counting those who will try and get stopped by DGB, of course. Sure, just those two or three won't DIRECTLY make magic public, but they would likely start the avalanche. Especially considering people won't have enough time to forget about the other weird events Pandora did.

2 hours ago, Scotty said:

It just seems like it would have been unnecessary to do if the WoM wasn't trying to gather information or trying to guide. Contacting Grace in her dreams weren't guaranteed to work. Yes, she figured out that the creepy girl on TV was marking people, she might have even remembered the warning of magic changing eventually if Pandora (Box) hadn't told Sarah to tell Tedd about the dam and such but it might have been too late, and Disco Wizard himself said that the whole thing was never about talking to Grace.

Disco wizard also said that he thinks he was intentionally being given poor odds of success.

 

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Just now, hkmaly said:

Disco wizard also said that he thinks he was intentionally being given poor odds of success.

Yeah but that was strictly in terms of what he was doing with Grace, but even then he suspected there might have been another reason and was assuming what the motivation might be for it. So here we have the WoM recruiting Disco Wizard for a task that on the surface seem like it's too convoluted to do any good, but not telling him what the real reason for it is, and Disco Wizard finally coming to the realization of the reason after his chat with Pandora. Do you think Disco Wizard would have been able to pull off a convincing ruse if he knew that he was supposed to get getting an Immortal's attention? That's the reason why Edward didn't give Elliot a heads up when the fake Cheerleadra sighting was about to happen.

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16 hours ago, mlooney said:

A-1/43 ADA RSOP Team song 1986-88

My high school class adopted "One Night in Bangkok" as an unofficial class song.  We were nerds, it was about chess, seemed a parfect fit.

 

(Actually, that's not quite true, it was the class ahead of mine -- my class was, for some unknown reason, enamored of "Safety Dance," but I had more friends in the class ahead than in my own at that point, so I claim ONIB instead.)

2 hours ago, Don Edwards said:

We know of one seer who is likely to directly teach at least six others, and possibly eight or more others. At least one of the six would teach another person who is part of a separate magic-using group of unknown size. There are four others who were previously aware of magic and probably (definitely, in one case) part of their own magic-using groups. Some of the other 995 are likely to say, "Oh, THAT's how my friend was able to do such-and-such".

To be fair, we also know that the Seers of whom you speak are not exactly typical.  Most Seers, indeed most Wizards, have never seen magic and have no idea what they are.  That means it's quite likely that the vast majority of the remaining 995 Seers have no idea magic is real and thus do not have any ready-and-waiting friends to teach magic to.  Outside of Moperville, it's apparently pretty rare for a Seer to be around anyone with magic enough to see them use it.  Suddenly knowing magic is real and that some people can use it doesn't mean you get a spell like Luke's that tells you who has magic.  A Seer would be no more likely to see magic in action after the reveal than before, unless they made a public announcement of their abilities and sat through the inevitable scorn and the hordes of wannabes that would inevitably show up to be Looked at, then get pissed off at the Seer when told they didn't See anything.  Anyone with magic would risk exposure if they went to a publicly known Seer, so many would stay away, or they'd go but would refuse to go public once the Seer confirmed their ability was, indeed, magic.  The longer a Seer goes without being able to publicly demonstrate that someone they have identified can do magic, the more scorn and ridicule, and the less likely a real magic-user would be to go to the shyster.  (After all, Seers may be told what they are, but no one else who has magic will be....)

Unless Seers would also be told they can make wands, and they can make wands with enough energy in them for normal, non-talented people to use them, and they actually See a spell to put into the wands that is overtly magical (because they don't get their own spells, they only learn the spells of others, so they'd have to see one in order to pass it on in a wand), and they can convince someone to use that wand on camera, or to use it enough to develop their own talents....

32 minutes ago, hkmaly said:

I suspect seers would only be able to give magic to talented people. However, ...

... I feel lot could be done by few seers working together and searching for talents on fantasy conventions or similar events, where high concentration of people likely to be eager to get magic will be available.

And they'd just happen to see one of those people cast a spell, for them to be able to see the magic happening?  Because Seers aren't like Luke, they can't see someone has talent, they can only See magic itself as it's happening.  Each Seer would have to See a spell happen in order to pass that spell on, they don't get spells of their own.  And an SF/F convention would be full of hundreds of wannabes and wishful thinkers for every genuine magical talent.

32 minutes ago, hkmaly said:

... there only need to be like two or three people - not seers, just magic users - who decide to go to TV with their abilities and make money on big shows like David Copperfield. Not counting those who will try and get stopped by DGB, of course. Sure, just those two or three won't DIRECTLY make magic public, but they would likely start the avalanche. Especially considering people won't have enough time to forget about the other weird events Pandora did.

Wouldn't need a TV show to get rich, or need to go public.  The Amazing James Randi, a professional illusionist-type magician, has had a longstanding prize of a million dollars to anyone who can prove anything supernatural.  Psychics, ghosts, mind-readers, anything that can still be done reproducibly once Randi has made sure they aren't using magician's tricks to fake it.  No one has claimed it yet.

Someone with real magic would probably make more money by pretending to be a very talented and skilled illusionist, assuming their spell(s) gave them any appropriate abilities.  Many people with magic wouldn't have anything visible happen, and might not know their ability was magic at all.  A power like boosted powers of deduction might lead someone to become a detective, or maybe solve puzzles in contests for prize money.  Actual gaydar or enhanced attractiveness wouldn't be seen as magic to anyone but a Seer.  Neither would magically sharing feelings, and healing very minor scratches that would have been gone in a day would probably get pooh-pooed as not being a real scratch or the camera just not picking up what was left of it.

 

A Seer exposing magic to the world would probably happen eventually, if they were determined enough and didn't give up out of embarrassment and self-doubt and frustration.  But it is unlikely to be easy or quick unless one of the five who have already used magic decide to fight to make magic public, and even then it could go wrong.  It's a lot easier to discredit an extraordinary claim, or the person making it, and the rest of the world would probably believe them a fraud much more easily than that they were genuine.

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2 hours ago, CritterKeeper said:

Suddenly knowing magic is real and that some people can use it doesn't mean you get a spell like Luke's that tells you who has magic.  A Seer would be no more likely to see magic in action after the reveal than before, unless they made a public announcement of their abilities and sat through the inevitable scorn and the hordes of wannabes that would inevitably show up to be Looked at, then get pissed off at the Seer when told they didn't See anything.  Anyone with magic would risk exposure if they went to a publicly known Seer, so many would stay away, or they'd go but would refuse to go public once the Seer confirmed their ability was, indeed, magic.  The longer a Seer goes without being able to publicly demonstrate that someone they have identified can do magic, the more scorn and ridicule, and the less likely a real magic-user would be to go to the shyster.  (After all, Seers may be told what they are, but no one else who has magic will be....)

Unless Seers would also be told they can make wands, and they can make wands with enough energy in them for normal, non-talented people to use them, and they actually See a spell to put into the wands that is overtly magical (because they don't get their own spells, they only learn the spells of others, so they'd have to see one in order to pass it on in a wand), and they can convince someone to use that wand on camera, or to use it enough to develop their own talents....

And they'd just happen to see one of those people cast a spell, for them to be able to see the magic happening?  Because Seers aren't like Luke, they can't see someone has talent, they can only See magic itself as it's happening.  Each Seer would have to See a spell happen in order to pass that spell on, they don't get spells of their own.  And an SF/F convention would be full of hundreds of wannabes and wishful thinkers for every genuine magical talent.

All seers will be made aware of magic, how the new system works, and how to teach it to others. They don't need to find people who already have magic, they can just start teaching. Lesson 1 would be "this is how you, as a non magic user, can get magic." The current system has ways for any random guy to become magical without Immortal help - Edward made a big deal of this when arguing with Tedd after Not-Tengu - and I see no reason to expect the new system to be different in this regard. The ways of acquiring magic would be different, but there would still be some. And all seers would get magically informed about exactly what they are.

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

Disco wizard also said that he thinks he was intentionally being given poor odds of success.

Yeah but that was strictly in terms of what he was doing with Grace, but even then he suspected there might have been another reason and was assuming what the motivation might be for it. So here we have the WoM recruiting Disco Wizard for a task that on the surface seem like it's too convoluted to do any good, but not telling him what the real reason for it is, and Disco Wizard finally coming to the realization of the reason after his chat with Pandora. Do you think Disco Wizard would have been able to pull off a convincing ruse if he knew that he was supposed to get getting an Immortal's attention? That's the reason why Edward didn't give Elliot a heads up when the fake Cheerleadra sighting was about to happen.

Still doesn't seem the chance was so big. It was dramatic, but unless WoM predicted it will work (in which case, it didn't needed to observe to see that it indeed worked) it was far from reliable. And there were no signs that if it would fail WoM would try something else.

5 hours ago, CritterKeeper said:

Wouldn't need a TV show to get rich, or need to go public.  The Amazing James Randi, a professional illusionist-type magician, has had a longstanding prize of a million dollars to anyone who can prove anything supernatural.  Psychics, ghosts, mind-readers, anything that can still be done reproducibly once Randi has made sure they aren't using magician's tricks to fake it.  No one has claimed it yet.

Copperfield got over $4 billion according to wikipedia. That million dollars is just starting money.

(Would be, if it wasn't discontinued in 2015.)

5 hours ago, CritterKeeper said:

Someone with real magic would probably make more money by pretending to be a very talented and skilled illusionist, assuming their spell(s) gave them any appropriate abilities.

That's possible.

3 hours ago, Douglas said:

All seers will be made aware of magic, how the new system works, and how to teach it to others. They don't need to find people who already have magic, they can just start teaching. Lesson 1 would be "this is how you, as a non magic user, can get magic." The current system has ways for any random guy to become magical without Immortal help - Edward made a big deal of this when arguing with Tedd after Not-Tengu - and I see no reason to expect the new system to be different in this regard. The ways of acquiring magic would be different, but there would still be some. And all seers would get magically informed about exactly what they are.

EXACTLY. There may be some limits, it may require enough work to discourage some people, but seers would KNOW HOW TO TEACH MAGIC TO OTHERS.

After all, the point of seers is that even if there are just few of them, they will be able to ensure the magic will keep being used. In last reset, the few living seers were able to start teaching magic in world with very limited means of travel and with people who would burn them at stake for that.

Now, there would be thousand seers, with most of them being able to travel to different countries, hundreds kilometres away, in few days, and coordinate over internet globally.

5 hours ago, CritterKeeper said:

Many people with magic wouldn't have anything visible happen

Ellen, Elliot, Nanase, Susan, Rhoda, Catalina and Dex would have no problems with convincing sceptics.

Even Sarah would likely rock any challenge based on reading hidden text, assuming she will be able to cast her spell without Moperville ambient magic field.

 

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1 hour ago, hkmaly said:

Still doesn't seem the chance was so big. It was dramatic, but unless WoM predicted it will work (in which case, it didn't needed to observe to see that it indeed worked) it was far from reliable. And there were no signs that if it would fail WoM would try something else.

It doesn't have to predict that it would work, but even with a 50% chance of failure, just ignoring it doesn't make sense. Pandora made that mistake by not paying attention to Rhoda more after she marked her, so I would expect that the WoM paid attention to every session that Disco Wizard had with Grace. Grace was probably the only choice, either because her better than average memory would have increased the chance of her remembering her dreams or maybe because she's close enough to Tedd that even Pandora considers her family and so she'd be the kind of bait that Pandora wouldn't be able to resist. It probably couldn't use Tedd as the bait probably due to being a Seer in the sense that it didn't want to influence Tedd and possibly ruin her eligibility, or maybe the only time a Seer can be contacted is when a system change is about to happen.

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2 hours ago, Scotty said:

It doesn't have to predict that it would work, but even with a 50% chance of failure, just ignoring it doesn't make sense.

It failed anyway. Pandora received the warning and tried to stop but forgot when someone tried to shot her son.

2 hours ago, Scotty said:

so I would expect that the WoM paid attention to every session that Disco Wizard had with Grace.

For reference, I think it did. But only to enjoy the drama. It didn't show any attempt to help when it didn't go well.

2 hours ago, Scotty said:

Grace was probably the only choice, either because her better than average memory would have increased the chance of her remembering her dreams or maybe because she's close enough to Tedd that even Pandora considers her family and so she'd be the kind of bait that Pandora wouldn't be able to resist. It probably couldn't use Tedd as the bait probably due to being a Seer in the sense that it didn't want to influence Tedd and possibly ruin her eligibility, or maybe the only time a Seer can be contacted is when a system change is about to happen.

That's probably true ; I mean, that it didn't wanted to risk contacting the seer, even indirectly, which made Grace best choice.

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8 minutes ago, Tom Sewell said:

I wonder if Pandora's final spell covered both sides of Earth...

Well, if the Immortals on both sides have different rules, then it's likely the Immortals on the other side don't send energy to force a reset for rule violations on this side.

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2 minutes ago, partner555 said:
13 minutes ago, Tom Sewell said:

I wonder if Pandora's final spell covered both sides of Earth...

Well, if the Immortals on both sides have different rules, then it's likely the Immortals on the other side don't send energy to force a reset for rule violations on this side.

Also, I suspect aberrations on second half of earth are close to extinction anyway.

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32 minutes ago, partner555 said:

You know, bringing up the Emissary made me wonder, is the Emissary himself a Seer?

The Emissary was only the Emissary in the Dream State.

I don't think Dan ever established who DW was supposed to be when not acting as the Emissary.

In all likelihood, he remembered even less about these encounters when awake than Grace did.  Otherwise, he could have taken more direct action himself.

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