Question 15

[Blaze1616 he/him]

Oh great Metronome, what hour should the clocks in Corvallis show? I miss my characters which I have too carelessly trapped in the future!

 

The post I am going to make once Blackhoof gets back to me will put the time at 11, though it should go by fairly quickly. Your characters are stuck at 1pm, right?

[TwiLyghtSansSparkles she/her]

And "Pie Cupcake," which would cause Funtimes to create a million puppet accounts so she could make sure it won.

[Comatose he/him]

Oh great Metronome, what hour should the clocks in Corvallis show? I miss my characters which I have too carelessly trapped in the future!

No problem!  This seems like a job for:

 

Timeless Daylight Savings Time / Timezone

Power:  Timeless has a passive ability to distort to flow of time.  This power cannot be controlled, and mainly just results in the people who come with range finding themselves to be an hour or two ahead or behind the actual time (depending how long they remain with Timeless's range).  

 

And yes, Timeless is the sworn enemy of Metronome.  

[Comatose he/him]

You mean, Timezone?

 

 

Ooo, I like that (or DLST) better!  Switched .

[Comatose he/him]

Question:  What do we know about Knighthawk?  I know in the sample from Calamity

the Foundry is protected by drones,

but do they employ any epics?  I was thinking of making my copy-cat epic an employee or former employee of Knighthawk, and was wondering if that might not be possible.  

[TwiLyghtSansSparkles she/her]

Question: What do we know about Knighthawk? I know in the sample from Calamity

the Foundry is protected by drones,

but do they employ any epics? I was thinking of making my copy-cat epic an employee or former employee of Knighthawk, and was wondering if that might not be possible.

I like the idea, but I say wait until Calamity confirms or denies whether it's possible.

[18th Shard he/him]

So thinking about Jumpdrive's powers, I have a problem. What if he falls from a great height?

 

Option 1: The ground would cause his injury, so it would be turned to data. Unfortunately, this would punch holes through the earth until Jumpdrive had settled in the center of the earth. If he stopped.

 

Option 2: He absorbs the gravitational energy, thereby stopping at the ground. This opens a whole can of worms on his ability to absorb forces, ideas, and concepts. I mean, this would be absorbing kinetic motion of a bullet instead of the bullet itself, which was clearly my idea of his power set.

 

Option 3: He somehow absorbs the gravitons that are causing the gravitational distortion. Unfortunately, this is theoretical science, and I don't want to mess with theoretical physics. Also has the whole problem of absorbing motion vs. absorbing gravitons.

 

Also, I wanted to make him semi-redeemed, because he has visits with his father, who triggers his weakness, but do we know if that just makes him immune to corruption (evidenced by Firefight), removes the weakness (Conflux sort of, but unconfirmed in book), and if these changes are permanent. I want him to have a second rending, you see.

Edited September 23, 2015 by 18th Shard

[TwiLyghtSansSparkles she/her]

Also, I wanted to make him semi-redeemed, because he has visits with his father, who triggers his weakness, but do we know if that just makes him immune to corruption (evidenced by Firefight), removes the weakness (Conflux sort of, but unconfirmed in book), and if these changes are permanent. I want him to have a second rending, you see.

I'm going to leave the other questions to those more versed in physics than I am, but from what we see in the first two books, I think that unless he deliberately faced his weakness and underlying fear, the visits would just trigger his weakness and make him fearful and angry. I know we don't have much on Epic redemption yet, but it appears to be all or nothing, so I don't think having him be semi-redeemed would work.

If you want him to go on a rampage eventually, I don't think a second Rending is necessary. Just give him the motivation and have him go on a good old-fashioned murder spree.

[18th Shard he/him]

The thing is, he is facing his fear, but only in respect to his dad. He still kills every other person with Alzheimer's he can find.

 

And he is awful at killing. To quote a PM, "His Rending was absolutely pathetic - he started absorbing data from everything around him and fumbled with a gun he stole. He's an awful shot, so he only managed to even injure one person before he was locked in a room. He couldn't get out." I want his second rending to be emotional trauma he has never faced before, especially not with powers. It's more like Prof's thing at the end of Firefight, but less powerful (obviously) and triggering his powers to boosted levels he didn't realize he had before.

 

Edit: Twi, added you to PM that explains this.

Edited September 23, 2015 by 18th Shard

[Aonar he/him]

So thinking about Jumpdrive's powers, I have a problem. What if he falls from a great height?

 

Option 1: The ground would cause his injury, so it would be turned to data. Unfortunately, this would punch holes through the earth until Jumpdrive had settled in the center of the earth. If he stopped.

 

Option 2: He absorbs the gravitational energy, thereby stopping at the ground. This opens a whole can of worms on his ability to absorb forces, ideas, and concepts. I mean, this would be absorbing kinetic motion of a bullet instead of the bullet itself, which was clearly my idea of his power set.

 

Option 3: He somehow absorbs the gravitons that are causing the gravitational distortion. Unfortunately, this is theoretical science, and I don't want to mess with theoretical physics. Also has the whole problem of absorbing motion vs. absorbing gravitons.

 

Also, I wanted to make him semi-redeemed, because he has visits with his father, who triggers his weakness, but do we know if that just makes him immune to corruption (evidenced by Firefight), removes the weakness (Conflux sort of, but unconfirmed in book), and if these changes are permanent. I want him to have a second rending, you see.

 

The problem here is kind of a conceptual misunderstanding. You want him to absorb matter, or distinct particles, but not energy, but you also don't want him to start punching holes through the earth's crust every time he jumps. The things is, those two things (matter and energy) aren't wholly distinct. Gravitons are gravity; (assuming we can prove they exist; gravity and quantum physics don't play nice ) they are the force-carrying quanta which adds velocity relative to nearby to mass and the square of distance. So when you say "gravitational energy" (which isn't really a thing, but I'll get to that) it's really fundamentally no different from the gravitons that make it up.

 

However, doing this won't do what you want it to, anyways. Gravitational energy doesn't really exist; it's better described as potential energy. Gravity is a force, which adds kinetic energy in proportion to various factors. So by absorbing gravitational potential energy (or gravitons) it would instead make Jumpdrive act as if he had spontaneously been moved to a zero g environment. Meaning either that he would float indefinitely, or he would just go splat like normal, depending on how exactly the danger sense works. I'm pretty sure this isn't what you want.

 

With Option 2/3, the only thing that would really give you what you wanted would be to either instantaneously remove all kinetic energy from Jumpdrive's body at the moment of impact (which sounds like something you're trying to avoid) or have him stop feeling gravitational pull only once his velocity is almost high enough to injure him upon contact with a solid surface. (Which, really, isn't any better, for the reasons I've already explained, but it's at least workable.)

 

Problem is, with a power like this, you'll never really get a nice solution without a ton of handwaving, and/or laying out how the power would work in special circumstances. (For example, what happens if he gets sunburnt? What happens if he's in some random villian's volcano-lair and we decide to buck convention by remembering that convection is a thing?) Sorry this wasn't really much help. (Maybe someone with a better understanding of physics than me can help more/and or correct me if I've gotten something wrong?)

 

After reading Jumpdrive's powerset though, it looks like a much simpler means of fixing the problem would be to just alter how Jumpdrive's powers work. As things stand, he currently has not one, but two PIs, one for animate matter, and one for inanimate matter. It might be better to just meld the two together, and give him the Firewall; let it remove kinetic energy from objects that would hurt him, and attempt to convert them into data. The second one would just be less efficient when the object in question is living, and more so if the person in question is an Epic. This wouldn't solve everything (things like heat still present an issue, unless you want the power to work at a molecular level, but that would cause more problems than it's worth) but it would allow him to survive falls and such without causing any problems, as it would remove his kinetic energy (due to frames of reference, the Earth wouldn't have any meaningful kinetic energy in this case), and then fail in attempting to convert him into data, as he's a High Epic.

Edited September 23, 2015 by Aonar Faileas

[Edgedancer he/him]

The thing is, he is facing his fear, but only in respect to his dad. He still kills every other person with Alzheimer's he can find.

 

And he is awful at killing. To quote a PM, "His Rending was absolutely pathetic - he started absorbing data from everything around him and fumbled with a gun he stole. He's an awful shot, so he only managed to even injure one person before he was locked in a room. He couldn't get out." I want his second rending to be emotional trauma he has never faced before, especially not with powers. It's more like Prof's thing at the end of Firefight, but less powerful (obviously) and triggering his powers to boosted levels he didn't realize he had before.

 

Edit: Twi, added you to PM that explains this.

The problem I see here is that we have a bit of circular logic, you want him to be half-Way redeemed (which doesn't really seem to be the Way it works) so for that he needs to.visit his father, for that to make sense he already would need to not be corrupted as otherwise he'd just inherently to selfish to care, for that to make sense he'd need a way out of his corruption and the only One he would have is visiting his father at which point we are back to the beginning.

Bottom line, there's a reason redeemed Epics don't happen all that often and it certainly doesn't help that killing their Family is a rather Common practice.

[TwiLyghtSansSparkles she/her]

The problem I see here is that we have a bit of circular logic, you want him to be half-Way redeemed (which doesn't really seem to be the Way it works) so for that he needs to.visit his father, for that to make sense he already would need to not be corrupted as otherwise he'd just inherently to selfish to care, for that to make sense he'd need a way out of his corruption and the only One he would have is visiting his father at which point we are back to the beginning.

Bottom line, there's a reason redeemed Epics don't happen all that often and it certainly doesn't help that killing their Family is a rather Common practice.

Right. It's just like facing a fear in real life: either you do or you don't. You get on the roller coaster or you get out of line and ride the merry-go-round instead. You talk to your boss about the annoying coworker, or you grit your teeth and pretend it's not that bad. There can be a process involved, as you work your way toward a point where you're ready to face a fear, but in that case actually facing it is the culmination of a process, not just another step.

[Shattered he/him]

Great post Logic!

 

Thanks! 

[mail-mi he/him]

Short Reader post to move at least one thing along, sorry for all the waits everyone. 

[Shattered he/him]

Okay, I think I was talking to Twi about this earlier in the thread. We were discussing what Evan would be doing in the Dalles; whether he would be interacting with people or not, and I failed to follow up on it earlier. What other character were we discussing, and whose is it?   

 

EDIT: I figured it out. Who writes Skylar?

Edited September 23, 2015 by Shattered Logic

[Edgedancer he/him]

Right. It's just like facing a fear in real life: either you do or you don't. You get on the roller coaster or you get out of line and ride the merry-go-round instead. You talk to your boss about the annoying coworker, or you grit your teeth and pretend it's not that bad. There can be a process involved, as you work your way toward a point where you're ready to face a fear, but in that case actually facing it is the culmination of a process, not just another step.

There's also the Question if why it's his weakness in the first place. If he's afraid of getting Alzheimer himself there really is no good Excuse why he'd visit his father.

If it's just the symptom and his actual fear is about loosing his father then that opens up to seperate can of worms. The first being that I don't think weakness being inherently selfless like that makes much sense, because this whole discussion shows that such a thing could create much more redeemed Epics than there should be.

The other being that then we would have a David Situation at our hands and that seems like something we should stay away from at least for now.

Edit: Fireslayer writes Skylar.

Edit edit: and I think Mail just gave Skylar a Sex change.

Edited September 23, 2015 by Edgedancer

[TwiLyghtSansSparkles she/her]

There's also the Question if why it's his weakness in the first place. If he's afraid of getting Alzheimer himself there really is no good Excuse why he'd visit his father.

If it's just the symptom and his actual fear is about loosing his father then that opens up to seperate can of worms. The first being that I don't think weakness being inherently selfless like that makes much sense, because this whole discussion shows that such a thing could create much more redeemed Epics than there should be.

The other being that then we would have a David Situation at our hands and that seems like something we should stay away from at least for now.

Edit: Fireslayer writes Skylar.

 

The only way I can see losing his father as being a decent candidate for an Epic fear is if there was an inherently selfish component to it, i.e. he feared being left alone, or being responsible for driving his father away—something that shifted the focus from his father's suffering to his own. But in that case, it wouldn't be a fear of Alzheimer's at all, but abandonment, which would probably require a much different backstory than the one you had planned. And at any rate, Jumpdrive so far doesn't read like someone who fears abandonment, so I'd say you'd need to try a different tack. 

[Voidus]

I wonder if there's a "pure evil" taste.

If you'd been in Australia when some incredibly odd marketing person decided to release a vegemite flavoured chips brand you'd know that yes there is.

[Edgedancer he/him]

If you'd been in Australia when some incredibly odd marketing person decided to release a vegemite flavoured chips brand you'd know that yes there is.

Alright... I suppose those didn't sell, did they?

 

Oh and Mail-mi how much is Reader going to grumble through his treatment?

[Voidus]

Alright... I suppose those didn't sell, did they?

 

Oh and Mail-mi how much is Reader going to grumble through his treatment?

You suppose correctly. Between trying to eat one of those chips and living in Portland after Calamity rises I'd probably pick Portland. (Ok so not completely fair since studying Epics would basically be a dream come true but still. )

[mail-mi he/him]

Alright... I suppose those didn't sell, did they?

Oh and Mail-mi how much is Reader going to grumble through his treatment?

How much does Funtimes like sparkles? Answer that and you'll have your answer.

Oh, also, Skyler is the braces boy, Skylar is Fireslayer's character.

[TwiLyghtSansSparkles she/her]

How much does Funtimes like sparkles? Answer that and you'll have your answer.

Oh, also, Skyler is the braces boy, Skylar is Fireslayer's character.

 

"Too much." 

"No I don't! Loving sparkles too much is like loving BREATHING too much! I love breathing and I LOVE SPARKLES! :-D" 

[Voidus]

"Too much." 

"No I don't! Loving sparkles too much is like loving BREATHING too much! I love breathing and I LOVE SPARKLES! :-D" 

A short sparklesplosion and an irredeemable flirt later and Funtimes was regretting this statement somewhat.

[Edgedancer he/him]

How much does Funtimes like sparkles? Answer that and you'll have your answer.

Oh, also, Skyler is the braces boy, Skylar is Fireslayer's character.

Reader is going to break his own nose again, just so he can complain more about it? That's an exchange I can get behind.

 

Calamity, what is it with the Dalles and way to similair names?

[TwiLyghtSansSparkles she/her]

A short sparklesplosion and an irredeemable flirt later and Funtimes was regretting this statement somewhat.

 

"Aw, shucks. Most people wait until they've met me to say that." 

 

Calamity, what is it with the Dalles and way to similair names?

 

Well, there's Skylar and Skyler so far. We haven't yet met the guards Steven and Stephen, or Alex and Alexa, let alone Vondra's triplet sons Mike, Mack, and Mick.