Question 22

[Kobold King]

5 minutes ago, TwiLyghtSansSparkles said:

 

What he lacked in power, he made up for in ruthlessness fed constantly by a raging inferiority complex. He struck me as the type of guy who, if you stole his food out of the office fridge, would watch you, learn what your lunchbox looked like, and poison everything inside of it. 

 

When do we get the cubicle office job AU? I mean, it'd be over as soon as it began with everyone murdering each other as part of a Game of Thrones - esque power struggle, but it'd be entertaining.

[TwiLyghtSansSparkles]

6 minutes ago, Kobold King said:

 

When do we get the cubicle office job AU? I mean, it'd be over as soon as it began with everyone murdering each other as part of a Game of Thrones - esque power struggle, but it'd be entertaining.

I don’t know, but I’m pretty sure it would feature this song at some point.

Spoiler

 

 

[Kobold King]

13 minutes ago, TwiLyghtSansSparkles said:

I don’t know, but I’m pretty sure it would feature this song at some point.

  Reveal hidden contents

 

 

 

Winter: "This scene is terrifying and would be an effective and chilling scene in an anime."

Us: "Yeah, but consider: what if it was more like VeggieTales?"

[TwiLyghtSansSparkles]

1 minute ago, Kobold King said:

 

Winter: "This scene is terrifying and would be an effective and chilling scene in an anime."

Us: "Yeah, but consider: what if it was more like VeggieTales?"

I wasn’t thinking we’d put that song in that scene specifically....except now I totally am. 

[the winter system]

57 minutes ago, TwiLyghtSansSparkles said:

I wasn’t thinking we’d put that song in that scene specifically....except now I totally am. 

Nighthound probably went through and twisted every single paper clip out of usable shape, pressed the pens way too hard, and stole the vending machine.

 

Seriously for a moment, I just had a pretty bad day. and I think I’m getting sick. Seeing that Veggietales song made me burst out laughing.   

[The Young Pyromancer]

If everything was a shadow-political office cubicle war, my money’s on Jacklyn.

Edited February 4, 2019 by The Young Pyromancer

[Kobold King]

3 hours ago, winter devotion said:

Nighthound probably went through and twisted every single paper clip out of usable shape, pressed the pens way too hard, and stole the vending machine.

 

Seriously for a moment, I just had a pretty bad day. and I think I’m getting sick. Seeing that Veggietales song made me burst out laughing.   

 

I'm glad we could help.

Here's an interesting question that flitted through my head while working earlier. Which Epic would have changed things the most if they'd been a gifter? Vanillas who get gifted don't seem to get the full strength and instinctive skill as the original Epic, but they can still be a force to be reckoned with. So which Epic would have both been willing to pass their powers out to the most people, and also have the greatest impact in doing so?

My money is on the following:

• Doctor Funtimes. It seems to me like she absolutely would have passed her powers out to her vanillas, if only to give them an easy way out of dangerous situations if it came right down to it. It's debatable how much this would have affected the sequence of events though, given most of them would probably still have clung close to Funtimes and avoided getting involved in the other Epics' squabbles. Her power is also complicated enough that they would have had a really hard time using it even for relatively simple applications.
• Voidgaze, Flamethrower, or one of the other stronger Thoughttown Epics. Thoughttown in general had the least offensive ability when compared to the amount of personnel they had access to. Thoughttown with more gifters would have had a pretty significant effect on the outcome of the Portland turf war.
• Any of the major Dalles Epics. Although Vapor Snake was a thing, I'm still kind of puzzled looking back that we didn't give The Dalles at least one major gifter. They could have pressured any of their Epics into giving out powers, and a hit squad of slightly weaker Deathwishes or Edgerunners would have been a huge boon.

All in all I guess it's puzzling that there weren't more gifters in the RP in general, given the significance they have in the books.

[The Young Pyromancer]

That’s because gifters are supposed to be rare, which is actually mentioned in cannon.

And also because no one wants to give away power .

You’ve got to wonder though, statistically, where are all of the minor epic gifters? I mean, there’s got to be some. 

I think epoch would be a scary gifter, as multiple people using the powers at once would make the effect progress quicker.

[Kobold King]

1 minute ago, The Young Pyromancer said:

That’s because gifters are supposed to be rare, which is actually mentioned in cannon.

And also because no one wants to give away power .

You’ve got to wonder though, statistically, where are all of the minor epic gifters? I mean, there’s got to be some. 

I think epoch would be a scary gifter, as multiple people using the powers at once would make the effect progress quicker.

 

That didn't stop us when it came to teleporters and prime invincibilities. I think there were legitimately enough High Epics to run an multi-story office building all on their own. 

Epoch's effects are scary enough already. Anything that makes the effects more potent or more widespread would definitely be a huge factor. 

[TwiLyghtSansSparkles]

3 minutes ago, The Young Pyromancer said:

That’s because gifters are supposed to be rare, which is actually mentioned in cannon.

And also because no one wants to give away power .

You’ve got to wonder though, statistically, where are all of the minor epic gifters? I mean, there’s got to be some. 

I think epoch would be a scary gifter, as multiple people using the powers at once would make the effect progress quicker.

Backtrack: Here. Um, let me, uh, hang on....

Revolution: What are you...woah! I can see the past! Cool! 

Backtrack: I thought gifting some of my powers might help with—

Revolution: Wait. Why did you freak out over a tiny little silverfish yesterday? 

Backtrack: NEVER MIND I’M TAKING IT BACK 

[Kobold King]

2 minutes ago, TwiLyghtSansSparkles said:

Backtrack: Here. Um, let me, uh, hang on....

Revolution: What are you...woah! I can see the past! Cool! 

Backtrack: I thought gifting some of my powers might help with—

Revolution: Wait. Why did you freak out over a tiny little silverfish yesterday? 

Backtrack: NEVER MIND I’M TAKING IT BACK 

 

Revolution: No take backs. Wow, did you know Calamity is a guy from another dimension?

Backtrack: Wha--really? How do you know that?

Revolution: I just do. I can tell when I look up.

Backtrack: ...

Revolution: ...you have looked at Calamity with your powers before, right?

Backtrack: ...maybe...

Revolution: Were you sca-

Backtrack: I WASN'T SCARED I JUST DIDN'T THINK ABOUT IT.

[The Young Pyromancer]

55 minutes ago, Kobold King said:

That didn't stop us when it came to teleporters and prime invincibilities. I think there were legitimately enough High Epics to run an multi-story office building all on their own. 

Teleporters were only said to be scarce in a WOB.  And even then, only unlimited range teleporters. 

High epics, in Steelheart it says there are dozens in newcago, though only a few that have PIs and aren’t the barrow kings, and we don’t know how many of those there are.

If anything, Edmonton is light on PIs, though I guess we have the justification that they all went off to duke it out in Calgary.

EDIT: though I guess epics did gravitate towards newcago.  Hmm...

Edited February 5, 2019 by The Young Pyromancer

[breakingamber]

Is there a place where I can put random Epics I came up with but probably am not going to use?

Like this one?

Spoiler

Name: Litho

Primary: He can manipulate large boulders of most materials.

Secondary: He can compress dirt, mud, sand, gravel, etc. into a much harder form, with (naturally) the strength of steel, though it's much heavier. Naturally, he can lift this stuff with his primary. If he spends enough time with a patch of dirt (say, a couple minutes), he can eventually work it into an even more compressed form: oil or coal, even if said patch wouldn't actually turn into oil or coal normally. 

Tertiary: He has rock-hard skin. As in, it is really hard to break. Bullets will hurt, but not kill him unless they are in very large quantities.

Weakness: Whatever. I was thinking cranberries.

 

[Voidus]

1 hour ago, The Young Pyromancer said:

That’s because gifters are supposed to be rare, which is actually mentioned in cannon.

And also because no one wants to give away power .

You’ve got to wonder though, statistically, where are all of the minor epic gifters? I mean, there’s got to be some. 

I think epoch would be a scary gifter, as multiple people using the powers at once would make the effect progress quicker.

I stole them and stuck them in my Epic files.

55 minutes ago, The Young Pyromancer said:

Teleporters were only said to be scarce in a WOB.  And even then, only unlimited range teleporters. 

High epics, in Steelheart it says there are dozens in newcago, though only a few that have PIs and aren’t the barrow kings, and we don’t know how many of those there are.

If anything, Edmonton is light on PIs, though I guess we have the justification that they all went off to duke it out in Calgary.

EDIT: though I guess epics did gravitate towards newcago.  Hmm...

I think we had a WoB that teleporters in general were rare.

Newcago is disproportionate due to Steelheart, they weren't all native, we also got rough estimates of actual Epic / High Epic numbers at some point. I think true PI High Epics are around 1 in a  million from memory.


Also Gifter!Scribbler and Gifter!Arsenal could change the Dalles into a society of functionally limitless resources. Post-scarcity. Scribbler's powers would actually be pretty easy for people to use too.

[Kobold King]

3 minutes ago, Voidus said:

Also Gifter!Scribbler and Gifter!Arsenal could change the Dalles into a society of functionally limitless resources. Post-scarcity. Scribbler's powers would actually be pretty easy for people to use too.

 

Gifter!Arsenal would throw the mother of all hissy fits the first time someone uses his powers to install a popcorn machine in the HQ, though.

[The Young Pyromancer]

I'm not saying true high Epics, just high Epics period.

And the Oregon ones don't count, because they are not native.

[Voidus]

47 minutes ago, Kobold King said:

 

Gifter!Arsenal would throw the mother of all hissy fits the first time someone uses his powers to install a popcorn machine in the HQ, though.

Gifter!Arsenal would throw the mother of all hissy fits the first time someone summons a gun because they're under attack if they didn't first file a requisition and 'authorized use of gifted power' forms to him though so he's not a reliable source of hissy-fit worthy events.

44 minutes ago, The Young Pyromancer said:

I'm not saying true high Epics, just high Epics period.

And the Oregon ones don't count, because they are not native.

The distinction there isn't really clear, at varying points in time a PI and High Epics are entirely correlated with each other. But yeah in Oregon we initially just overestimated how many there should be but they were also largely new arrivals so it kindof worked. But you can't do that everywhere, people have to leave one city to migrate to another so some cities would have even less than normal.

[Kobold King]

6 minutes ago, Voidus said:

Gifter!Arsenal would throw the mother of all hissy fits the first time someone summons a gun because they're under attack if they didn't first file a requisition and 'authorized use of gifted power' forms to him though so he's not a reliable source of hissy-fit worthy events.

 

Both Arsenal and Scribbler are gifters, but the entire legion of Scribbler-giftees are perpetually tied up generating the stacks of paper and pens required for the Arsenal-giftees to fill out their forms.

[Voidus]

4 minutes ago, Kobold King said:

 

Both Arsenal and Scribbler are gifters, but the entire legion of Scribbler-giftees are perpetually tied up generating the stacks of paper and pens required for the Arsenal-giftees to fill out their forms.

This infuriates both Arsenal and Scribbler, Arsenal because he points out that the Scribbler giftees also need to fill out an 'authorized use of gifted powers' form when they create the other forms, in addition to a 'permission to use a power originating from a non-Arsenal-approved member of the guard' which requires cosigning by Arsenal and Vondra.

And Scribbler because her original suggestion of where Arsenal could stick all of those requests was denied.

[The Young Pyromancer]

1 minute ago, Voidus said:

This infuriates both Arsenal and Scribbler, Arsenal because he points out that the Scribbler giftees also need to fill out an 'authorized use of gifted powers' form when they create the other forms, in addition to a 'permission to use a power originating from a non-Arsenal-approved member of the guard' which requires cosigning by Arsenal and Vondra.

And Scribbler because her original suggestion of where Arsenal could stick all of those requests was denied.

But isn't Arsenal not as corrupted because he's giving away power?

So wouldn't he be not as obsessive?

[Voidus]

2 minutes ago, The Young Pyromancer said:

But isn't Arsenal not as corrupted because he's giving away power?

So wouldn't he be not as obsessive?

I feel like he'd use his powers just as much or more than before. He has to get all of those 'denied' stamps he'll be needing from somewhere right?

[The Young Pyromancer]

But giving away the powers in itself provides relief.  Prof shoves the powers into David in the copter, which relieves him.

[the winter system]

What would happen if Deathwish gifted his power to someone and they punched him? 

[breakingamber]

3 minutes ago, winter devotion said:

What would happen if Deathwish gifted his power to someone and they punched him? 

We'd get an endless feedback loop, and non-Deathwish would probably die. 

Kind of like reflecting something enough times in Smash with a Franklin badge: the gifted power eventually runs out.

[Kobold King]

3 minutes ago, The Young Pyromancer said:

But giving away the powers in itself provides relief.  Prof shoves the powers into David in the copter, which relieves him.

 

The relief that comes with gifting isn't absolute; Arsenal would still go around using his powers to a great enough extent that the corruption would be slowly but surely claiming him no matter how many people he gifted to. On top of that, although the corruption pushes him to an extreme he was still a stiff person with a controlling personality even before Calamity, so we don't get to see a happy-go-lucky, chill version of him in any timeline.

 

2 minutes ago, winter devotion said:

What would happen if Deathwish gifted his power to someone and they punched him? 

 

Blunt force doesn't cause his damage reflection to kick in; I made certain that in his very first post a woman slapped him for the double reasons of karma and making sure that limitation was clear.

That said, if somebody shot him... well, I'm getting a bit of a headache thinking about it. It'd either be a feedback loop that self-perpetuates until the gifted power runs out, or they would both just heal because the damage reflection is not itself reflected.