Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Tiruin]

This is not what I planned on seeing :x

[Unholy_Pariah]

Why are you all arguing over grate being immortal? He obviously only possesses quantum reincarnation.

If immortality is eternal life and reincarnation requires you first to die, how then can grate be immortal?

[Kriellya]

Grate isn't so much immortal as...well he's something else.

Does he die?
...
Hm...

Immortality isn't about not dying, it's about remaining alive. It's a fairly nebulous term as it is, with quite a lot of subsets - most common being natural immortality, i.e. not dying by any natural means.

Grate has quantum immortality. He both dies and remains living, like a pair of possible timelines merging, and his loss of memory is the universe's attempt to reconcile the paradox by using the original point of divergence.

Yeah, whatever Grate is, he's not immortal in a way I would ever want to be. He's immortal for the purposes of this game in that GWG cannot lose control of the character. The character is eternal, as far as we can tell. Although I am absolutely certain that he could suffer a Fate Worse than Death if, for example, he got captured by the UWM. Because in this world, he is most definitely an anomaly. And we know how much the UWM loves anomalies.

Huh... on that note (and if PW doesn't mind one more question long past the timeframe ), I'm suddenly curious about which missions were UWM approved and which were strictly HMRC affairs. A few seem clear, but there's no guarantee of that. The serial killer one in particular looks like it should be cut-and-dry something the UWM requested of us, but thinking about it, Steve may have been quite interested in *recruiting* that agent, or at least finding out what he knew that made him go rogue. Similarly, I still can't decide if the last 'official' mission, the desert town, was something the UWM asked of us in order to attempt to bring the populace to heel, or something Steve set up in order to gain a foothold at that location.

Why are you all arguing over grate being immortal? He obviously only possesses quantum reincarnation.

If immortality is eternal life and reincarnation requires you first to die, how then can grate be immortal?

Because, as is almost always the case for things-which-have-not-yet-come-to-pass, there are many, many ways to define immortality.

[Unholy_Pariah]

Because, as is almost always the case for things-which-have-not-yet-come-to-pass, there are
many, many ways to define immortality.

True i suppose, but if we stick to traditional definitions then is not immortality a single eternal life and reincarnation numerous new lives of limited span?
By these simple definitions they cannot be the same.

Consider cloning complete with mental imprinting, can that truly be considered a form of immortality?
If you die and a clone takes your place then your memories and personality would not be lost, but the clone is not you and you would still be dead.

[Kriellya]

But see, this still depends on what you want to define immortality. And let me tell you, there is not a 'traditional' view. Well, perhaps there is now, but both concepts of immortal have been around for along time. For example, take Greek vs. Celtic deities. Celtic deities were imagined as being immortal in the sense you described, with one continuous immortal life, though not free from a violent end. Greek deities, on the otherhand, could be killed, but would resurrect endlessly, like our poor friend Grate. So one can hardly be said to be more traditional than the other.

For me personally, I absolutely agree with you. What Grate has is not 'immortality', as I would want it. I am not me without my experiences up to this point. Erase those or kill me, and I have ceased. Clone me, and that clone is someone else. To me, immortality is one, ever-lasting life. (though, again, not necessarily free from violent end. Not because I want to die violently, but because it's damned hard to prevent it)

For others, however, the mere fact of continued existence is immortality. (in which case, we are all immortal by the laws of thermodynamics. Our energy will never cease to exist, therefore we are all immortal. Disregarding all the people who owned our energy before us, and who will own our energy after us)
To them, the fact that you cannot stop some form of Grate's existence renders him immortal. Something that they would recognize as him will always exist. I would liken this to 'immortality' by fame. He is only immortal in that he will always exist in some form. But much like a copy of a work is not exactly the same as the original (and is certainly not exactly the same as the person that wrote it), the copy of Grate is not quite the same Grate as the one that died.

[Empiricist]

Perhaps if there is already one Grate and another is revived, they destructively interfere somehow?

[Kriellya]

Perhaps if there is already one Grate and another is revived, they destructively interfere somehow?

Yeah, I really want to know what happens there. The question is whether it's already happened (because the Doctor just reflexively revived one of them at some point)

[Empiricist]

Perhaps if there is already one Grate and another is revived, they destructively interfere somehow?

because the Doctor just reflexively revived one of them at some point

Or assimilated it along with its traits. Or reanimated it for experimentation. Or repurposed it as an endless source of flesh.

[Kriellya]

Good news, everyone! For those of you wanting to archive binge and perhaps write a short summary of the missions, I have added links to the start of all the missions to the wiki! (Credit to Thearpox for the original list I used for most of the links)

[Yoink]

"Screw" is such a strong word... it'll give us opportunities for new adventures. That's a good way to put it.

Welp.   

[Empiricist]

First there were nine
Then there were five
Now two remain

[GreatWyrmGold]

Grate isn't so much immortal as...well he's something else.

Does he die?
...
Hm...

Immortality isn't about not dying, it's about remaining alive.

If you're still alive, you didn't die, you just got killed.
That's how I look at it.

Grate has quantum immortality. He both dies and remains living, like a pair of possible timelines merging, and his loss of memory is the universe's attempt to reconcile the paradox by using the original point of divergence.

Know of any other characters with quantum immortality?

Why are you all arguing over grate being immortal? He obviously only possesses quantum reincarnation.

If immortality is eternal life and reincarnation requires you first to die, how then can grate be immortal?

He lives eternally.
Besides, most don't define "immortality" so narrowly.

Yeah, whatever Grate is, he's not immortal in a way I would ever want to be.

Barring unforseen difficulties, I don't see why. I mean, losing your memory would be a pain I guess, but it's better than nothing.
Especially if you plan ahead and leave something for your next self.

True i suppose, but if we stick to traditional definitions then is not immortality a single eternal life and reincarnation numerous new lives of limited span?

Correct, it is not so.

Consider cloning complete with mental imprinting, can that truly be considered a form of immortality?
If you die and a clone takes your place then your memories and personality would not be lost, but the clone is not you and you would still be dead.

...How is a clone with your memories and mind not you? How do you define "you"? I define it by the mind, not the specific collection of molecules that make up my body. By that definition, everyone dies a couple times a month.

(in which case, we are all immortal by the laws of thermodynamics. Our energy will never cease to exist, therefore we are all immortal. Disregarding all the people who owned our energy before us, and who will own our energy after us)

Strawman argument.

But much like a copy of a work is not exactly the same as the original (and is certainly not exactly the same as the person that wrote it), the copy of Grate is not quite the same Grate as the one that died.

Once upon the time, this was the case. Now, however, we have the ability to create works which are, in fact, exact copies, down to the last line, letter, bit, or bump. And no one's going to claim that a specific copy of, say, Crime and Punishment isn't really Crime and Punishment just because it's not the original manuscript.
Analogously, if the copying methods used on people are flawed, there will be differences between copies, and they may well be different people (although possibly not to an extent that anyone notices, or cares). On the other hand, if the copying methods are sufficiently advanced, the copies will be exactly the same, and hence effectively the original.

[Sean Mirrsen]

Know of any other characters with quantum immortality?

To an extent - Coil. You know the one. There may have been others from that 'verse too.
There's a fairly gory (as in, descriptive) MLP fanfic that uses it for comedy and combines it with being a disaster magnet - for maximum comedy.
For a brief stint, there was a version of Starcscream that did it too.

It doesn't usually come up full force in fiction, because it's very nearly an automatic "I win" trait - if you keep coming back, it doesn't matter if you get killed - unless you're literally kept under a rain of destruction or are tossed into a star without the "respawns in a safe area" clause attached to the ability, you will eventually win by sheer attrition.

[GreatWyrmGold]

Eh. Coil's ability wasn't really that. It's more like...knowing how not to die, I guess. I'm not sure he ever did die at any point until...well...you know.

[syvarris]

A little bit of catch up is always nice, but I can "hit the ground running" if I have to, it would probably fit with my character anyways, as I doubt he would really know what is going on? Soo, I should think of bolded actions as dice rolls? Is that a valid way of looking at it?

((The basics of what I have so far is that, overall plot is these missions used to be a way to kill off dissenters and criminals, but person/computer? In charge of assigning these missions has since started up a revolution and is now trying to overthrow the old power. What I have got on the current mission is we are boarding some ships, and since everyone has already been launched out, my character cant actually personally participate, but he can bark orders to clone/child bred soldiers to help finish out the rest of the mission))


Vincent puts on his clothing and wanders out of the room, looking to find someone who knows what is going on.

Yes, that's basically it.  Bolded parts aren't just die rolls though- for example, if you go get into the VR machines, you're gonna want to tell PW; you should bold 'Vincent wanders off and gets into a VR machine and does *stuff*'.  You should also bold questions or answers directed at PW.

So if all you want to do is allow another player to RP with you on their own terms, what you have is fine.  But if you want PW to actually have your char walk up to someone who looks like they know what's going on, then you should bold your action.

On an unrelated note, my char, Steve Saint, is a manipulative sociopath one of the safest HMRC operatives to be around who would just love to take advantage of fix your problems of not knowing what's going on.  Sadly he's boarding, and died before anything actually happened no less!

I have not lied in this post at all.  You can trust me.


@Grate immortality
In my opinion, the defining characteristic of immortality is that it is the lack of mortality, as opposed to unending life.

Dictionary's definition of mortality: the state or condition of being subject to death; mortal character, nature, or existence.

I'm preeetty sure Grate can die, considering all the corpses he leaves behind, and how everyone refers to how many times Grate has died.  He dies, and simultaneously gets respawned; he's still dying because there's a corpse.  It's just that something else is happening too.

Dictionary of definition reincarnation: rebirth of the soul in a new body.

While it's somewhat debatable whether it's the same Grate soul, or a copy or whatever (I think GWG's rp'ing the former?), I would also define his condition as quantum reincarnation.  It also fits with the usual concept of the original soul losing all memories- a problem that people seem to forget Grate has.