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On Fortune *AofL Spoilers*


Kurkistan

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We now know that "Spinner Ferrings can store fortune in a chromium metalmind, making themselves unlucky during active storage, and can tap it at a later time to increase their luck."

Now we just have to figure out a way that this doesn't violate causality and/or the nature of Feruchemy.

Onto try to establish a sensible model for storing and tapping Fortune, using a coin toss as a primary example:

We can all agree that a Spinner actually altering an event which as already been determined, i.e. changing which side a coin landed on after it has already landed, would be bad. Very bad. So reverse-causality is out.

To extend that, though, what about altering deterministic outcomes whose causes are outside of the Spinner's direct control? If the coin is already in the air when the Spinner taps Fortune, how can that reasonably be expected to influence the coin's spin? Will the Universe alter in order to blow air currents at the coin so that it lands on the proper side? Would the opposite happen if the Spinner was tapping Fortune? Given the probabilistic nature of luck, is there a larger or smaller chance of the Universe intervening on either side depending on what your "luck levels" are at?

Given the internal nature of Feruchemy in every other aspect, I posit that tapping/storing Fortune cannot reasonably be expected to alter events entirely external to the Spinner. So the coin cannot be affected in midair or on the ground, that gunman with a bead on your head will not suddenly sneeze, and a meteor isn't any more likely to strike your house if you are storing Fortune.

Onto theorizing:

Therefore, the only reasonable effect left to Spinners is an internalization of Fortune: Fortune's impacts are to be found entirely in the effects it has on the Spinner's own thoughts and behavior.

I imagine, then, that Fortune works a bit like Atium, although perhaps on a subconscious level. If you've ever seen Alphas or the new Sherlock Holmes movie - any work that involves "awesome by analysis" behavior, then I picture it somewhat like that. Spinners, either consciously or unconsciously (I'm betting unconsciously) are more or less aware of the their surroundings, their actions, and the probable future course of events within their surroundings following as a consequence of Spinner-initiated actions, all depending upon how much Fortune they are tapping or storing.

A Spinner tapping Fortune, therefore, would be more likely to flip a coin so that it lands on the proper side (you can do that with practice, normally). If someone else is flipping the coin, then perhaps a large amount of Fortune would allow the Spinner to say exactly the right thing or act in exactly the proper way so as to influence the coin toss. A Spinner might not be able to make a gunman spontaneously sneeze, but he could throw a pebble at a passing horse to cause a fruit-stand to collapse on top of the gunmen two minutes later.

To sum up, I posit that tapping or storing Fortune influences a Spinner's (subconscious or conscious) understanding of the system of cause and effect in their immediate surroundings, as well as their ability to influence that system.

Edited by Kurkistan
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I imagine that a spinner really could make a gunman sneeze, drop his gun and accidentally shoot himself, if he was tapping alot at the time!

Dunno the whole just making them awesome at causality and generally talented when tapping it isn't really being lucky and surely woulda been noted as like talent then fortune

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Chromium is a spiritual metal, so I assume your fortune is somehow tied to your spiritual presence, although not necessarily your Spiritual DNA, any more that everything you do on the Physical realm is directly tied to your Physical DNA. What does that mean for its potential? I really don't know. It is possible that the spiritual realm is less tied to time than the physical realm, and that it might reverse causality to some small extent (presumably atium is working in the spiritual realm, and it can mess with causality a little bit).

I do wonder, however, about "You're welcome." Could Sazed/Harmony have been giving Wax the same effect as tapped fortune? It would only require tiny tweaks to everyone's actions so that, after flying (seemingly randomly) across a room, Wax landed in a convenient place? It's still debatable whether all changes were in things Wax did, or if they subtly affected everyone else, but I wonder if that could give us the closest approximation what effects tapping Chromium could have (apart from my idea that Bloody Tan tapped Chromium).

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I imagine that a spinner really could make a gunman sneeze, drop his gun and accidentally shoot himself, if he was tapping alot at the time!

Dunno the whole just making them awesome at causality and generally talented when tapping it isn't really being lucky and surely woulda been noted as like talent then fortune

To reiterate, the problem I have with making the gunman sneeze himself to death is that, besides being hard to reconcile with a world that is mostly otherwise just Physics + very specific magical violations, it simply doesn't fit in with the rest of Feruchemy's effects, which are all internal.

The only arguably "external" Feruchemical power is Connection, but that's exceptionally limited and completely revolves around the Fering and their direct interactions with others. It increases or decreases the Fering's ability to connect with others, not the thoughts or behaviors of others directly.

I admit that my description of "Super Causality Man" doesn't immediately bring the words "luck" or "fortune" to mind. But, particularly if the effects are subconscious, how else besides "luck" would you describe it when a Fering stores "something" and has generally less desirable things happen around them, only to have more desirable things happen around them when they tap "something."

Edited by Kurkistan
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Chromium is a spiritual metal, so I assume your fortune is somehow tied to your spiritual presence, although not necessarily your Spiritual DNA, any more that everything you do on the Physical realm is directly tied to your Physical DNA. What does that mean for its potential? I really don't know. It is possible that the spiritual realm is less tied to time than the physical realm, and that it might reverse causality to some small extent (presumably atium is working in the spiritual realm, and it can mess with causality a little bit).

I do wonder, however, about "You're welcome." Could Sazed/Harmony have been giving Wax the same effect as tapped fortune? It would only require tiny tweaks to everyone's actions so that, after flying (seemingly randomly) across a room, Wax landed in a convenient place? It's still debatable whether all changes were in things Wax did, or if they subtly affected everyone else, but I wonder if that could give us the closest approximation what effects tapping Chromium could have (apart from my idea that Bloody Tan tapped Chromium).

I suppose that, rather than a heightened/lessened subconscious "cognitive" awareness of causality, Fortune could also work as a greater/lesser connection to your "spiritual self's" sense of time and events. Food for thought, especially given that Chromium is a spirtual metal

I don't think we have to rely upon Wax being boosted in some way in order for such a "lucky" turn of events to happen. Harmony could simply have used his own heightened sense of the future and the course of events to ensure that the trunk would be where it needed to be, without involving Wax's individual Fortune.

Also, excellent idea about Bloody Tan.

Edited by Kurkistan
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Even stranger, we have previously been told that the future in Scadrial is mostly deterministic - only people who can see the future (using Atium, Electrum, Worm Spice, etc.) can change it.

Now, maybe using Feruchemy to increase your fortune is no more "changing the future" than using steel to throw things at people would be - exactly how and how much you will use your powers is determined in advance. Still, it feels different to me.

-- Deus Ex Biotica

P.S. Also, each time I see it called "fortune," I get the notion of a Metalmind which stores money. Invest in the Chromium Bank of Terris! Luckily, this passes quickly.

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Here's a question I've been pondering:

Would tapping luck affect an arbitrary coin toss? The gut answer is yes, but if the coin toss isn't actually affecting anything (there're no bets depending on it, or decisions being made based on it, etc), why would having the toss come up one way or another be lucky?

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Here's a question I've been pondering:

Would tapping luck affect an arbitrary coin toss? The gut answer is yes, but if the coin toss isn't actually affecting anything (there're no bets depending on it, or decisions being made based on it, etc), why would having the toss come up one way or another be lucky?

I agree with your non-gut answer in that I don't think luck would affect any outcome which does not matter to the Fering at hand, no matter how Fortune works. As you said, if a Spinner walks by someone who's flipping a coin, how is it "lucky" for that Spinner for the coin to land either way?

EDIT: Or CrazyRioter's answer. :)

Edited by Kurkistan
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Also, how would being a Chromium Ferring affect my luck, which is neither good nor bad, but utterly bizzare? :)

Technically speaking, the book never says "good" luck, so you would probably have less noticeably bizarre luck while filling, and totally incomprehensible co-incidences while tapping.

As for the outcome of a coin toss where the Ferring called one side, but nothing rides on the outcome, that depends on whether "luck" is about bringing you benefits, or your desires becoming real. Which, actually, means it would be a pretty deep metaphysical experiment, if we had access to such Ferrings in real life. I guess that's what Terris is busy doing while their all isolationism-ey.

-- Deus Ex Biotica

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Technically speaking, the book never says "good" luck, so you would probably have less noticeably bizarre luck while filling, and totally incomprehensible co-incidences while tapping.

As for the outcome of a coin toss where the Ferring called one side, but nothing rides on the outcome, that depends on whether "luck" is about bringing you benefits, or your desires becoming real. Which, actually, means it would be a pretty deep metaphysical experiment, if we had access to such Ferrings in real life. I guess that's what Terris is busy doing while their all isolationism-ey.

-- Deus Ex Biotica

The Ars Arcanum:

Spinner Ferrings can store fortune in a chromium metalmind, making themselves unlucky during active storage, and can tap it at a later time to increase their luck.

So it all comes down to what the author means by "unlucky". I usually take "unlucky" to mean that someone has bad luck, but it could be taken to mean the absence of luck.

I hope that it's the later. It would effectively make a Spinner Ferring the Infinite Improbability Drive while they tap their fortune. It also seems like it might be too powerful. The absence of randomness is not nearly as problematic as bad luck would be.

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Right, but the whole issue here is that "luck" is such a nebulous quality, in a magic system that usually deals with much better-defined things. "Unlucky" could mean either actively bad things happening or nothing extraordinary at all, and until we see it being used by someone, it's hard to say which.

I had always assumed it meant "bad things happen on Fill, good things happen on Tap," until this thread, but "things are very orderly on Fill, and very chaotic on Tap," makes more sense to me in terms of hos Ferruchemy has worked in the past.

-- Deus Ex Biotica

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  • 4 weeks later...

Right, but the whole issue here is that "luck" is such a nebulous quality, in a magic system that usually deals with much better-defined things. "Unlucky" could mean either actively bad things happening or nothing extraordinary at all, and until we see it being used by someone, it's hard to say which.

I had always assumed it meant "bad things happen on Fill, good things happen on Tap," until this thread, but "things are very orderly on Fill, and very chaotic on Tap," makes more sense to me in terms of hos Ferruchemy has worked in the past.

-- Deus Ex Biotica

Define "bad" or " good". I mean, is getting a free lunch in Mac good or bad for me? It is enjoyable, but bad for my body. The luck is not defined well, and is usually affected by later happenings.

That aside, if luck is governed by current perceptions, does it mean that you can " invent by luck"? Like, in the following setup: a Fortune Compounder has his family and/or himself if he does not invent FTL drive by the end of the week, and given 125 cubic meters of chromium. He fills it, and then tas it for an hour of super fortune, and starts drawing random lines on paper, by sheer luck resulting in FTL blueprints, with instructions on how to build it. This works especially well with the "internal" theory, actually, with which I kind of agree, actually.

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To quote Professor Farnsworth "Quantum physics teaches us that anything can happen at any time, for no reason". Maybe all a Spinner does is affect that, causing the most likely event that is beneficial to him to occur instead of what would occur. Causality isn't really effected because you are adding a cause (drawing on chromium) which changes the parameters of the event.

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To quote Professor Farnsworth "Quantum physics teaches us that anything can happen at any time, for no reason". Maybe all a Spinner does is affect that, causing the most likely event that is beneficial to him to occur instead of what would occur. Causality isn't really effected because you are adding a cause (drawing on chromium) which changes the parameters of the event.

It appears that I've been foolishly stuck in a Newtonian mindset for causality, then. :unsure:

We still have the problem of purely external events being affected by the Spinner: quantum events, in this case.

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It appears that I've been foolishly stuck in a Newtonian mindset for causality, then. :unsure:

We still have the problem of purely external events being affected by the Spinner: quantum events, in this case.

Events at a quantum level, from what I understand, can be changed by the simple fact of observation. Perhaps Spinners give themselves an ability to observe things on this level, thereby changing the event. Still internal... and very very far fetched. But I can't see how else it would work.

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in that case, the simplest way for that problem to be solved would be for whoever was threatening him and his family to be either killed or incapacitated so they couldn't carry out the threat, or something like that.

That is why I said that "internal" works better. If the family is far away, the only way for him to deal with threat would be to teleport there (using quantum tunneling effects), or something like that. Hm.

Well, anyways, what would happen to the Fortune Compounder that taps a lifetime's worth of luck in a few minutes? And starts, for example, randomly beating on the keyboard (while hoping to write a book)? Could he then go like "What? While typing randomly I have exactly duplicated the Amol 2 months before release? Lucky!"

Edited by Satsuoni
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That is why I said that "internal" works better. If the family is far away, the only way for him to deal with threat would be to teleport there (using quantum tunneling effects), or something like that. Hm.

Well, anyways, what would happen to the Fortune Compounder that taps a lifetime's worth of luck in a few minutes? And starts, for example, randomly beating on the keyboard (while hoping to write a book)? Could he then go like "What? While typing randomly I have exactly duplicated the Amol 2 months before release? Lucky!"

... or maybe, while typing randomly, he breaks all his fingers, but in the hospital, gets set up for life with a rich heiress who falls in love with him? Or the keyboard breaks, but the pieces set into motion a chain of dominoes he never sees, but it ends up curing cancer?

How obvious is Luck? How directed is it? How focused on short and long-term effects?

No idea. I wonder if the RPG has guidelines, but I suspect it just has Fortune manipulating dice rolls.

-- Deus Ex Biotica

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No idea. I wonder if the RPG has guidelines, but I suspect it just has Fortune manipulating dice rolls.

You are correct, it gives +1 to a couple of dice rolls (can't remember which).

I have my own thoughts on the subject.

Remember that Feruchemy only works with attribute people already have. So, in the spiritual realm, all humans already have some level of luck. I posit that this luck affects how people interact with the spiritual realm. And since the three realms are interconnected (somehow), what happens in the spiritual realm affects the physical realm.

What we can learn from the RPG is, in my opinion, that luck is related to an individual's intent. If an individual tapping luck flips a coin, but has no interest or investment in the result, then tapping luck does nothing. But if you are trying to gain something e.g. money from a random event, then tapping luck might help.

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What we can learn from the RPG is, in my opinion, that luck is related to an individual's intent. If an individual tapping luck flips a coin, but has no interest or investment in the result, then tapping luck does nothing. But if you are trying to gain something e.g. money from a random event, then tapping luck might help.

My question is whether the results of a chance event affect how much luck is needed to affect the flip. Is a coin flip with $10 riding on it "easier" to affect than a coin flip with $10,000 dependent on the outcome? They both have the same probability of happening, but one is definitely considered luckier than the other.

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