Fee-Fi-Fo-Fum, Form smells a Random Banter #235

[Lord Raziere]

The idea of starting out as some smol tiny critter that grows more powerful through effort and periodically metamorphosing into her forms as power increases until finally ending up reverted to humanoid form appeals to me.

This should be surprising to no one.

So...... you want to a Final Fantasy final boss? because thats basically what you'd be.

[Peelee]

So...... you want to a Final Fantasy final boss? because thats basically what you'd be.

Well, without the metamorphosis it just kind of describes a standard human.

[Rater202]

So...... you want to a Final Fantasy final boss? because thats basically what you'd be.

A final fatasy boss starts powerful and cycles throughfors as phases in response to either undergoing somekind of ritual, sef experimentation, or a power melt down.

I was thinking something more like a Digimon.

Spoiler: Example Lineage

Show

Imges are not on the same scale.

Those are all the same organism at different stages in its life cycle... Kinda. I had to make a bit of an assumption at one point and there are actually a lot of ways some of those forms can go.

Bit of trivia, despite being smaller, more humanoid, and more streamlined, the last form is canonically slower and heavier than the one before it. Less armor allows for more agility and a more durable armor makes for a better defense despite having less, but the heavier metal cuts down on overall speed.

[Anonymouswizard]

My new favourite meaningless advertising phrase: "most scientifically researched".

I can scientifically research whether or not diluting aspirin until it's just water causes you pain for twenty years. It doesn't mean that when I seem it as a pain induction method that it actually works.

[Form]

A final fatasy boss starts powerful and cycles throughfors as phases in response to either undergoing somekind of ritual, sef experimentation, or a power melt down.

Coming of age rituals, stuff people do in high school and college and then the midlife crisis. Huh, I guess humans really are like final fantasy bosses.

[Rater202]

Coming of age rituals, stuff people do in high school and college and then the midlife crisis. Huh, I guess humans really are like final fantasy bosses.

Okay, I get we're joking, but humans do not become more powerful with age or effort.

They can grow physically stronger, or acquire metaphorical power, but no amount of pushups, sit-ups, jumping jacks, or squat trusts is going to let you fly exhale a continuous stream of ultradense plasma and being really good at your job isn't going to make you live forever.

Nor do humans go through drastic physical changes as a result of acquiring power: The most drastic thing that happens is you get bigger and lankier for the first two decades of your life, then five years later you start getting steadily weaker at a slow but steadily increasing rate.

Humans do not turn into monsters as a result of any actions they perform.

Being human is not like being a final fantasy boss, nor is it like what I was talking about.

[Form]

Okay, I get we're joking, but humans do not become more powerful with age or effort.

They can grow physically stronger, or acquire metaphorical power, but no amount of pushups, sit-ups, jumping jacks, or squat trusts is going to let you fly exhale a continuous stream of ultradense plasma and being really good at your job isn't going to make you live forever.

Our final form is admittedly pretty lame.

Nor do humans go through drastic physical changes as a result of acquiring power: The most drastic thing that happens is you get bigger and lankier for the first two decades of your life, then five years later you start getting steadily weaker at a slow but steadily increasing rate.

Humans do not turn into monsters as a result of any actions they perform.

Being human is not like being a final fantasy boss, nor is it like what I was talking about.

Yes, if you over-analyze a tangential joke and treat it as if it were a serious comment it will invariably fall apart and, as when dissecting a frog, it will die in the process.

[Rater202]

Yes, if you over-analyze a tangential joke and treat it as if it were a serious comment it will invariably fall apart and, as when dissecting a frog, it will die in the process.

...If your school made you vivisect a life frog then it sucked worse than mine.

[Anonymouswizard]

...If your school made you vivisect a life frog then it sucked worse than mine.

I'm still annoyed I never got to vivisect a dead one. Stupid word definitions.

[Metastachydium]

I'm still annoyed I never got to vivisect a dead one. Stupid word definitions.

You are bad and you should feel bad.

[Peelee]

Okay, I get we're joking, but humans do not become more powerful with age or effort.

Sure they do. They just don't get magical powers, which you seen too think was implied by "more powerful" but was not.

[Rater202]

Sure they do. They just don't get magical powers, which you seen too think was implied by "more powerful" but was not.

I did include a clarifying statement in the post you quoted from.

They can grow physically stronger, or acquire metaphorical power, but...

I consider "power" unqualified to be separate from "physical might," "experience," or "temporal power*" As I said in the post you're quoting from, humans can get stronger with age or by putting in the effort, but humans don't really have any "power."

*wealth, social status ect.

An electric eal's ability to generate bioelectricity in excess of what ti's body needs to function via certain specialized cells and then emit the current into the sounding water to kill or stun prey? That's power. Energy is being collected or generated and used to do something beyond the base physical abilities of the body.

And while we're at it, even things like strength, skill, knowledge, and social status aren't directly tied to age or effort. Two people who both weigh 50 pounds above their ideal weight while having little muscle tone could go on similar diets and perform similar routines of cardio, calisthenics, and weight training and one will probably get better results han the other due to genetic, physiological, chemical, or environmental factors.

And some people can work their ass off studying and not retain crap because their brains aren't wired to retain information that way. If they can't find, or aren't allowed to use, an alternate means of learning then they're only going to get marginal results from exceptional effort.

[Peelee]

I did include a clarifying statement in the post you quoted from.

I consider "power" unqualified to be separate from "physical might," "experience," or "temporal power*" As I said in the post you're quoting from, humans can get stronger with age or by putting in the effort, but humans don't really have any "power."

First off, when I made the "that's humans" comment, you hadn't. Second, what you personally consider words to mean is irrelevant to what most people generally accept words to mean. Third, humans do gain "power". We can cross oceans and soar through the air. We can travel to other cestial bodies. We can cure and inflict disease. We can split the atom and wreacl untold devastation. We can irradiated the land such that no life can exist.

We started with sticks and stones. We are currently talking to each other via boxes filled with sand and lightning. If you do not consider that power, that's your own thing.

[Rater202]

First off, when I made the "that's humans" comment, you hadn't.

Irrelvant, I'd made the clarification by the time you decide to challenge me on the meaning of "power.

Second, what you personally consider words to mean is irrelevant to what most people generally accept words to mean. Third, humans do gain "power". We can cross oceans and soar through the air. We can travel to other cestial bodies. We can cure and inflict disease. We can split the atom and wreacl untold devastation. We can irradiated the land such that no life can exist.

We started with sticks and stones. We are currently talking to each other via boxes filled with sand and lightning. If you do not consider that power, that's your own thing.

We are not doing any of that.

We are using technology that does that for us. If I buy a boat ticket, I have not gained the power to cross the ocean. I just.. Walk to where the boat is, get on it, and the boat carries me across the ocean. I've barely done anything compared to what the boat is doing, what the crew are doing, what the manufacturers did.

Technology, tools, are created to compensate for lack of power. For our lack of ability. We started smashing things with rocks becuase we did not have the strength to smash them with our bare hands and lacked the ability to gain the strength or any power to compensate for that strength.

I would find a man running ten miles in ten minutes more impressive than a man in an electric scooter scooting the same distance.

And yes, it is impressive what kind of technology we've been able to make after hundreds of thousands of years of trial and effort... But not every individual human is capable of creating such great technology. Only the ones with the right combination of inherent aptitude, interest or need, and access to the necessary resources, so even if creating impressive technology was "power" it wouldn't be a power of humans, it would be a power of a select few humans who posess it more or less by random chance.

[DavidSh]

What's the phrase, "familiarity breeds contempt"? The amazing powers that humans generally develop are seen as not amazing by the sheer fact that humans generally develop them. If people could generally run a 1-minute mile, then this would not be seen as an amazing power.
I assert that language is an amazing power.
Being able to read and write is another amazing power.
Being able to throw rocks at things and actually hit them is fairly amazing.

[Rater202]

What's the phrase, "familiarity breeds contempt"? The amazing powers that humans generally develop are seen as not amazing by the sheer fact that humans generally develop them. If people could generally run a 1-minute mile, then this would not be seen as an amazing power.
I assert that language is an amazing power.
Being able to read and write is another amazing power.
Being able to throw rocks at things and actually hit them is fairly amazing.

No, those are amazing skills.

Power is the ability to consume, generate, or manipulate energy to achieve an effect.

An electrical grid has power because it generates energy. A battery has power because it stores energy. A lamp has power because it can take energy from the grid or from batteries and use it to generate light.

The only real power humans, most organisms really, have is the power to take energy from the environment and use it to not die.

[Metastachydium]

No, those are amazing skills.

Power is the ability to consume, generate, or manipulate energy to achieve an effect.

An electrical grid has power because it generates energy. A battery has power because it stores energy. A lamp has power because it can take energy from the grid or from batteries and use it to generate light.

The only real power humans, most organisms really, have is the power to take energy from the environment and use it to not die.

Um, no? Living organisms consume some kind of fuel (that stores energy), generate ATP or somesuch to carry it around and then use "manipulate" the energy to achieve an effect. In the case of humans, this effect might be moving the right muscles or processing information associated with those amazing skills mentioned above.

(Also, power has a multitude of meanings more abstract than "the amount of energy transferred or converted per unit of time".)

[Rater202]

Um, no? Living organisms consume some kind of fuel (that stores energy), generate ATP or somesuch to carry it around and then use the energy to achieve an effect. In the case of humans, this effect might be moving the right muscles or processing information associated with those amazing skills mentioned above.

Yes. We have a metabolism. We consume energy from our environment, store it, and use it to keep our bodies functioning. without that ability, we would not be able to do anything, we'd just sit still until eventually we decay away.

That is our only real "power."

[Metastachydium]

Yes. We have a metabolism. We consume energy from our environment, store it, and use it to keep our bodies functioning. without that ability, we would not be able to do anything, we'd just sit still until eventually we decay away.

That is our only real "power."

Again, speech or the ability to write or a good aim with a thrown rock use the energy we consume and store, but none of them are essential for keeping our body functioning.

[Form]

...If your school made you vivisect a life frog then it sucked worse than mine.

Nah, fortunately not. Come to think of it, does anyone know of a school that actually did that? With either live or dead frogs? I've encountered examples of it in fiction from time to time, but now that I think of it I can't recall any real life school that actually did this. Maybe they did in ye olde times?

[Anonymouswizard]

Nah, fortunately not. Come to think of it, does anyone know of a school that actually did that? With either live or dead frogs? I've encountered examples of it in fiction from time to time, but now that I think of it I can't recall any real life school that actually did this. Maybe they did in ye olde times?

I think my school did frogs at A-level (dear, obviously, so no vivisection), but I dropped biology after GCSE to focus on physics and maths (with a side of literature). I did get to do eyes and hearts though.

[Rater202]

Again, speech or the ability to write or a good aim with a thrown rock use the energy we consume and store, but none of them are essential for keeping our body functioning.

You're looking at it backward.

Those are things you can only do if the body is functioning. They consume bodily energy becuase they are functions of the body.

Throwing a punch is not power.

Consuming energy from the environment so that you are physically capable of doing so, however, is.

Now, if you could convert some of your metabolic energy to throw an extra-strong punch(as opposed to having to build up physical strength the hard way, or become more skilled at punching) beyond the bare minimum that's consumed by moving your body, then that would be a form of power.

[Form]

I think my school did frogs at A-level (dear, obviously, so no vivisection), but I dropped biology after GCSE to focus on physics and maths (with a side of literature). I did get to do eyes and hearts though.

I think I can now vaguely remember dissecting a cow's lung (or heart?) as part of our biology class. The memory is so distant I'm not really sure.

[halfeye]

Yes. We have a metabolism. We consume energy from our environment, store it, and use it to keep our bodies functioning. without that ability, we would not be able to do anything, we'd just sit still until eventually we decay away.

That is our only real "power."

How is e.g. Superman any different?

[Metastachydium]

You're looking at it backward.

Those are things you can only do if the body is functioning.

There's precious little you can do if the body isn't functioning.

They consume bodily energy becuase they are functions of the body.

I'm not sure many would agree that language is a function of the body.

Throwing a punch is not power.

Consuming energy from the environment so that you are physically capable of doing so, however, is.

Now, if you could convert some of your metabolic energy to throw an extra-strong punch(as opposed to having to build up physical strength the hard way, or become more skilled at punching) beyond the bare minimum that's consumed by moving your body, then that would be a form of power.

If your definition of power is "I can use the sun to punch you or it's not a power" or somesuch, then your definition of power is next to useless because of its limited applicability.

[dafrca]

Nah, fortunately not. Come to think of it, does anyone know of a school that actually did that? With either live or dead frogs? I've encountered examples of it in fiction from time to time, but now that I think of it I can't recall any real life school that actually did this. Maybe they did in ye olde times?

My High School did but I will only say that was several decades ago. LOL

[Rater202]

My school did cats, for the highest level bio-class.

I consciously chose not to take that class for obvious reasons. It honestly disturbs me that cats are available for dissection. Like, seriously, the ****?

A bio-med class I took involved dissecting sheep hearts, ut I got an alternate assignment because the smell of formaldehyde made me to nauseated to pay attention to what I was doing.

[Anonymouswizard]

Eh, there's too many cats. Dissecting them to teach people about biology is a noble cause.

[Form]

My school did cats, for the highest level bio-class.

I consciously chose not to take that class for obvious reasons. It honestly disturbs me that cats are available for dissection. Like, seriously, the ****?

Ugh, that wouldn't sit well with me either.

Eh, there's too many cats. Dissecting them to teach people about biology is a noble cause.

Well, yes, I suppose you are right.... but as a cat person I just can't imagine myself doing that.

[Metastachydium]

Eh, there's too many cats. Dissecting them to teach people about biology is a noble cause.

Preach it! Those Evil mass murderers deserve no better!