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      Welcome!   03/05/2016

      Welcome, everyone, to the new 910CMX Community Forums. I'm still working on getting them running, so things may change.  If you're a 910 Comic creator and need your forum recreated, let me know and I'll get on it right away.  I'll do my best to make this new place as fun as the last one!
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Stature

Story Monday November 21, 2016

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40 minutes ago, hkmaly said:

The idea is that she is bound by immortal agreement of "our" side now, but she would be bound by the other side agreement when flirting with Blaike.

She seems to know quite a bit about this side, even her previous life has experiences from this side. It could be possible that she's jumped between both halves in her lives, but considering Abraham is from this half it's more likely that Blaike was also in this half, maybe there was a time when it was easier to pass between the halves and so this half occasionally saw dragons and lionbears come over.

Magic was probably known to the public back then as well, but was made to believe that a person had to be really special in order to use it so everyone knew about people like Abraham but they were secretive enough to keep the use of magic from going mainstream, kinda like today's "magicians" like David Copperfield, some even show how they do some of the more mundane tricks to show that it's just a matter of tricking a person's perception rather than actual magic, so everyone believes that it's just all in their minds that something is magical in the true sense and therefore they could sneak in some actual magic because people already have it figured that there's smoke and mirrors involved. Heck, this is probably why Arthur Arthur is doing what he's doing, he know's that it's impossible to maintain the "it's just fancy tricks of perception" facade and is falling back on the "there are special people who can do this." route, keeping people from thinking that just anyone could use magic would probably be enough to minimize the damage and then all they have to do is make sure those who can do magic, keep the knowledge of how they got it to themselves.

Arthur's plan so far seems pretty flawed considering how close magic is to changing the system, makes me wonder if he knows that magic can change the system if it becomes too mainstream and he feels DGB's involvement wouldn't do any good and is just letting things play out and hoping for the best.

 

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48 minutes ago, Scotty said:
2 hours ago, hkmaly said:

The idea is that she is bound by immortal agreement of "our" side now, but she would be bound by the other side agreement when flirting with Blaike.

She seems to know quite a bit about this side, even her previous life has experiences from this side. It could be possible that she's jumped between both halves in her lives, but considering Abraham is from this half it's more likely that Blaike was also in this half, maybe there was a time when it was easier to pass between the halves and so this half occasionally saw dragons and lionbears come over.

What has Abraham to do with Blaike?

True, her previous life seems to be on this side, but it's possible she changed sides, met Blaike and changed sides again.

48 minutes ago, Scotty said:

Heck, this is probably why Arthur Arthur is doing what he's doing, he know's that it's impossible to maintain the "it's just fancy tricks of perception" facade and is falling back on the "there are special people who can do this." route, keeping people from thinking that just anyone could use magic would probably be enough to minimize the damage and then all they have to do is make sure those who can do magic, keep the knowledge of how they got it to themselves.

"Probably"? I though it's obvious from the comics that this is the strategy he is using.

48 minutes ago, Scotty said:

Arthur's plan so far seems pretty flawed considering how close magic is to changing the system, makes me wonder if he knows that magic can change the system if it becomes too mainstream

He may know about the possibility of magic reset but not realizing how close the reset is.

48 minutes ago, Scotty said:

and he feels DGB's involvement wouldn't do any good and is just letting things play out and hoping for the best.

He's certainly doing what he think it's best and I don't feel like he's "letting" anything happen more than necessary. He give up on part of the secret because it was no longer possible to hide it without actions which would risk even more.

What would YOU think he should be doing? Arrest Elliot? That would raise lot of questions from non-aware part of government, likely cause chain reaction of his friends and Edward trying to free him and then Edwards friends if he would arrest Edward ... and wouldn't really help because Elliot and rest of main 8 are not only magic users in city ... and what would other magic users think if obvious superhero would be arrested? Right: "Government is enemy".

Note that he may suspect immortal is involved and that it might became even MORE active if situation would get more complicated - because by definition, immortal would be better than any mortal in both analyzing situation and predicting possible outcomes.

 

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21 minutes ago, hkmaly said:

What has Abraham to do with Blaike?

I think that they're both of the same time period, and that magic was viewed differently than it is now yet still maintain enough mystery. Yes it's possible that there was more interaction between the halves, but I don't think that Pandora or Blaike was from the other half.

 

45 minutes ago, hkmaly said:

What would YOU think he should be doing? Arrest Elliot? That would raise lot of questions from non-aware part of government, likely cause chain reaction of his friends and Edward trying to free him and then Edwards friends if he would arrest Edward ... and wouldn't really help because Elliot and rest of main 8 are not only magic users in city.

I not saying there is something they can do, at best I think they can try to figure out the cause of increased energy and such. Beyond that, Arthur likely feels that there's nothing else they can do without adding to the speculation of magic and how easy it could be obtained, so he wants DGB to keep as low a profile as possible to avoid making things worse. His act during the interview, while Edward didn't agree, Justin's comment that Arthur came off as a nutcase might be closer to what Arthur wants. Sure, he came out and said magic was real and that there are people with power, but if he makes himself look like one of those people, yet is never seen being involved in any of the stuff that happens, people wouldn't easily believe that Arthur and his organization are such people, so they may believe that it's rare for people to have powers. Take the dragon fight, there were 3 people involved in that who had powers, 2 of whom were obviously special, if DGB showed up with 5 or more people waving wands around, that might get the public wondering just how many people could have magic powers and question the rarity of it.

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14 minutes ago, Scotty said:

I not saying there is something they can do, at best I think they can try to figure out the cause of increased energy and such.

Six people are working on it. Best experts they have. Of course, not as good as Andrea, but that's unfair comparison.

18 minutes ago, Scotty said:

Beyond that, Arthur likely feels that there's nothing else they can do without adding to the speculation of magic and how easy it could be obtained, so he wants DGB to keep as low a profile as possible to avoid making things worse.

Yes.

19 minutes ago, Scotty said:

His act during the interview, while Edward didn't agree, Justin's comment that Arthur came off as a nutcase might be closer to what Arthur wants.

No.

19 minutes ago, Scotty said:

Sure, he came out and said magic was real and that there are people with power, but if he makes himself look like one of those people, yet is never seen being involved in any of the stuff that happens, people wouldn't easily believe that Arthur and his organization are such people

Uhhh ... no ... actually, people are likely to believe there is NO organization, just individuals. His personal involvement is not important, however ...

20 minutes ago, Scotty said:

so they may believe that it's rare for people to have powers. Take the dragon fight, there were 3 people involved in that who had powers, 2 of whom were obviously special, if DGB showed up with 5 or more people waving wands around, that might get the public wondering just how many people could have magic powers and question the rarity of it.

... the involvement of agents is. Yes. If he would decide to involve DGB at all, it would be in way which would make it seems it's few people, not whole organization. So, he will show alone or maybe Agent Wolf (with some costume to not look like FBI agent) would show up (as most powerful wizard in midwest US, he is likely able to solve lot of situations without help, or at least without VISIBLE help).

Funny how this matches how Dan prefers to show just few people in DGB. With this strategy, we may easily keep wondering for many years if DGB really consist of few dozens of people in whole US ... or if it's actually organization containing hundreds or thousands of magic users in US, with "dozens" being size of single state department.

 

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I am mildly surprised Susan didn't have a reaction of "Oh, yeah I know about that. We've been talking online for a little while now." Very mildly; it would be a slim chance for them to go from one email to talking regularly to getting personal enough to actually figure all of that out. Still, it would have been funny to see Ellen's reaction to that.

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Perhaps, but even though Diane has concluded that Susan may be her sister by blood, she seems to know very little of Susan's history, which would suggest that they have not discussed their possible relation. For example, she expressed surprise to hear from Nanase that Susan was either never put up for adoption or had never learned that she was adopted.

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24 minutes ago, hkmaly said:

Uhhh ... no ... actually, people are likely to believe there is NO organization, just individuals. His personal involvement is not important, however ...

He was introduced as having connections with the FBI as a consultant though. There's been no evidence of anyone questioning if the FBI had wizards, and it was clear that he wanted to keep it that way.

8 hours ago, hkmaly said:

Funny how this matches how Dan prefers to show just few people in DGB. With this strategy, we may easily keep wondering for many years if DGB really consist of few dozens of people in whole US ... or if it's actually organization containing hundreds or thousands of magic users in US, with "dozens" being size of single state department.

In the conversation between Arthur and Cranium, the us of the plural "agents" suggests more than we've been shown, I'd be willing to expect a dozen to maybe at most 20 under Arthur's branch in Illinois mainly because of Moperville being unusually more active in paranormal stuff. If there are branches in every state, it might range in staff from 2-10 depending on paranormal activity in each state. So there's probably less than 100 agents in the FBI. Though it is possible there might be more agents if they're always recruiting people they find with talents for magic.

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13 hours ago, Don Edwards said:

Cloning, other than identical twins, is unlikely until after the original is born. Of course, records could be faked, but the oldest clone would still be at least a few months (probably at least 9 months) younger than the original, and that would show up in some aspects of physical development.

There is one non-magic way.  If Susan and Diane were a result of in vitro fertilization, then it's possible to grow the embryo for a few cell divisions, and then split the little clump of cells into two little clumps of cells.  They could then implant one embryo in one mother, and the other in another.  Not saying that's what happened, mind you, I seriously doubt that it was, but it's possible.

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10 hours ago, Scotty said:
19 hours ago, hkmaly said:

Uhhh ... no ... actually, people are likely to believe there is NO organization, just individuals. His personal involvement is not important, however ...

He was introduced as having connections with the FBI as a consultant though. There's been no evidence of anyone questioning if the FBI had wizards, and it was clear that he wanted to keep it that way.

Yes. People know there is FBI, and presumably he is prepared to admit there is some wizard with connections with the FBI, but he wouldn't like if people would realize there is special department of FBI staffed mostly by magic users.

10 hours ago, Scotty said:
19 hours ago, hkmaly said:

Funny how this matches how Dan prefers to show just few people in DGB. With this strategy, we may easily keep wondering for many years if DGB really consist of few dozens of people in whole US ... or if it's actually organization containing hundreds or thousands of magic users in US, with "dozens" being size of single state department.

In the conversation between Arthur and Cranium, the us of the plural "agents" suggests more than we've been shown, I'd be willing to expect a dozen to maybe at most 20 under Arthur's branch in Illinois mainly because of Moperville being unusually more active in paranormal stuff. If there are branches in every state, it might range in staff from 2-10 depending on paranormal activity in each state. So there's probably less than 100 agents in the FBI. Though it is possible there might be more agents if they're always recruiting people they find with talents for magic.

Yes, it's obvious there are more agents that we were shown, but we don't even know if the "branch" we know is for US (unlikely but ...), for Midwestern US, for Illinois or just for Chicago and it's suburbs. Together with the fact we don't know what is the variance of department size, the total number of magic users employed by FBI can really range from dozens to thousands.

(Note that there are 50 states in US, meaning if there would be 2 in every state except Illinois and the four we know about in Illinois, it would already be over 100).

 

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1 hour ago, hkmaly said:

(Note that there are 50 states in US, meaning if there would be 2 in every state except Illinois and the four we know about in Illinois, it would already be over 100).

::facepalms:: Yeah, I totally had the math wrong...at minimum that would be 140, I'll give Washington D.C. at least 20 as well because it's the capital. Also we've seen more than 4 in the Illinois branch, there's Edward, Wolf, Cranium, Arthur, Edward's boss, plus these two unnamed agents. Would Lavender be considered an agent or is she strictly Edward's assistant? Either way that's 7 who are connected to DGB.

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2 hours ago, Scotty said:

Washington D.C. at least 20 as well because it's the capital

There will likely be normal-sized Washington D.C. branch AND additionally some headquarter with just management and no actual agents. They may not even be magic users. This headquarter would likely be located in Washington D.C. but wouldn't really be Washington D.C. branch.

2 hours ago, Scotty said:

Also we've seen more than 4 in the Illinois branch, there's Edward, Wolf, Cranium, Arthur, Edward's boss, plus these two unnamed agents.

Edward's boss isn't in same branch (like, he may be visiting, but he's likely part of Washington headquarter or something). Those two unnamed agents do look as part of the team, yes ...

2 hours ago, Scotty said:

Would Lavender be considered an agent or is she strictly Edward's assistant?

I would assume she's just assistant. And she's very unlikely to be magic user, being uryuom ... although Noah managed it, so we can't rule it out completely ...

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There's no law that says that a secret government agency has to have its headquarters in D.C., way off on an outer edge of the country.  Chicago is a good central location, with a world-class transportation hub.  The airport is actually in the suburbs, not the city proper, so a suburban location also makes good sense.  It's not like a secret agency has a need to attend Congressional committee hearings in person, or follow open meeting laws.  Communications have advanced far enough that it's pretty rare to have to meet with anyone in person anyway.

A seasonal side note, the Butterball Turkey Hotline is apparently located in MoperNaperville...

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4 hours ago, Scotty said:

::facepalms:: Yeah, I totally had the math wrong...at minimum that would be 140, I'll give Washington D.C. at least 20 as well because it's the capital. Also we've seen more than 4 in the Illinois branch, there's Edward, Wolf, Cranium, Arthur, Edward's boss, plus these two unnamed agents. Would Lavender be considered an agent or is she strictly Edward's assistant? Either way that's 7 who are connected to DGB.

Edward's boss is identified as Assistant Director Liefield, which means, Depending on where in the FBI orgchart the DGB fits, he might be in charge of all of the US paranormal investigators or just the Illinois part. Also those two unnamed agents are Crime Scene Investigators, which is a different position than a field agent. Each paranormal investgation office should have it's own CSI team and other support staff.

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2 hours ago, CritterKeeper said:

A seasonal side note, the Butterball Turkey Hotline is apparently located in MoperNaperville...

Holy cow! The Butterball Turkey Hotline is actually the secret communications network of the DGB! :icon_eek:

...don't look at me like that. I am training for the Conclusion Jumping Olympics.

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If the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) can follow the movements of "Something" under the guise of tracking Santa, then using a Turkey helpline to cover up sensitive communications under a huge volume of kitchen advice calls makes sense.

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2 minutes ago, Pharaoh RutinTutin said:

If the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) can follow the movements of "Something" under the guise of tracking Santa, then using a Turkey helpline to cover up sensitive communications under a huge volume of kitchen advice calls makes sense.

There is a long standing tradition for that. Tell me, precisely what message was it that those mathematicians of yours buried in the hundreds of yards long series of steles in the Khufu Pyramid?

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3 minutes ago, The Old Hack said:

Tell me, precisely what message was it that those mathematicians of yours buried in the hundreds of yards long series of steles in the Khufu Pyramid?

Strangely enough it was a lot like the modern internet.  Just slower.  If you had CompuServe on Dial Up, you were almost as slow as Hieroglyphics carved in stone.  It was kittens, porn, rants, and ads.

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1 minute ago, Pharaoh RutinTutin said:

Strangely enough it was a lot like the modern internet.  Just slower.  If you had CompuServe on Dial Up, you were almost as slow as Hieroglyphics carved in stone.  It was kittens, porn, rants, and ads.

That actually sounds reasonable to me. Mind you, the resolution of those stone carved hieroglyphs was a lot more detailed than anything CompuServe had to offer. That could have contributed to their slower download speed. Also, you have to take network speed into account. They used the Nile as their backbone and all the grain barges and crocodiles caused a lot of slowdowns, not to mention lost packets.

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19 minutes ago, Drasvin said:

Also those two unnamed agents are Crime Scene Investigators, which is a different position than a field agent. Each paranormal investgation office should have it's own CSI team and other support staff.

Yeah, but Edward needed the area investigated for anything that could explain Pandora's appearance there, and while searching for anything that could produce a hologram doesn't necessarily require agents with magic abilities, it would likely take them longer to search the forest for anything, so agents with magic can probably do it faster.

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9 minutes ago, Scotty said:
7 hours ago, Drasvin said:

Also those two unnamed agents are Crime Scene Investigators, which is a different position than a field agent. Each paranormal investgation office should have it's own CSI team and other support staff.

Yeah, but Edward needed the area investigated for anything that could explain Pandora's appearance there, and while searching for anything that could produce a hologram doesn't necessarily require agents with magic abilities, it would likely take them longer to search the forest for anything, so agents with magic can probably do it faster.

True. It's very likely that all offices/divisions of the DGB's CSI has magical capability in some manner. It would be difficult to examine and investigate a magic-based crime scene without some sort of magic, though a lot of their operations could possibly be done with a basic toolkit provided by a bag of (well labeled) wands.

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19 hours ago, CritterKeeper said:

There's no law that says that a secret government agency has to have its headquarters in D.C., way off on an outer edge of the country.  Chicago is a good central location, with a world-class transportation hub.  The airport is actually in the suburbs, not the city proper, so a suburban location also makes good sense.

Point. But even if physically in Moperville, the headquarters still wouldn't count as local branch.

19 hours ago, CritterKeeper said:

It's not like a secret agency has a need to attend Congressional committee hearings in person, or follow open meeting laws.

... how many Congressional committee hearings Cranium provably wasn't on? :)

11 hours ago, Drasvin said:
11 hours ago, Scotty said:
19 hours ago, Drasvin said:

Also those two unnamed agents are Crime Scene Investigators, which is a different position than a field agent. Each paranormal investgation office should have it's own CSI team and other support staff.

Yeah, but Edward needed the area investigated for anything that could explain Pandora's appearance there, and while searching for anything that could produce a hologram doesn't necessarily require agents with magic abilities, it would likely take them longer to search the forest for anything, so agents with magic can probably do it faster.

True. It's very likely that all offices/divisions of the DGB's CSI has magical capability in some manner. It would be difficult to examine and investigate a magic-based crime scene without some sort of magic, though a lot of their operations could possibly be done with a basic toolkit provided by a bag of (well labeled) wands.

How do you think they found that using wands can awaken people?

Note: rather than bag, the wands are likely in toolbox similar to this:

Sonic-Tools-screwdrivers-tray-300x200.jp

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12 minutes ago, hkmaly said:

Note: rather than bag, the wands are likely in toolbox similar to this:

Sonic-Tools-screwdrivers-tray-300x200.jp

Of course, wizards these days don't do bags of holding, that have briefcases of holding.

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10 minutes ago, Scotty said:
24 minutes ago, hkmaly said:

Note: rather than bag, the wands are likely in toolbox similar to this:

Sonic-Tools-screwdrivers-tray-300x200.jp

Of course, wizards these days don't do bags of holding, that have briefcases of holding.

Of course they do. For almost a century already.

 

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