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

[Mystic Muse]

I never understood that episode. Seriously how could Yugi get a monster with infinity beyond infinity attack points?

Technically speaking, there are different degrees of infinity, and some infinities are larger than others.

This does not however change that the resolution is literally out of an argument one would have with a 5-year old, is in no way satisfying, and ultimately is irrelevant to the resolution. It's a bad fanfic ending that somehow made it to TV.

[Bartmanhomer]

Technically speaking, there are different degrees of infinity, and some infinities are larger than others.

This does not however change that the resolution is literally out of an argument one would have with a 5-year old, is in no way satisfying, and ultimately is irrelevant to the resolution. It's a bad fanfic ending that somehow made it to TV.

But it is still infinity anyway at the end of the day.

[Fyraltari]

She means with regards to overall quality wise.

If you want an actual summery I can Do That, if you want.

Or he could watch Yu-Gi-Oh abridged.

But it is still infinity anyway at the end of the day.

And infinity not being a number one can't have infinity points of anything.

[factotum]

And infinity not being a number one can't have infinity points of anything.

Which is why real card games (e.g. MtG) where an infinite loop is possible require you to specify the number of times you're going to play through them...of course, you don't actually have to play every single loop you specify, so any stupidly high number is likely to work for your purposes.

[Tvtyrant]

My math is bad, but I thought infinity was a set of all the things being counted, where there is an infinite number of things. Having more then an infinity is having a wider set of infinite numbers, like you have infinite integers but also infinite divisions between each integer. You can have an infinite universe within an infinite number of universes as a real version of that.

[Fyraltari]

So lately, I've been consoling myself of my unability to play Deathloop, by buying and playing the first Dishonored. Excellent game that scratches my Arkane itch, am currently playing through the DLC.

However, I've made the mistake of watching its trailers on YouTube, and now I'm being recommanded reviews of Deathloop and I just want to play it even more.

Frustrating.

[Form]

Alright, I've finished China Miéville's Iron Council and with that read through the Bas-Lag cycle books. I very much enjoyed reading up on a new, weird world. Next up is Dracula and after that Frankenstein. Time for some classics again.

So lately, I've been consoling myself of my unability to play Deathloop, by buying and playing the first Dishonored. Excellent game that scratches my Arkane itch, am currently playing through the DLC.

High chaos or low chaos?

[Fyraltari]

High chaos or low chaos?

Low, but killing the targets directly involved with the Empress's murder, some choice *******s and

Spoiler

Show

Havelock

.

With Daud I did the first mission on High Chaos, but I might not keep it that way.

[LaZodiac]

I don't remember who said it here but someone recently posted a screencap of a cover for Blacksad, that cat noir detective series. Apparently it's getting a point and click mystery game! Figured you'd want to know!

[Fyraltari]

I don't remember who said it here but someone recently posted a screencap of a cover for Blacksad, that cat noir detective series. Apparently it's getting a point and click mystery game! Figured you'd want to know!

Really? Awesome!

[Rater202]

ETA:

Also, I find it incredibly difficult to believe that. Doctors and lawyers, just right off the bat, need to be licensed to practice, and nobody bats an eye about that (and for good reason). Supes needing to be registered? The public outcry would be almost entirely kept to the supe population. Comic book writers write what would make a good story, not what would likely happen. Ain't no way in hell that supe registration wouldn't be massively accepted.

The supes might oppose it violently, but that would not engender much, if any, sympathy for the supes.

I missed this edit last night.

You misunderstand. Superhuman registration isn't "you need to be licensed to be a superhero or otherwise use your powers professionally." That would be kinda screwy but it would be relatively reasonable, especially if the market for such things was profitbale enough to make it worth it.

Superhuman registration is "if you have, powers, even if you were born that way or got them as the result of an accident, you are a criminal unless and until you agree to register with the government, allowing the government to decide your life and call upon you for use of your powers whether you want to or not."

In Marvel comics, a teenage girl with the power to generate a cloud to fly around on was flying around on her family's private land. The air-force sent fighter gets to chase her down on her family's land without a warrent and when she was captured she was given the ultimatum of prison time or registering to become a professional government super.

The underage girl was then forced to become a sniper.

Michael van Patrick technically didn't have powers, he just had a very good routine of diet and exercise, but that didn't stop him from being stripped of all of his academic and athletic accomplishments and forced to register at the camp where he was killed in a training exercise gone wrong(and then cloned a dozen times.)

The best-case scenario for a Superhuman Registration is something like the post prolog parts of the Incredibles where the Supers just aren't allowed to use their powers outside their homes and get witness Relocation type stuff if people find out. The whole policy is as much to protect them from the public as it is to keep them from disrupting things and with Bob you'll note that his handle bends over backward to be as accomodating as possible even when Bob breaks the rules which gives the impression that Bob's handler knows that these policies are kinda bull****.

I hope you may get a writing gig to channel your creative instincts Rater202 as I sometimes fear you may become an actual supervillain!

I don't want to be a supervillain. That requires too much risk of getting punched in the face.

I just want to be powerful, wear flamboyant clothing, and do choreographed poses while making bombastic speeches about how I'll show them, show them all.

Or he could watch Yu-Gi-Oh abridged.

I tried to go back and rewatch that recently since I'm way behind but I couldn't get over the quality of the first episode.

[Keltest]

So hold up. The government in Marvel can kidnap powered people on a whim and trains them to be super soldiers, but they can't shut down a rogue corporation with supers?

This just got upgraded from "doesn't make sense" to "is absolutely insane"

[Rater202]

So hold up. The government in Marvel can kidnap powered people on a whim and trains them to be super soldiers, but they can't shut down a rogue corporation with supers?

1: Several superheroes had drunk the Kool-Aid and were helping the Government at the time, in particular Iron Man, who was manufacturing most of SHield's equipment as well as weapons and vehicles for the military.

As a side note, during this period of time, Tony was also manufacturing Sentinels.

2: There's a difference between a bunch of untrained teenagers who just go their relatively minor powers and don't know what their rights are and a multibillion-dollar international corporation with dozens of Thor and Hulk tier supers on their payroll, all of whom have military training.

The '50 States Initiative" (the official name for the program training the young supers as part of the registration act) was half people who drank the Kool-Aid and half people who weren't strong enough to fight back and who were bullied into registration with threats of being imprisoned indefinitely(without trial.)

[HalfTangible]

The Orichalchos arc (basic summary here) centers around a special card called the Seal of Orichalchos that grants your monsters extra attack, turns you evil, and steals the soul of whoever loses the duel. (also you can put monsters in the spell/trap zone) The bad guy org hates humanity, takes the souls of as many people as they can and plans to use them as well as the Egyptian God Cards to summon The Great Leviathan to destroy the world. It's one of the only times where Yami Yugi (Atem) loses a duel.

It includes a duel on a train bound for Florida, a duel between Yugi and Atem with a mirrored deck, a duel on a plane, a duel at Pegasus' personal compound, Kaiba buying a sportscar *just cuz*, a trip to "somewhere in California", a duel atop a skyscraper that then collapses on top of one of the duelists who not only survives but carries out another unconscious duelist... and if that all sounds like a confused mess that's only because it is. There is a lot of running around to find stuff in the season. Much of which is rendered irrelevant by other plot developments.

LittleKuriboh sums it up at one point in the Abridged series as "it's exciting and all, but when you stop to think about it for 2 seconds it all kinda falls apart."

[Keltest]

1: Several superheroes had drunk the Kool-Aid and were helping the Government at the time, in particular Iron Man, who was manufacturing most of SHield's equipment as well as weapons and vehicles for the military.

As a side note, during this period of time, Tony was also manufacturing Sentinels.

2: There's a difference between a bunch of untrained teenagers who just go their relatively minor powers and don't know what their rights are and a multibillion-dollar international corporation with dozens of Thor and Hulk tier supers on their payroll, all of whom have military training.

The '50 States Initiative" (the official name for the program training the young supers as part of the registration act) was half people who drank the Kool-Aid and half people who weren't strong enough to fight back and who were bullied into registration with threats of being imprisoned indefinitely(without trial.)

I'm going to be frank, this does nothing to make the writing sound less insane. If this was during the Civil War arc as it sounds like, it's no wonder it bombed.

[Rater202]

The Orchalcos arc is basically filler.

Like, the Yugioh anime wasn't exactly a faithful adaption, it changed a lot of details from the manga, sometimes significantly, but you can still tell which arcs in the anime are based on the manga and which arcs are complete fabrications.

Some of the fabricated arcs are good—the second virtual world arc basically took a minor detail of Kaiba's background from the Manga and expanded it out significantly in a way that fleshed out his character somewhat—but the best thing about the Orichalso arc was that it introduced some cool new cards that eventually made it into the real game.

It basically has no bearing on anything that comes before or after.

I'm going to be frank, this does nothing to make the writing sound less insane. If this was during the Civil War arc as it sounds like, it's no wonder it bombed.

I didn't say that these storylines were good. Nobody likes these storylines.

But you have to admit, that there is a world of difference between "perfectly ordinary girl who happens to have a flying nimbus" or "did lots of pushups and situps and drank plenty of juice" versus "immortal minotaur who can call in favors from Swartalfheim, Jotumheim, or Muspelheim and whose idea of corporate security is to mass-produce hulks with special forces training."

Anway: I'm going to be Frank: Roxxon is a piece of social commentary. In real life, major corporations get away with all kinds of unethical or outright illegal things that would get the average person in a whole mess of trouble.

Roxxon is a deliberately exaggerated example given for the sake of illustration.

[HalfTangible]

I'm going to be frank, this does nothing to make the writing sound less insane. If this was during the Civil War arc as it sounds like, it's no wonder it bombed.

They make a clone of Thor and implant it with mental commands to keep it under control.

[Rater202]

They make a clone of Thor and implant it with mental commands to keep it under control.

Yeah.

"Government gets a bunch of high-level supers to toe th line, manufacturers a few more, and uses them to basically enslave everyone who can't fight back to overcompensate for their lack of control over supers in general" is the gist of the Civil War and its aftermath.

[Peelee]

Superhuman registration is "if you have, powers, even if you were born that way or got them as the result of an accident, you are a criminal unless and until you agree to register with the government"

Yes, that's perfectly fine. For example, if the government subpoenas you for any reason and you don't comply, you are a criminal unless and until you comply (this is simplified for the comparison, or course). Same thing here. No problem. This is the sane and rational thing to do.

allowing the government to decide your life and call upon you for use of your powers whether you want to or not."

And we're back to "that's called tyranny, and it's generally frowned upon".

Superhuman registration is perfectly fine. Superhuman registration as Marvel does it according to you is bat**** insane because the writers clearly want to cause needless strife in the world to write more comics.

I would prefer to not discuss Marvel particulars, since I don't read Marvel. I am perfectly happy discussing generic superhero hypotheticals, unconstrained by what some writers at Marvel dictate what absolutely is or is not the case. Because, for example:

Yeah.

"Government gets a bunch of high-level supers to toe th line, manufacturers a few more, and uses them to basically enslave everyone who can't fight back to overcompensate for their lack of control over supers in general" is the gist of the Civil War and its aftermath.

Civil War sounds stupid.

[Keltest]

Civil War sounds stupid.

Its rather impressive that the movie writers managed to salvage the storyline into something that is at least kind of a legitimate question rather than just "ok, one side has completely lost their freaking minds and any moral authority."

[Rater202]

Yes, that's perfectly fine. For example, if the government subpoenas you for any reason and you don't comply, you are a criminal unless and until you comply (this is simplified for the comparison, or course). Same thing here. No problem. This is the Dane and rational thing to do.

1: That's not exactly a comparable situation. A sopeona is a one-time thing and can be challenged. Superhuman registration is permanent and the only exception was a rich guy using a high priced lawyer to find a loophole that pretty much only applied to the one guy.

2: I was using Superhuman Registration as an example of a "Stick" as opposed t the "carrot" of offering people jobs with pay and incentives.

If the Government wants control of the Supers they can either offer supers jobs with pay and freedoms that are greater than wha the Super can get on their own or 2: They can criminalize being super but make exceptions for people willing to enforce Government policies.

The first is ineffective, since you can't garruntee that people will take the jobs. The second is immoral.

[LaZodiac]

I forget if I said this, but I got another good review on my novel, and it's a nice reminder that that sort of thing really helps authors, so if you've bought the book definitely leave a review and stuff.

My ultimate goal is to one day get fanart from someone I don't know, unprompted, though. All fan art is appreciated but the day some rando is like "I readed your book and drew this" is the day I'll know I've made it, in my heart.

[Peelee]

1: That's not exactly a comparable situation. A sopeona is a one-time thing and can be challenged. Superhuman registration is permanent and the only exception was a rich guy using a high priced lawyer to find a loophole that pretty much only applied to the one guy.

Look dude, again, I don't particularly care about what specific events happened in Marvel. Especially since such events apparently mean that slavery is not illegal in Marvelworld's USA.

[Lord Raziere]

Michael van Patrick technically didn't have powers, he just had a very good routine of diet and exercise, but that didn't stop him from being stripped of all of his academic and athletic accomplishments and forced to register at the camp where he was killed in a training exercise gone wrong(and then cloned a dozen times.)

Yeah, one of the problems of superpowers is figuring out how to define them.

if they're like, the stock X-men mutation explanation that X-men, MHA, Heroes and such and so on go with, there is the problem that not mutations are created equal. Sure the guy who can blast fire around is potentially dangerous, but the guy who only breathe underwater isn't unless you count "can grab people and drag people underwater to drown them without draining themselves" which I'm pretty sure there are more practical ways to kill someone than that. another guy might have the superpower to.....change their hair color to whatever they want. nothing else, just their hair color. maybe good for disguises but everything else about them is unchanged. but then there is someone whose superpower might be....."can see great distances in zoom vision" or "hear things from incredibly far away" or "read minds", which you can't exactly prove is happening unless the person is willing to cooperate with you in the first place, because these three effects have no visible indication they're being used.

on the other end of the spectrum, a superpower may be so dangerous that there is nothing you can do about it. a reality warper for example might be able to warp reality but also put people into illusions that can't be broken out of it so you can't be sure whether the changes they make are real or not. they might even warp reality so you can't even notice them doing it-it'd simply become physically impossible to even perceive what is being changed. and what do you about say about some who has a superpower thats dangerous but activates due to something incredibly stupid, like a guy who can causes a nuclear explosion when they sneeze so they first discover it when they sneeze their whole home town blows up and are left confused and hurt by the tragedy around them, can they be held responsible for an involuntary action like that when they didn't even know that is what would happen if they sneezed?

sure all these people may be called mutants or whatever because they all have a gene thats giving them this superpower but treating all these cases as the same would be a dire mistake at best. sure the more dangerous ones are probably going to be captured or forced to join the government (and the sneeze explosion guy might just want to straight up die after the first time they use their powers in particular and find the first opportunity to kill themselves to protect the world, unless someone's superpower comes along to make sure they never sneeze again, but thats a particularly dark case). but if the power is more benign well- what right do you have to force them to do anything with it?

and there is someone who is just born so intelligent or talented like Lex Luthor or Batman, that they don't really need anything else to keep up with the superpowers around them because they magically find the exact way to somehow become self-made millionaires then billionaires overnight because whats chance to us is certainty to them and start making a bunch of sci-fi gadgets that put them as more dangerous than any mere water-breather or low-super strength person, yet they're not technically doing anything a normal human can't do. they're just really really good at what they can.

and thats just one superpower origin. a relatively simple one that dispenses with a lot other ways people can gain superpowers and what is required to happen. if the person is instead an alien like Starfire, Superman, Invincible, or Martian Manhunter, there is question of their legal status on Earth since I doubt all of them would actually just so happen to be orphans dropped off by dead civilizations. suddenly you have a person that comes from a different planet with an entirely different culture, mindset, and evolution from humanity and so on, who might have diplomatic immunity and even if they don't, their abilities are probably normal to them, some of their superpowers may even be just....how they function and telling them to turn it off or not use them could be like you to stop breathing or to close your eyes forever. you have an entirely different of sociological, legal and biological issues to consider with that.

and thats only the powers by birth stuff, what happens when you start getting RAMS (Random Acts of Mad Science) style supers like the Hulk, the Flash, Fantastic Four, Spiderman, Clayface, Dr. Manhattan and so on? they were normal people until suddenly because of a dangerous accident you can't really replicate, they're super now. they had an entire life before this, dreams, accomplishments, plans that don't involve their newly acquired superpowers. you can't really expect them to drop everything they had going for them just because they got this scientific whatever giving them this and in some cases cursing them because they are now living sand or mud or something. and now the science community has to figure out what to do about this because if the experiment gone wrong its not really scientific but it clearly caused something to happen. the reasons for each change wouldn't be consistent because each mishap would have these unique conditions about them, so you can't really put them into the same category physically speaking, sure you can notice the style of how they get their powers and figure out the abstract pattern here, but I doubt a guy suddenly made of fire and who has like, moth biology powers now run on the same principles, so you can't really define them as the same thing to regulate.

and that is just all ignoring outright magic like Dr. Strange, Thor, John Constantine, and so on. the kind of magic that in both Marvel and DC seems to involve making pacts with inhuman entities that don't have humanities best interest in mind, and does this science has no explanation for, and can't be dealt with the same way aliens can, because an alien might at least respect earth law as a fellow sapient being. a demon or some fair-folk like creature will have zero respect for earth law and may not be killable or restrainable by normal means. furthermore magic itself is incredibly dangerous because while there are certain budget and logic to a mad science experiment that can be figured out and targeted, magic ritual on the other hand may involve anything and have effects you can't predict or figure out through normal observation. a bunch of people going sick might be a new disease....or it might be an invisible demon stealing life force from people to give to the sorcerer who summoned it an extended lifespan as apart of a deal and normal people can't regulate or control that. a mage can, but for some reason the profession tends to attract loners, misanthropes, and people who distance themselves from humanity in general, probably because they know that at any moment they could be manipulated into selling away their friends souls, memories, lives and so and having as few of that currency as possible is best when dealing with such entities (as John Constantine knows too well), much of what magic does can be considered highly unethical by default so its not exactly a profession that would love having the government boss them around on and unlike many of the other origins, are more than capable of just....summoning up help from some other dimension to back them up to make trouble. its one thing to outnumber and capture a guy with pyrokinesis, its another to try and surround someone who calls up an army of demons and can curse entire cities with bad luck. and are they really superpowered if they using some other beings power? if its a spell anyone can cast, does that mean everyone is superpowered? wheres the line?

and of course, there is the fact that in the most long-running superhero universes, humanity is kind of small fries compared to the beings around them and are basically pawns or ants to powers far greater than any civilization or empire, even galactic ones. entities older than recorded history with powers and knowledge far beyond human comprehension such as gods, Celestials and so on. how they react or respond to supers may not even be truly their choice, either because some entity decrees it, or because they can't afford to focus on societal stuff like this when something like Darkseid comes a knocking. this is not to denigrate humans or say humans are weak- its just that these universes postulate a universe there are beings far stronger. A man is not weak for not being able to stop a hurricane- in fact stopping hurricanes would do more hurt to the environment than good as they're apart of Earth's ecosystem anyways. these universes also simply postulate super-beings able to stand up such beings in some way, and even then they are the underdogs in that situation. whether the supers are government regulated or not would make little if any difference against such entities. sure you have some universes like the Incredibles or MHA where supers is limited largely to X-men mutant superpowers and mad science inventions, but thats exactly the point: the universes where such regulation takes hold the best is where there aren't outside entities that could make such concerns largely irrelevant, and in superhero universes the absence of such entities is not a certainty.

to get back to my point, you'd first have to define a superpower before you regulate superpowers. and in a classic anything goes superhero universe that is harder than it seems. to get the desired superhero regulation you'd have to be lucky.

[Rater202]

Look dude, again, I don't particularly care about what specific events happened in Marvel. Especially since such events apparently mean that slavery is not illegal in Marvelworld's USA.

I mean, the SRA was eventually overturned by the Supreme Court. For pretty much exactly that reason.

And again, I was just using it as an example. And clarifying when people pried for details.

The two options are 1: Offer incentives for people who want to be superheroes to sign on for government oversite, incentives that are better than what they could reasonably get on their own.

Or 2: Make having superpowers illegal and crackdown on any supers they become aware of regardless of who they are or what they're doing.

The exact specifics don't matter.

What matters is that the first isn't going to be 100% effective and the more powerful supers are on average the less practical it becomes.

For example: an economist published a paper a while back stating that Superman, as depicted in the movies with Christopher Reeve, could make several billion dollars a year using his powers to do performances, manufacture diamonds, deliver things around the world, and carry satellites into space and still have time to save the world from major threats. He'd have to give up stopping street crimes, but the article notes that doing so and then using the profits to feed, shelter, and educate the underprivileged would probably do more long term good than stopping street crimes in Metropolis.

The second is immoral and counter productive: If your existence is a crime, then you have no incentive not to commit further crimes.

[Peelee]

And again, I was just using it as an example. And clarifying when people pried for details.

Not one person pried for details. You did not "clarify" anything. You restricted your example to specifically and only exactly as it appeared in Marvel, in response to at least two people saying "that makes sense". Registration, on its own, does not entail fascistic control. Your car is registered, but the government can't force me to drive somewhere.

Yet again, I have zero interest in discussing Marvel minute in part because I'm not familiar with it, and in part because it sounds colossally stupid. If you want to talk about registration being part of slavery, then feel free, but that's a massive leap to make if you're not trying to put out new issues for people to buy and reaching for a conflict.

[Rater202]

You restricted your example to specifically and only exactly as it appeared in Marvel.

The best-case scenario for a Superhuman Registration is something like the post prolog parts of the Incredibles where the Supers just aren't allowed to use their powers outside their homes and get witness Relocation type stuff if people find out. The whole policy is as much to protect them from the public as it is to keep them from disrupting things and with Bob you'll note that his handle bends over backward to be as accomodating as possible even when Bob breaks the rules which gives the impression that Bob's handler knows that these policies are kinda bull****.

I wasn't aware that the Incredibles was a Marvel Property.

I originally used the term "superhuman registration" becuase that was easier that writing a dozen paragraphs explaining "fascistic measures done to restrict the rights of powered individuals for the sake of social control, to the expense of the supers" and I figured that enough people would know what I meant based on how infamous the SRA was.

When questioned on it, I provided the original SRA as one example, and the situations going on in the Increidbles as a separate example.

Keltest then questioned an apparent inconsistency between what MArvel's government can do in one situation and what they can do in another, and you seemingly misunderstood the point I was trying to make, so in both cases, I attempted(and apparently failed horribly) to clarify.

[HalfTangible]

Civil War sounds stupid.

You don't know the half of it and neither do I, but here's some highlights from what I recall others saying:

-Reed, Tony, and Hank Pym came up with 100 ideas for a better world. #42 was to lock unregistered superhumans in another dimension that causes super depression.

-Aforementioned mind-controlled Thor clone. (Thor comes back to life later and he is pissed about this)

-The climax literally ends with Captain America surrendering to the US government because he realized the heroes are fighting for no reason. Earlier, Captain America was attacked by Shield agents because he didn't think everyone would go along with the registration act. (The act had not passed at the time of the Shield attack).

-Captain America starts the climactic fight by betraying a truce.

-Tony hires a group of Supervillains to hunt down Spiderman after he turns on the registration side in a tie-in issue.

-The pro-registration side is apparently supposed to be the good guys here according to the authors in interviews.

[Peelee]

I wasn't aware that the Incredibles was a Marvel Property.

I originally used the term "superhuman registration" becuase that was easier that writing a dozen paragraphs explaining "fascistic measures done to restrict the rights of powered individuals for the sake of social control, to the expense of the supers" and I figured that enough people would know what I meant based on how infamous the SRA was.

When questioned on it, I provided the original SRA as one example, and the situations going on in the Increidbles as a separate example.

Keltest then questioned an apparent inconsistency between what MArvel's government can do in one situation and what they can do in another, and you seemingly misunderstood the point I was trying to make, so in both cases, I attempted(and apparently failed horribly) to clarify.

When you have very long, very detailed posts, Ive noticed that most of it tends to be details for the sake of details that aren't terribly relevant and I just skim over it. Didn't work in this case, shame.

Anyway, that is hardly the best case for registration. That is another specific example of something incredibly oppressive in a way that allows the story to be told. It's like saying that the best case of automobile registration is that nobody will ever be able to use cars because that's what happened in Car Dystopia: The Movie.

[Mystic Muse]

Yeah, that feels on-par with trying to claim that Chaos are the good guys in Warhammer 40,000.