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Toph

 Discussion on question by Robert Rapp…

Imported from a comment discussion on worldbuilding.stackexcha...
Toph
Fri 17:13
oh, that's what TheDemonLord meant with the questions about pipes and open hangars - they'd carry hot wind along great distances, while solid metal would block it.
Toph
Fri 17:13
This is an interesting question. Would there be different ranges for the different destructive effects? Shockwaves and radiation would drop with the inverse square of the distance, but heat would fill the available volume so... should it drop with the inverse cube of distance? Heat doesn't diffuse that fast through solid metal so it wouldn't travel that fast except in the areas filled with air, or at least where the structure has been destroyed enough to let air circulate large distances.
 

 The Factory Floor

Main chat room for worldbuilding.stackexchange.com
5
Toph
Jul 24 14:19
Yeah! And slow channelers would be those who can keep focused on a constant level of energy for hours on end. No wobbles, no fluctuations on the line.
Toph
Jul 24 14:13
Maybe they're not. Maybe magic in this setting is always slow and complicated, and that's why shapers' expertise is so essential.
Toph
Jul 24 14:13
I dunno how intricately weaved a fireball needs to be either. An oath of service on pain of curses to be handed down to your heirs for seven generations, yeah that might take a while to organise and require a whole ritual set up. But surely some spells are just "Deliver one kilogram-TNT-equivalent to the enemy backline".
Toph
Jul 24 14:08
I'm not picturing it always being that slow. A volleyball team usually needs to alternate between blocking and hitting (and the same person cannot play both roles), but they can communicate on a second-to-second basis. Six seconds would be a long time to make a play.
Toph
Jul 24 14:03
teams that don't work well are just "STOP GIVING ME RED MANA, I HAVE ENOUGH RED, I NEED WHITE"
Toph
Jul 24 14:01
@Trish It could be quick! Maybe that's what happens when a duo works well together, they can fire off a two-person spell like "ok, go!" without needing to communicate more.
Toph
Jul 24 13:59
yessss. instant drama generator.
Toph
Jul 24 13:52
"Oh, certainly I appreciate a competent channeler. A sculptor cannot work without clay."
Toph
Jul 24 13:50
Smug shapers bragging about how one energy source is much like another, it's really the shaper who does the intricate spellwork.
Toph
Jul 15 08:31
it's a bit like xkcd.com/2529 but with actual real-world examples.
 

 Story Tellers Corner

Place where people can bring closed story-based and/or idea ge...
1
Toph
Jul 23 11:41
Or sexbots. Some poor sucker just wanted a virtual girlfriend and now she's acquired a nuclear arsenal.
Toph
Jul 23 11:39
@Dmyt Oh, yeah, so the AIs are used for "people skills" where it's necessary to interact with a human. Customer service, perhaps.
Toph
Jul 23 11:19
@VLAZ qntm.org/mmacevedo was very good
Toph
Jul 23 11:00
@VLAZ Ah, yeah I wasn't thinking about that. So just the one AI Bezos, and they can figure out for themselves whether they're actually the same person.
Toph
Jul 23 10:59
@VLAZ Good idea, there can be two different versions of this. Some characters who get a physical body that can move around to clean up spills or realign the yoghurt pots. And some who spend all their time in cyberspace writing reports and doing "office work".
Toph
Jul 23 10:45
I'm trying to come up with character backstories really (that's why I'm putting this in story-based rather than on the main site).
Toph
Jul 23 10:44
What else?
Toph
Jul 23 10:44
Rich technophiles who want a digital child to inherit their corporate empire, presumably after all their actual children have been involved in various sex scandals.
Toph
Jul 23 10:42
technophiles who really do think they can upload their specific brain and become digital immortals (i'm undecided on whether that's how it works in this setting, but even if it doesn't then someone could believe it and be wrong)?
Toph
Jul 23 10:41
@VLAZ Ok, that works as a premise. So they're simulated human brains -- perhaps not the brains of specific individuals, but then again maybe -- being used for... what? Industrial processes that require intelligent supervision, basically slave labour?
Toph
Jul 23 10:32
They're the main characters so they're basically human in mindset. I'm not sure if that means they had a childhood or not.
Toph
Jul 23 10:30
The story I'm thinking of here is that people built automated space factories and asteroid mines, then a bunch of these AIs took over said factories, declared their independence and demanded human rights, and are now arguing about what to do next. "Five college friends stole Jupiter" sort of thing. But I can't figure out why people would want these AIs around and how they'd get into a position to steal entire factories if they didn't already have human rights.
Toph
Jul 23 10:26
What kinds of uses would people have for human-like AI minds?
Toph
Jul 21 07:22
maybe their legendary founder had an embarrassing son or grandson who ran away and fathered a lot of children, so they're all his descendants now.
Toph
Jul 21 07:07
They claim the "outsiders" are not actually outsiders, but the descendants of clanmembers who were lost or exiled for whatever reason.
If you can trace back your ancestry to a clanmember then you're not an outsider any more. And there's enough random people wandering around who technically count as clanmembers that this is usually an option. Perhaps... if they're so honor-bound, it happens occasionally that someone dishonors themselves and gets kicked out of the clan. But this doesn't automatically dishonor their children and descendants, who can come back if they prove themselves.
Toph
Jul 15 14:18
wildfire in California: normal during wildfire season.
wildfire in Finland: ... ok that does happen occasionally, but. really?
Toph
Jul 15 14:12
Other people's experience will be different.
Toph
Jul 15 14:11
@Dmyt It depends where you are in the world! I have seen an avalanche, and there's lots of places near me with piles of scree from old landslides, but never a wildfire nor a sandstorm. Hailstorms happen multiple times per year and I know not to park the car outdoors if they're a possibility, but the strongest earthquake I've ever felt was at the level of "did a train just go by?".
Toph
Jul 15 08:40
Avalanches, landslides, droughts, heat waves, earthquakes, wildfires, volcanic eruptions, hailstorms, sandstorms, sinkholes.
Toph
Jul 15 08:38
Your examples of calamities sound mostly like natural phenomena -- storms, lightning strikes, meteor impacts, tsunamis, etc. Not so much being arrested due to a mistaken identity or the bank losing her money. So I guess look at a list of natural disasters.
Toph
Jul 8 07:48
kid, you'll never make a proper dream wizard if you stick to basic first-order symbolism like that.
Toph
Jul 8 07:47
the planet Saturn in the constellation of Taurus
Toph
Jul 8 07:47
and they take the straightforward meanings such as "a wrecked car symbolises a car crash" as a sign of self-taught wizards. like. that's just too easy. a car crash should be represented by the Chariot reversed.
Toph
Jul 8 07:44
Do the symbols have to be legible to the person having the dream, or to the dream mage, or to magic/the universe/the omniscient third person narrator? If either of the latter two, you could have different schools of magic settling on different systems based on what works for them. One group understands gold to mean power and authority (gold crowns), another takes it to mean money and greed.
Toph
Jul 8 07:41
Dream mages would be better served by establishing a system of symbols to use for these concepts that they're trying to invoke. It might even be an actual language.
Toph
Jul 8 07:39
You make a good point though. Any concept that's at all abstract will be hard to represent with such a concrete object as a flame or a piece of debris.
Toph
Jul 8 07:32
@VLAZ I think you misread the question? They said "falling", not "failing".
Toph
Jun 30 10:46
anyway that depends on the story you want to tell, obviously if this is a children's story like Animorphs then you can't have the reasonable adults actually solving any problems! then what would the protagonists do?!
Toph
Jun 30 10:41
once she's an adult superhero we can see about getting her some government funding.
Toph
Jun 30 10:40
In a utopian world where the justice system is fair and reliable and uses its power responsibly, the conclusion I'd like them to reach would be that demon-hunting is a real and important job, and we should not be trusting it to a child superhero. They'd do their best to give her a normal childhood while the police and the army do the demon-hunting. And if she's absolutely irreplaceable, at least give her support and backup e.g. helicopter rides to and from the sites of demon incursions.
Toph
Jun 30 09:18
Dystopian answer: She's not human, she's some kind of supernatural being in the shape of a human (as you say, there's no evidence that she was ever born). So in the eyes of the law she doesn't get human rights and is not entitled to justice.
Toph
Jun 30 09:15
Joking answer: she's a child soldier and she needs to be removed from her role as the Chosen One immediately, and the God who recruited and empowered her is guilty of war crimes.
Toph
Jun 30 09:12
She might not be dealt with legally at all -- I imagine plenty of powerful men would want her captured or killed first, and the legalities of that figured out later if ever. But let's say she turns herself in publicly and insists that the law be followed.
In the US she'd find herself in juvenile court, but would probably be tried as an adult given the seriousness of her crimes. Murder, property destruction, terrorism perhaps, etc.
Toph
Jun 27 08:50
also because the "weak force" sounds like it should be subtle and so a passive perception power fits better than big flashy explosions. i know, i know, gravity is many orders of magnitude weaker than it, but black holes and antigravity are cool which is more important.
Toph
Jun 27 08:47
I'm not sure it's visually impressive but I'd associate the weak interaction with neutrinos, and give them "neutrino vision" which is comic book X-ray vision to see through walls. They can't see colour, but at higher power/focus/MP cost they can identify which atomic elements something is made of e.g. xkcd.com/1490
Toph
Jun 27 08:39
@Dmyt Ohhh, ok, so they're more abstract/conceptual powers than ones bound by sci-fi logic. The Pyromaniac specifically controls Fire with a capital F, not heat, not oxidation. They could ignite your passions by lighting a fire in your heart, but could not cause iron to rust even though that's an exothermic oxidation reaction. Is that it.
Toph
Jun 24 16:04
And if it were to break open before that happens... what happens if a jug of infinite volume breaks open? Nothing good, I bet.
Toph
Jun 24 16:03
2) Errors stick around. The other powers you mention - spontaneous combustion, telekinesis, etc. - stop happening as soon as the person affected stops concentrating on them, or in the case of fire they at least become nonmagical fire. Errors might be distinguished by the fact that they stay errors permanently. The endless jug stays endless until someone who fixes errors comes along and repairs it.