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09/03/14 07:12 PM
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09/03/14 09:30 PM
Fenspace Moderatorand Registered User
Test log seventeen: I’ve filled six notebooks now with math and notes that I only dimly remember writing in the first place. It’s all workable... I think. It doesn’t resemble the sort of incoherent gibberish that I’d expect if I sleep-wrote it, or if I had been writing while stoned. The math is absurdly high-level, almost to the point of needing new notation, but it fits together. Research indicates that others around the world have been making similar discoveries in a similar dissociative state, something I find reassuring and troubling at the same time. Reassuring because I’m not the only one, troubling because at least one of these people has taken to riding a zeppelin of his own design around and calling himself “Baron Zorbo.” I fear that whatever force is driving my math might also drive more unusual instincts, but I suppose I can deal with that another day. Professor Newman has seen a carefully-selected sample of the equations backing today’s experiment and was impressed enough that he wanted to bring the Dean in. I’ve fended him off so far, but it won’t hold up forever. Publish or perish might be the mantra but damn everything I want positive experimental proof of the multiworld continuum before letting it get out...
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09/04/14 09:41 AM
Chief Screwball andLoon Wrangler
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09/04/14 04:16 PM
09/06/14 11:59 AM
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09/06/14 01:10 PM
Cobalt Greywalker wrote:More world-building time, but I want some opinions. What is Inspiration? What does it DO to a person? Given M Fnord’s opening, my initial thoughts are along the lines of a combination of telluric energy awareness (telluric currents being a real thing) and a Spark. Basically, when Inspiration hits the persons awareness of telluric energies kicks in. This triggers changes in the brain, causing a Spark of Genius focused on a concept/subject. That’s the standard package, so to speak. Those changes are how people can find out if they’re Inspired, taking a 10 min test with a helmet EEG and a telluric energy source. As said in the opener, more than a few people are Inspired. Most of them don’t even know they are Inspired, the effects of their Inspiration being subtle (in difference to someone like Deidre Griest, who’s Inspiration wasn’t at all subtle). An Inspired can push their limits far farther than other people through force of will and focus, much like champion athletes. They’ll pay for it, but during the period of focus they can keep going until they collapse. It’s the other side effects, what TvTropes calls Required Secondary Powers, where things get interesting. Let’s call them Tricks and Talents. Tricks are the really low-key, sort of useful, abilities. Talents are out and out Powers. These tend to be useful in the context of the Spark’s focus, and can sometimes be learnt if both the Spark’s focus and the existing tricks and talents the Inspired have are in the same ‘cluster’. E.g. the ‘Oracle’ cluster has pre, present, boosted, and post cognitive abilities. The changes to the brain during the First Flash of Inspiration give the person something of an inbuilt understanding of their subject. It’s not like other people can’t understand the Inspired’s subject as well as them, but the Inspired have a leg up. This DOES also mean that the Inspired’s thought processes are not quite human-normal anymore, but they can fake it fairly successfully. This tends to lead to the easiest Trick for the Inspired to learn, which is boosted cognition. Redistributing the focused intelligence of the Spark into a more general form, the Inspired normally get about ten points on their IQ score. The main limit is every trick and talent granted by Inspiration is a mental one, and not really an active one either. No super speed or strength, flight, healing, magery, etc… However, if you had the potential for such things you’d be extremely likely to awaken it.
-- Rob Kelk "Read Or Die: not so much a title as a way of life." - Justin Palmer, 6 June 2007
09/06/14 03:53 PM
09/06/14 09:44 PM
“Time travel within our own worldline, as opposed to sidestepping to historical echoes, seems to be if not impossible then at least well beyond our capabilities for now. And yet there are moments and flashes that suggest telluric energy is not as limited as we are. Inspiration echoes in all directions.” ~ Deidre Griest, The Axis of Infinity
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09/27/14 06:01 PM
My Unitarian Jihad Name is: Brother Atom Bomb of Courteous Debate. Get yours. I've been writing a bit.
09/27/14 06:20 PM
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