Random Questions Thread

@ Trainbarrel:

That does sound like a more believable alternative, so I may go with some variation of that. Honestly the only important thing with these characters is the scene directly following the "car panic" in which they all meet a pretty nasty "offscreen" death so I'm all for changing the proceeding events if it makes the story more realistic.

I've a few questions.

• I first want to ask about methods of organ movements and euthanasia for magic organ traffickers. The core idea here being something akin to Prometheus's punishment and regrowing organs to harvest for malefic means
  • Relatedly I want to ask for reasons why the organs would degrade after using the methods on the same body because I want it to be unviable for permanent organ harvesting and inhumane besides. Preferably rooted in biology.
• The next question would be about how to describe goth outfits without leaning on all black palettes
• Finally I want to ask about reasons why suspiciously empty buildings are placed under security without tipping the hat in universe. Namely, mafia security. This is because those abandoned buildings would be where the harvesting takes place.

Edited by MorningStar1337 on May 7th 2024 at 8:00:34 AM

To the first:

Forgive me if you've described this previously, but could you tell us a bit about your setting's magic system please? The methods may depend on the magic.

For a relatively-generic answer I could see sleep-spells being used as anaesthetic, and perhaps memory-wipes being used not to dull pain, but to erase the memory of it.

~

To the second:

My knowledge of goth is, I fear, limited, so take the following with a pinch of salt and let others weigh in!

That said, my best understanding is that goth style focusses on relatively-dark colours, and/or on relatively-morbid subject matter.

Black is, of course, a classic "dark colour"—but there are also dark shades of purple, blue, green, etc.

As to morbid subject matter, let your imagination go wild! Skull pins, crow-skull earrings, coffin hair-berets.

(I think that there's also some overlap with "Lolita" fashion, so there may additionally be bows and suchlike—just in keeping with the above-described style.)

~

To the third:

I mean, would the reason why not just be that there is trafficking taking place there, and thus the mafia don't want people nosing about or wandering in?

Unless you were asking for the manner in which they'd place such security...?

If so, then again, this might depend on the magic available. Invisibility spells, unseen alarm wards, juju packets buried under entranceways, and other things besides may be available, depending on the magic.

For more-mundane means, I'd suggest looking for locations that allow one to observe without being likely to be observed in turn. Places with dark glass, or small apertures, or obfuscating patterns, etc.—or that can be reworked discretely to be so.

That said, others may have other ideas!

Edited by ArsThaumaturgis on May 7th 2024 at 8:33:48 PM

ah sorry for vagueness.

The thing is that I was looking more for effects as I want to keep things soft/vague. But the idea here was to use a spell to force the organ to regrow. A perversion of advanced medical arts basically.

For the second I'll keep that in mind though I am going with a brighter pallet for obscuration purposes.

(Gothic Lolita is somewhat different from general Gothic fashion imo. Granted that might be because I get the latter confused with more "punk rock" aesthetics)

For the third I am looking into the manner here. My tentative idea is concealed security and "Glamour" to disguise/cloak the sites from prying eyes.

Ah, sorry in turn—it seems that I misread or misread "euthanasia" as "anaesthesia"! ^^;

As to the magic, fair enough! Vague it is!

Euthanasia might be done with a generic death-spell, perhaps.

Regrowth, it occurs to me, might be done via localised healing spell. Essentially the same thing that might be done for, say, a wound—just directed specifically at a specific organ.

As to preventing overuse... Hmm... I could see a number of ways for that to be. You said that you wanted it to be rooted in biology, so what about the following?

Regarding Goth fashion, one more thing that I might add is to direct you to Wikipedia's article on the matter.

Would a brighter palette work with a Goth style...?

Regarding security, it sounds like you have an idea of what you want. Is there anything specific that you're uncertain about...?

Keeping it clandestine enough to prevent cops from investigating while still allowing for rumors that would lead the protagonist to the right place, namely.

As well as escape prevention before that point.

Edited by MorningStar1337 on May 7th 2024 at 12:30:32 PM

I mean, it sounds like you have that already?

hmm. in hindsight, I did. sorry about that.

Not at all! Sometimes we don't know what we have until someone points it out. ^_^

How realistic would it be for a nation's navy to look at one relatively standard battlecruiser and go "Let's take that thing and make it scary as hell." In other words, how realistic would it be for a nation's navy to take one of their standard, currently commissioned battleships and use it as a testbed for their more powerful ship-mounted weapons?

I'd say very, but I'm not a navel engineer so I don't know what would cause them to pass over such vessel otherwise, let alone any better alternatives besides maybe the dreadnoughts or submarines.

I suppose the other factor is to try to pass the souped up cruiser off as standard as an intimidation tactic, but that would require a lot of luck to pull it off without the opponent peeling back the curtain.

Edited by MorningStar1337 on May 7th 2024 at 7:50:03 AM

Probably should've clarified that this is a sci-fi setting, so it's in the context of a Standard Sci-Fi Fleet.

It depends what exactly you have in mind, but it's unlikely, I think, for at least two (engineering) reasons.

One, retrofitting is expensive, and there are likely to be parts of the ship that impede systems they might like to install but can't be easily moved; it'd be far more practical to design a designated testbed ship with a certain amount of modularity so that it's more practical to swap out its systems.

(One B, "more practical" doesn't necessarily mean "practical". Naval engineering demands efficient use of space and power, which requires components to be tightly interconnected in their layout; this is antithetical to modularity as a design principle. And many of those components are very large. A ship designed to regularly install new equipment and function equally well with any of them will also function equally poorly, and certainly worse than a vessel made to have specific features.)

Two, and this one depends more on whether I correctly understand what you have in mind, experimental weapons are not actually necessarily going to be scary as hell - that's why they're still experimental, they have bugs to work out or turn out to be too logistically impractical to use. It may be worth having a ship for that, but not at the expense of taking a perfectly good one out of service.

Edited by Noaqiyeum on May 7th 2024 at 4:13:48 PM

Hm. Alright. The ISCS Normandy's fear factor might just boil down to her possession of an insanely coordinated crew then. I'll probably make a line of testbed ships or ships manufactured exclusively for a certain new technology.

Thanks, you've been a huge help.

Edited by viridianskyes on May 7th 2024 at 10:18:20 AM

How exactly would someone react in the following situation, in terms of their psychological/personality state?

I once asked a question before about two characters named Miri and Sala. Miri and Sala were lovers who knew each other since childhood, and when Miri was killed during a genocide of their people, Sala broke down due to the trauma of the entire situation and became Miri. She took on her personality, her fighting skills, her overall nature and even appropriated some of her memories as her own.

However later on Sala regains her sense of self via an antagonist giving her the "gift of clarity" via Mind Rape. What I wonder is, how would Sala act now that she knows who she truly is, but has memories of acting as Miri for years at this point, having become quite a powerful and fearsome warrior in her own right?

I don't tend to do memory loss plots, so I really am largely at a loss to describe how she would progress in terms of her actions and mindset at this point.

"Smear her colors out".

In other word, have the two identities, formerly distinct, now start blending together like having two painted glass windows put on top of one another, allowing both motifs to clash against each other in its disjointed union.

See things from both identities perspectives, which is different just enough to cause friction between each other as they try to make sense of it.

things like that.

They are both one yet two and they both exists at the same place and the same time, causing some rather serious disagreements between the two.

Edited by Trainbarrel on May 8th 2024 at 4:18:18 PM

@ Trainbarrel:

So, sort of like a less smooth Split-Personality Merge? That could work. I do want the person who is "in control" to be distinctly Sala, but I can see that even when regaining most of herself and her old memories, she's done too much as Miri—-or at least her version of Miri—to really ever let go of that "side" of herself. It's become a way of moving through the world, a way of memorializing her friend and lover and to be honest, a "security blanket" of sorts.

Alternatively, she could begin to view Miri as a spirit guide of sorts and eventually hallucinate her presence at her side at all times.

@ C105:

Thanks for the suggestion. That could work too; perhaps a complex situation in which sometimes she "sees" Miri or memories of her experiences, that guide her into combining Miri's sword-skills/moves with her own style.

...It might be a little awkward eventually since Sala does start a relationship with another person, but then again that could add to the tragedy of things.

Does anyone know of a particularly good way to carry a body? Not a dead one per se, but one that may as well be at this point in the story.

In Part 1 of my story, my main character and his vampire girlfriend are being chased by werewolves in a historic area of their town. The place is definitely inhabited by humans, but this happens in the late night to early morning hours when few people are around.

Due to the sun rising, the vampire in the duo becomes unable to function—-in this story vampires are not only burned by the sun, but its presence also completely incapacitates them meaning that they slip into a comatose state even if they're hidden away from its light.

I'm trying to think of a way the main character can transport her completely limp body while also trying to stay ahead of the pursuing enemies. He doesn't really have a chance of outrunning them, it's more evasion and hiding while transporting her.

Edited by Swordofknowledge on May 9th 2024 at 12:34:02 PM

Standard Female Grab Area perhaps?

That kinda requires them to be standing though; unless you're just suggesting they grab her by the upper arm.

I was thinking more along the lines of holding her body over his shoulder.

Edit: misread the request, sorry.

Edited by MorningStar1337 on May 9th 2024 at 12:27:57 PM

An Over-the-Shoulder Carry probably makes the most sense for someone in a hurry. A Bridal Carry doesn't give you much in the way of mobility.

History question: Are there real-life examples of propaganda video games?