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hkmaly

Story Friday February 3, 2017

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I'd suggest she imagine into "existence" a blanket-like object that, when thrown over a person, makes that person partly transparent (and most of the blanket also becomes transparent), with a dial on it to adjust how deep the transparency goes. (It could be extended to objects as well. Even the ground, creating a virtual window into possible underground openings.)

Note: there's no need for such a blanket-like object to exist in real life.

With such a blanket she could check for, say skull injuries, then dial it up a bit and look inside the skull for brain injuries.

Since all she's doing with it is trying to extract from the simulation information that the simulation does in fact contain, there shouldn't be a big issue with the magic involved.

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14 minutes ago, Don Edwards said:

I'd suggest she imagine into "existence" a blanket-like object that, when thrown over a person, makes that person partly transparent (and most of the blanket also becomes transparent), with a dial on it to adjust how deep the transparency goes. (It could be extended to objects as well. Even the ground, creating a virtual window into possible underground openings.)

Imagining things into existence decreases the accuracy of the simulation, so she might see what she expects to see rather than what's actually there.

19 hours ago, CritterKeeper said:
23 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.

...but what she expects or intends won't matter if she's just pulling something.  (Also, she might not be able to pull objects that are partly outside the simulation; they might act as if they're attached infinitely strongly to the "wall" at the edge.)

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6 minutes ago, chridd said:

Imagining things into existence decreases the accuracy of the simulation, so she might see what she expects to see rather than what's actually there.

...but what she expects or intends won't matter if she's just pulling something.  (Also, she might not be able to pull objects that are partly outside the simulation; they might act as if they're attached infinitely strongly to the "wall" at the edge.)

It's Sarah's spell that occurs in her own mind.  If the half-car is stuck, Sarah should be able to un-stick it.

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4 hours ago, Vorlonagent said:

It's Sarah's spell that occurs in her own mind.  If the half-car is stuck, Sarah should be able to un-stick it.

But in doing so, unless she saw the whole car before she cast the spell, her mind would have to fill in the unseen half and it wouldn't be accurate.

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14 hours ago, Scotty said:

But in doing so, unless she saw the whole car before she cast the spell, her mind would have to fill in the unseen half and it wouldn't be accurate.

Completely agreed.  Sarah would by default pull back a half-car cutaway but could choose to put a front end on it.   The front end would be whatever she imagined, not the car's real front-end, even if Sarah had a photographic memory and know exactly what the entire car looked like.  Sarah's no mechanic.  There could still be mice running on wheels under the hood.

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47 minutes ago, Vorlonagent said:

Completely agreed.  Sarah would by default pull back a half-car cutaway but could choose to put a front end on it.   The front end would be whatever she imagined, not the car's real front-end, even if Sarah had a photographic memory and know exactly what the entire car looked like.  Sarah's no mechanic.  There could still be mice running on wheels under the hood.

There's a chance that Sarah would have seen a car engine at some point in her life, so I would expect that should she attempt to fill in the front of a car she pulled out, or even if she creates a full car, opening the hood would probably reveal a version of that one engine stored in memory scaled to fit.

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3 minutes ago, Scotty said:

There's a chance that Sarah would have seen a car engine at some point in her life, so I would expect that should she attempt to fill in the front of a car she pulled out, or even if she creates a full car, opening the hood would probably reveal a version of that one engine stored in memory scaled to fit.

And skewed by Sarah's perception of what a "car engine" looks like, which could easily be a gritty tangle of steel and rubber tubes.

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22 hours ago, CritterKeeper said:
22 hours 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.)

Agree. The more "normal" way she chooses, the more accurate the result will be.

22 hours ago, CritterKeeper said:

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....

I'm pretty sure that making someone react will decrease accuracy a LOT. Which reminds me, major problem with this will be she would need to make body swap less on hair trigger. Otherwise, she's ending up checking the injuries by body swap, which, while accurate, would be quite painful ...

22 hours ago, CritterKeeper said:

Ugh, almost makes me glad I don't have that particular spell.  Almost, but not really, 'cos it is just too useful and fun.

It might be hard to make the spell really useful, but it seems easy to make it fun.

20 hours ago, chridd said:

(Also, she might not be able to pull objects that are partly outside the simulation; they might act as if they're attached infinitely strongly to the "wall" at the edge.)

She might have problems pulling car even without being attached. Although, raising her strength probably won't decrease accuracy so much ...

1 hour ago, Vorlonagent said:
16 hours ago, Scotty said:

But in doing so, unless she saw the whole car before she cast the spell, her mind would have to fill in the unseen half and it wouldn't be accurate.

Completely agreed.  Sarah would by default pull back a half-car cutaway but could choose to put a front end on it.   The front end would be whatever she imagined, not the car's real front-end, even if Sarah had a photographic memory and know exactly what the entire car looked like. 

I would say that even with photographic memory, the "exact" would be much less precise than what the simulation is capable of.

45 minutes ago, Scotty said:

There's a chance that Sarah would have seen a car engine at some point in her life, so I would expect that should she attempt to fill in the front of a car she pulled out, or even if she creates a full car, opening the hood would probably reveal a version of that one engine stored in memory scaled to fit.

I though you can't get driver ID without seeing car engine and being able to identify main parts.

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1 minute ago, hkmaly said:

I though you can't get driver ID without seeing car engine and being able to identify main parts.

I never had to, but I had seen engines before in tech class back in high school, plus I had various friends who tinkered with vehicles a lot.

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

I though you can't get driver ID without seeing car engine and being able to identify main parts.

I never had to, but I had seen engines before in tech class back in high school, plus I had various friends who tinkered with vehicles a lot.

Not here in the heartland of the United States of 'Merica you don't.  Of course, if you are male, you were assumed to know all that any way.  Lady folk?  Optional that you know, but a lot of guys thought you were hawt if you did.  Of course, you have to register if you belong to the Ford or Chevy faction, even if you are driving a vehicle not made by one of those two.  However if you aren't driving a Ford or Chevy, you might be some sort of pinko hippy type or a Yankee, depending on what you were driving.  And I'm not sure which one was thought of as being worse. Slight edge towards being a Yankee as worse, but that varied from town to town.

At least that is what I remember about Driver's Ed back in the stone ages1 of the 1970's.

1Or stoned ages.  The 70's were a magical time in so many ways.

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17 minutes ago, The Old Hack said:
22 minutes ago, Pharaoh RutinTutin said:

Yes, and...?

Isn't that how every car works?

Only high end Bentleys and Rolls Royces. Most other cars are stuck with old-fashioned hamsters.

I assure you my Dodge Grand Caravan runs on rabbit power. I hear the turbocharged one includes a coyote to give the rabbit extra motivation.

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1 hour ago, The Old Hack said:

Only high end Bentleys and Rolls Royces. Most other cars are stuck with old-fashioned hamsters.

 

1 hour ago, Scotty said:

I assure you my Dodge Grand Caravan runs on rabbit power. I hear the turbocharged one includes a coyote to give the rabbit extra motivation.

Geo Metros use a sloth. 

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2 hours ago, The Old Hack said:

I understand that APCs in the Danish Army use snails.

I just looked up the 6 types of APC that the Danish Army uses.  By AFV standards none of them are that slow, and some are, in fact, pretty quick.100 kmh/  60 MPH for a troop carrier is not bad.  Granted the tracked one average about 60 kmh, which is still not slow.

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4 hours ago, mlooney said:

I just looked up the 6 types of APC that the Danish Army uses.  By AFV standards none of them are that slow, and some are, in fact, pretty quick.100 kmh/  60 MPH for a troop carrier is not bad.  Granted the tracked one average about 60 kmh, which is still not slow.

I said nothing about them using slow snails. In fact, they only employ the finest Arabian purebreds.

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4 minutes ago, The Old Hack said:

I said nothing about them using slow snails. In fact, they only employ the finest Arabian purebreds.

Once there was a snail who was tired of being slow. He went out and bought a really fast sports car and had the dealer paint a big 'S' on each side of it.

Whenever someone saw him zooming past in his new car, they would say, "Hey, look at that S-car go!"

From a very old copy of Boys Life

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1 hour ago, Pharaoh RutinTutin said:
1 hour ago, The Old Hack said:

I said nothing about them using slow snails. In fact, they only employ the finest Arabian purebreds.

Once there was a snail who was tired of being slow.

giphy.gif

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1 hour ago, Pharaoh RutinTutin said:

Once there was a snail who was tired of being slow. He went out and bought a really fast sports car and had the dealer paint a big 'S' on each side of it.

Whenever someone saw him zooming past in his new car, they would say, "Hey, look at that S-car go!"

From a very old copy of Boys Life

/me gets out the list.  Looks at it.  Looks at Pharaoh.  Looks at list.  Breaks down and cries.

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1 hour ago, mlooney said:

/me gets out the list.  Looks at it.  Looks at Pharaoh.  Looks at list.  Breaks down and cries.

You and puns appear to work on the same principle as Jerry and inappropriate remarks -- what is purported to be a punishment is actually serving as an encouragement.  ;-P

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