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the_steve posted:It's interesting that also, when you have the What-If or alternate realities or whatever where the resident supergeniuses/trillionaires of the franchise DO come together to create a post-scarcity utopia, it almost always ends in them going full fascist totalitarian 1984 state and actually people having everything they need and never needing to fear disease actually sucks and makes everyone miserable. I mean, that's just because narrative needs conflict, and having an actual utopia where things work out doesn't make much of a story. Same reason why Star Trek doesn't set many stories on Earth itself, or why the Culture is mainly focused on Special Circumstances - places where awful things still happen so the protagonists can do something.
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May 14, 2024 05:11
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next week, goons debate the causes of the persistence of vision
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May 14, 2024 07:30
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Spazzle posted:The Authority is the most honest comic book. Actually a bit of a theme in Warren Ellis books where a lot of them end when the superpowered protagonists are or about to start freely using their incredible powers and technology to actually change the world rather than just maintaining the status quo. Planetary and Nextwave come to mind. the_steve posted:It's interesting that also, when you have the What-If or alternate realities or whatever where the resident supergeniuses/trillionaires of the franchise DO come together to create a post-scarcity utopia, it almost always ends in them going full fascist totalitarian 1984 state and actually people having everything they need and never needing to fear disease actually sucks and makes everyone miserable. Amusingly the exception here is when Doctor Doom actually gets to take over the world he usually does a surprisingly good job running the place. Ghost Leviathan has a new favorite as of 07:56 on May 14, 2024 |
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May 14, 2024 07:54
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PhazonLink posted:Did any other marvel science mans make a council of clones of themselves , except the clones have a flaw to highlight the superiority of the original? like clone Reeds that cant suck themseleves off?
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May 14, 2024 08:22
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Ghost Leviathan posted:Actually a bit of a theme in Warren Ellis books where a lot of them end when the superpowered protagonists are or about to start freely using their incredible powers and technology to actually change the world rather than just maintaining the status quo. Planetary and Nextwave come to mind. In the web serial Worm, there’s a villain named Accord whose power is basically logistics and problem solving: the more complicated the problem, the better he is at solving it. Any issue, no matter how complex it seems. Like even within the story at one point he wrote up a manual on how to solve world hunger and submitted it to various politicians, but the trouble was that it was so complicated, with contingencies and contingencies for contingencies, that literally no one bothered reading it
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May 14, 2024 08:30
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PhazonLink posted:Did any other marvel science mans make a council of clones of themselves , except the clones have a flaw to highlight the superiority of the original? like clone Reeds that cant suck themseleves off? Mister Sinister has created entire civilizations of himself.
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May 14, 2024 08:44
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Kit Walker posted:In the web serial Worm, there’s a villain named Accord whose power is basically logistics and problem solving: the more complicated the problem, the better he is at solving it. Any issue, no matter how complex it seems. Like even within the story at one point he wrote up a manual on how to solve world hunger and submitted it to various politicians, but the trouble was that it was so complicated, with contingencies and contingencies for contingencies, that literally no one bothered reading it Well he should have thought about the problem of getting politicians to read and act on his plan. That is a loving stupid super power. Mr can-do-anything. The only limitation is that apparently he can't be arsed actually doing anything.
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May 14, 2024 08:45
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NoiseAnnoys posted:next week, goons debate the causes of the persistence of vision He got rebuilt by that black science unit.
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May 14, 2024 09:34
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Splicer posted:Beast from x-men More specifically, Beast's clones require eyeglasses while the original does not. He explicitly made them this way to highlight their inferiority.
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May 14, 2024 10:35
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Tiggum posted:Well he should have thought about the problem of getting politicians to read and act on his plan. Well obviously he's an ideas man...
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May 14, 2024 10:35
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One day I'll edit the 'now let me explain Homestuck' comic to 'now let me explain Worm'. Don't make me do it!!
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May 14, 2024 10:38
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To me, superheroes are an inherently visual genre. They don't work in prose.
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May 14, 2024 10:56
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Suleman posted:More specifically, Beast's clones require eyeglasses while the original does not. He explicitly made them this way to highlight their inferiority. The funny thing is, considering how prone clones are to trying to take over and reign as the original, giving them all bad eyesight or something like that to set them apart isn't a bad idea. "Shoot him! I'm the real one!" "No, shoot him, I'm the real one!" "I need both of you to look at this chart and read the bottom line to me!"
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May 14, 2024 11:23
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Suleman posted:More specifically, Beast's clones require eyeglasses while the original does not. He explicitly made them this way to highlight their inferiority. This was a recursive lift from the Mauler twins in Invincible, who were themselves originally a villainous version of Beast. Despite looking like a brutish thug and, well, being named "Mauler", he's an exceptional scientist whose chief flaw is that he needs to feel superior to his clone. However, since he uses a memory duplication device as part of the process so the clone will have the skills needed to assist him, neither of them actually know who is the clone. And when they do know, it doesn't end well - leading to an agreement that as the argument over which of them is the clone is a big drive in their work, they won't make any serious attempt to figure out who it actually is.
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May 14, 2024 11:25
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They also apparently introduced a clone of Beast who was made before Beast started doing all kinds of awful things like making deliberately inferior clones and totally isn't just because they realised making Beast evil was stupid and no one liked it.
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May 14, 2024 12:07
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PhazonLink posted:Did any other marvel science mans make a council of clones of themselves , except the clones have a flaw to highlight the superiority of the original? like clone Reeds that cant suck themseleves off? This sounds like a supervillain thing.
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May 14, 2024 12:37
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Tiggum posted:Well he should have thought about the problem of getting politicians to read and act on his plan. Ah, but that’s a very simple problem. If you want someone to read something, you just give it to them and ask, right? No powers needed to solve that problem In any case, yeah, that’s kind of the nature of the story. Powers with big limitations or costs. The source of powers in the setting deliberately contrive to make sure people who have them can’t use them to their full potential and instill in them a drive towards conflict in order to harvest information. It wouldn’t do to actually let Accord solve a global problem like that
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May 14, 2024 14:03
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Kit Walker posted:Ah, but that’s a very simple problem. If you want someone to read something, you just give it to them and ask, right?
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May 14, 2024 14:15
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Tiggum posted:Evidently not, because that didn't work. Which someone with the power of understanding complex problems and planning solutions to them should have realised and accounted for. He understands complex problems and "can't be bothered to read" is a simplistic idiot problem
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May 14, 2024 14:21
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interpersonal conflict isn't a logistics problem, tiggum, it is outside of his skillset
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May 14, 2024 14:22
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It's like in Stargate when the hyper-advanced Asgard had to ask the humans for help because they were in a stalemate with another hyper-advanced species and they needed a dumber species to bruteforce a solution https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=98dQH9tKPEA
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May 14, 2024 14:39
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InediblePenguin posted:interpersonal conflict isn't a logistics problem, tiggum, it is outside of his skillset Oh, well that's also why his plan to ends world hunger didn't work then. 
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May 14, 2024 14:52
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I used to play a game with friends we called Worst Superpower. The thing was to come up with a superpower that had some extreme limitation: you can fly, but only two inches off the ground; you can lift several tons, but only balsa wood; or you and your clothes can become invisible, but you emit a horrible stench.
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May 15, 2024 14:51
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Hovering just off the ground sounds pretty fun.
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May 15, 2024 15:07
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Ghost Leviathan posted:Hovering just off the ground sounds pretty fun. Yeah, you'll save a ton on shoes and you'll never tread on a Lego again.
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May 15, 2024 15:11
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If it was an exact two inches, you'd still have to deal with terrain and LEGO and whatnot, there'd just be space in between, because one part of your foot would be 2" above the ground and one part would be 2" above the LEGO or whatever, so it'd be effectively the same. 
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May 15, 2024 15:19
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Yngwie Mangosteen posted:If it was an exact two inches, you'd still have to deal with terrain and LEGO and whatnot, there'd just be space in between, because one part of your foot would be 2" above the ground and one part would be 2" above the LEGO or whatever, so it'd be effectively the same. That's only if you need to walk while hovering. If you're able to propel yourself forward as part of the power you'd just slide over it.
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May 15, 2024 16:11
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A Sometimes Food posted:That's only if you need to walk while hovering. If you're able to propel yourself forward as part of the power you'd just slide over it. Go slide, at full walking speed, your foot over a LEGO that's secured to the ground and report back.
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May 15, 2024 16:28
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Yngwie Mangosteen posted:Go slide, at full walking speed, your foot over a LEGO that's secured to the ground and report back. Why would it be secured?
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May 15, 2024 16:37
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I never understood the jokes about stepping on a lego despite growing up having them regularly all over the floor, but then I also grew up in the country walking barefoot on dirt, rocks and gravel regularly so my feet are more like hooves.
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May 15, 2024 16:56
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Snowglobe of Doom posted:It's like in Stargate when the hyper-advanced Asgard had to ask the humans for help because they were in a stalemate with another hyper-advanced species and they needed a dumber species to bruteforce a solution Amazing cropping, like a compromise to make it awful in landscape mode while somehow also even worse than before in portrait.
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May 15, 2024 17:28
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A Sometimes Food posted:Why would it be secured? does the power extend to exerting the force of your passage onto the ground too?
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May 15, 2024 17:29
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Yngwie Mangosteen posted:Go slide, at full walking speed, your foot over a LEGO that's secured to the ground and report back. I just slide my foot 2 inches above a lego and didn’t feel anything. Seems like it would work fine in theory
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May 15, 2024 17:52
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MrUnderbridge posted:you and your clothes can become invisible, but you emit a horrible stench. This is just me around women 
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May 15, 2024 18:24
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If hovering feels like your feet are pushing at the ground like a reverse magnet then hovering over a lego would just make you go up a little. If it feels like the ground is pushing back then hovering over a lego would feel like someone putting their entire weight on a lego while dragging it across the sole of your foot. If it's entirely the ground pushing "up" then depending on how much go forward power you had you might stop dead or just slow down a bit or possibly flay a lego width and height of skin and flesh off the bottom of your foot. Splicer has a new favorite as of 18:30 on May 15, 2024 |
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May 15, 2024 18:27
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My knees love the idea of no longer being weight bearing, tbh. Flying two inches above the ground sounds great.
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May 15, 2024 18:35
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That's how I get around in my dreams. Whenever I run in dreams, my legs are heavy and I can't move fast, so instead I just hover a little bit and can continue my quests unimpeded.
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May 15, 2024 18:43
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The worst power would be telepathy without being able to block out all the thoughts you want to not hear. Like, imagine being even in a small town and having to hear everyones thoughts and you can't develop a way to block out the useless/bad stuff you are seeing.
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May 15, 2024 19:28
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I have the power to teleport by one stride at a time.
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May 15, 2024 19:32
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Mooseontheloose posted:The worst power would be telepathy without being able to block out all the thoughts you want to not hear. Like, imagine being even in a small town and having to hear everyones thoughts and you can't develop a way to block out the useless/bad stuff you are seeing. ... Psycho Mantis. That's literally Psycho Mantis. Well, okay, he also had telekinesis.
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May 15, 2024 19:38
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