Random MetaBanter – Random Banter no. 236 (now with Flowers!)

[Qwertystop]

Because he's afraid.
Claustrophobic people know that the elevator isn't going to collapse on them. But they're still afraid.

And because, given that such things are real sometimes, it's probably safer to assume this one might be.

[Rater202]

It frustrates me that I can go on youtube and find hour-long videos going over ing of the Hill season by Season to provide a compelling, if obviously satirical, argument for why the main cast are all secretly godlike superhumans but I can't find a similar power scaling video for actual superhuman characters that don't have glaring gaps in what they cover.

[Fyraltari]

It frustrates me that I can go on youtube and find hour-long videos going over ing of the Hill season by Season to provide a compelling, if obviously satirical, argument for why the main cast are all secretly godlike superhumans but I can't find a similar power scaling video for actual superhuman characters that don't have glaring gaps in what they cover.

I suspect that's because the latter are inconsistent.

[Rater202]

I suspect that's because the latter are inconsistent.

For the sake of clarity, I am not talking about a comic book character here. I am talking about a television show with a finite number of episodes and a relatively small number of writers.

[Fyraltari]

For the sake of clarity, I am not talking about a comic book character here. I am talking about a television show with a finite number of episodes and a relatively small number of writers.

The precision is appreciated but the suspicion remains.

[BisectedBrioche]

I'll add this to my extended signature if that's okay with you.

Go for it!

[Rater202]

The precision is appreciated but the suspicion remains.

I guess.

I just find it annoying that I can find accurate information about a character's abilities in a video joking about them being much stronger.

...But then when I look for something serious about a different character from a different work I have to watch two different videos—one for strength, a low ball of toughness, and movement speed, one for energy powers, combat speed, and a high ball measurement of toughness—one of which I don't trust 100% to be fully impartial, and one doesn't talk about half his powers, the other one gives half-assed non-answers for them.

Edit: White chocolate might not be real chocolate, but it's still delicious. I need to look up if there are any candies that include both white chocolate and dark chocolate and if so, if there are any being sold in my area.

[Keltest]

I guess.

I just find it annoying that I can find accurate information about a character's abilities in a video joking about them being much stronger.

...But then when I look for something serious about a different character from a different work I have to watch two different videos—one for strength, a low ball of toughness, and movement speed, one for energy powers, combat speed, and a high ball measurement of toughness—one of which I don't trust 100% to be fully impartial, and one doesn't talk about half his powers, the other one gives half-assed non-answers for them.

Edit: White chocolate might not be real chocolate, but it's still delicious. I need to look up if there are any candies that include both white chocolate and dark chocolate and if so, if there are any being sold in my area.

I suspect it comes down to the effort involved. For obvious joke videos, they dont need to hold up to much scrutiny because theyre transparently not meant to be actually correct and fully consistent, even if sometimes they coincidentally are. For a serious power rating, you have to do a lot more work and give a lot more detail, and that assumes youre working with something internally consistent, which many media on that scale is not.

[dafrca]

It frustrates me that I can go on youtube and find hour-long videos going over ing of the Hill season by Season to provide a compelling, if obviously satirical, argument for why the main cast are all secretly godlike superhumans but I can't find a similar power scaling video for actual superhuman characters that don't have glaring gaps in what they cover.

Not trying to be sarcastic, but why not make the video yourself then. I know two people who did just that. They realized something they liked was missing and went for it.

[Rater202]

Not trying to be sarcastic, but why not make the video yourself then. I know two people who did just that. They realized something they liked was missing and went for it.

1: I lack the equipment.

2: I lack the technical know-how.

3: I lack the knowledge of some of the relevant science needed to calculate, for example, how much energy it would take to conjure enough water ex nhilo to encase an adult human male in a layer of solid ice.

[dafrca]

1: I lack the equipment.

2: I lack the technical know-how.

3: I lack the knowledge of some of the relevant science needed to calculate, for example, how much energy it would take to conjure enough water ex nhilo to encase an adult human male in a layer of solid ice.

Equipment can be obtained, technical know-how can be learned, it is #3 that stops me dead in my tracks.

[Lord Raziere]

1: I lack the equipment.

2: I lack the technical know-how.

3: I lack the knowledge of some of the relevant science needed to calculate, for example, how much energy it would take to conjure enough water ex nhilo to encase an adult human male in a layer of solid ice.

Well.

Law of Conservation of Energy says that energy cannot be created or destroyed.

So. scientifically speaking, infinity. Because it can't happen. no amount of energy suddenly makes water exist where there wasn't water.

now if your talking about converting energy into matter, and that matter specifically being H20, and that H20 being frozen, well the hardest part is figuring out how you convert energy into matter in the first place. because we know that energy and matter are on some level equivalent, due to E=mc2. the simplest method of creating matter theoretically I can find is smashing two photons together and what articles I'm seeing those experiments are still underway to figure out how to do it, involving high powered lasers, one of them 1000 times the energy of light from a normal photon and the other 1,000,000,000 the energy.

so.......whatever amount that is. maybe-probably-theoretically. but probably more because those aren't done with making enough matter to use for encasing a man in ice in mind, and thats not taking into account that we don't what matter would turn out from that, if I had to guess it probably be hydrogen but who knows, so there is probably additional energy needed to make sure the molecules are arranged into H20 specifically, as well as the energy needed to hold the water in a certain shape and place. The tricky part is freezing it, because thats technically taking energy out, and to change 1kg of water into ice you'd need to take 334,000 joules of energy out of it. so its get complicated because your technically subtracting energy at the end here.

so um......probably a lot? this is cutting edge stuff, your not going to get a straight answer for a while. I can however say at a guess that it probably takes more energy to do this than just firing a bullet or tranq dart at them, and so is impractical compared to a gun.

[Form]

1: I lack the equipment.

2: I lack the technical know-how.

So.... make a 'bad' video? Or go audio-only and make a podcast? Only if you want to, of course. It doesn't have to be good if you just want to have fun with it.

3: I lack the knowledge of some of the relevant science needed to calculate, for example, how much energy it would take to conjure enough water ex nhilo to encase an adult human male in a layer of solid ice.

I wouldn't go the hard science route with superpower stuff. It still won't make any sense and you'll just give yourself a headache basically trying to ram a square peg into a round hole. I don't see how a hard science approach is going to add anything here.

[Anonymouswizard]

Do you want another Death Battle? This is the route to another Death Battle.

[factotum]

The problem with directly converting energy to matter, apart from the whole "impossible as far as the laws of the physics currently agreed on are concerned" thing, is the sheer amount of energy involved. That c^2 term in the famous equation is a big, BIG number--to give an approximate example, the entire amount of electricity generated in the UK in the year 2019 (323.7 TWh) would be sufficient to create about 13g of matter, assuming your process is 100% efficient. That's not a lot!

[BisectedBrioche]

In other words, as big as you'd expect "the speed of light squared" to be.

[Anonymouswizard]

The problem with directly converting energy to matter, apart from the whole "impossible as far as the laws of the physics currently agreed on are concerned" thing, is the sheer amount of energy involved. That c^2 term in the famous equation is a big, BIG number--to give an approximate example, the entire amount of electricity generated in the UK in the year 2019 (323.7 TWh) would be sufficient to create about 13g of matter, assuming your process is 100% efficient. That's not a lot!

Yeah. Whatever the numbers are on the volume of air you'd need to condense the amount of water were talking about are, the numbers needed to generate that matter from energy are significantly higher.

On the other hand fiction generally throws ludicrous amounts of energy around, such as spaceships accelerating at 1+g for extended periods (and sometimes at over 10g). I'd fully believe that some character's effective energy output is in the pettawatts.

[Bartmanhomer]

Hey everyone. I don't know if I mention this before but I'm Superman.

[Mystic Muse]

Peelee, you're the Silver Age Superman expert. Does Bartmanhomer line up with any versions of Superman you can think of?

[Fyraltari]

Hey everyone. I don't know if I mention this before but I'm Superman.

That's not possible, you wear glasses and he doesn't.

[Bartmanhomer]

That's not possible, you wear glasses and he doesn't.

Yes, he does.

[Peelee]

Peelee, you're the Silver Age Superman expert. Does Bartmanhomer line up with any versions of Superman you can think of?

Psh. I'm fairly confident that Bartmanhomer has never decided to ally with a race of giant alien ants invading the earth.

[Bartmanhomer]

Psh. I'm fairly confident that Bartmanhomer has never decided to ally with a race of giant alien ants invading the earth.

Well I'm at the side of good not evil.

[Mystic Muse]

Psh. I'm fairly confident that Bartmanhomer has never decided to ally with a race of giant alien ants invading the earth.

Yeah, but I can see him making Jimmy Olsen marry a Gorilla because he thinks it's funny.

[Form]

I'm corporate wage slave man with the power to work all day, be a dull boy and make my corporate masters rich.

Psh. I'm fairly confident that Bartmanhomer has never decided to ally with a race of giant alien ants invading the earth.

I, for one, welcome our new insect overlords.

[Peelee]

Yeah, but I can see him making Jimmy Olsen marry a Gorilla because he thinks it's funny.

Or burn all the presents Jimmy Olsen got him for being shoddy worksmanship any regret ever adopting Jimmy.

I'm corporate wage slave man with the power to work all day, be a dull boy and make my corporate masters rich.



I, for one, welcome our new insect overlords.

Then good news! You saved the earth. Apparently. Bartmanhomer would have killed us all, showing that he is probably not Superman.

[Form]

Then good news! You saved the earth. Apparently. Bartmanhomer would have killed us all, showing that he is probably not Superman.

My corporate insectoid masters are pleased that I have safeguarded their source of profit, I'm sure. Hurrah.

[Rater202]

So.... make a 'bad' video? Or go audio-only and make a podcast? Only if you want to, of course. It doesn't have to be good if you just want to have fun with it.

equipment in this case includes something capable of making an audio recording.

I wouldn't go the hard science route with superpower stuff. It still won't make any sense and you'll just give yourself a headache basically trying to ram a square peg into a round hole. I don't see how a hard science approach is going to add anything here.

That was an extreme example with the answer probably being "the animator didn't realize that there's no ambient moisture in outer space" but my point stands at "character has somewhat versatile ice powers but I don't know what exactly th elicits are, gee it would sure be nice if someone did a power analysis video and... Okay, why are there only two and why does one ignore his ice powers entirely and the other not really cover them beyond that they exist?"

[Lord Raziere]

That was an extreme example with the answer probably being "the animator didn't realize that there's no ambient moisture in outer space" but my point stands at "character has somewhat versatile ice powers but I don't know what exactly th elicits are, gee it would sure be nice if someone did a power analysis video and... Okay, why are there only two and why does one ignore his ice powers entirely and the other not really cover them beyond that they exist?"

I mean most of the time, one guy's ice power is little different from any other ice user's powers in comic books.

most of them default to "iceman/frozone" set where they get around by faux-snowboarding around on created ice slides and freezing stuff by firing it out of their hands as a form of restraint, maybe some water control, also they're appearance is incredibly icelike for some reason. not really all that interesting because its probably generic, widely known, you can figure out what they can do easily just by going out on a snow day. its useful because you don't NEED to explain it, because its a super-easy concept to get, so everyone can follow what that person is doing. and the heroes are limited in certain ways because they can't show off the more lethal aspects of their powers, your never going to get an ice hero firing sharp spikes at people like a machine gun or whatever because heroic good superheroes don't kill, and you can pass off the freezing as not being lethal even though thats probably not how it works (hello gangrene, hypothermia, frozen limbs shattering etc.)

so your not going to generate any discussion about them, because what is there to discuss? its cryokinesis, most people just get what it is by looking at it.

its when a character like Haku from Naruto comes along and does that lightspeed ice mirror trick is when you get interest, because its something you wouldn't normally think to do that with ice, and thus what no average person would think of when saying "this is an ice ninja" because I guarantee you, that ice mirror trick isn't what anyone would think of, they'd think Haku would throw ice shuriken and have freezing poison on them or something if they've never seen Naruto (and even the ice poison thing might be highballing peoples expectations a bit). that requires explanation and discussion.

like even Avatar does the powers kind of generic for ease of understanding, what makes them stand out is that they require martial arts to do them well while someone like iceman holds out their hand and blasts which while simpler is also less interesting, and that they're used on a societal level to do things one superhero doesn't have the time for.

So you'd have to have a reason why your discussing this persons ice powers and what makes them interesting. because if its just generic ice powers, well....we know what those do without explanation, no need to detail them.

[Rater202]

So you'd have to have a reason why your discussing this persons ice powers and what makes them interesting. because if its just generic ice powers, well....we know what those do without explanation, no need to detail them.

A few years ago I was having a discussion and the idea of "you get inserted into *superhero universe* with the powers of any hero who isn't from that universe and isn't from one of the big two(Marvel and DC)"

If I have to pick just one hero to have the powers of and Marvel and DC aren't options my go too is Danny Phantom(from the Nick cartoon)

Superhuman strength, speed, toughness, implicit accelerated healing, invisibility, intangibility, flight, the ability to reshape the body to avoid damage or become more aerodynamic, energy blasts that can be fired from any part of his body, force fields, a combination of energy blast/sonic weapon, self-duplication to create up to four independently active bodies that all have his full power, and Ice Powers which include

1: Passively chilling his innards in the presence of supernatural phenomena, causing him to reflex gasp and breath out mist and thus alerting him to the phenomena.

2: Generating an aura of freezing cold energy that kills plants and enchases matter in ice.

3: Freeze Rays fired from hands and eyes(possibly from other parts of his body) that encase anything they hit in ice.

4: Conjuring ice shards, crystals, or snowballs for use as projectiles

5: Charging snowballs he conjures with his normal energy to create grenades.

And then I realized that I had no idea how powerful he actually was.

Some stuff I can find, and some stuff is pretty easy to guess, but I can't find anyone talking about how his ice powers stack up.