explosivecombat | 031. [Text]

Entry tags:

031. [Text]

You know, I've realized that whenever I address the network nowadays, I always include some sort of apology for the morbidity of the subject matter; the subject matter is never any better the next time around, which I think just draws the validity of the apology into question by now. Ah, but that's neither here nor there - the subject today is still, however, not any better, so consider the apology this afternoon as genuine as it always is.

[In other words, sorry-not-sorry. Kimblee...]

I would like to discuss morality today, actually - perhaps befittingly, since there are so many morally dubious individuals around as of late.

Assume for a moment that you come across someone in peril; you're in a secluded area, and no one else is around to help this individual but you. The specific sort of peril they're in doesn't matter, but for the sake of argument, assume that it's something that you can handle easily - assume that assisting them won't kill you, and even if the situation you envision is dangerous you can call the authorities for help and that would be considered "assisting" for the sake of this experiment. For whatever reason, the person in peril cannot save themselves; if you don't do anything, the situation will prove fatal for the person you've come across.

No one will know if you help the person or not. You won't be punished or penalized in any way for not helping them - in other words, you have no legal obligation to do so - but if you don't, the person in peril is going to die. You've never met the person before this moment; there's nothing about their appearance or situation that implies that you should consider them an enemy, but they aren't explicitly a friend or an ally either. Just a random stranger that you are given the option of rescuing.

Most would probably agree that rescuing a person in peril like that is the "right" thing to do; I'm sure some would disagree, either because their beliefs are a bit unorthodox or because they want to feel edgy. So my question isn't necessarily what you believe - my question is why. Can you justify it, or are you just operating under "what feels right"?

Answer me anonymously if you'd like; as usual, your identity doesn't necessarily interest me, but your answer does.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

It's called alchemy. I'm afraid I don't know what mana or tech points are, however.

Like Ar Tonelico...okay, got it.

They're things you expend to use skills. But, if it's like that...you make things, right?

It's not exactly "making things," it's more like "transmuting one thing into another." We can't create from nothing, nor can we destroy something so thoroughly that it's rendered into nothing; we can only create based on the materials we have to work with.

Right...because you need ingredients to create other things. Do you have to use a cauldron, or do you do it differently?

[ Apparently we are in full video game jargon swing right now. ]

[She's one of the few that actually seems to get what he's talking about without some sort of hideously awkward explanation that takes entirely too long and gets irksome to give after a while. He doesn't care if she's off about the details half the time, at least she gets the important parts.]

We use transmutation circles, actually - usually drawn either on or around the materials we're transmuting, though sometimes they're on our person.

[ Son, this sounds like straight up video game mechanics right here. These she can handle. :|a Also seeing similarities to Symbology from Star Ocean...INTERESTING. ]

I see...hm, in that case, I definitely don't know where you're from, but that combat system sounds really interesting...

You could probably use it in a lot of ways, too.

[ ............Nanami do you even remember the original topic at this point. ]

Oh, yes. I specialize in energy manipulation - and I'm the only one who does, to my knowledge. But I've seen it used for everything from healing people to creating weapons, to creating fire out of chemicals in the air.

It has its mundane uses as well - fixing things, making toys out of various items lying around, things like that. The only things we're not allowed to do are turning lead into gold (since that's good for nothing but upsetting the economy) and doing things involving live humans - basically, no messing about with their souls or trying to create them from scratch or trying to raise the dead.

[ All solid game rules. Which means, of course: ]

But people break those rules anyway, right?

[ Either the heroes or the villains or both, she'd bet. Subverting magic rules is a Thing for both groups. ]

...Well, when it comes to things involving humans, some have tried. The forces that keep the world balanced don't tend to like that very much. But some have managed parts of it.

Transmuting gold is generally considered a rather boring and uninspired use of one's talent, however. The only people who think of doing that are very obviously not alchemists themselves, though we do get asked from time to time.

Since gold only upsets the economy, I bet it has to do with the latter one more...

[ The plot of his video game, she means.

Although he can't be from a game, or she'd have played it...

Oh, right. Life isn't like video games... ]

Have you broken the rules?

I've never tried to transmute a human, no - I don't have anyone that I'd care to resurrect from the dead, and I know for a fact that it wouldn't work besides.

Why wouldn't it work?

Because you can't create a human soul.

Everything we do operates under the rule of Equivalent Exchange; I did say that we can't create from nothing, which means that we have to have enough ingredients to make the exchange we want - if we want to create something, we have to sacrifice something of equal value. Human souls are priceless and therefore can't be created, because we have nothing of equal value to sacrifice.

[ .....What does it say about her that her immediate answer is "what about a human soul"? Is that just gamer puzzle solving, or...? ]

At least nothing that should be sacrificed.

If you're asking whether we could sacrifice another human soul to create one, then purely theoretically speaking, we could; I don't know if anyone has ever tried it, it's generally agreed to not be anything that we can create at all, nor is it anything we should attempt to do.

Where this becomes a problem, though, is with people trying to resurrect the dead; the reason that doesn't work is that there comes a point where the soul can't be retrieved after one dies. No one knows where that point lies, we just know it exists - trying to bring someone back is impossible then, because there's nothing to be retrieved and you'll be back to the problem of trying to bring a soul into being out of nowhere.

This place can bring back the dead, though...

I wonder how.

Well, the rules that govern this place seem to completely disregard the rules from wherever it is we all respectively came from, so I can't say that I know.

It's an entirely new genre. But, the rules don't seem to entirely fit with the Pokemon genre either...it's a mystery.

Genre...?

[...okay, look, he's still not entirely used to thinking about these things like this, especially since he usually hangs around with someone else from technologically-backwards 1915.]

Ah, so you're one of those that know this world as being some sort of game.

Yep. If I didn't...calling myself the Super High School Level Gamer wouldn't be something I could do!

[...ah, yes, another alumnus of Special Snowflake Academy.]

And another of those as well - I've met a few of your fellow students, I think, all referring to themselves as a Super High School Level something-or-other.

You all tend to be an interesting lot, at any rate; you were accepted into this school of yours for your talent with games?

[ Are you jealous you weren't invited, Kimblee? ]

It's a title that comes when you're accepted...

That is what my talent is, and my title. So...that would be what follows, yep.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

031. [Text]

text;

text;

text;

text;

text;

text;

text;

text;

text;

text;

text;

text;

text;

text;

text;

text;

text;

text;

text;

text;

text;

text;