Change Description (New Crowner Jan 15): Super Weight

I think a type 7 can either be a type 1 or type 2 omnipotent. The confusion is mostly over the type 2 omnipotent.

Type 2 omnipotents are stated to be able to do anything, but the problem is that there's more than one of them. This can be resolved by:

A) Stating that they would never go against each other (which doesn't actually answer the question).

B) Stating that it's impossible to know/incomprehensible to us mere mortals, or...

C) The writer side-steps the issue by not making any statement on how there can be two or more entities with omnipotency.

edited 6th Mar '12 3:12:27 PM by Ekuran

Right, but after a certain point, "more than one" turns into a subdivision that no longer means what "omnipotent" is supposed to mean.

What omnipotence is supposed to mean is a very confusing subject matter. All in all, I don't think it's supposed to make sense.

But I do think we should just limit type 7 to characters who are able to do anything within the story. Any Fridge Logic (that is not addressed within the story) from having multiple characters at this weight can be ignored for the purposes of this scale.

edited 6th Mar '12 1:21:19 PM by Ekuran

Bad idea, because that's not how this trope is intended to work. "Omnipotent within the story" could mean anything from a Type 4 to 7, depending on scale and depth of power, and that's not how we're using this page. It's supposed to be a mostly-objective account for the amount of power a character possesses or is implied to possess within the work they appear. If there's over 100 "omnipotent" beings running around and neither one can do anything they want without the permission or submission of the others, then they are no longer "omnipotent". Two or three we maybe can let slide, like the goddesses in The Legend Of Zelda.

edited 6th Mar '12 1:36:55 PM by KingZeal

There are two ways I can think of to solve this.

1. Only one character in the setting can be Author Weight.
2. Author Weight can include near omnipotent characters who are omnipotent to the lesser weights but not quite so when dealing with a character of the same weight.

We can only infer if they're type 7 in the 3 exceptions I listed. Outright saying that they "can't" act against each other would make those characters type 6.

A story can have more than one author and authors can have Creative Differences. You voted but I'm still not convinced complicating this thing is going to work in the long run.

But lets be honest here, two omnipotent characters is no less confusing or contradictory than the age old question. If God can do anything, can he make a rock that he can't melt? If two characters are truly omnipotent, what happens if they fight? Honestly, they probably get no where and the story goes nowhere until one of them leaves due to Creative Differences or lack of interest.

edited 6th Mar '12 4:08:19 PM by Cider

I would define a Super Weight 7 being as one that can doing anything that is logically possible. This theoretically include reducing the Super Weight of another omnipotent being. Perhaps truly omnipotent beings have moral rules against this kind of thing.

How about this:

A type 6 can make the fabric of reality their bitch, but has some limitations or (weaksauce) weaknesses against something/someone that's not equal to them, while a type 7 doesn't have any limitations or weaknesses, except for someone of an equal weight.

edited 18th Mar '12 5:56:22 PM by Ekuran

In my mind... There can only be at most one character with author weight. If there is more than one physical being with such power they are all aspects of the same character. Otherwise, such character doesn't have true author power.

A god's power might be unquestionable, but an author's power is unquestioned. The author is always aware of the 4th wall and that their actions are limited to just within the story. The author can communicate with the narrator (if not already the narrator) and is aware when the story is being told. The author also knows what part of the story has already been told, and can define any elements that have not been told. A character with author power can only be truly recognized as such after the story is finished, as any faltering in their ability demotes them below author power.

Examples of how a character would deal with a large wall: -1: As Bob approached the wall, spikes thrust out killing Bob. 0: As Bob approached the wall, he was impressed, but couldn't think of any way past it. 1: Bob slowly scaled the wall using climbing equipment. 2: Bob ran straight up the wall and over it. 3: Bob used his powers to blow a hole though the wall. 4: Bob used a mega blast to destroy the entire wall 5. With a small breath of air, Bob caused the wall to crumble. 6. Bob looked at the wall, and it was no more. 7. Bob clarifies that "large wall" is actually a pub, which attracts unsavory characters at night. Fortunately, it is not night time.

The -1 example doesn't work. Spikes could rush out of a wall and kill any character between -1 and 1, and possibly even up to 5 (if they're otherwise vulnerable). A better example would be if a character touched a wall and it somehow killed them or made them fall ill.

I see -1 as the universe conspires to kill them. Spikes came out because it was funny for Bob to just suddenly die like that for no in-universe reason what so ever.

Well, as per the new definition, although Red Shirts are like a canary in the coal mine, they're still human and don't necessarily die off THAT easily, rather just enough to show the danger the group's going to go through. -1 would be the ultimate weaksauce class, so:

• At -1: Bob would die an explosive death by a mere touch on the side of a spike.
• At 0, Bob would either just stare at the wall or impale himself to death as it would happen in real life.
• At 1, Bob can still succumb to his wounds, but still can manage to forcefully pull out the spikes with relative ease.
• At 2, Bob can mentally evade the spikes and even use (albeit limited) powers to get past the wall of spikes. Either that, or he'll regenerate his wounds, but still be limited enough to succumb. He may or may not have the ability that Class 1 Bob does.
• At 3, Bob would either remove the spikes through mind powers or he'll pluck each individual spike with little effort.
• At 4, Bob still can die from his wounds, but he'll be hard to take down and he can easily take out the whole damn wall with a mere brushing against the spikes.
• At 5, Bob can be incapacitated but he'll never die. He can even use the abilities of the above classes.
• At 6, he knows most every solitary move the spikes would make, and can calculate them in ways that mere mortals can't comprehend.
• At 7, all he has to do is will the spikes away. No effort required.

edited 3rd Apr '12 11:43:48 AM by EarlOfSandvich

Argh, I keep thinking this is a trope about how superpowers allow someone to not be launched by powerful attacks despite being the same weight as other people. The name is rather misleading.

Super Nine Scale sounds better.

edited 3rd Apr '12 10:35:14 AM by Scardoll

@Earl of Sandvich

1. 7 is still possible by a #6. What can an author do that a god cannot?

They can change the way the story is told. That is their power is meta.

An author is absolutely omnipotent in a story. A god is immensely powerful compared to mere humans, but is still limited in some form.

Personally, I think that super weights should be roughly like this.

• -1 Cannot harm or injure an adult human being
• 0 Can harm an adult human being
• 1 Can kill an adult human being
• 2 Can destroy a crowd of humans with one blow
• 3 Can destroy an entire building or neighborhood
• 4 Can destroy an entire city
• 5 Can destroy all life on Earth or even the planet itself
• 6 Can destroy from a galaxy to an entire multiverse, but the latter would be time-constraining
• 7 Can erase all of existence in the blink of an eye with no effort required

edited 4th Apr '12 5:34:04 PM by Kossmeister

A muggle tier character absolutely has the ability to kill an ordinary human adult; it's not a particularly difficult thing to do because we human being have some very glaring weaknesses. The difference is that a -1 tier needs some sort of outside intervention or tools, a 0 can do it with modest effort, and a 1 can do it ridiculously easily.

There shouldn't be so much interpretation, a weight class "it is what it is". This isn't about the universe, this isn't about how they fight, it is about what they are.

The larger number of categories invites this by complicating what should be kept simple. Can character A see in infrared? Can you expect any Joe you grab off the street to see infrared with some exercise or meditating? Not without technical aid? A is type 2. B can see the future? Can Joe learn to do it? Type 2. C blows fire? Do all his special traits exist for unassisted fire breathing? Type 2.

Can he be compared to uncontainable Jehova/YHWH/Abrahamic God/Immortal Great Spirit/Demiurge-Sophia and or an Author writing a work? Yes? 5. No? Not 5. Does something debunk him as 5, then move him down. Furthermore, the description should put the character examples back, examples of works that actually demonstrate the different ways a character of any class can be written in a story. Tropes are too flexible to be reliable.

Anti magic might not be a special power, the setting simply might say that humans aren't affected by the monsters in spirit world because they can't be until the die and pass on. In that case, aliens who can be hurt by spirit world monsters using Humans for their Anti-Magic qualities would still be using Muggle Weights. And what's an Innocent Bystander doing in the Muggle Weight Category anyway if Everyone Is a Super? A Person of Mass Destruction doesn't need impressive superpowers, they just need to be treated like a weapon of mass destruction. A carrier of a contagious disease could be a person of mass destruction with no powers what so ever. Cosmic Entity? God, The Omnipotent, Sub Tropes of the entities. It tells nothing, Tropes Are Flexible, too flexible for a Sliding Scale where each class should be strictly defined.

Mouse World is -1 and action hero is 1? What if the action hero is a mouse in a mouse world?(-1). What if the action hero is in Everyone Is a Super world?(not 1) What if the guy in the mouse world has the power to throw planetary populations into chaos?(type 3), ect, ect. Character examples work better, works and characters tend to have definite ends and consist portrayals, much less flexible than idioms or tropes.

I haven't been following the discussion and I don't have time to read it, but I'd like to make one suggestion: That no character can be of the highest level (5, 7, whatever) if there is another character that can challenge them. That's a pretty clear criterion for the absolute highest level: that there is just nothing that they can't do, and that logically includes not having anyone able to challenge them. It's also a good distinction between that level and the previous one, however else that is defined.

Okay, so apparently that's implied in the sandbox version of the current scale but not on the main page, so maybe you've been talking about this already... But anyway, that's what I say.

Another thing I might add: The Omnipotent just isn't defined so as to be potent enough to be an example of tier 7, because it only means virtually omnipotent.

edited 9th Apr '12 2:45:53 AM by VVK

Well, a type 1 Omnipotent is definitely a tier 7 on the Super Weight. The confusion is mostly over type 2 Omnipotents.

edited 9th Apr '12 9:30:23 AM by Ekuran

Do we need a crowner for this? There's been a lot of discussion on it.

I really think that everything above 1 and less than "author" is meaningless, since its all relative to the story. -1 is less powerful than would be expected for an average character. 0 is average, 1 is above average. Everything above that, but below author is debatable. Most stories don't consider anything outside of the planet Earth, while other stories, being "god" of only a single universe might be laughable.

That's not an option. There's a long way to go between "transhuman" and "God".

Well, let's use a specific case to discuss this further.

Let's take the setting of The Darkness.

According to the lore, the Darkness was once all that existed and had complete power. That makes is Type 7. Until God created light, which makes God a Type 7. The power of God (light) eventually came to be called the Angelus and is equal in power to the Darkness. The two of them struggle for dominance, and it is the varying degrees of "gray" between the two that makes the complex universe as it exists today. The two of them are no longer omnipotent, and have weakened themselves to the point that they barely register as Type 4s in effective power. (The power hasn't gone anywhere, but they can't really use because one is constantly acting against the other.)

However, if one of them should win the "war" and gain dominance over the other, they would eventually become able to shape all reality into whatever they liked, probably somewhere between 6 and 7.

The reason I'm using them as an example for this is because it shows every possible interpretation of how two Type 7s could operate. And we would need to figure out, first, IF two Type 7s can exist and at what point they stop being Type 7s.

For every universe, there is always a multiverse, for every multiverse there is a multi-multiverse, ect.... A god in one is not a god in an outer one. Just when you thought you could clarify one as a god, the author comes around and expands your view to show that they are just some puny hacker in a video game.

Author power is the power to alter the story. They are fourth wall aware. If they aren't the narrator, they can take over the job at any time. If there is a real opponent, then that opponent exists in another story. Author power is only limited in what power and creativity the actual author had (being able to determine how many times you saved the game is a small taste of author level power).

Probably most Nonhuman Muggles and Badass Normals are belong to Type 2(Abnormal Weight) on Super Weight?