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Crystalwatcher's Magical Girl Quest!

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Highwind said:
I think the way Core Purge works is by first asking "is it an enemy?" followed by "does it have a health pool?" and if yes to both it deal damage directly to the health, and if not it does not a damn thing.
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Technically, everything that isn't literally indestructible has a health pool. That said, you're basically right.
 
Well, formerly Magical Girl Iron Age (or what was her name?) who got captured and literally reforged into a spear, had a "Death would be a mercy" damage reduction modifier of +5000, but a lower amount of health and natural resilience. It was in Under the Open Sky (SummitQuest) spin-off.

But that's an outlier. With existence of Cleave and Sunder, Indestructible and Instant Recovery, a weapon's durability needs to be addressed on a case-by-case basis, anyway.
 
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Adhoc vote count started by Crystalwatcher on May 11, 2019 at 8:50 AM, finished with 65 posts and 6 votes.
  • [X] Plan Search
    -[X] Contact the other Horsewomen and see what they've learned. Is there anything suspicious going on, or has anyone seen the WEAPON or Maidens?
    -[X] Try to figure out if there's any sort of pattern to what can be found out. If the WEAPON or Maidens are using a grid pattern to search, you might be able intercept them to talk
    -[X] If contact with one of the two groups is possible, try to determine why they're here and see what you might need to do about that.
    -[X] If possible, try to contact Maiden of the West so as to let her know her child is alive and looking for her. Try to see if anyone might have seen the child as well.
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I have no idea. I would vote if more ideas to vote on were there. So Crystalwatcher please think not ill of the low number of voters.
 
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The Trouble With Time Travel
  • Informational
    • The Trouble With Time Travel
    Or: Why Chronos is most likely going to be in a Bar when you go looking for him.    ​


    Time Travel is both simultaneously incredibly difficult to pull off... but also incredibly simple to do once you know how. The best way to describe what I mean is by using Doctor Brown from the old movie "Back to the Future". The guy's IQ was as high as the plot demanded but it had still taken him literally all his money and most of his life to pull off.

    But once he figured it out, he started blowing through the temporal wall on a regular basis.

    The only part of this that the comparison breaks down at though is that under normal circumstances blowing through the temporal wall requires a nominally prohibitively expensive energy requirements. For example using purely scientific means, achieving what the good doctor did in spite of Chronos saying "no" would require enough electrical output to power the entire north american continent in its entirety for roughly fifteen years or so. Give or take a few million gigawatts. There's ways around this, sure, but those ways around are rare enough to likely be counted on one hand. Two if Chronos is having a particularly unlucky millennia.

    Regardless though, all of this actually doesn't matter all that much. Why do you ask? Because the basic act of Time Travel actually isn't all that bad in and of itself. The reason for this is a little something Chronos refers to as "Gloss", and the Dames as "Glass".


    What is Glass/Gloss?
    The Glass/Gloss is something of a passive safety mechanism that Time utilizes to keep itself from fracturing and vomiting paradoxes all over the place. It's a kind of "not actually there" filter that wraps around the time traveler that isolates them from the time period they travel back to. So long as the Gloss is present, the natives of the time period remain unaware of the time traveler and non-temporally solid items can be passed through like air. (Think doors and such things that are moved out of the way often.) The problem with Gloss though is that despite being a safety measure, it is disturbingly easy to break. But that's mostly because the fact if you have the power to travel through time, you have enough "oomph" that the Gloss really has no chance in stopping you anyway. Once the Gloss breaks, then everything solidifies for the Time Traveler and the natives of the time period can perceive and interact with the Time Traveler.

    Please note once the Gloss breaks it can't be restored except by leaving the time period. And pretty much anything can break it: from kicking a door open to plucking a blade of grass. Good news is it can't be broken accidentally, only intentionally.


    The Fold
    The Gloss comes with a second, far more important layer, aside from the easily broken perception filter. This layer is known as The Fold.

    The Fold is the most dangerous and consequence-heavy aspect of Time Travel. Just as easy to break as the Glass the Fold is the "personal time" of the Time Traveler as rendered in the flow of time. The more the traveler goes back and forth up and down the river of Time, the more time folds in on itself to keep the Traveler's journey consistent. The only two ways to get rid of the Fold is for the Traveler to either return to their natural time, or be killed. Or in other words: to "close the loop" more or less. So long as they refuse to go back to where they belong, the Fold remains and prevents travel to the periods they have been to by other time travelers. Though that prevention is easily broken if the Time Traveler causes what they recognize as a paradox.

    If the Time Traveler causes a situation that would result in a paradox then the Fold will shatter like fiberglass hit by a train as Time attempts to correct history. A good example would be the Hitler paradox: you have a time traveler that finds themselves in Nazi Germany with World War 2 in full swing. And they just so happen to have a rifle and a clean line of fire to the most iconic madman of recent human history... problem is they also know without a doubt this is not how he dies.

    In this scenario resolves with the Time Traveler taking that shot, creating the paradox, his personal Fold breaks and Bad Shit starts happening.

    But what if the Time Traveler didn't know that wasn't how Big Daddy H died? Well, then it gets a bit more complicated.

    If a Time Traveler finds themselves in a situation where they know the eventual outcome, but not how the outcome had been achieved, it is possible to cause changes without inciting a Paradox because the Traveler wouldn't be aware that the paradox is happening. Or in other words: ignorance is bliss, and Chronos uses it like morphine.

    So long as the Time Traveler doesn't change the outcome as they know it from what they remember, it is possible to utilize their own ignorance of a situation to turn the details of what would have otherwise been a crippling event into a survivable struggle. Or let people that otherwise shouldn't have survived a situation to come out alive.

    So the safest situation a time traveler could be in would be a situation where they have no idea what the fuck is going on.


    Why is breaking the Fold Dangerous?
    Just like the Gloss and Fold itself, this is another complicated point.

    It's also one with a surprisingly simple answer: Goetia.

    Complicated/Long version? When the Fold breaks, the metaphorical "shards" get scattered across the time stream. These shards then take on a mind and will of their own with a twisted fascination centered on the species of the Time Traveler that caused them to form. This fascination eventually mutates into a form of love that almost inevitably ends with the shards deciding to just put the given species out of its misery because they can't bring themselves to keep watching as they "torment themselves". There are exceptions to this, but the Fold being broken is rare enough that it's not a guarantee of one spawning on you being agreeable long term.

    Thanks to the Clockwork Dames, these creatures gained the moniker of Solomon's Demons. And they are the primary reason for Chronos to take up the Clockwork Dames as his agents. Literally pieces of rogue time given agency, these fuckers exist completely outside Chronos' day planner, making even engaging them in combat a trial in and of itself. Never mind actually killing one when you finally pin it down. They take what they think are the absolute best traits of their 'parent' species onto themselves in a kind of insane mockery of worship which depending on the species involved can lead to some really insane combinations.

    This is also one of the first times I'll also bring up the White Empire because they actually aid Chronos and the Dames regularly in hunting these guys down. While not to the level of the Time Lords or the Daleks, the White Empire are still capable of "solidifying" space-time in a given area in such a way they can trap a trans-temporal creature into a single dimensional region long enough to kill it, or hold it in one place long enough for the Dames to show up and kill it for them.

    Solomonites are about 90% of the reason Chronos doesn't like people fucking with time travel. These things are existential threats on the level that Cosmos' self-proclaimed white blood cells will drop what they're doing and get involved immediately.

    So yeah.

    He'll likely be in a bar drinking if you need him.
     
    Last edited:
  • Informational
    • Interesting..........
    Crystalwatcher said:
    continent in it's entirety
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    its
    Crystalwatcher said:
    Give or take a few million gigawatts.
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    gigawatts, or gigawatt-years?
    Crystalwatcher said:
    It's also one with a surprisingly simple answer: Geotia.
    Click to expand...
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    Goetia
    Crystalwatcher said:
    a form of love that almost inevitably ends with the shards decided to just put the given species out of it's misery
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    deciding
    its
    Crystalwatcher said:
    aid Chronos and the Sames regularly
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    Dames
     
    Crystalwatcher said:
    The Trouble With Time Travel
    Or: Why Chronos is most likely going to be in a Bar when you go looking for him.    ​


    Time Travel is both simultaneously incredibly difficult to pull off... but also incredibly simple to do once you know how. The best way to describe what I mean is by using Doctor Brown from the old movie "Back to the Future". The guy's IQ was as high as the plot demanded but it had still taken him literally all his money and most of his life to pull off.

    But once he figured it out, he started blowing through the temporal wall on a regular basis.

    The only part of this that the comparison breaks down at though is that under normal circumstances blowing through the temporal wall requires a nominally prohibitively expensive energy requirements. For example using purely scientific means, achieving what the good doctor did in spite of Chronos saying "no" would require enough electrical output to power the entire north american continent in its entirety for roughly fifteen years or so. Give or take a few million gigawatts. There's ways around this, sure, but those ways around are rare enough to likely be counted on one hand. Two if Chronos is having a particularly unlucky millennia.

    Regardless though, all of this actually doesn't matter all that much. Why do you ask? Because the basic act of Time Travel actually isn't all that bad in and of itself. The reason for this is a little something Chronos refers to as "Gloss", and the Dames as "Glass".


    What is Glass/Gloss?
    The Glass/Gloss is something of a passive safety mechanism that Time utilizes to keep itself from fracturing and vomiting paradoxes all over the place. It's a kind of "not actually there" filter that wraps around the time traveler that isolates them from the time period they travel back to. So long as the Gloss is present, the natives of the time period remain unaware of the time traveler and non-temporally solid items can be passed through like air. (Think doors and such things that are moved out of the way often.) The problem with Gloss though is that despite being a safety measure, it is disturbingly easy to break. But that's mostly because the fact if you have the power to travel through time, you have enough "oomph" that the Gloss really has no chance in stopping you anyway. Once the Gloss breaks, then everything solidifies for the Time Traveler and the natives of the time period can perceive and interact with the Time Traveler.

    Please note once the Gloss breaks it can't be restored except by leaving the time period. And pretty much anything can break it: from kicking a door open to plucking a blade of grass. Good news is it can't be broken accidentally, only intentionally.


    The Fold
    The Gloss comes with a second, far more important layer, aside from the easily broken perception filter. This layer is known as The Fold.

    The Fold is the most dangerous and consequence-heavy aspect of Time Travel. Just as easy to break as the Glass the Fold is the "personal time" of the Time Traveler as rendered in the flow of time. The more the traveler goes back and forth up and down the river of Time, the more time folds in on itself to keep the Traveler's journey consistent. The only two ways to get rid of the Fold is for the Traveler to either return to their natural time, or be killed. Or in other words: to "close the loop" more or less. So long as they refuse to go back to where they belong, the Fold remains and prevents travel to the periods they have been to by other time travelers. Though that prevention is easily broken if the Time Traveler causes what they recognize as a paradox.

    If the Time Traveler causes a situation that would result in a paradox then the Fold will shatter like fiberglass hit by a train as Time attempts to correct history. A good example would be the Hitler paradox: you have a time traveler that finds themselves in Nazi Germany with World War 2 in full swing. And they just so happen to have a rifle and a clean line of fire to the most iconic madman of recent human history... problem is they also know without a doubt this is not how he dies.

    In this scenario resolves with the Time Traveler taking that shot, creating the paradox, his personal Fold breaks and Bad Shit starts happening.

    But what if the Time Traveler didn't know that wasn't how Big Daddy H died? Well, then it gets a bit more complicated.

    If a Time Traveler finds themselves in a situation where they know the eventual outcome, but not how the outcome had been achieved, it is possible to cause changes without inciting a Paradox because the Traveler wouldn't be aware that the paradox is happening. Or in other words: ignorance is bliss, and Chronos uses it like morphine.

    So long as the Time Traveler doesn't change the outcome as they know it from what they remember, it is possible to utilize their own ignorance of a situation to turn the details of what would have otherwise been a crippling event into a survivable struggle. Or let people that otherwise shouldn't have survived a situation to come out alive.

    So the safest situation a time traveler could be in would be a situation where they have no idea what the fuck is going on.


    Why is breaking the Fold Dangerous?
    Just like the Gloss and Fold itself, this is another complicated point.

    It's also one with a surprisingly simple answer: Goetia.

    Complicated/Long version? When the Fold breaks, the metaphorical "shards" get scattered across the time stream. These shards then take on a mind and will of their own with a twisted fascination centered on the species of the Time Traveler that caused them to form. This fascination eventually mutates into a form of love that almost inevitably ends with the shards deciding to just put the given species out of its misery because they can't bring themselves to keep watching as they "torment themselves". There are exceptions to this, but the Fold being broken is rare enough that it's not a guarantee of one spawning on you being agreeable long term.

    Thanks to the Clockwork Dames, these creatures gained the moniker of Solomon's Demons. And they are the primary reason for Chronos to take up the Clockwork Dames as his agents. Literally pieces of rogue time given agency, these fuckers exist completely outside Chronos' day planner, making even engaging them in combat a trial in and of itself. Never mind actually killing one when you finally pin it down. They take what they think are the absolute best traits of their 'parent' species onto themselves in a kind of insane mockery of worship which depending on the species involved can lead to some really insane combinations.

    This is also one of the first times I'll also bring up the White Empire because they actually aid Chronos and the Dames regularly in hunting these guys down. While not to the level of the Time Lords or the Daleks, the White Empire are still capable of "solidifying" space-time in a given area in such a way they can trap a trans-temporal creature into a single dimensional region long enough to kill it, or hold it in one place long enough for the Dames to show up and kill it for them.

    Solomonites are about 90% of the reason Chronos doesn't like people fucking with time travel. These things are existential threats on the level that Cosmos' self-proclaimed white blood cells will drop what they're doing and get involved immediately.

    So yeah.

    He'll likely be in a bar drinking if you need him.
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    Click to shrink...

    Interesting time travel mechanics, specifically how the Fold works. Pretty obvious that the Goetia a reference to BEAST I from the Nasuverse but it fits perfectly. The Glass makes it so that the butterfly effect doesn't screw with time just by the traveler's mere presence and essentially acts as the universe's main ontological inertia. The Fold working off what the person knows to be true is also an interesting twist as if you don't know how an event goes you can change it and ontological inertia kicks in to minimize the damage.

    Crystalwatcher said:
    Solomonites are about 90% of the reason Chronos doesn't like people fucking with time travel. These things are existential threats on the level that Cosmos' self-proclaimed white blood cells will drop what they're doing and get involved immediately.
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...
    So this is either a typo/relic of an earlier draft or another name for the Goetia. Not sure which.
     
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