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hkmaly

Story Friday February 3, 2017

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I think that beyond the "end of the world" is just infinite empty whitespace. If Sarah steps into it, since it's all in her mind and all, she may still have the illusion of breathing and a hard floor underfoot. She may also be able to turn around and see the simulated space from outside.

That said, I do hope that she has (or can easily implement) some kind of "skybox" background overhead imitating a source for the sunlight as well as blue sky or clouds. It would be doubly disturbing if the entire overhead view were whitespace.

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1 hour ago, The Old Hack said:
4 hours ago, Tom Sewell said:

Actually I think The Shive has made a logical misstep here. Pandora clearly can read minds to some extent,

Show an in-story example of this, please.

He's probably referring to Marker and Escape from the Mall where Pandora is reading people's affinities. I don't really consider that the same thing, as she's doing what most psychologists do and is reading how the people responded to her questions, but also she can probably see the aura's they give off which would have much of the information needed as well. In the case of Ashley, Pandora stated that she could sense the spells she could give her, and what prevented her from doing so. That might be low level mind reading, or maybe just auravision has popups that say "she has this affinity" or "his personality would allow these spells". Pandora asking questions is more like weeding through all the potential spells a person could get and finding the one suitable for her to mark with.

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1 hour ago, ijuin said:

That said, I do hope that she has (or can easily implement) some kind of "skybox" background overhead imitating a source for the sunlight as well as blue sky or clouds. It would be doubly disturbing if the entire overhead view were whitespace.

This is winter in the Midwest.  A featureless grey sky is completely normal.  Sarah may not have noticed the difference until she got to the wall.

Another thing, time continues to move forward whilst Sarah's mind is in the simulation. (Did we ever determine the exact ratio of apparent time in simulation was to actual time on the surface of Earth?)  If she spends a long time in the simulation and her body is in a moving vehicle, would something bad happen if her body moved outside the simulation area?

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Just now, Pharaoh RutinTutin said:

This is winter in the Midwest.  A featureless grey sky is completely normal.  Sarah may not have noticed the difference until she got to the wall.

Another thing, time continues to move forward whilst Sarah's mind is in the simulation. (Did we ever determine the exact ratio of apparent time in simulation was to actual time on the surface of Earth?)  If she spends a long time in the simulation and her body is in a moving vehicle, would something bad happen if her body moved outside the simulation area?

I doubt it. It seems to me that as the simulation is in her head, Sarah would just continue to interact with it internally while her body is being moved around.

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1 hour ago, The Old Hack said:

Show an in-story example of this, please.

Besides entering Grace's dreams which take place inside her mind:

  1. Sensing that Good Tom wants to save puppies without ever talking to him at all. (494)
  2. "The answers they give, of course, are unimportant. What's important is that they consider the question." How could she do that without reading their minds? (496)
  3. Three examples of this, including two where the spoken answer is the same but Pandora gets different reads. (497)
  4. Reading Ashley before she speaks to her. (500, 501) This is not only reading Ashley's magical aura but sensing her desires and her basic nature. 
  5. Whatever Pandora gets out of Liz. (504)

Four more posts came in while I was writing this. Putting in reference links is a pain even when you have the entire run of EGS and all the canon NPs saved and indexed.

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Just now, Tom Sewell said:

Besides entering Grace's dreams which take place inside her mind:

  1. Sensing that Good Tom wants to save puppies without ever talking to him at all. (494)
  2. "The answers they give, of course, are unimportant. What's important is that they consider the question." How could she do that without reading their minds? (496)
  3. Three examples of this, including two where the spoken answer is the same but Pandora gets different reads. (497)
  4. Reading Ashley before she speaks to her. (500, 501) This is not only reading Ashley's magical aura but sensing her desires and her basic nature. 
  5. Whatever Pandora gets out of Liz. (504)

Four more posts came in while I was writing this. Putting in reference links is a pain even when you have the entire run of EGS and all the canon NPs saved and indexed.

Hm. Yes. I agree that together they comprise a quite decent argument that Pandora can either to some degree read minds or simply read people so well that she can get this basic information, which amounts to the same thing for all intents and purposes. Mind you, I personally consider it more like telempathy than actual mind reading, but that may just be quibbling over details. *scratches head*

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4 hours ago, Tom Sewell said:

Besides entering Grace's dreams which take place inside her mind:

  1. Sensing that Good Tom wants to save puppies without ever talking to him at all. (494)
  2. "The answers they give, of course, are unimportant. What's important is that they consider the question." How could she do that without reading their minds? (496)
  3. Three examples of this, including two where the spoken answer is the same but Pandora gets different reads. (497)
  4. Reading Ashley before she speaks to her. (500, 501) This is not only reading Ashley's magical aura but sensing her desires and her basic nature. 
  5. Whatever Pandora gets out of Liz. (504)

Four more posts came in while I was writing this. Putting in reference links is a pain even when you have the entire run of EGS and all the canon NPs saved and indexed.

Entering Grace's dreams might be an ability that's exclusive to dreams. Depends if EGS magic treats dreams and thoughts as different but related things or not. And Pandora doesn't necessarily need mind reading to learn of their marking potential. Might be a kind of 'aura vision' related to the way Adrian can sense people's magical power.

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14 hours ago, ijuin said:

I think that beyond the "end of the world" is just infinite empty whitespace. If Sarah steps into it, since it's all in her mind and all, she may still have the illusion of breathing and a hard floor underfoot. She may also be able to turn around and see the simulated space from outside.

I think the simulated space from outside would look similar to how doom map looks from inside wall when using noclip. Disturbing.

12 hours ago, Pharaoh RutinTutin said:
14 hours ago, ijuin said:

That said, I do hope that she has (or can easily implement) some kind of "skybox" background overhead imitating a source for the sunlight as well as blue sky or clouds. It would be doubly disturbing if the entire overhead view were whitespace.

This is winter in the Midwest.  A featureless grey sky is completely normal.  Sarah may not have noticed the difference until she got to the wall.

Yup. Not disturbing.

7 hours ago, Drasvin said:
11 hours ago, Tom Sewell said:

Besides entering Grace's dreams which take place inside her mind:

  1. Sensing that Good Tom wants to save puppies without ever talking to him at all. (494)
  2. "The answers they give, of course, are unimportant. What's important is that they consider the question." How could she do that without reading their minds? (496)
  3. Three examples of this, including two where the spoken answer is the same but Pandora gets different reads. (497)
  4. Reading Ashley before she speaks to her. (500, 501) This is not only reading Ashley's magical aura but sensing her desires and her basic nature. 
  5. Whatever Pandora gets out of Liz. (504)

Four more posts came in while I was writing this. Putting in reference links is a pain even when you have the entire run of EGS and all the canon NPs saved and indexed.

Entering Grace's dreams might be an ability that's exclusive to dreams. Depends if EGS magic treats dreams and thoughts as different but related things or not. And Pandora doesn't necessarily need mind reading to learn of their marking potential. Might be a kind of 'aura vision' related to the way Adrian can sense people's magical power.

Dan tried to explain it little here (502). Apparently, she can read personalities, but not thoughts. I guess it would technically count as telepathy/mind reading, but it is limited. I agree that the point of asking the questions (and also point of trying few days before Halloween) was to make people think about it, but Pandora isn't reading exactly what they think about. Something being visible in aura might be good explanation. Maybe it's something like looking into foggy mirror - she doesn't see the thoughts itself but just the contours.

Yes, the way immortals read information is unexplained. Even what Jerry deduced was well outside Sherlock Holmes abilities, and even Sherlock Holmes abilities often look like cheating. So, telepathy/mind reading? Clairvoyance? Whatever it is, there are limits on it which prevents to use it to read what is someone thinking, not speaking about deep scan of his memory.

Also note that she mentioned she must find way to observe Sarah while casting the spell ... suggesting there IS a way.

I would guess that dream entering is separate ability and that she does think about modifying the dream entering to enter the simulation, but is not sure how to do it yet.

 

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While I'm glad Sarah isn't taking chances, now I'd really kinda like to see that half-a-car from the other side.  I imagine it would be like looking at one slice of a CT scan, or an anatomy lab cross-section, except with metal and plastic and rubber!

Hmm....unless there are passengers in the back seat, then it might be exactly like an anatomy lab cross-section....

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On 02/05/2017 at 4:51 AM, CritterKeeper said:

Hmm....unless there are passengers in the back seat, then it might be exactly like an anatomy lab cross-section....

That might be good reason to not look at it. Even if there wasn't anyone in that car, there will likely be someone who got divided by the end of simulation.

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1 hour ago, hkmaly said:
On 2/4/2017 at 10:51 PM, CritterKeeper said:

Hmm....unless there are passengers in the back seat, then it might be exactly like an anatomy lab cross-section....

That might be good reason to not look at it. Even if there wasn't anyone in that car, there will likely be someone who got divided by the end of simulation.

I would imagine there'd be instances where Sarah encounters someone just walking or running or whatever out of range of her spell and parts of their bodies are missing.

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What if Sarah put her mind in the body of someone partially through the barrier?

Could she pull the "missing" body parts from out of the whitespace?  Would she be stuck in that position?  Would she be moving a body with missing hands, feet, arms, legs, etcetera?

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I think she'd probably end up with or without what ever was "missing" according to her expectations or intent. It would just be a modification of the simulation so whatever she wishes for will happen.

The same with pulling on that bisected car. If she doesn't really think about it as she tries to pull it back her expectations causes whatever she believes it will do to happen. But if she thinks about it as modifying the scene then her imagination is the limit.



 

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22 hours ago, Scotty said:
23 hours ago, hkmaly said:

That might be good reason to not look at it. Even if there wasn't anyone in that car, there will likely be someone who got divided by the end of simulation.

I would imagine there'd be instances where Sarah encounters someone just walking or running or whatever out of range of her spell and parts of their bodies are missing.

Yes. And it might be better for her stomach to not look at it.

21 hours ago, Pharaoh RutinTutin said:

What if Sarah put her mind in the body of someone partially through the barrier?

Maybe she can't - or at least, it will not be on hair trigger as switching to "full" bodies.

13 minutes ago, Cpt. Obvious said:

I think she'd probably end up with or without what ever was "missing" according to her expectations or intent. It would just be a modification of the simulation so whatever she wishes for will happen.

The same with pulling on that bisected car. If she doesn't really think about it as she tries to pull it back her expectations causes whatever she believes it will do to happen. But if she thinks about as modifying the scene than her imagination is the limit.

It's possible that she can't interact with the end of simulation without "activating" the change-the-simulation ability.

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1 minute ago, hkmaly said:

It's possible that she can't interact with the end of simulation without "activating" the change-the-simulation ability.

Well that is quite obvious. After all moving anything is a modification of the simulation. The closest to keeping it unchanged is probably to just let whatever was bisected by the simulation border stay as it was, neither adding nor subtracting information. She would still be changing the simulation, but far less than if she tried to recreate the parts that got cut off. I'd also guess that the simulation does retain the surface information of whatever was cut off. So pull that car back and you may be able to see exactly what the driver or a passenger looks like inside...
 

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4 hours ago, Cpt. Obvious said:

Well that is quite obvious. After all moving anything is a modification of the simulation. The closest to keeping it unchanged is probably to just let whatever was bisected by the simulation border stay as it was, neither adding nor subtracting information. She would still be changing the simulation, but far less than if she tried to recreate the parts that got cut off. I'd also guess that the simulation does retain the surface information of whatever was cut off. So pull that car back and you may be able to see exactly what the driver or a passenger looks like inside...
 

I dunno.  I'm not sure the scan part of Sarah's ability does retain information outside it's scan radius.  Otherwise it would be in the simulation to begin with, right?  Sarah could pull the car out but her imagination might have to supply the details for what the other half is like.

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3 hours ago, Vorlonagent said:

I dunno.  I'm not sure the scan part of Sarah's ability does retain information outside it's scan radius.  Otherwise it would be in the simulation to begin with, right?  Sarah could pull the car out but her imagination might have to supply the details for what the other half is like.

I think I agree that the result would depend on whether Sarah meant to see the car segment as it was scanned, or to pull an intact car through.  If she sticks with what's scanned, the cut-off point of the car would be a cross-section, like a split dog model in anatomy class.  If she tries to pull the whole car with the intent of pulling an intact car through, the missing section would be based on her imagination and expectations, but it would not be based on reality, because the spell doesn't have any data from beyond the cut-off.

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11 hours ago, CritterKeeper said:

I think I agree that the result would depend on whether Sarah meant to see the car segment as it was scanned, or to pull an intact car through.  If she sticks with what's scanned, the cut-off point of the car would be a cross-section, like a split dog model in anatomy class.  If she tries to pull the whole car with the intent of pulling an intact car through, the missing section would be based on her imagination and expectations, but it would not be based on reality, because the spell doesn't have any data from beyond the cut-off.

That split dog analog is what I was going for. I think it's quite likely that Sarah will see something like that the first time she tries to yank someone or something from the border, but depending on how disturbing she finds it she may opt for imagining a black surface for the cut-off there after.

Here is an interesting question... Does her simulation retain data on what's inside things, or is it just a skin deep image? I mean could she take a snapshot of an accident site and check people for broken bones and such? As it's her private simulation she could basically imagine that someones leg was stripped layer by layer until only the bone was left. But would that leave her with what she imagines it would look like, or would it be possible for her to see whats actually there even if she didn't know about it beforehand?
 

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2 hours ago, Cpt. Obvious said:

Here is an interesting question... Does her simulation retain data on what's inside things, or is it just a skin deep image?

The simulation explicitly DOES include what's inside, and it doesn't matter if it's inside box, book or skin.

2 hours ago, Cpt. Obvious said:

I mean could she take a snapshot of an accident site and check people for broken bones and such? As it's her private simulation she could basically imagine that someones leg was stripped layer by layer until only the bone was left. But would that leave her with what she imagines it would look like, or would it be possible for her to see whats actually there even if she didn't know about it beforehand?

Stripping layer by layer would probably be modifying the simulation too much. She would get much better results if she would use scalpel. Maybe even using imagined X-ray machine. Of course, unless she has actual medical experience, she's not likely to even try.

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3 hours ago, hkmaly said:

Of course, unless she has actual medical experience, she's not likely to even try.

This. I believe she's more likely to be squeamish, I think. Now, give Susan that ability, and I think she'd dive right in and diagnose the situation.

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3 hours ago, hkmaly said:

The simulation explicitly DOES include what's inside, and it doesn't matter if it's inside box, book or skin.

Stripping layer by layer would probably be modifying the simulation too much. She would get much better results if she would use scalpel. Maybe even using imagined X-ray machine. Of course, unless she has actual medical experience, she's not likely to even try.

It might also take some trial and error before she's able to do something like this without having her expectations and imagination interfere. What we've seen so far suggest that there is a very fine line between just observing and modifying things. I can also see how it may be hard to imagine a X-ray machine and not warp the results presented by it...
 

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6 hours ago, Cpt. Obvious said:

could she take a snapshot of an accident site and check people for broken bones and such? As it's her private simulation she could basically imagine that someones leg was stripped layer by layer until only the bone was left. But would that leave her with what she imagines it would look like, or would it be possible for her to see whats actually there even if she didn't know about it beforehand?

 

3 minutes ago, Cpt. Obvious said:

It might also take some trial and error before she's able to do something like this without having her expectations and imagination interfere. What we've seen so far suggest that there is a very fine line between just observing and modifying things. I can also see how it may be hard to imagine a X-ray machine and not warp the results presented by it...

I think the most accurate way to check for major broken bones would be direct palpation.  Put one hand above and one hand below, and see if anything wiggles in between.  Likewise undressing a victim to look for lacerations versus making their clothes see-through, or pushing on the car at the cliff's edge to see if it's about to fall versus imagining a crane trying to hook up to it.  (If the crane was already there, and she figured out how to work the controls, she might get a more accurate answer than telling the crane operator facsimilie to do it for her.)

I can definitely think of way too many ways this could develop a major squick factor, like checking if someone's neck is broken by seeing if it moves abnormally, and feeling bones grating as the person's avatar reports that their body just went numb....but knowing whether a trapped person needs to be moved very carefully or could be hauled loose quickly would be invaluable information.  Ugh, almost makes me glad I don't have that particular spell.  Almost, but not really, 'cos it is just too useful and fun.

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