Fortuity's powers

[teonvin]

So it seems his powers is pretty similar to what Atium does for a Mistborn.

 

I am wondering what would happen if Fortuity tries to fight someone that is also a precog? Would it be kinda like two Atium users and both powers just cancel out?

[Kurkistan]

I would guess so, but recall that his power was most tightly tied to his own personal well-being. So it would need to be a similarly powerful precog who was able to focus all of his power on finding out Fortuity's future.

[name_here]

I actually don't think he has a shadow-cloud equivalent, or if he does it expands so rapidly it becomes entirely useless very readily. I base this assumption on how he died.

 

Davis attempted to run him over, which caused him to dodge into a position where he got shot by Megan. This implies that he couldn't foresee that jumping would get him shot. You could say he wasn't able to jump anywhere else, but that simply relocates the problem; he failed to foresee that going where he did would result in being forced into an untenable situation. Apparently he can see very far into the future where it concerns his personal safety, since it allows him to avoid my excessive fondness for explosives as an anti-Epic weapon, so it's unlikely that getting shot would have been far enough in the future that he couldn't foresee it.

 

I think that he can see into the future that would occur if he did not react to information from the future, so he can't see what will happen after he dodges something. Megan would not have shot at him if he didn't jump, so he didn't see that coming. How exactly this would interact with another precog is uncertain; if they both have the same restriction then the powers would probably be effectively useless. In the event that they can see the future where the other precog reacts to their own precognition, causality gets a headache and probably the precogs do too.

 

Also, Fortuity's precog seems to be most effective defensively, although he can actively see into the future a short distance to cheat at gambling. If he could effectively engage his precog against a clone they'd probably stalemate because they'd be able to anticipate attacks better than they could anticipate dodging.

[Oudeis]

@name_here...

 

I don't accept your premise. I think that the point of a checkmate, as explained in the book, is that you're left with no acceptable option. I think David (also his name is David, not Davis) went to run him over, so he jumped out of the way. Once he jumped, Megan took aim and fired with two guns. Once she took aim, specific futures took shape. In mid-air, Fortuity saw those futures, the ones where he gets shot. He tried to twist out of the way, but he'd already committed to the jump. The best he could do was twist into the second bullet.

 

Even if he could see far enough to know, "If I dodge this car, I'll get shot," his other option is, "So I will stand here and get hit by a car, and be dead that way." Maybe he chose "shot" over "roadkill," maybe he simply chose "two more seconds of life before she pulls the trigger," the point of checkmate is, you don't have a way out. Even if you can see the future, that doesn't automatically give you a viable way to change it.

[name_here]

See, my assumption is that, since he can tell if a building is rigged with explosives in time for it to do any good, he must be able to see at least several minutes into the future concerning personal danger. Therefore, he would have had enough warning to not go where Davis was going to run him over in the first place; it only became a forced checkmate once he was out on the road. 

[dyring]

See, my assumption is that, since he can tell if a building is rigged with explosives in time for it to do any good, he must be able to see at least several minutes into the future concerning personal danger. Therefore, he would have had enough warning to not go where Davis was going to run him over in the first place; it only became a forced checkmate once he was out on the road. 

But building and explosives.. There are always some freak survivors. Someone survives throwing themselves out a window from tenth store since the acidentically lands on something that can take part of the force (some ppl even survived after landing just right on the roof of a car), others survive in the buildings cause they happend to be utterly lucky standing just right etc.

 

Knowing those exact safe spots, or even the "just get somewhat hurt" spots could propably save him - even if he haveto jump out of a window aiming for a fat bloke walking below . There is almost always a very unlikely but possible way to survive. He could get those every time.

[name_here]

Well, it's tricky to judge his limits from third-hand descriptions. I got the impression that his precog was good enough that he wouldn't enter a building rigged to explode. It would be possible to guarantee the deaths of everyone in a building with a sufficiently large quantity of explosives, say a kiloton-range nuke in the basement. That said, all we know for sure is that Fortuity apparently survived at least one bombing attempt, so your interpretation could easily be correct if no one used enough explosives.

[MathEpic]

Keep in mind also that Fortuity was not in the most rational mental state.  He took the time to make eye contact with David long enough to say "I will to find a way to murder you" with his eyes.

 

If I might be allowed to indulge in rampant flimsily justified speculation for a while:

 

There is a chance that Fortuity's failure to find a way out of the situation was the result of his own failure to react to the situation.  Otherwise I think that Fortuity would have jumped onto the top of David's car and tried to escape the alley that way.

 

If this is correct it implies several things about how precogs work in the Reckoners universe.

 

Although knowing about danger is automatic, reacting to it is a voluntary action.  Additionally, a sufficiently distracting event can prevent them from seeing a way to escape danger.  (This would have to be a very good distraction, because they can anticipate any surprise you through at them.  It would be nearly impossible to do it intentionally on command.)

[Gloom]

I believe that to be a more than reasonable assumption. I don't believe that Fortuity became a robot that was forced to act instinctively. He may have even intentionally ignored information that would save him from a checkmate because he arrogantly expected that another option would present itself. We also don't know if his precognition was visual. If he was a seer, that would be both annoying and distracting. I would guess he acted based on feelings. That he did what felt right.

[dyring]

Maybe he could only see one danger at a time, the most pressing one?

 

"About to be hit by car" - not able to feel "about to be shot" until he´s safe from the car?

[nikomis]

Don't forget, it's harder for Fortuity to react to Megan's double-shot because of Fortuity's weakness.

[Swimmingly]

Maybe he could only see one danger at a time, the most pressing one?

 

"About to be hit by car" - not able to feel "about to be shot" until he´s safe from the car?

In his situation, I would probably have a "one thing about to escort me bodily off the mortal coil at a time" sort of mentality - just because he has superpowers doesn't mean he can't panic. Anyway, if that were the case, it would be a lot easier to checkmate him. A shower of machine-gun bullets would do it. However, it's stated that he can dodge that, so I assume he's quite powerful in that regard.

[Shardbearer]

I think his precog ability is largely based on someone deciding to do something. David thought Fortuity's danger sense would kick in as soon as he decided to shoot him. My guess is that Megan did not decide to shoot until he was in mid jump and she saw an opportunity, and so he could not predict her shots until he was already committed,.

[Aether]

I think his precog ability is largely based on someone deciding to do something. David thought Fortuity's danger sense would kick in as soon as he decided to shoot him. My guess is that Megan did not decide to shoot until he was in mid jump and she saw an opportunity, and so he could not predict her shots until he was already committed,.

This falls in with my interpretation of it, which again was largelly influenced by how Alice's (from Twilight (I know... please forgive me...)) power works. The only problem is that naturally occurring dangers would fall outside of his powers of precognition, so in the end, there might be several layers to what he is able to foresee or not.

[Kurkistan]

Perhaps a more accurate description would be when something is "causally set" or the like? So a rock rolling down a hill is as "set in stone" (pardon the pun) as the gun going off when David decides to pull the trigger, for instance.

[Aether]

Either that or this is when his ability to see into the future and his ability to foresee other people's actions overlap. I think there is enough evidence to suggest that he has three abilities. His inhuman dexterity being one, and his precognition abilities having two facets.

[name_here]

We lack a proper controlled test, but I doubt it's based on when people decide to do things. Depending on how many steps that goes down the chain, either it'd be of extremely questionable use against explosives or it'd likely have foiled the assassination attempt. If it only works on a decision that directly causes an event as opposed to decisions setting up the event, it wouldn't warn of explosives until the user decided to detonate them once he saw Fortuity in the "hard kill" radius. If it traces decision sequences, I'd expect it to warn him of the assassination plot because Prof decided to set it up.

[Shardbearer]

We lack a proper controlled test, but I doubt it's based on when people decide to do things. Depending on how many steps that goes down the chain, either it'd be of extremely questionable use against explosives or it'd likely have foiled the assassination attempt. If it only works on a decision that directly causes an event as opposed to decisions setting up the event, it wouldn't warn of explosives until the user decided to detonate them once he saw Fortuity in the "hard kill" radius. If it traces decision sequences, I'd expect it to warn him of the assassination plot because Prof decided to set it up.

 

I think it does warn him even for a setup like that.

 

But then again, would that warn him of the Reckoner's setup as well?

[Aether]

The key might be with "set-up" and intention. He would be warned about almost any kind of planned assassination, but in the case of his death, Megan only reacted to something he did. His powers probably did warn him about her sudden plan to shoot him after he'd jumped, but by then it was already too late.

[name_here]

I believe that his precog can't provide non-local information, only what he's going to see. I say this because it didn't tell him that the Reckoners had arranged to kill him. He couldn't anticipate Megan's direct actions, but the other Reckoners wouldn't be concealed. I don't know exactly how not being able to predict the actions of someone he was attracted to manifests, but unless the information he gets is relatively constrained he could infer their actions from changes to the actions of others. And it doesn't shield others in the area because he isn't susceptible to sniping while walking around with multiple attractive ladies on his arms. While the Reckoners might not have known if he was, Epics in general seem really paranoid about their weaknesses. Despite his superiority complex, I don't think he'd make a habit of walking around in prime sniper territory with his powers negated.

So I don't think a choice-focused precognition limit would explain why explosives don't work but the successful plan did. Plus, people make decisions with enough frequency that precog which cannot anticipate them wouldn't be terribly effective.

I actually think you're correct about the timing; I just think the cause is elsewhere. The key point is that Megan shot him only because he dodged Davis. If he had not dodged because of his precog she would not have shot him. My theory is that his power is not recursive; it predicts the future if he didn't use information from the future. This was an unusual situation because his own action made his death inevitable; in almost any other circumstance his actions would leave him able to react to the updated future. So if you set up a bombing on the route he's going to take he'd see himself going directly into the trap and dying. Then he would opt to take another route and become able to anticipate attacks on that route. This way only effects of his decisions are privileged but he only sees a single future instead of trying to keep a billion different ones straight.

Him foreseeing the effects of his own actions would become infinitely recursive and render itself useless. Plus, the gunshots weren't the only thing he failed to anticipate. He moved into a location where Davis could force him to dodge into an untenable situation, which would be a pretty stupid thing to do on purpose. In most cases, he'd get a couple seconds of warning, plenty to avoid bullets. I'm apparently the forum guy for saturation by explosives, but enough to handle his power would require setting up in advance, so he'd see the future where he walked into the trap and died before entering it. I guess a really complicated deception play might work, where you set up a trap, he forsees the trap and avoids it, and that sends him into another trap, but that would be so hard to set up you'd basically need a better precog.

For actually planning a checkmate, you want a reactive method of forcing him into a no-win situation. Then you set up a completely separate kill method, preferably one to bait him into entering the area and dodging instead of avoiding it. Snipers might be perfect. Then tell everyone to force him into a no-win situation only once the snipers miss. He won't forsee it being used until after getting shot at. Thing is, even once you lure him into the trap you need something that he cannot avoid with several seconds of warning.

[Goatborn]

I think there's definitely evidence that he anticipated Megan's shots mid-flight. I can't remember the exact line, but Megan says that he wasn't able to dodge both bullets.

 

My opinion is that his danger sense triggers only when there's a direct threat to his life. Not so much the decision to pull the trigger, but the actual act of setting a bullet in motion. With his advanced reflexes (that no-one knew about) it would be easy to assume that his danger sense extended even further.

 

I like the two facets idea - I think he has precognitive abilities that he can turn on and off, not just the danger sense. His divining of the future was his rationale for killing, and David mentions that it wouldn't be useful for gambling only because there's no real currency for Epics. So, I think that the love weakness might also cloud his voluntary precog abilities. If I were him, I'd run a quick scan of my future every hour or so, and if a hazy patch came up, he'd assume that he was about to get lucky.

 

Hence, a pretty lady lures him into a trap that he otherwise could have foreseen (clouding the voluntary side), then a checkmate overwhelms his instinctual danger sense.

 

Without access to his weakness, he would have foreseen that night being a veeeery bad night, then name_here's reactive ploy would have to come into play. Infinitely more difficult - it would be similar to the atium gambit. Wait for him to change tactics and react to it quickly, and repeat until he falls into an electrified pool. With his enhanced reflexes, this would be almost impossible. He would be anticipating and changing tact far quicker than a human could interpret the tells of his movements.