Grrl Power #457 – Arcanum++ has better mobile support
This is kind of a weird page, in that Sydney asks a question and it doesn’t quite get answered on this page, but some of you can probably see what Ingsol is winding up to. I found the aside with the spells as programs too enticing to edit out.
In a post computer world, it’s difficult to not think of spells as nothing more than code. Really I guess that’s what they are, but you don’t often hear people talking about “My fire dart spell is almost ready, but it kept crashing at this function loop. I found a Yoda condition and fixed it, but now it hangs and just bleeds heat until I cancel the spell or run out of mana.”
Magic would probably have different enchanting languages depending on your school of magic at least. Actually it would be a mess because every branch of magic would probably have variants on common enchanting languages, and proper enchanting , that is, imbuing an artifact with magical properties would probably take a different language than casting a quick spell, vs. an extended ceremony designed to conjure something. Or maybe there’s one language which does it all, but not as efficiently as single purpose languages, and there would probably be forums where people are shitty and defensive about their favorite language, or where they share moronically written enchantments their co-workers wrote, just like in real life.
I like “Arcanum++” because it’s so on the nose and answers Sydney’s question without ever saying it directly. Even if you’ve never done any programming on your life you’ve probably heard of C++.
There was some debate in the comments from the previous page as to whether all these creatures hiding in plain sight meant something untoward was going on. (Sorry I didn’t getting around to throwing my two cents in with the comments, but I was weirdly busy with stuff last week so I’ll put something here.) Obviously, there’s a case to be made since 1) someone could be making out with a lizardman at a club (for example) and not know it, which is… I guess bad, if you’re racist against lizardmen, but if there’s no detrimental consequence to making out with one, like some kind of flu you can only get from sticking your tongue in their mouth, it doesn’t seem like that big of a deal to me. Obviously your mileage will vary with that one. I think as long as someone is honest about who they are, it doesn’t really matter what they are? I end that sentence with a question mark because I imagine I could think of examples where that’s not true if I gave it some more thought.
“I’m sorry, I’ve been lying this whole time, I’m not brunette, I’m really a… blonde!”
“You monster why would you lie to me!?”
2) And this is the big one really, some of these creatures do prey on humans. That said, the ones that do generally try not to kill or otherwise traumatize them. Most Vampires are just fine with willing victims, and there are small pockets of people who do know about them, (much fewer than know everything). Obviously as with any population like this, there are going to be some who are going to delight in tormenting or killing their prey, but as Ingsol said, they police their own. Keeping their more rampant members in check allows them to work in good faith with the government
Since I don’t plan on dissecting every aspect of The Veil in the comic, I’ll expand a little on it here. It doesn’t alter memories. If someone sees something in the raw, they either have to rationalize it, go running through the streets trying to tell everyone, (usually winding up in therapy,) or become one of those quiet wierdos who insists they saw a centaur at the corner of 5th and main and finds some private message board where he can commiserate with the other people like him. Often times those boards and UFO Cons or whatever are infiltrated by Council people who try and subtly steer people back to “rationality.” (Oh you’re a new vampire are you? How many words per minute can you type?) It’s not an easy job, but the Council has a number of playbooks on that kind of disinformation campaign.
The Veil allows the supernatural to exist along side humans without them noticing. Mostly it does this by making non-humans look human. It also does stuff like alter how humans see certain footprints and other telltale signs. It’s not foolproof, and stuff like a supernatural leaving their blood all over a crime scene can be quite a complication. The most recent and complicated additions to The Veil are things like altering how photographs and video recordings appear. Sydney will be disappointed when she checks the pictures she took earlier.
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With regard to magic being treated as a programming language, check out Rick Cook’s “Wizardry” series, starting with “The Wiz Biz”.
I have The Wizardry Quested from that series. Very good read.
More literally, CodeSpells. You use some kind of javascript plus a Scratch-like interface to actually program your spells.
Code Spells was released on Steam on September 18th, 2015 as an early access game. It is almost 3 years on as I write this comment, and it is still in Early Access.
Corwin’s son Merlin, being both a spellcaster and a computer engineer, makes numerous references to “compiling” spells, error-checking them, and other analogies in Roger Zelazny’s Amber series as well. I think Rupert the Magid from Diana Wynne Jones’ Deep Secret does so as well, but not to the point of “magical programming languages”. (Merlin also builds his own combination computer/magical artifact, the Ghostwheel, which not only acquires sentience [i.e. Turing-positive AI; one of Merlin’s relatives at one point describes Ghost as “not just social, but anti-social as well”!] but also acquires access to the Pattern and Logrus, the two sources of massive magical power in the series. Talk about magitech!)
Even in GURPS system, there’s a magical ‘college’ that classifies Technology Spells. As carried over into the Illuminati University sourcebook, there’s courses in Computer Wizardry that teach classes in topics like Daemon Summoning.
I can see it now…. “I tried to cast magic missile, but it got stuck in a feedback loop and gave me a migraine instead. Does anybody know a workaround?” “Well, what language were you using?” “*insert outdated spell language*” “Well there’s your problem, try switching to *insert updated spell language*. It’s much easier, and more caster-friendly.”
More likely, I tried to use your “Magic Missile” Magic App but it didn’t work. I just got a headache…
“What Version of Aplriod Magic are you using? Magic Missile ver 1.34 only work on the latest Headware, Also please make sure you have all your mind link drivers up to date”
If your spell is already running on a long duration period, you’ll have to cancel the spell & re-cast it for the updates to take effect.
Just never allow it to auto-update. If you are concentrating on casting a lengthy ritual, and suddenly you loose access to a key spell, as it reboots, you could end up with a serious miscasting! Demons breaking free from hell, the dead rising from the graves and all local wi fi becoming public access!
The first response you get from magic tech support is always “Have you tried rebooting your wand?”
*snrrrk* O.B. Juan wins one Internet. Having done phone support before, having to follow that stupid checklist despite knowing better, the ‘reboot your wand’ comment actually did make me laugh out loud.
I had an ISP a few decades ago that would ask me to reboot my computer whenever I called to tell them my service was out. Since I had already done that, I’d say so. The phone support person would ask me to do so again. Because script, I guess. It got to the point where I’d just say that I was rebooting and wait a minute and then say “Ok, my computer is back up. Still no service.”
Yeah, they were reading off a script. A lot of phone support does that, and they refuse to deviate from it because they know that a manager might be listening to their calls, and they could get in trouble if they deviate from it. For example, when I worked for XBox Live phone support, I was told that between managers at Harte-Hanks and managers at Microsoft, up to 75% of the calls I took were being listened to by someone.
Fortunately for me, neither H-H nor Microsoft really cared if I deviated from the script; they cared more about whether or not I solved the issue. Which I (almost) always did. On the rare times I couldn’t solve the problem, it was because the user called the wrong department, or because the user was functionally brain-dead.
For example, there was one guy who asked me why he couldn’t download the map pack for Call of Duty: Black Ops. Well, the map pack is 2 gigabytes. The XBox only has 512 megabytes, unless you have a hard drive (which he didn’t). He just could not seem to understand why the file could not auto-magically shrink to fit. He was not happy when I told him, “I can’t refund your money because you’ve already bought the product. I can’t send you a free hard drive. Go to the store and buy a hard drive, and you will be able to download it then.” (You can get a refurbished 20 GB drive for less than $20, and the 500 GB drive for under $100.)
And then there was the guy who couldn’t understand why his XBox and his computer couldn’t both be online at the same time. He had only one network cable… the one from his modem to his computer… he did not have a router, and even if he did, he didn’t have the wireless attachment for his XBox 360. You can imagine how long it took to explain that either he was going to have to get: (1) a router and two more network cables, (2) a wireless router, one network cable, and the wireless attachment, or (3) a wireless router, the wireless attachment, and a wireless network card for his desktop computer.
Which explains why, a quarter of the time, you felt that the customer had not listened to a word you said.
;-)
or that maybe the customer feels that you didn’t listen to a word they said.
;)
Hey, that “listening thing” has to work both ways, or it won’t work at all.
*holds up paw*
You people bring whole new meaning to “spell-check apps’, you know.
Not sure I want to know what happens when you get a null pointer exception on a spell.
A scene from Scanners most likely. Which I suppose means it’s a self-correcting problem. Mages are either really cautious about making new spells, or they’re dead.
The last panel has me thinking that they’re not actually saying what they’re saying in the first few panels, that’s just Sidney’s best guess in language she’s quasi-familiar with.
If you meant the panels with Dabbles and not-Blade, then yes, that is what they are saying, Sydney simply doesn’t understand what is being said but understands the gist of it (or maybe she just has very good hearing, and the “Legend of The Halo” grows ☺)
Crud on the frosted weasel! Shoulda closed the italics after the first ‘is’ :(
I actually have a question that stems from when I was trying to create my own modern fantasy setting:
Why does The Veil exist in the first place? Why would supernatural races like vampires and werewolves, to use the obvious examples, at all care about humans knowing they exist? Compared to your average human, pretty much none of these races have anything to be afraid of.
I can see it being a problem in the modern day, what with most militaries being well organized, well supplied and well armed. Humans are pretty good at killing stuff after all. But if vampires can be centuries old, then that means they, even discounting other races, have at least existed at a point when they held pretty much every advantage over humans. What stopped them from just plain taking over? I can’t think of a scenario in which ancient humans vs just about any supernatural race you care to name doesn’t end with humans getting their asses completely whipped.
The Twilight Council has been described as being centuries old and thus existed well before humanity developed modern weapons and tools, so your point is well made. Perhaps the problem was that, before the Council, they were so busy fighting amongst themselves that none of them could muster enough resources to simply take over everything?
“What stopped them from just plain taking over?”
What about ethics?
Or the logical villain’s, or even well intentioned semi-good guy. “Running the world would be too much work.”
There’s also the notion that humans simply outnumber us on a vast scale. Even without modern weaponry, humans can be pretty good at organizing large groups to perform singular tasks & (particularly concerning the vampire’s vulnerability to get sun-burned) have particular advantages (ability to act during daylight hours) over most of the supernaturals.
The best defense that supernaturals have for survival is obscurity & anonymity. Even in primitive times, there were the “witch hunters” who knew their enemy very well & they usually got cooperation & aid from the villages, churches & governments that asked them to take direct action.
Sadly the last still happens today, in various parts of the world. I see reports, every year, from (for example) India and Africa, where village councils have endorsed or sponsored attacks on or killings of ‘witches’. And they are not isolated incidents, there are dozens or even hundreds, per year, in some regions.
Examination of many accounts show that families, and other individuals with vested interests, have initiated or cooperated with the accusations and attacks, in order to seize the woman’s assets or property. Occasionally such practices have even had the collusion of senior government officials.
In some places there are even whole villages of displaced ‘witches’, who have gathered together, to protect each other, as they receive no help from any surrounding communities or from official sources.
Mass panic is bad, and while an individual human is no threat to a supernatural, I imagine and angry peasant mob could make life miserable. Plus then you have people training and training their children to hunt supernaturals. It’s generally just easier to be hidden and not freak out the normys.
You raise a very good point. Especially with the example of vampires, which in the most basic description are seen as being intelligent. There really isn’t any reason that vampires given their abilities and resources, haven’t reduced the rest of humanity or at least a large portion of it to farm animals like cattle. Going back just a few hundred years when a village could be isolated just by being a more than a few days ride away from another village, it would be extremely easy to subjugate a population to nothing more than breeding stock. Over time the process could/would spread like a cancer and all human development could be regulated and we wouldn’t have a modern world as we see it today.
Other creatures like werewolves are usually seen or described as being more feral or beast like in the old stories, so I think it less likely that the level or organization needed to maintain something like a human farm would be possible.
Things like zombies seem completely unable to do anything but search for prey the way hunter gatherers once did so unless the zombie like creature changed over time (the way humans did to evolve) they couldn’t ever do anything more organized than kill everything they found. The zombie like creature over time either becomes extinct, some few survive in some form of hibernation or they completely destroy the entire food web before once again becoming extinct because of starvation.
Either way, in a world where creatures like vampires or werewolves or zombie type creatures exist there would not be a veil just because one wouldn’t be needed as whatever humans remained, if any, would simply take it as common knowledge that those creatures existed.
On a completely different note, can you image trying to code C++ or COBOL when the written program needs to be changed depending or your mood, the phase of the moon, what color your keyboard is or how many people end up reading it? And you though ForTran was complicated!
“it would be extremely easy to subjugate a population to nothing more than breeding stock. ”
I don’t think so. Vampires and weres branch from humanity, so its population has been always a function of ours. Probably from most of the history they were not enough to sustain a war with a foreseeable outcome that worth it. In old times they didn’t have the advantages that modern environments gives them. In crowded alienated modern NY a vampire can hide and multiply safely, but in old Rumania countryside they were easy to spot and take care of. In a village where everybody know each other, how would you manage to form a vampire army before you get noticed and hunted down?
There are many ways to take over a population, and you wouldn’t need an army that is purely vampires.
A common staple in fantasy vampires is the ability to enthrall other people, as well as other advantages such as being physically stronger and faster. It would be easy to set yourself up as a god-figure and have a population worship you. Then you start converting vampires from among your followers, promising them eternal life (which has ALWAYS been an attractive offer, since that’s part of what drives medical advancement in real life. Nobody really wants to die). It would be even easier when you get other supernatural races involved; since vampires are among the more human-looking of supernatural races, all you have to do is save a village from someone else, and they’d probably make you their lord.
Plus, even in ancient times, money talks. There would always be people who are well-armed and wouldn’t care if you slept while the sun was up or had a blood fetish, as long as you kept paying them.
Your original post and Calisto01’s seem to point to direct confrontation between species, but a politic/religious/economic plot inside the social structure, that I can see how could it work (plenty of real life examples) especially if they manage to keep their true nature concealed, so: fair enough :)
> Nobody really wants to die
Offtopic a bit, but hopefully interesting enough to be forgiven: I am totally with you on this one. I cannot imagine why a sane person would want to die. Nonetheless, I have met **multiple** people who do. My mother has explicitly said that she wants to when the time is right, which boggles and horrifies me. Also, I have had the following conversation multiple times:
Me: Would you want to live forever?
Them: No.
Me: So you want to die, then.
Them: No, I don’t want to die.
Me: If you never die you will live forever. You said you don’t want to live forever, so you must want to die. Are you sure about that?
Them: No, I don’t want to die.
Me: But you also don’t want to live forever.
Them: No, I don’t.
This is one of the more surreal experiences of my life. A few of these people raise good points — “No, because I would get old and sick” being the most obvious — but even if you take those off the table (“Assume medicine advances to the point where you will be young and healthy forever”) they still stick to their guns and say they don’t want to live forever. It’s literally insane.
Is there in English a difference between “I don’t want to die” and “I want to not die”? There is in Spanish. I for instance do not have interest in to live forever, what for? to see the future? So, yeah, I do not want to not-die. But for some reason (genetic programming?) the idea of experience death scares me so, yeah, I also do-not want to die.
Was that helpful? :)
I would give the same answers. But simply because I would only want to live forever if I was enjoying it. Which would incorporate things such as not getting too frail, sick or otherwise in pain. So whilst I either had good quality of life, or a bearable bad quality, but prospects of good times returning, I would want to persevere.
Likewise I would not want to live eternally, other than in the company of other loved immortals. Having to repeatedly go through the pain of loss, coupled with having nobody to share the memories with, and reminisce, over old times, would severely reduce the quality of eternal life.
Let alone the prospect of having to outlive humanity. Poking around the ruins, whilst waiting for alien contact or the cockroaches to evolve enough to play a good game of poker.
Then going through the pain again when each civilisation finally passes. Plus the inevitable periods stuck in places like the bottom of volcanoes or within a star. Until things cool down enough for you to flag by a passing star ship.
Just how many times can you play “I spy with my little eye…” without anyone else around?
You know how the older you get, the faster time seems to pass?
This is because your perception of time is relative, not absolute. That is, how long a given amount of time seems to be is based on the percentage of your current life span that it represents.
When you’re 6 years old, 3 months represents 1/24th or about 4% of your total lifespan, so summer vacation seems like a long time.
When you’re 30 years old, that same 3 months represents only 1/120th of your total lifespan. You’re dreading tax preparation at Thanksgiving.
The relationship isn’t exact; that is, 3 months probably doesn’t seem to pass exactly five times faster when you’re five times older, but it’s a useful estimation.
Now imagine that you’re a thousand years old. Or a million.
A normal human lifetime now appears to you to begin and end in the same moment. You are no longer capable of relating to other humans in any meaningful way. You have existed longer than any known civilization. You may as well be considered an entirely separate type of being.
Immortality is really just another kind of death.
Wouldn’t be to hard actually. Set it up to use different algorithms depending on the moon phase and let’er run. Most spells do A->B->C and don’t care what B is as long as it smoothly transitions to C. Sure, it’ll slow down some during the casting but the flexibility with needing to memorize one spell makes it worth it.
There were probably never enough of them to take over. Humanity has always been very good at killing.
It’s also not that easy to take over the world (or a nation) when you can’t leave the house for half the day. Can’t form an army when you have to take shelter 50% of the time.
They might be able to infiltrate and turn the king, but they’ll never convince the peasants that vampires are their friends.
As is stated in https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/2253 the council is composed of factions that have problems getting along with other factions.
So let’s say the vampires start trying to rule humanity.
The other factions are not going to like it and will begin to retaliate.
Now this can be done openly by attacking them.
Or covertly by giving humans the knowledge of the vampires strengths and weaknesses.
Or both.
Now getting back to The Veil, most likely its original purpose was not to protect the supernatural from humanity but the reverse.
How do you think humanity would have developed knowing it had supernatural beings around d that saw them as food, slaves, toys or worse.
The Veil helped humanity grow by hiding the monsters from us both literally and figuratively.
Then once we became a true threat the Veil became the shield that protects the monsters.
There’s some great points here, but one I haven’t seen mentioned is this:
Some species prey on humans. Now they could herd and farm them, but why bother? Humans are quite good at herding and farming themselves. But on the other hand you don’t want them to develop too many ways to fight against you. Solution: stay hidden yourself, and just change things on a need-to-do basis.
Corollary: supernaturals seem to be way better at resource management and politics than normals. Maybe it’s a good thing they are in control.
When the midden hits the windmill, you can’t be bothered to drive off every petty attack by the villagers, you DO want downtime.
Speaking as a changeling, I can give you a simple answer as to why “our kind(s)” generally don’t want muggles (i.e. average, everyday, “normal” humans, as opposed to you open-minded and generally cool folks) knowing about us:
One army ant, or one bee, is annoying. The ant bites you, you squish it, end of problem. The bee stings you, and unless it’s one of the kinds that can sting repeatedly, it’s going to rip out its own guts as it pulls away, leaving its barbed stinger in your flesh. Very bad problem for people allergic to bee stings, true, but most people recover from the sting quickly. Trouble is, army ants and bees rarely attack one at a time. They usually attack in large, angry mobs of hundreds or even thousands. Sure, you can make a pretty good dent in their numbers, even without bug spray, but can you get all of them before they get you?
Humans are kinda like those bugs–no offense. A vampire, were, etc. can kill humans one-on-one easily, and in small groups with a little effort. But how often do you humans attack one-on-one? Sure, the occasional hunter takes out a vamp or a were or a troll or whatever (and 97% of the time, the supernatural had it coming anyway), but dealing with a large, angry mob out for your blood? Especially since even before printing presses, most folk had some idea of how to use a given supernatural’s weaknesses against them. Vampire? Sunlight, running water, holy items/true faith, etc. Were? Odds are, silver weapons or anything blessed. If not silver, then gold, flint, or some other not too uncommon material. Fae? Prayers to the “One True God”, cold iron (usually, although some of us are immune to it; silver often works as well for magical reasons)…
Pretty good argument for minding one’s P’s and Q’s, no? -_^
As for why they don’t conquer the whole world, well, one: after you conquer it, you then have to RUN it (and as most politicians know, where’s the fun in that?), and two, there’s an awful lot of world to conquer in the first place, and even if you conquer one country, there’s often The Rebellion/The Resistance to suppress, not to mention jealous rivals that want to take over what you’ve conquered. In other words, it’s easier (and much less boring) to just play a nice game of chess, especially using mortal stooges as your playing pieces, than outright conquering. Plus, there’s that whole “needing an army to conquer a kingdom” thing as well, but that’s another story.
Besides, some of us really prefer to just deal with our little corner of the world and leave the rest alone as long as it does likewise. (That’s me!) ^_^
Vampires do have one advantage that you have not factored in though. They can convert humans into fellow vampires. At an exponential rate! Their only problem, in doing that, would be to potentially outstrip their food supply.
Even in the early 1800s, the human population was 1 billion. How many vampires are there?
“What stopped them from just plain taking over?”
What about ethics?
Erase, erase, erase, erase, erase, erase, shit!
Wipe, wipe, wipe your bum, gently down the stream,
Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily, life is but a dream,
You better hope you have a boat, or a trireme,
And a paddle too, as that river isn’t full of ice-cream.
Their ethics is why they don’t take over. They have noble ethics. Same reason why the AI’s don’t take over in “Questionable Content” and the para’s don’t take over in “Wapsisquare”, they have good ethics.
(Also, watching us norms squabble over politics on TV is their best source of comedy.)
Yes, that’s what I meant, but I was trying to reply to Thunder above.
Keep forgetting there are more AI’s in “Questionable Content” than Pintsize now, including Faye’s girlfriend
How can you possibly forget the lovely Momo??!!
Whatever happened to Winston? Haven’t seen him in a very long time :(
Winslow? Oh my, you are right, I forgot about him!!
Wait, isn’t Winslow that alligator thing from “Girl Genius”? The entity that transcends time and space (or something) and shows up everywhere? o_O
To be honest, can’t remember who use to own the little sentient iPod :(
OMG, I never spotted that… coincidence? can’t believe it.
The Winslow as an indestructible entity comes from Foglio’s early comics, I see it first time in Buck Godot. In GG universe is a plushie, kinda an internal joke.
QC’s Winslow belongs to Hannelore.
Thought it was Hanners, just wasn’t sure (and now we have May, the new AI concerned about ‘pinching’ when giving a handjob and thinking of having ‘extras’ added, like a sex-Swiss army knife)
May is great! I liked her since she first appeared as a foul mouthed ghost maiden convicted for try to become a combat jet :D
“concerned about ‘pinching’ when giving a handjob ”
We are getting off topic I guess, but it cracked me up when the scene switched from May saying that about her “jointy” hand, to Clinton talking about his hand… that looks exactly the same!! Subtle :)
Of course it is not a coincidence. Doest thou not know how universes begin?
Have another look at the very first page of Girl Genius.
Potential archive trawl in 3, 2, 1…
Oh wow! Had forgotten the beginning, looks like they had the whole Other thing planned from the start
Or, there has only ever been The Other, Agatha is a false personality created to hide, or host, The Other!
‘—All You Zombies—’? ;)
I am presently writing in a Sci-Fi fantasy world where the magic of the world works on an underlying ‘operating system’ which no one can see. Every spell ever made was like editing the wiki this operating system draws on. There were some agreements and conventions which started to come into practice for making spells that didn’t edit large swaths of the code so that everyone could use what little of the system they did know. But eventually a ‘patch block’ was put onto the wiki which basically locks out most major edits by anyone but the Mage’s Council or the deities. Now, in order to make a spell it must have a clear trigger and a short self termination, as well as being linked directly to its creator so the Council can track them down if they mess anything up too bad.
This is sort of similar to how magic (or at least magecraft which isn’t quite true magic) works in the Fate/Stay Night universe.
Now you have given me more incentive to check out that anime. I’ve been meaning to for quite some time, but never got any round ‘to-its’ I could throw its way.
Universal censorship and stagnation? :-O
All those billions of voices cut off, and unable to express themselves, by any means, other than clicking “Random article”!
unfortunately, you’ll find that most of the metaphysics for that setting is discussed in the visual novels and actual novels. The anime puts most of that to the background. I have a friend who is fairly well-versed in the Type-Moon universe however, so I have more exposure.
I imagine that the percentage of supernaturals and superhumans is very low in Dave’s universe.
That is the average situation. I wonder if there’s a threshold point at which they assume that hiding the existence of such things would be impossible.
I also wonder if this is something like a stepped reveal situation.
Reveal supers first, wait til people get comfortable.
Reveal aliens, wait til people get comfortable.
Reveal the supernatural. (or supernatural second and aliens third, depending on your belief in which is more likely to freak people out)
I know in my world setting the stepped reveal is working out similar though not nearly as advanced as this. (they also started too late…their population is at the point that the supernatural is almost certain to go public soon)
Ooookay, so Uncle Sol seems to be saying one thing in the comic but DaveB has corrected us to… what exactly? Seems like he’s saying it actually does full light, sound, etc… illusions for every single Council species member in view of a human and further illusions for anything they may have left behind that clearly looks non-human.
That sounds like one Hell of a power hog there! I’m surprised regular mages can even cast spells greater than a cantrip on the fly on Earth! (that’s why I assumed we were all assuming it was mental suggestion cause that makes the human brain do most of the work of snowing ITSELF and that’s just super power efficient isn’t it?)
Seems like Succubi and Vehemence (I don’t care what you say cause: Ka-Pants!!! Seriously now… ) can power spells via gathering and converting some energy they specialize in. I wonder if most active mage types have had to either come up with a similar trick or just slowly gather a huge reserve of mana, from the trickle remaining, over time in some artifact or device?
It could explain why you have to have a certain inclination (genetics?) towards being a mage to cast a spell in this world. Maybe before the Sigils everybody could be taught to do some pretty cool stuff in short order but post-Sigils only those who had great natural abilities at A: gathering mana and B: storing large amounts of it – would have much of a chance at getting to the point of being able to cast a light spell before they gave up out of frustration or disbelief.
Maybe the sigils don’t consume a lot of mana, but just redirect it? If emotions can produce mana, the sigils might just consume a bit of happiness, anger, resolve, courage, etc. from everyone. In fact if they consumed one of the last two, you’d immediately be less likely to investigate strange occurrences. And you’d also have a reason why many normal people are so placid.
The necessary follow-up question is of course: how do they make sure no one taps into that power redirection to have some of it redirected to him-/her-/itself? From an engineering standpoint I’d assume the conduits are made as small as possible so they just can’t support a large drain, even if there’s a software bug. Which in turn probably means lots of sigils.
I don’t quite get how changing from mana to emotions as the energy source reduces the amount of energy needed to perform actions? Or are you coming up with a theory of awareness suppression that focuses on what’s in the comic but ignores what the author said in his underblog? Where he says it actually actively tries to get between humans and what they are seeing somehow, he makes it sound like a series of illusions but doesn’t come right out and say that, so they actually see something else. Instead of fairies flitting by its dragonflies or the tracks of a large Ent are seen to be a series of buck rubs by amorous deer.
That sort of puts us back into mind control (mood control?) territory which I think DaveB is going out of his way to avoid this time around (possibly always was or maybe its a reaction to our flare up last post) With the amount of energy needed during a near exposure crisis, say some idiot leans too hard on the Sigils by deciding to become a superstar and be in the cameras and public eye like all the time whilst across town the Jinn are having family reunion at a hotel, it might even be more like mood blanking. (The people here stopped feeling. And then they stopped everything else. They stopped going to work, they stopped breeding, talking, eating. There’s 30 million people here, and they all just let themselves die.)
The only way to stop, whatever, energy is being sucked into the Sigils from being redirected would be to place them close to an easy source(s) and make sure they have more suction than most individuals can produce. Which doesn’t really stop them but slows them down and maybe makes them work with others so they can be found and eliminated easier/faster once they actively try to do it.
They look rather large in the panel last post. I’m assuming that is a large door or maybe an even larger archway behind the one pictured as being almost as tall as the structure behind it. Sort of looks like it is built around a column that goes all the way to the ceiling and a bunch of cables fanning out near there. And they have to do some fairly complex stuff, all the time, in several parts of their region simultaneously as needed, so they must be magical A.I.’s with a ton of memory and mental speed. I know magic don’t care about size so much but whatever size they are I think each one is drawing a pretty good amount of power from time to time depending on where everybody is and what they are doing.
No no, I wasn’t “changing” from mana to emotions. That part was more about understanding where the mana comes from. My main speculation was how that energy might be used efficiently – in a way which I think fits well into all the currently known information.
In fact my theory that it’s about intelligently distributing energy solves your first scenario: Someone is leaning onto the sigil? How bad… now the local sigil must both create illusions *and* find a powerful user to drain energy from. How about draining the leach himself… woops, problem solved, no superstarring. It’s more or less doing what you’re writing in your third paragraph, but with more help from the “AI”.
The hard part is what to use as the AI, as there are no super-AIs in this world. But: it has been shown that you can simulate complex behavior of swarms of birds or fish by just giving each individual three simple rules – the rest is emergence. It’s hard a hard pattern to control, but they had centuries for experiments so it might be that these things have similar programing.
Last part of the speculation: Maybe the main thing making the sigils “large” is the emergency power supply?
Anyway, I would love to meet the architects and the “admins”. But the QA team scares me a bit…
Re the thread in general, rather than any specific point.
In a super hero setting, where one woman can create a nuclear-like explosion, just by pointing her finger, energy generation or limitations do not seem to be an issue to be overly concerned about.
In a lot of these things yes but it seems Dave has given some thought to energy sources in the past. V and Dabbler’s energy sources were similar in nature and both could be dumped into a gas tank that then, with enough training, could be used to fuel more than their “standard” effects depending on how much they got.
We’ve already gotten hints that our lady of finger bang has a well thought out, possibly multiple sources, origin with a set amount of energy and the need to shift that energy around to achieve the best affect at the time.
Its a story and so the answer to how much energy there is will, of course, be “enough” for the story but it doesn’t seem opposed to Dave’s idea of how a “realistic” superhero fantasy would work for their to be limits and for somebody (or something/device) to occasionally smack into them. (or drain the area for anybody else who is on the same fuel source)
Well, if you think about it, maybe the Sigils are *why* there’s so few human Mages. Possibly the Sigils are powered by the low-level magical `spark’ that humans have…if Dabbler, who *is* a dabbler…can invent a railgun and who-knows-what-else, it’s not much of a stretch to think some other technologically-gifted alien might have traded the secret of human-magic-power in return for a wild weekend with a couple adventurous vampire girls. Dual purpose…not only conceal the extra-naturals, but keeps the vast majority of humans non-magical and thus, less of a threat…
Something to think about, huh?
And there seems to be human mages on the Council? Happily making the competition scarce?
That actually does sound like something human mages would do.
The fewer there are, the more they can use their special skills to rise to power. I heard there was once a mage-y emperor of Japan.
That comment about the fire dart spell bleeding heat kind of clicked with D&D logic for me…
If you have a fire spell that’s just producing heat… could you cook on it? And if re-purposed in this way, does it become a new spell? Have you essentially just created a way to cook food? (so long as the mana drain isn’t too high, that is…)
I dunno. Just a thought that came to mind.
reminds me of the spellcraft stuff in the Elder Scrolls games, where you take an element and then can fiddle with duration, intensity, area of effect, add other elements, maybe add a heal so you can use it on yourself to train that skill without dying lol
Many things can be repurposed, without paying an extra price.
Both a car engine and a machine gun can be used to cook rice.
Whilst urine can be used to cool down an overheating device.
If you are sweltering, in a desert, a wall of ice would be paradise.
But, the shade, of a wall of stone, would suffice.
Excellent exposition on the world rules.
So what else will turn up for Sydney to comment on?
Sydney is our primary vehicle to experience the world. Thus the world is her oyster.
Which may turn out to actually be a sapient mollusc tourist, from eta cassiopeiae.
Perhaps standing on the back of four elephants.
I just want to be able to read the stack exchange forum for this…
Have you tried turning your enchantment off and on again?
Over half of the calls to the magic call center would be password resets.
”No, you can’t run Windows Grimoire on a MacTome”
Klaatu Varada Nec-cough.
“I said the words! I said the words!”
Klaatu Varada Neckbeard?
So, since it’s not mind altering…magical super network that casts a perpetual glamour over things that would be abormal for humans.
Sort of happy that that approach was taken because it’s a different spin from the mind control standard of mass deception…also sort of disappointed that thinking about it last page ruined the surprise a little >.<
I would not say that mind altering was ruled off. As Yorp said the phrasing can wind either way, although it do seems to weigh a little more toward that interpretation.
“sort of disappointed that thinking about it last page ruined the surprise a little ”
If you are talking about the cumunity…don’t be! Anyone following the comments knows how the game goes. The ones here like to theorize. Also no one knows what theory will end up true so no actual spoilers.
I love this. Sorcery nerds arguing over magical runic coding systems.
…
I learned a little Visual Acidic in my Alchemy 101 course. I got up to turning lead into thallium.
Other courses offer different program options:
Charm, to turn a friend into a loved one.
Cool, to turn panic into confidence.
Curry, to find favour with flavour.
Dog, to be a man’s best friend.
Draco, for virgins seeking sacrifice.
Elixir, if seeking eternal life.
Euphoria, for eternal happiness.
Fantom, to scare stalkers away.
Fortress, for solitude.
Genie, for wet dreams.
Lava, to create a lamp.
Magik, to explain the inexplicable.
Magma, good for one ring.
Mathematica, to find the perfect breasts.
Maxima, for a colonel of truth and justice.
Mystic Programming Language, if you really do not give a shit about piercing the Veil.
Oberon, to turn violence into pants, by saying “KA-PANTS”. Or is it the other way round?
Occam, if needing a shave.
Orc, if conjuring minions.
Oz, if conjuring wizards.
Pharo, if conjuring god-kings.
RuneScript, if cursing a studio.
SPARK, to find genius.
Squirrel, to transform into an Evil Overlord.
Unicon, to convince unicorns that you really are a virgin.
Wolfram Language, to speak to demons, or lawyers.
Wyvern? Why not?
Thanks so much, Dave. Now I have to look for a PF compatible “Spell Programmer” class. Or try to build one….
Samsung’s next big thing: Mobile Spellcraft.
Just want to congratulate everyone: nearly all points are made politely and explained very well, even the counters, very few (if any) negativity or name-calling
We are, of course, most civilized.
::takes out his Fancy Hat, flips it from his teeth and onto his head::
The Gentleman!
… =O But.. but i liked the old hair style… tell me this change isn’t forever!? D=
That does seem to be the general consensus so far, we will just have to see is Sydney continues using it and what, if any, explanation she comes up with for ditching the headband
I too miss her familiar style. But you should let a girl change her hair, if she wants to experiment.
On the plus side, having a hairstyle which is actually possible, within the laws of physics, does make it a bit easier to cast a lead for Grrl Power the Movie, without complaints that ‘the hair does not look right’.
People have been commenting on what powers the Sigils. My theory is that they are 1) Possibly of alien origin 2) Might be a form of A.I. 3) Show an internal blueish glow. That would make the most likely power source Energon.
Or Blue Energy…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurau_Phantom_Memory
Fun series.
I know he’s imaginary, but you still gotta admire the chutzpah of the werewolf in the background of panel three. Based on the symbols and the fact that she’s mad at him “for the other thing,” it’s obvious the lady did not become a werewolf of her own free will, but because she got nibbled on! And now the guy’s hitting on her?!
Something else you gotta admire is her self-control. She might have clobbered him, after all.
He may not be imaginary. Barkley looks to be in that scene, and wolves are territorial, so that is likely to be a pack-mate, as they are hanging around peacefully.
Perhaps a younger brother? Obviously from a long time ago though, as Clover is a bit bigger now.
Hmm, had been thinking they were the third kind, but maybe you are correct: he nibbled on her first and now he wants to start a family with her? Bad puppy!!!
Are werewolf pups potty trained or paper trained?
Probably both. :D
Which might explain all the anger werewolves are supposed to have – potty/paper training trauma!
One queston: what if were (wolf/cat/lizard/other) do a baby with human, do baby be were or not?
Most likely, yes. Lycanthropy is a magical disease, passed through bodily fluids. And even normal diseases, of that nature, tend to be passed on to babies.
So, there so many kinder surprises for future moms in the comics worldю
“Your tsaritsa, sire, last night
Was delivered of a fright –
Neither son nor daughter, nor
Have we seen its like before.” (c) The Tale of Tsar Saltan, of his son, the glorious and mighty knight prince Gvidon Saltanovich, and of the fair Swan-princess. A. S. Pushkin
:-D
One technicality, lycanthropes in the Grrl Power Verse are restricted to mammals only. So maybe an Otter-princess, instead?
I’m sure Ingsol would like to take the opportunity to wish a happy birthday this day to the original Pavel Chekov: Valter, err, ‘Walter’ Koenig.
omg the fucking face on that wolf guy lmao
Anyone else feel kinda sad at Dave mentioning that Sydney’s pics won’t be showing anything? She’ll be so disappointed…
It’ll probably set off one of those explosions of expletives she’s so well known for . . .
I remember Nodwick parodying the idea of a magical programming language, with expies of Microsoft and Apple.
I also love that panel with the female werewolf going ‘I’m still mad at you for that other thing’ when she shoots him down.
With “the other thing” being biting her and turning her into a werewolf. Or at least that was my assumption. But with women “the other thing” can be literally anything at all, including being alive, awake, asleep, or dead. Whichever one happens to be the most objectionable at the moment. And which might change in the very next moment. That’s my baby, she can be all four seasons in one day.
Why, Sydney? [see frame 1] Because of this counter magic:
Inputting basis of authority: the Tenth Amendment, to paraphrase, Any power not directly enumerated in the Constitution belongs to the people and the states. Secondary basis of authority: Fifth Amendment, to paraphrase, Due process is required in order to enforce the law; coupled with the limitations of due process, the law cannot extend where proof cannot be acquired. Tertiary basis: One’s dominion over Self, to paraphrase, due to the limitations of the power of the state, the Tenth Amendment grants sole jurisdiction of the inward man to the Aiúa [see Soul/Person/Self]. End Authority Parameter.
Begin spell: We understand (Proverbs 28) because we seek. We have no limits (Philippians 4) because we believe. We are what we choose to be. We can do what we choose to do. We can become what we will. We will not be bound by the lusts and desires of the body because it is the will of God that we will overcome our evil nature and live unbound lifes filled with grace and glory. This can be because we forgive our fellow men of their trespasses against us and so receive forgiveness for our former limitations when we were bound to slavery of sin. This can be because the payments for sin have been paid by the Blood of the Lamb of God. This can be because of the power of the name of Jesus. End spell.
Of course, those that choose to be bound to the lusts of their body may do so. After all, you are who choose to be. But then, you will be blind: “Therefore speak I to them in parables: because they seeing see not; and hearing they hear not, neither do they understand.” — Matthew 13:13
Is magic real? I answer with a question: Are your emotions “real”? (As in tangible?)
My snack is real tasty. I feel quite emotional about that.
*gives juicy bone a good chewing*
Has panel 3 always had the paint splash effect in the background, and I just did not notice it? Or has DaveB2 been playing with the paint-by-numbers brushes and got into the archives somehow?
I dunno if it’s supposed to be a piece of artwork or a paint splattered tarp from a bit of home improvement, but yes it was always there.
What the hell happened to those boobs? They look like they’ve been folded into that corset in the most uncomfortable manner possible.
C++ you monster! It’s like the difference between python (or anaconda) and R. Ones a statistical language written by programmers and the others a statistical language written by statisticians. They both do the same job, but wow can you see the differences (and the wars resulting from them).
You might be surprised how many factories are still running their machines on computers written in Cobol, despite it being considered a nearly-dead programming language for decades now.
The thing is, the machines still work as intended, and restructuring the entire factory to run off of, I dunno, C++ or PHP or something from this decade, would be so massively expensive it’s not seen as worth it.
“which is… I guess bad, if you’re racist against lizardmen, but if there’s no detrimental consequence…, it doesn’t seem like that big of a deal to me.”
Yeah, agreed. The people back there acting like this was some kind of ultimate evil REALLY seemed to be overreacting. This is why I hate deontologists. 100% agreed regarding the “who you are over what you are” too, like, that kind of communication is what actually matters for relationships and stuff.