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jollyjack β Vicky's Powers Explained
Published: 2013-11-15 11:05:42 +0000 UTC; Views: 47867; Favourites: 878; Downloads: 712
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Description
To answer an oft posed question.
(Gotta love faux-science)
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Comments: 197
so as she uses her powers she promotes entropy at a massive level?
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Man, that Dr. Schneider, what a party pooper. How old was she when that note was added (My copy of the the first comic is at home, so I don't recall the date when the story takes place)
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She would have been 16/17.
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Parenting teenagers with powers must be so much fun. :}
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I adore stuff like this~
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Would have to be grounded, spankings I believe would not really work on a superhero. Β
Love the description of her power. Super powers are great, but when there is defined sources and limits it starts adding on a new dynamic I think.Β
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I so wanna see that party trick. It would be awesome for an astronomy class
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I'm sure someone else has already pointed it out, but under Limitations, on the first line, you've got "effect is has". Judging by the context I'm assuming that's meant to be an "it"?
Interesting read. Can't wait to read the comics.
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Yeah. Lots of typos were in there. Missed that one.
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Are there other sectors Β that contain people with unique gifts in them other than gold sector?
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Faux-science: the best kind! (Seriously, when is real science gonna get on the ball and catch up with faux-science?)
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Aaaah, the magic of technobabble, perfected ala' Star Trek.
"Data, if we blahbbity-blahbbity the beepity-boppity, will they go boomity-boomity?"
"Yes, Captain, that should work! As long as it doesn't go homina-homina, we should achieve boom-boom!"
It's like a self-contained Nerdgasm. XD
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Ohhhhhh! NOW I see! Well, that takes care of it all then! Thanks!!
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I've seen more impractical than that.
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capes can kill ya if there caught in the middle of a jet engine.
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Now, all she needs is an SCP nomenclature.
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Ooh, better not let this info fall into the wrong hands.
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I'm liking this faux science stuff
encore
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false mass? couldn't she use this as a gravimetric generator and pull objects to her?
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She could, but it would have catastrophic effects on the true mass around her.
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I really love the note at the bottom "She does this again indoors and she's grounded." 
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I love this kind of SCIENCE! as well. So it basically means that she can manipulate gravity and fire plasma energy?
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The redaction... its like reading a Keter article...
Cool explanation though, soft science for the win!
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Now I want to see the miniature solar system. T_T
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I wonder just how much damage Vicky caused when she last tried her 'solar system model' trick?
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Cool. Who ever grounds her must have a lot of balls.
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What does "false mass" mean in this context?
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Easiest way to put it: "She can create a force feild."
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But what does that have to do with "false mass"? How does "false mass" differ from "real" mass?
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It's hard to explain without giving away story-related secrets.
"True" mass is physical matter. "False" mass is the effect of physical matter, minus the matter.
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Buuuuut, matter isn't mass. Mass is a form of energy; it's what gives matter inertia. Even a photon of light has mass, despite not being matter; it's just an exceedingly tiny amount. Mass without matter is no different from mass with matter, so their's nothing false about it. Plus, if your "false mass" comes from the plasma Vicky generates, plasma is physical matter, so by your distinction it's mass is true, not false. You might want to consider dark energy as your source. Unlike plasma, it really is invisible; enough of it can generate a strong gravitational field; and it can be used to produce plasma by ionizing the atmosphere.
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I was using the definition of "mass" from Newtonian physics, which is used to represent an amount of matter......I was also writing fiction
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Okay, we realize you have no reason to take what we say seriously. But how about SciFi/Fantasy author Poul Anderson?
On Thud and Blunder
His essay on the technical mistakes writers make that are preventable by doing a little research. He targets heroic fantasy, but his lesson is applicable to all genres, even superhero fiction.
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Yeah, but, fiction -- even science fiction and fantasy -- must follow a set of rules. You can choose any rules you want, but they hafta make sense. "Little Victory" seems to be set in a universe that follows the same physical laws as our own, so those are the rules it must adhere to. You can invent "new" laws that allow you to circumvent existing laws, but the new laws cannot contradict the existing laws. Otherwise you might as well say that Vicky's powers derive from magic.
As for Newton, he also defined gravity as the mutual attraction of two bodies, and we now know that, while that statement is superficially true, it's far from accurate. Someone once asked Newton what gravity was and how it worked. He replied, "I will not hypothesize." By which he meant he would not speculate about things he couldn't test. As such, his definitions were just descriptions based on his observationas. Einstein established that mass is a form of energy and gravity the distortion of space-time caused by mass. These definitions, and the theory behind them, are now part of modern physics. Meanwhile, the Higgs boson explains how and why matter accummulates mass; we just need to verify it really exists.
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Since you deserve a reply of equal magnitude to your own, let me oblige.
Countering your sciency answer with the appropriate dose of faux science:
There is a whole SLEW of approaches to writing (S)Fiction.
Lucky for us, there is a convenient resource that can clear up your dispute: TV Tropes.
tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php⦠(Disclaimer: I will in no way be responsible for all the time lost venturing down that rabbit hole. Proceed at your own risk.)
You are assuming a world that subscribes to "Minovsky Physics" or stricter, which would put you at a score of about 4+.
What JJ was trying to explain is that you are looking at a max score of 2.
And now for some REAL SCIENCE, just to show you we can do that too in the same frame of mind without our heads exploding:
1. The existence Higgs boson has already been verified to a high degree of statistical certainty. Since a while now. So much so, that some real physicists are actually willing to entertain the sentence "Yes, we've found it." Now it even has its own awkward little corner in the graphic to the official wiki article of the standard model.
2. MOST of the mass of ordinary (fermionic) matter does NOT actually come from the higgs mechanism. Instead it stems from the most famous equation of all physics. Determining which one it is shall be left as an exercise for the astute reader.
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Well, that's even better then. She's already been shown to project energy. If she can somehow convert that energy into the effects of large amounts of mass being in the area, by rearranging the aforementioned equation so M is the focus, not E, or however you'd do it (working off a high-school maths/physics education here)...then that sort of makes sense. Ish.
The only thing I can't work out is...where does the speed of light come in?
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You're missing the point. JollyJack is not giving a "soft" SF explanation -- "she just does it; who cares how?" -- and we're not trying to force him to take a "hard" approach.
He's actually giving a "hard" explanation -- "she generates plasma that creates false mass that creates a gravity field" -- and we're pointing out that his science is some 300 years out of date.
It's as if he's trying to explain that the Tianhe-2 supercomputer works by using a Babbage machine mechanical system of wheels and gears programmed by punch cards, instead of tens of thousands of processors running in parallel.
We weren't aware that the Higgs boson had been confirmed. Thanks for telling us!
But, E=mc^2 doesn't tell you how mass is created; it just identifies mass is a form of energy and gives you a way to measure it. In other words, it describes the effect of mass, not its origin. With confirmation of the Higgs field, we now know that mass is created by interaction with that field. It's been likened to a room full of sports fans, who allow unknown athletes to pass through unhindered, but congregate around famous athletes and slow their passage.
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