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Tom Sewell

Story Friday, March 1, 2018

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Panel two: Sam says his spell might make parties more interesting.

Panel three: Grace grins, probably remembering an interesting birthday party.

Panel four: Sam begins to freak out, wondering exactly why Grace is smiling.

Panel five: Grace gets serious instead of saying anything about that party.

----

Anybody have any doubt that Sam is the transgender person who sent the message to Elliot?

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Sam, flat out ask Grace if she trusts these ""Magic Police" people.

When Grace gives the qualified "yes", ask her to introduce you to them.

Your transformation isn't the type of spell that gets young people strong armed into government service.

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11 hours ago, Tom Sewell said:

Panel two: Sam says his spell might make parties more interesting.

Panel three: Grace grins, probably remembering an interesting birthday party.

Actually, I think it's approving smile of "I like how you thinks" and refers more to the altruistic stuff than the party. There are people who would at this point smile due to remembering the party, but I don't think that would include Grace.

11 hours ago, Tom Sewell said:

Panel four: Sam begins to freak out, wondering exactly why Grace is smiling.

... although Sam would not know that and might assume Grace is thinking about the fun at party.

10 hours ago, Pharaoh RutinTutin said:

Sam, flat out ask Grace if she trusts these ""Magic Police" people.

When Grace gives the qualified "yes", ask her to introduce you to them.

Would Grace do that? Does she trust the "Magic Police" under the supervision of Arthur Arthur?

10 hours ago, Pharaoh RutinTutin said:

Your transformation isn't the type of spell that gets young people strong armed into government service.

Probably. Like, unless the spell has some unmentioned sideefects.

He might still get into trouble related to his family not knowing. Although ... he's adult, so maybe not.

Also, he would lose the option of claiming he was not aware it's supposed to be secret.

 

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10 hours ago, Tom Sewell said:

Panel three: Grace grins, probably remembering an interesting birthday party.

Panel four: Sam begins to freak out, wondering exactly why Grace is smiling.

This is a continuation of Sam reacting to Grace being adorable, and Dan's commentary supports it

Quote

GRACE, NO.

YOU'RE BEING TOO CHARMING.

 

Just now, hkmaly said:

Would Grace do that? Does she trust the "Magic Police" under the supervision of Arthur Arthur?

I'm pretty sure she means she's going to tell Edward, who will then pass along the info to Arthur, or at least to Wolf and Cranium who, while aren't his agents anymore, he still seems to trust to handle any requests he has.

 

Grace's last comment at least hints that she's aware that magic becoming public in inevitable and Sam would get his wish at some point, but there's work to be done before that's possible.

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29 minutes ago, Scotty said:
56 minutes ago, hkmaly said:

Would Grace do that? Does she trust the "Magic Police" under the supervision of Arthur Arthur?

I'm pretty sure she means she's going to tell Edward, who will then pass along the info to Arthur, or at least to Wolf and Cranium who, while aren't his agents anymore, he still seems to trust to handle any requests he has.

Yes, it's likely she will tell Edward. However, while she certainly trust Edward personally, she may not trust him to make correct choice about telling something to rest of DGB. Which is why she's mentioning she'll try to leave Sam out of it.

33 minutes ago, Scotty said:

Grace's last comment at least hints that she's aware that magic becoming public in inevitable and Sam would get his wish at some point, but there's work to be done before that's possible.

Oh, she's definitely aware. However her comment hints that she thinks DGB is also aware that magic becoming public is inevitable, BUT may still try to delay it.

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1 minute ago, hkmaly said:

Yes, it's likely she will tell Edward. However, while she certainly trust Edward personally, she may not trust him to make correct choice about telling something to rest of DGB. Which is why she's mentioning she'll try to leave Sam out of it.

Yeah leaving Sam out is obvious.

2 minutes ago, hkmaly said:

Oh, she's definitely aware. However her comment hints that she thinks DGB is also aware that magic becoming public is inevitable, BUT may still try to delay it.

Considering Arthur is tasking Tedd with figuring out a way to increase people's resistances against harmful magic, I think Grace would trust Arthur, Liefeld I'm unsure of but he does seem to respect Edward as well and also is aware of what Edward would do if family is threatened, I don't believe DGB would be anything to worry about.

 

Other organizations who might have been aware of the consequences of magic become too public realizing that there isn't that risk any longer, might take advantage of their newfound freedom.

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

Yes, it's likely she will tell Edward. However, while she certainly trust Edward personally, she may not trust him to make correct choice about telling something to rest of DGB. Which is why she's mentioning she'll try to leave Sam out of it.

Yeah leaving Sam out is obvious.

Therefore, Sam himself telling DGB (how? Would she take him to Edward?) wouldn't be good idea either.

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

Oh, she's definitely aware. However her comment hints that she thinks DGB is also aware that magic becoming public is inevitable, BUT may still try to delay it.

Considering Arthur is tasking Tedd with figuring out a way to increase people's resistances against harmful magic, I think Grace would trust Arthur,

Arthur might easily take the stance that DGB should be trying to suppress knowledge about magic until Tedd is successful.

Like, not about the existence of magic, that cat is obviously already out of bag, but any details, especially details related to how easy is to get magic.

1 hour ago, Scotty said:

Liefeld I'm unsure of

I think that Liefeld is nicer than Arthur and might not approve that plan with magic reset if he knew the details. On the other hand, we didn't saw so much of him. AND, in both cases, he might have orders from higher ups.

1 hour ago, Scotty said:

but he does seem to respect Edward as well and also is aware of what Edward would do if family is threatened, I don't believe DGB would be anything to worry about.

... not sure how this is related to Sam.

1 hour ago, Scotty said:

Other organizations who might have been aware of the consequences of magic become too public realizing that there isn't that risk any longer, might take advantage of their newfound freedom.

I think the knowledge that too public magic leads to magic reset was quite secret up to the "not-a-reset" and motivation of most organization to keep magic secret was related to their fear what it will do with society. Which didn't really changed.

Also, any organization which would like to "take advantage of their newfound freedom" will likely become target of other organization's attempts to delay the inevitable.

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Just now, hkmaly said:

Arthur might easily take the stance that DGB should be trying to suppress knowledge about magic until Tedd is successful.

Like, not about the existence of magic, that cat is obviously already out of bag, but any details, especially details related to how easy is to get magic.

It's obvious that Arthur would like Tedd tpo find a solution before knowledge spreads, I'm not sure DBG is capable of preventing the spread, especially considering Tedd's argument for no change was how the internet and other media would allow that knowledge to spread like wildfire, I'm sure they could try, but not entirely sure they would have any real effect.

Just now, hkmaly said:

Also, any organization which would like to "take advantage of their newfound freedom" will likely become target of other organization's attempts to delay the inevitable.

So the world would see a small war with magic flung about. That's pretty much what Arthur is worried about, but there's no guarantee that anyone else would see if that way if they think the risk is worth the reward.

 

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

Arthur might easily take the stance that DGB should be trying to suppress knowledge about magic until Tedd is successful.

Like, not about the existence of magic, that cat is obviously already out of bag, but any details, especially details related to how easy is to get magic.

It's obvious that Arthur would like Tedd tpo find a solution before knowledge spreads, I'm not sure DBG is capable of preventing the spread, especially considering Tedd's argument for no change was how the internet and other media would allow that knowledge to spread like wildfire, I'm sure they could try, but not entirely sure they would have any real effect.

Tedd's argument was that you can't stop thousand of people you don't know about posting on internet. Obviously, when the information gets to the internet it's already too late, but people who are NOT seers can't post so much at first and you can stop them from posting more.

Personally, on our world, I would say it would be useless, but in EGS world it worked surprisingly well, so there is good chance it will work little longer.

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

Also, any organization which would like to "take advantage of their newfound freedom" will likely become target of other organization's attempts to delay the inevitable.

So the world would see a small war with magic flung about. That's pretty much what Arthur is worried about, but there's no guarantee that anyone else would see if that way if they think the risk is worth the reward.

The list of wars fought to prevent war is quite long. I can imagine even DGB specifically will send agents against different organization, fails to keep it contained and starts a war. Remember that they DID send agents against Damien ... or Abraham. Obviously, both were in Edwards times, Arthur might be more careful ... in fact, that was exactly his motivation for not stopping the bulldog dragon ... but regardless, the possibility is there.

In fact, he already plans action against Magus.  Magus already allied himself with aberration. Next time, he might ally himself with some research organization and provide it with dangerous amount of informations ... and not realize that it's kind of organization which will start war when DGB will came to get Magus.

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8 hours ago, hkmaly said:

Tedd's argument was that you can't stop thousand of people you don't know about posting on internet. Obviously, when the information gets to the internet it's already too late, but people who are NOT seers can't post so much at first and you can stop them from posting more.

It's no longer only Seers that are a threat to this, heck there were only 5 that had seen magic and 2 of those that figured out what their purpose was, the rest would only have known magic was a thing when the change occurred and if this "change" didn't require notifying all seers then those others aren't the issue.

The issue is with all the current wizards and magic users finding out that they may not need to be secretive any longer, or maybe just those that can stumble upon magic and being like "ooh I gotta show this to someone!" which is also what Tedd argued would happen.

9 hours ago, hkmaly said:

The list of wars fought to prevent war is quite long. I can imagine even DGB specifically will send agents against different organization, fails to keep it contained and starts a war. Remember that they DID send agents against Damien ... or Abraham. Obviously, both were in Edwards times, Arthur might be more careful ... in fact, that was exactly his motivation for not stopping the bulldog dragon ... but regardless, the possibility is there.

Arthur's motivation for not sending agents to deal with the bulldog dragon was that he wanted to make people believe that magic users were rare , and sending agents to deal with magic related incident instead of letting local law enforcement deal with it would raise to many questions, Arthur doesn't believe that's possible anymore, he also expects to go back into retirement soon so whoever replaces him might do things completely different.

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9 hours ago, hkmaly said:

In fact, he already plans action against Magus.  Magus already allied himself with aberration. Next time, he might ally himself with some research organization and provide it with dangerous amount of informations ... and not realize that it's kind of organization which will start war when DGB will came to get Magus.

Forgot to respond to this part too.

Both Elliot and Ellen believe that Magus should be allowed to return home, Ellen would like it if she got a chance to actually talk to Magus about who she is and all that. I believe Arthur wants to help him get home as well, but first he wants Magus to apologize to Ashley.

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

Tedd's argument was that you can't stop thousand of people you don't know about posting on internet. Obviously, when the information gets to the internet it's already too late, but people who are NOT seers can't post so much at first and you can stop them from posting more.

It's no longer only Seers that are a threat to this, heck there were only 5 that had seen magic and 2 of those that figured out what their purpose was, the rest would only have known magic was a thing when the change occurred and if this "change" didn't require notifying all seers then those others aren't the issue.

Exactly - seers are not the problem, because they weren't informed.

4 hours ago, Scotty said:

The issue is with all the current wizards and magic users finding out that they may not need to be secretive any longer, or maybe just those that can stumble upon magic and being like "ooh I gotta show this to someone!" which is also what Tedd argued would happen.

Those can happen, yes. However, those could happen even before - sure, there is additional point of "hey, maybe now we don't need to be secret anymore" but if DGB has address of most of them (and they KNOW it) they might wait for knowing that for sure.

And they are not as dangerous - because while some of them may share how they learned magic, many are not sure themselves (and none of those who are marked know anything). Seers would specifically have enough knowledge to teach others.

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

The list of wars fought to prevent war is quite long. I can imagine even DGB specifically will send agents against different organization, fails to keep it contained and starts a war. Remember that they DID send agents against Damien ... or Abraham. Obviously, both were in Edwards times, Arthur might be more careful ... in fact, that was exactly his motivation for not stopping the bulldog dragon ... but regardless, the possibility is there.

Arthur's motivation for not sending agents to deal with the bulldog dragon was that he wanted to make people believe that magic users were rare , and sending agents to deal with magic related incident instead of letting local law enforcement deal with it would raise to many questions, Arthur doesn't believe that's possible anymore, he also expects to go back into retirement soon so whoever replaces him might do things completely different.

I don't remember reading any of this.

Specifically, I don't remember Arthur saying that he would stop trying to pretend magic users are rare. While it's clear it can't be hidden long, he may try to get at least few years or months.

And while he was looking forward to going back into retirement, that was related to thinking he will be able to solve current crisis. The way he was talking about Magus suggest he would try at least little longer. There was reason they called him back from retirement - they likely don't really have anyone else capable of leading DGB in such important times, and that's even more so now when he's aware that he's seer and that only other seer working for DGB is Tedd, who is not the right type for leading (although will be good in research).

3 hours ago, Scotty said:

Both Elliot and Ellen believe that Magus should be allowed to return home, Ellen would like it if she got a chance to actually talk to Magus about who she is and all that. I believe Arthur wants to help him get home as well, but first he wants Magus to apologize to Ashley.

I'm not sure he will be satisfied with just apology. Also, there is still the little issue that noone know HOW could Magus be returned home.

And back to original scenario ... misunderstanding can happen. In fact, it's pretty clear the fact that Magus misunderstood Ellen will became plot point again. And Magus is dangerously powerful. With different author, there would be lot of ways how that could turn into real war. Dan so far wasn't the kind of author who would like to tell story like that, but can still surprise us ... and even if not, characters are not aware they have plot armor. Also, something can happen "in background" without Dan drawing it.

So, to conclude: main eight may be unaware, but Arthur Arthur would need to be very careful: he needs to prevent war ... and not cause one by attempt to prevent it.

And the magic will stay secret as long as DAN believes they will manage to keep it secret, not as long as WE do. Which is quite important as our estimates seem to be much shorter.

 

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2 hours ago, hkmaly said:

And they are not as dangerous - because while some of them may share how they learned magic, many are not sure themselves (and none of those who are marked know anything). Seers would specifically have enough knowledge to teach others.

Arthur specifically said that the ease of Awakening was the true secret. He wanted to maintain the impression that Mages are born, not made (like we know happens with Wizards). The idea that any jerk could Awaken with appropriate training is the danger, as Greg and Justin articulated with the "Super Mutant Principle".

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3 hours ago, hkmaly said:

Those can happen, yes. However, those could happen even before - sure, there is additional point of "hey, maybe now we don't need to be secret anymore" but if DGB has address of most of them (and they KNOW it) they might wait for knowing that for sure.

It was quite apparent that DGB was unable to prevent all incidents from happening resulting in the conference with the WoM. Arthur's best case scenario was that another incident would make magic unusable for decades, which would mean people would eventually forget about magic (aside from Seers or course). The last system change happened at a time when incidences were isolated by distance, that attack on the village would not have been experienced by anyone outside the village and so in the following years, all they would have are stories about the time they were outnumbered by an invading force and yet still triumphed, they could write stories or draw pictures about it but outsiders would likely treat them as myth and legend. That's not really possible now with a good majority of people with cameras in their pockets and access to the internet, and it doesn't really matter if magic users figure out there won't be anymore system changes because the rate of incidences will increase anyway as the number of magic users increase, as we've seen with Not_Tengu, people could just stumble onto the ability to use magic.

 

3 hours ago, hkmaly said:

I don't remember reading any of this.

Specifically, I don't remember Arthur saying that he would stop trying to pretend magic users are rare. While it's clear it can't be hidden long, he may try to get at least few years or months.

And while he was looking forward to going back into retirement, that was related to thinking he will be able to solve current crisis. The way he was talking about Magus suggest he would try at least little longer. There was reason they called him back from retirement - they likely don't really have anyone else capable of leading DGB in such important times, and that's even more so now when he's aware that he's seer and that only other seer working for DGB is Tedd, who is not the right type for leading (although will be good in research).

Here is where Arthur states that accessibility of magic was the real secret. Here is where he concedes that keeping that secret would no longer be possible. And then here is where he mentions that it won't be long before he goes back into retirement. I think the best he'd be able to do is inform the right people of what's happened and recommend a course of action, but the fact that he's tasking Tedd with researching ways to make magic safer for everyone, means that he's likely chosen the route of minimizing damage rather than all out secrecy and he would likely be suggesting that Tedd get whatever support needed.

4 hours ago, hkmaly said:

I'm not sure he will be satisfied with just apology. Also, there is still the little issue that noone know HOW could Magus be returned home.

There isn't really any sense in imprisoning Magus for making Ashley cry either, and as I said before, Ellen and Elliot would have told Arthur why Magus did what he did, and it wouldn't make sense to imprison him after he'd just escaped a prison he didn't belong in.

4 hours ago, hkmaly said:

And back to original scenario ... misunderstanding can happen. In fact, it's pretty clear the fact that Magus misunderstood Ellen will became plot point again. And Magus is dangerously powerful.

Magus is still much like Elliot and Ellen, he wanted to be a battlemage to protect people, an he hated the fact that he had to resort to using Elliot the way he did and dealing with Sirleck in the process. I don't think there's any risk of him going on a rampage.

4 hours ago, hkmaly said:

So, to conclude: main eight may be unaware, but Arthur Arthur would need to be very careful: he needs to prevent war ... and not cause one by attempt to prevent it.

Arthur told Tedd that his continued research is of critical importance, so I'm pretty certain Tedd is aware of what could happen if knowledge spreads too much before he's able to come up with a solution to make it safer.

4 hours ago, hkmaly said:

And the magic will stay secret as long as DAN believes they will manage to keep it secret, not as long as WE do. Which is quite important as our estimates seem to be much shorter.

Of course it is up to Dan, but remember how Dan left us with Voltaire? I'm pretty certain that if Voltaire got his way, I don't see him or other like minded Immortals taking a nap to let Tedd get his work done.

 

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1 hour ago, Scotty said:

Of course it is up to Dan, but remember how Dan left us with Voltaire? I'm pretty certain that if Voltaire got his way, I don't see him or other like minded Immortals taking a nap to let Tedd get his work done.

The way Dan has set up the Immortals, getting all or most of them to agree on anything is an extremely rare event. Voltaire was pretty clever in seeming to be sympathetic to Pandora's cause--but he left out the part that he set up the attempted murder of Pandora's son. But is that enough to get support from enough other Immortals, or the right Immortals, to change their law?

BTW, has anyone else noticed that Pandora is the only Immortal we've seen changing their form? Voltaire used another voice over a phone once, and he wore a different costume one other time, but that's it. But Pandora herself said "Immortals are shapeshifters!" to the Emissary back at the beginning of Sister 3, so Volty could probably look like anyone--maybe even Smokey. I doubt that because Voltaire is vain and wants everyone to be impressed with his brilliance, and I don't think that vanity would allow him to make a convincing act of being afraid like Smokey seemed to be just before they made their exit, but still...

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Just now, Tom Sewell said:

The way Dan has set up the Immortals, getting all or most of them to agree on anything is an extremely rare event. Voltaire was pretty clever in seeming to be sympathetic to Pandora's cause--but he left out the part that he set up the attempted murder of Pandora's son. But is that enough to get support from enough other Immortals, or the right Immortals, to change their law?

I don't know for sure, that's why I made it an "If" statement, when Voltaire appealed to have the laws changed, he started out by acting sympathetic to Pandora, that alone should make Zeus, Helena and Demetrius (especially the latter two) suspicious of his motives, but then Voltaire switches to a more sinister tone that seems to contradict the initial message. Also Voltaire said "if enough of us agree" which means it doesn't have to be unanimous so all it would take is enough of them to buy into the idea of protecting family to ignore the possibility that many wouldn't give a rats arse about family and just want more freedom.

Just now, Tom Sewell said:

BTW, has anyone else noticed that Pandora is the only Immortal we've seen changing their form? Voltaire used another voice over a phone once, and he wore a different costume one other time, but that's it. But Pandora herself said "Immortals are shapeshifters!" to the Emissary back at the beginning of Sister 3, so Volty could probably look like anyone--maybe even Smokey. I doubt that because Voltaire is vain and wants everyone to be impressed with his brilliance, and I don't think that vanity would allow him to make a convincing act of being afraid like Smokey seemed to be just before they made their exit, but still...

Helena and Demetrius change outfits frequently, but that probably doesn't count, I dunno if maybe shapeshifting is connected to the age (and therefore overall power) of an Immortal or if it's just a choice. Dan's already stated that Voltaire has no motive to get involved in Sam and Grace's business and then there was that whole deal where people thought Pandora was pretending to be Ashley. Yeah, we though Smoke was Camdin which isn't the case, but it didn't help that one of the clues about Smoke was related to Camdin and we went down that path despite another clue (the way Smoke used "girl" instead of "chick") stating otherwise, but we can't fault Dan for that because he has stated that if a character was someone in disguise, he'd foreshadow who it is or leaving clues that connect the two, otherwised a brand new character is likely a brand new character.

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14 hours ago, ijuin said:
17 hours ago, hkmaly said:

And they are not as dangerous - because while some of them may share how they learned magic, many are not sure themselves (and none of those who are marked know anything). Seers would specifically have enough knowledge to teach others.

Arthur specifically said that the ease of Awakening was the true secret. He wanted to maintain the impression that Mages are born, not made (like we know happens with Wizards). The idea that any jerk could Awaken with appropriate training is the danger, as Greg and Justin articulated with the "Super Mutant Principle".

Yes. Arthur wants people to think that if they are not Mages, trying to became one is pointless ... instead of quite easy as it really is.

There are hereditary affinities (being wizard is one of them, summoning talent is other we know of) but even people with such affinity may not awaken (it's just easier for them) and even people WITHOUT affinity can awaken with appropriate training.

And the people most likely to work hard on getting magic would often be the ones who shouldn't. Similarly how people who work hard on getting into politics are usually the kind which shouldn't ever get any political power. So, kinda good idea to keep that secret.

The seers, who know how to teach other, are therefore most dangerous. But even just finding out how many people have magic could have bad effect: people should think it's rarer than it is.

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

Those can happen, yes. However, those could happen even before - sure, there is additional point of "hey, maybe now we don't need to be secret anymore" but if DGB has address of most of them (and they KNOW it) they might wait for knowing that for sure.

It was quite apparent that DGB was unable to prevent all incidents from happening resulting in the conference with the WoM. Arthur's best case scenario was that another incident would make magic unusable for decades, which would mean people would eventually forget about magic (aside from Seers or course).

DGB was never able to prevent all incidents, but usually they managed to cover them. The ones Pandora caused, however, proved to be hard to cover, partially due to being at same space.

5 hours ago, Scotty said:

The last system change happened at a time when incidences were isolated by distance, that attack on the village would not have been experienced by anyone outside the village and so in the following years, all they would have are stories about the time they were outnumbered by an invading force and yet still triumphed, they could write stories or draw pictures about it but outsiders would likely treat them as myth and legend.

Yes. The horde was probably stopped only after they used their magic on multiple villages and it started to be hard to dismiss.

5 hours ago, Scotty said:

That's not really possible now with a good majority of people with cameras in their pockets and access to the internet, and it doesn't really matter if magic users figure out there won't be anymore system changes because the rate of incidences will increase anyway as the number of magic users increase, as we've seen with Not_Tengu, people could just stumble onto the ability to use magic.

Yes, THAT was Tedd's argument. Before finding out how many seers would be informed, the argument was that number of incidents would go up anyway and there will be need for another reset soon. With thousand seers? The number of incidents would go up even higher.

5 hours ago, Scotty said:

Here is where he concedes that keeping that secret would no longer be possible.

Actually, here he was saying that thousand seers would be worse than current situation.

5 hours ago, Scotty said:

And then here is where he mentions that it won't be long before he goes back into retirement.

... might be optimism, and this was before he found about Magus, but it's true it's after he knew most other bad news so seem he really still plan to go back to retirement soon. Of course, he may not be allowed ... and that "soon" may turn to take longer than expected.

5 hours ago, Scotty said:

the fact that he's tasking Tedd with researching ways to make magic safer for everyone, means that he's likely chosen the route of minimizing damage rather than all out secrecy and he would likely be suggesting that Tedd get whatever support needed.

Which is why I'm saying that DGB doesn't plan to keep the secret forever, but may still want to delay the reveal to give Tedd more time.

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

I'm not sure he will be satisfied with just apology. Also, there is still the little issue that noone know HOW could Magus be returned home.

There isn't really any sense in imprisoning Magus for making Ashley cry either, and as I said before, Ellen and Elliot would have told Arthur why Magus did what he did, and it wouldn't make sense to imprison him after he'd just escaped a prison he didn't belong in.

They already did and Sybil said it can be argued he was victim. Arthur's answer to THAT was that he made Ashley cry. That suggests he may want to imprison him, perhaps just symbolically as a way to show him there would be consequence if he doesn't behave. Not for whole life, obviously, and Magus would likely consider it much nicer prison.

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

And back to original scenario ... misunderstanding can happen. In fact, it's pretty clear the fact that Magus misunderstood Ellen will became plot point again. And Magus is dangerously powerful.

Magus is still much like Elliot and Ellen, he wanted to be a battlemage to protect people, an he hated the fact that he had to resort to using Elliot the way he did and dealing with Sirleck in the process. I don't think there's any risk of him going on a rampage.

Rampage, no. But he can cause lot of collateral damage when defending.

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

And the magic will stay secret as long as DAN believes they will manage to keep it secret, not as long as WE do. Which is quite important as our estimates seem to be much shorter.

Of course it is up to Dan, but remember how Dan left us with Voltaire? I'm pretty certain that if Voltaire got his way, I don't see him or other like minded Immortals taking a nap to let Tedd get his work done.

Even with the resets, immortals don't seem to be so impulsive. They may not take a nap, but they can argue for months.

3 hours ago, Tom Sewell said:

The way Dan has set up the Immortals, getting all or most of them to agree on anything is an extremely rare event. Voltaire was pretty clever in seeming to be sympathetic to Pandora's cause--but he left out the part that he set up the attempted murder of Pandora's son. But is that enough to get support from enough other Immortals, or the right Immortals, to change their law?

Probably yes. Narratively speaking, I think there will be some change. However, similarly to magic reset, we may have been provided with a really dangerous option, then some less dangerous option wins, then it will be shown that even that less dangerous option is not without danger.

3 hours ago, Tom Sewell said:

BTW, has anyone else noticed that Pandora is the only Immortal we've seen changing their form? Voltaire used another voice over a phone once, and he wore a different costume one other time, but that's it. But Pandora herself said "Immortals are shapeshifters!" to the Emissary back at the beginning of Sister 3

Actually, even Helena and Demetrius were shapeshifting. Especially if you realize they don't wear actual clothes (ok, they may be created by magic, but Pandora's looked more like part of her body ... which means that technically she was naked every time ...). Sure, compared to Pandora, their shapeshifting was limited - just like Grace is shapeshifter but can only use combinations of forms she learned, limited shapeshifting is still shapeshifting. Likely the older the immortal is, the more they can shapeshift.

3 hours ago, Tom Sewell said:

so Volty could probably look like anyone--maybe even Smokey. I doubt that because Voltaire is vain and wants everyone to be impressed with his brilliance, and I don't think that vanity would allow him to make a convincing act of being afraid like Smokey seemed to be just before they made their exit, but still...

Not sure he can look like everyone, and yes, he is unlikely to be acting convincingly ... especially acting like Smokey ...

Also note that for a comics with high amount of shapeshifters, there is surprisingly low number of cases of someone pretending to be someone else. And Dan said on twitter something like that if he does that, he's going to leave clues, similarly how Ellen's behaviour was suspicious so we know exactly when she became possessed. And, even with Smokey, there were clues it's not Camdin. So, no, I don't think it's Voltaire.

... besides, Voltaire likely has full hands now trying to convince immortals about the change. He also don't have any reason now to bother main eight - it might be safer for him to bother someone else actually. I would expect he may reappear when Pandora will, because he seem to not like her, but before that, unlikely.

2 hours ago, Scotty said:

Also Voltaire said "if enough of us agree" which means it doesn't have to be unanimous so all it would take is enough of them to buy into the idea of protecting family to ignore the possibility that many wouldn't give a rats arse about family and just want more freedom.

Right. This. There doesn't seem to be any rank between immortals, so it's not about "right" immortals, just about convincing enough of them. And it's not necessary for all to have same motivation - just that they agree on the change.

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10 hours ago, hkmaly said:

Even with the resets, immortals don't seem to be so impulsive. They may not take a nap, but they can argue for months.

Even with the 200-or-so year of thumb between resets, an Immortal has three times the amount of adult-ish life as typical humans, plus they mostly do not need to work for a living except for maintaining cover identities among mortals. They have plenty of time.

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16 hours ago, ijuin said:
On 3/3/2019 at 8:29 PM, hkmaly said:

Even with the resets, immortals don't seem to be so impulsive. They may not take a nap, but they can argue for months.

Even with the 200-or-so year of thumb between resets, an Immortal has three times the amount of adult-ish life as typical humans, plus they mostly do not need to work for a living except for maintaining cover identities among mortals. They have plenty of time.

... I don't think we saw any immortal who would consider necessary to maintain cover identity so thoroughly to actually WORK.

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Not that we've seen, but if some Immortal's scheme (or preferred lifestyle) involved long-term interaction with Mortals in the Mortals' workplace, then a position as a fellow employee would help. There's also roles such as fortune-teller, merchant, or expert-of-some-subject that would put an Immortal in the right position to "advise and empower". The Immortals don't need the paychecks though--presumably if they ever had a reason to need money, they could just find some treasure to sell or something--e.g. detect where raw gems are underground and magically cut and polish them.

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18 hours ago, ijuin said:

Not that we've seen, but if some Immortal's scheme (or preferred lifestyle) involved long-term interaction with Mortals in the Mortals' workplace, then a position as a fellow employee would help.

IF.

18 hours ago, ijuin said:

There's also roles such as fortune-teller, merchant, or expert-of-some-subject that would put an Immortal in the right position to "advise and empower".

You mean like those fortune-tellers and merchants in buildings which were not there yesterday and wouldn't be there tomorrow?

I suspect that fairies prefer stuff like that to actual long term investment of buying real building.

18 hours ago, ijuin said:

The Immortals don't need the paychecks though--presumably if they ever had a reason to need money, they could just find some treasure to sell or something--e.g. detect where raw gems are underground and magically cut and polish them.

Detect, cut, polish ... sounds like lot of work. I suspect if they need some treasure they can just create it from nothing.

... there is also common trope of fairy gold which is just enchanted foliage (leaves), but I think they do THAT for fun, not because they wouldn't have access to better treasures.

Most importantly, however, they usually don't seem to actually need the money for anything. They don't need to eat, don't need to pay rent, don't need to buy clothes ... don't need to pay for cinema tickets :) ...

 

(Although this reminded me how Corwin of Amber obtained finances to arm his army. He went to some beach with sieve and lawn rake and picked some raw diamonds. Personally I think he could've used his ability to go to any place he can imagine better ... but good enough. Probably more effective than taking a shovel and go pick some gold ; that stuff is heavy.)

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2 hours ago, hkmaly said:

IF.

Didn't we speculate that a freshly reset Pandora might decide to become Sarah's roommate in University?

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1 hour ago, Scotty said:
3 hours ago, hkmaly said:

IF.

Didn't we speculate that a freshly reset Pandora might decide to become Sarah's roommate in University?

Well my position always was that even if Pandora would spend lot of time hanging with Sarah in University (which, granted, seems quite likely), it wouldn't be because she would officially be her roommate and fellow student.

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