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mlooney

Story Wednesday March 1, 2017

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11 minutes ago, Pharaoh RutinTutin said:

Second, forcing a magic reset as a Nuclear option?  I wasn't sure if the government was aware of the reset potential, now I know they are seriously letting, or even causing that event just to make administration of magic easier.  As Leonard McCoy so eloquently observed, "The bureaucratic mentality is the only constant in the universe."

To me it feel like a not fully thought out solution. 

It fixes the problem they are dealing with right now, but leads to allot more down the road, as what happens if the first to discover major magic are more like not-Tengu then like elliot. 

Do the vamps die, or do they survive relatively unaffected, and run wild until someone can start hunting them?

Do they currently need magic as a deterrent or to defend against any threats tat would not be affected (like potential hostile aliens, unstoppable hoards of doom, etc)?

 

Also as soon as someone gets magic again (which could be any time) they run the risk of exposure again thanks to camera phones, Elliot was right Magic needs to compromise as tech has hit the point it is to hard to hide. A reset is just not going to work. 

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12 minutes ago, Sjmcc13 said:

To me it feel like a not fully thought out solution. 

It fixes the problem they are dealing with right now, but leads to allot more down the road, as what happens if the first to discover major magic are more like not-Tengu then like elliot. 

Do the vamps die, or do they survive relatively unaffected, and run wild until someone can start hunting them?

Do they currently need magic as a deterrent or to defend against any threats tat would not be affected (like potential hostile aliens, unstoppable hoards of doom, etc)?

 

Also as soon as someone gets magic again (which could be any time) they run the risk of exposure again thanks to camera phones, Elliot was right Magic needs to compromise as tech has hit the point it is to hard to hide. A reset is just not going to work. 

Uryuoms would likely be able to help against outside forces. For vampires...if it's magic that's powering the vampirism, then what Edward said to Grace would be true and all vampires would dye off.

As far as magic being unable to hide from tech, Noah kinda had the right idea by causing interference to cameras and cellphones, though some stuff still got through and the note he left police certainly didn't help.

I don't think Arthur wants a reset to happen and wants to try to prevent it from happening, but he does seem to have accepted that the possibility for it happening is there and probably is thinking "if it does happen, at least it won't be my problem anymore"

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10 minutes ago, Tom Sewell said:

I wonder if Voltaire has anything to do with Arthur's and Leifeld's supporting the change in magic? 

I wouldn't say they support a system change, I don't think Leifeld is aware that it's possible, he just wants the secrecy maintained and is questioning Arthur's method and Arthur is like "well it's either this, or the next time there's an incident, we won't have to worry about it for the rest of our lifetime."

I do think Voltaire might be in favour of a system change though because such a change would mean people who lost the ability to use magic would likely be willing to do anything to get that back, which would be good for Voltaire because he had stated his frustration in finding people gullible enough to guide and empower.

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5 hours ago, Sjmcc13 said:

It does kind of look like they each are sizing up one the other 2 people in panel 2, with their gazes not changing until panel 5-6

Must be instinctive. Rob is too much of a beefcake to size anybody else up. Might be a wee bit shorter than Arthur, though.

Arthur... hope he is not scanning for magic.

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6 hours ago, Sjmcc13 said:
8 hours ago, WR...S said:

I'm sure they're just supposed to be avoiding each other's gaze, but I can't help but think they both seem rather... distracted.

It does kind of look like they each are sizing up one the other 2 people in panel 2, with their gazes not changing until panel 5-6

I'm not sure what is "sizing" but I think Arthur is looking directly at that woman's butt and I completely understand him.

6 hours ago, Aura Guardian said:

I was hoping I wasn't the only one who thought that guy looked like Justin!

Count me as well, he does look like Justin to me.

4 hours ago, Scotty said:

I do think Voltaire might be in favour of a system change though because such a change would mean people who lost the ability to use magic would likely be willing to do anything to get that back, which would be good for Voltaire because he had stated his frustration in finding people gullible enough to guide and empower.

That's assuming even after reset it will be possible for immortals to give people magic. Of course, Voltaire MIGHT be making such assumption, warranted or not ...

6 hours ago, Pharaoh RutinTutin said:

Second, forcing a magic reset as a Nuclear option?  I wasn't sure if the government was aware of the reset potential, now I know they are seriously letting, or even causing that event just to make administration of magic easier.  As Leonard McCoy so eloquently observed, "The bureaucratic mentality is the only constant in the universe."

Based on Arthur claiming the problem will be solved for (only) several decades, I think he underestimate how big problem the reset will be. Or ... maybe we are overestimating it.

His idea about how a magic reset works might not be correct ...

8 hours ago, ProfessorTomoe said:

Interesting that Arthur says the problem would only be solved for "decades." That's awfully short, given the magnitude of the reset. Still, I don't think he's counting on Tedd's ability as the seer or Box's promise to Sarah to get magic going again. Given those two working in consort, I imagine they could have magic working in a much shorter time—maybe months.

They, however, may not be willing to share with DGB ...

 

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1 hour ago, Stature said:

Must be instinctive. Rob is too much of a beefcake to size anybody else up. Might be a wee bit shorter than Arthur, though.

Arthur... hope he is not scanning for magic.

It could be just as simple as the idea that as long as two people don't make eye contact, someone that could be observing from a distance wouldn't know they were talking to each other. Of course that method doesn't work as well in a gym and they did end up making eye contact eventually...

2 minutes ago, hkmaly said:
6 hours ago, Aura Guardian said:

I was hoping I wasn't the only one who thought that guy looked like Justin!

Count me as well, he does look like Justin to me.

He looks close to the second stage of the MV5 to FV5 sequence.

4 minutes ago, hkmaly said:

That's assuming even after reset it will be possible for immortals to give people magic. Of course, Voltaire MIGHT be making such assumption, warranted or not ...

Then Pandora/Box is making a heavy assumption that she'll be able to help Sarah get magic if the system changes.

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

That's assuming even after reset it will be possible for immortals to give people magic. Of course, Voltaire MIGHT be making such assumption, warranted or not ...

Then Pandora/Box is making a heavy assumption that she'll be able to help Sarah get magic if the system changes.

Yes, she is making similar assumption. Although I think that her situation is better - both because she's (presumably) more powerful and because it's more likely she will be able to help in cooperation with Sarah than Voltaire being able to offer help to people as trade.

Note also that I don't think she's risking breaking the vow if there will be nothing she can do to help ; IMHO only not helping when she can would count as breaking that vow.

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1 hour ago, hkmaly said:

Yes, she is making similar assumption. Although I think that her situation is better - both because she's (presumably) more powerful and because it's more likely she will be able to help in cooperation with Sarah than Voltaire being able to offer help to people as trade.

Note also that I don't think she's risking breaking the vow if there will be nothing she can do to help ; IMHO only not helping when she can would count as breaking that vow.

Yeah, but I think her having a much clearer memoir of the last system change, having apparently only reset once since then as opposed to half a dozen times or more, gives her better insight into what happens after a system change and how it might have affected Immortals. Even if Immortals forgot that there was a Will of Magic that could change the system, Pandora at least had the experience of one to know that what Disco Wizard said had to be true. And she'll likely find out more when she gets to where she hopes to find info on what Tedd is.

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1 hour ago, hkmaly said:

I'm not sure what is "sizing" but I think Arthur is looking directly at that woman's butt and I completely understand him.

Director Liefeld appears to be checking out the guy's butt in the same way.

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41 minutes ago, showler said:
2 hours ago, hkmaly said:

I'm not sure what is "sizing" but I think Arthur is looking directly at that woman's butt and I completely understand him.

Director Liefeld appears to be checking out the guy's butt in the same way.

On second frame, yes. On third, his eyes seem to point higher ...

... on the other hand, Arthur might be looking higher on first frame.

49 minutes ago, Scotty said:

Yeah, but I think her having a much clearer memoir of the last system change, having apparently only reset once since then as opposed to half a dozen times or more, gives her better insight into what happens after a system change and how it might have affected Immortals. Even if Immortals forgot that there was a Will of Magic that could change the system, Pandora at least had the experience of one to know that what Disco Wizard said had to be true.

Assuming what she already recited wasn't everything she remembers.

Also, it may not mean much if every reset is different.

51 minutes ago, Scotty said:

And she'll likely find out more when she gets to where she hopes to find info on what Tedd is.

Probably ... but WHAT it is? And it's possible that Voltaire used it to find his informations already?

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1 minute ago, hkmaly said:

Also, it may not mean much if every reset is different.

What's unknown is how much knowledge an Immortal can carry over to their next life. It sounds like an Immortal can pick and choose the knowledge they feel will help them, so maybe most immortals might carry over some bit of knowledge in one reset but not the reset after that. I see a system change being a significant event so it would most certainly be carried over one reset, but what are the chances of it being considered significant enough to carry over a second reset? A third? A fourth?

Pandora had almost completely forgotten about the system change, mind you having lived well passed her reset point it's not surprising, but even after 200 years it might be easily missed unless the Immortal vowed to carry that knowledge with them. Maybe the place she's going to is a type of library maintained by an Immortal that made such a vow to keep the extremely important knowledge from being forgotten.

12 minutes ago, hkmaly said:

Probably ... but WHAT it is? And it's possible that Voltaire used it to find his informations already?

Maybe, though it certainly doesn't seem like Voltaire plans on making Tedd his first "gullible" target or else he wouldn't have revealed himself in front of them, so Tedd doesn't trust him. He certainly does seem to have some plan for Tedd though.

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9 hours ago, Scotty said:

For vampires...if it's magic that's powering the vampirism, then what Edward said to Grace would be true and all vampires would dye off.

I'm not sure the vampires would die off. It's been stated that magic will be changing for humans, and aberrations are explicitly not human anymore. They likely fall into the broad category of beings with magic interwoven with their very nature, so likely their vampiric magic is unlikely to change drastically.

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12 hours ago, Sjmcc13 said:

Do they currently need magic as a deterrent or to defend against any threats tat would not be affected (like potential hostile aliens, unstoppable hoards of doom, etc)?

Also, this appears to be an instance of the USA (possibly even just the FBI without permission from Washington) acting unilaterally without even consulting other nations. What about the other nations who make up 95% of the human population? How will THEY react to the USA causing everybody's magic to evaporate? Some nations might even consider it an act of war . . . I can see calls for Leifeld's head to roll in that case.

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7 hours ago, ijuin said:

this appears to be an instance of the USA (possibly even just the FBI without permission from Washington) acting unilaterally without even consulting other nations. What about the other nations who make up 95% of the human population? How will THEY react to the USA causing everybody's magic to evaporate? Some nations might even consider it an act of war . . . I can see calls for Leifeld's head to roll in that case.

Oh now THAT is an interesting twist.  From what Pandora recalled of the last magical reset, the most powerful weapons were magic based and no longer worked.  This time, the conventional, nuclear, biological, and chemical responses available to the offended parties are significantly more powerful than bronze age infantry.

Yes, I know the Roman Testudo was impressive and nearly impenetrable to anything short of the heavy siege or cavalry weapons of its day.  It just isn't likely to stand up against a classic Gatling gun or even a company of British Redcoats, each equipped with a Brown Bess.

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13 hours ago, ijuin said:

Also, this appears to be an instance of the USA (possibly even just the FBI without permission from Washington) acting unilaterally without even consulting other nations. What about the other nations who make up 95% of the human population? How will THEY react to the USA causing everybody's magic to evaporate? Some nations might even consider it an act of war . . . I can see calls for Leifeld's head to roll in that case.

First, how would they even know?  Magic is not going to get all huffy over Moperville if it were a one-off.  Odds are good that all the organizations across the planet that are working in the shadows are having trouble keeping magic a secret. 

For Leifeld to have authorized reset as department policy there would almost have to be a large body of opinion across the paranormal world that a reset would be favorable.  I can't see a manager going out on a lib that far or Arthur convincing him to go it totally alone.  Arguably, a reset threatens Vapires/Aberrents like Sirleck the most.  Their lives are uniquely dependent on magic.  While a reset hurts the forces of nceness, it really ruins the day for the worst monsters they face.

Leifeld is already on the hook for having authorized the fallback from the "magic doesn't exist" line of defense.  He ought to have already taken a good deal of pushback just from Arthur's TV appearance, which signaled the fallback. 

 

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2 hours ago, ijuin said:

If Leifeld gets blamed for a Reset, he won't just be on the hook--he'll be busy dodging assassination attempts.

If the Earth also sheds Sirleck and its entire elite class of Vampires as a result of the reset, Leifeld could come out looking pretty good.

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

Also, it may not mean much if every reset is different.

What's unknown is how much knowledge an Immortal can carry over to their next life. It sounds like an Immortal can pick and choose the knowledge they feel will help them, so maybe most immortals might carry over some bit of knowledge in one reset but not the reset after that. I see a system change being a significant event so it would most certainly be carried over one reset, but what are the chances of it being considered significant enough to carry over a second reset? A third? A fourth?

Pandora had almost completely forgotten about the system change, mind you having lived well passed her reset point it's not surprising, but even after 200 years it might be easily missed unless the Immortal vowed to carry that knowledge with them. Maybe the place she's going to is a type of library maintained by an Immortal that made such a vow to keep the extremely important knowledge from being forgotten.

I think that Pandora almost forgetting shows that problem is how much knowledge an Immortal CAN carry but how much it WILL. Important stuff might be forgotten because it's considered NOT important.

Note that based on how Pandora describes it, seems that the carried memories usually DO contain information from multiple past incarnations.

And yes ... immortal who made a vow to preserve knowledge, possibly also to never lie about what that knowledge contains ... poor guy. Or girl. But it would be useful. And I can imagine someone making that vow not realizing how boring it will became.

19 hours ago, Drasvin said:
On 03/01/2017 at 7:30 PM, Scotty said:

For vampires...if it's magic that's powering the vampirism, then what Edward said to Grace would be true and all vampires would dye off.

I'm not sure the vampires would die off. It's been stated that magic will be changing for humans, and aberrations are explicitly not human anymore. They likely fall into the broad category of beings with magic interwoven with their very nature, so likely their vampiric magic is unlikely to change drastically.

... that sounds like VERY bad news ... although, while explicitly not human, I'm not sure they count as (separate) species.

3 hours ago, Vorlonagent said:
17 hours ago, ijuin said:

Also, this appears to be an instance of the USA (possibly even just the FBI without permission from Washington) acting unilaterally without even consulting other nations. What about the other nations who make up 95% of the human population? How will THEY react to the USA causing everybody's magic to evaporate? Some nations might even consider it an act of war . . . I can see calls for Leifeld's head to roll in that case.

First, how would they even know?  Magic is not going to get all huffy over Moperville if it were a one-off.  Odds are good that all the organizations across the planet that are working in the shadows are having trouble keeping magic a secret. 

Actually, yes it is. Based on what we know, Moperville is THE reason keeping magic secret is harder and harder, no other place generate similar kind of news. Also, Pandora's actions seem to be limited to Moperville and are considered big part of problem.

On the other hand, FBI might just claim that it wasn't their policy, that they just failed to handle the situation. Also, it's possible then can plausibly claim they were not aware about the reset.

2 hours ago, ijuin said:

If Leifeld gets blamed for a Reset, he won't just be on the hook--he'll be busy dodging assassination attempts.

Only thanks to the magic reset he will at least have a CHANCE to dodge them.

Although, I would suppose that Arthur will be primary target. There will be considerable number of people who are not enough in the know to know about Leifeld but everybody saw Arthur in TV ... him being director of DGB, even if not already known, is more likely to get to the magic users than Leifeld being his superior.

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5 minutes ago, hkmaly said:

Actually, yes it is. Based on what we know, Moperville is THE reason keeping magic secret is harder and harder, no other place generate similar kind of news. Also, Pandora's actions seem to be limited to Moperville and are considered big part of problem.

We know that Moperville is the flashpoint for a reset.  If someone is thinking "this is the last straw", there's a whole lot of before-the-last-straw incidents out there.  Those could be spread across the planet.

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34 minutes ago, Vorlonagent said:
42 minutes ago, hkmaly said:

Actually, yes it is. Based on what we know, Moperville is THE reason keeping magic secret is harder and harder, no other place generate similar kind of news. Also, Pandora's actions seem to be limited to Moperville and are considered big part of problem.

We know that Moperville is the flashpoint for a reset.  If someone is thinking "this is the last straw", there's a whole lot of before-the-last-straw incidents out there.  Those could be spread across the planet.

There were several incidents in Moperville and none mentioned outside meanwhile. There wasn't even any mention of "the UFO seekers moved from Moperville because something happened elsewhere".

Sure, Agent Cranium fears "next Roswell" ... but even if Roswell was incident with magic (and not with extraterrestrial, meaning likely Uryuom), it happened long ago and things were quite quiet meanwhile.

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1 minute ago, hkmaly said:

There were several incidents in Moperville and none mentioned outside meanwhile. There wasn't even any mention of "the UFO seekers moved from Moperville because something happened elsewhere".

Sure, Agent Cranium fears "next Roswell" ... but even if Roswell was incident with magic (and not with extraterrestrial, meaning likely Uryuom), it happened long ago and things were quite quiet meanwhile.

In the Real World, Roswell was the inception point for a permanent continuing interest in UFO and UFO sightings in the US and elsewhere.  That's NOT something that The FBI's Paranormal unit (DGB) or Agent Cranium would really want to see happen. 

Also in the Real World, there exists an organization that is dedicated to the serious scientific investigation of USO sightings.  It's called the "Mutual UFO Network" or MUFON.  I doubt Cranium or the FBI would like seeing one of those created for looking into magic incidents either unless the FBI were pulling the strings.

Dan doesn't get into the gritty details of his setting.  It's not worth his time to show whether the paranormal enthusiasts have stayed in Moperville or moved on, unless he's going to build a plotline around it.  It also isn't worth talking about magic-related incidents elsewhere on the planet if there's no plotline to build around them.  That's why we only know about two: The attack on Susan by a vampire in France, and Tedd's mom taking down not-Tengue.  Since Noriko has a reputation as a great monster-hunter, you can be sure she's earned that rep by resolving plenty of incidents, any number of which could contribute to Magic thinking about a rules change.

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3 minutes ago, Vorlonagent said:

Since Noriko has a reputation as a great monster-hunter, you can be sure she's earned that rep by resolving plenty of incidents, any number of which could contribute to Magic thinking about a rules change.

Anything Noriko's done in the past several years could very well have been under contract with other organizations like the paranormal division, and if there's collaboration between the organizations then knowledge of Noriko's work would certainly be known throughout the organizations without the general public knowing.

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14 minutes ago, Scotty said:

Anything Noriko's done in the past several years could very well have been under contract with other organizations like the paranormal division, and if there's collaboration between the organizations then knowledge of Noriko's work would certainly be known throughout the organizations without the general public knowing.

I didn't mean to suggest that Noriko's exploits were at all public, just point out the lady has been busy.  There have been plenty of incidents around the world happening that we haven't been told about.  Now apply the normal curve with respect to how public a given incident ends up.

My post was supporting the idea that Magic is not considering a rules change just because of what's happening in Moperville but it's likely that stuff has been happening elsewhere that contribute to the decision.  It's just Mopereville is at the likely flashpoint for the decision.

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