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Rational Twilight: Luminosity

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alethiophile Shadowed Philosopher from Ëa Since: Nov, 2009
Shadowed Philosopher
#2651: Aug 6th 2012 at 9:06:59 PM

Turn someone inside an MRI machine. It's no skin off their nose, they're anesthetized and watching Elspeth-movies anyway. Should look interesting, at least.

Shinigan (Naruto fanfic)
Skylark2 A Sequel To A SF Novel from Australia Since: May, 2012
A Sequel To A SF Novel
#2652: Aug 6th 2012 at 11:39:40 PM

[up]That's what I was thinking.

Was Once Zolnier Also a cowboy, and a Doctor.
Skylark2 A Sequel To A SF Novel from Australia Since: May, 2012
A Sequel To A SF Novel
#2653: Aug 7th 2012 at 8:16:08 PM

Hmm, wonder what philosophical, political and religious outlooks would be "compatible" with vampirism. As in vampires wouldn't be having crises about their beliefs and their new life every three seconds.

Was Once Zolnier Also a cowboy, and a Doctor.
RedWren the Ephemeral from False Dawn Since: Nov, 2009
the Ephemeral
#2654: Aug 8th 2012 at 11:38:39 PM

[up]The Christianity I was raised with was, "don't hurt people unnecessarily,"[[hottip:*L The alternative being stuff like self-defense]] and "God likes people who do good works." Really, I think most religions which don't demand suicide—which is pretty much all the big ones—work just fine.

Unless you believe that vampires give up their souls.

I don't know any incompatible philosophical/political viewpoints.

edited 8th Aug '12 11:39:33 PM by RedWren

Blog; tumblr
alethiophile Shadowed Philosopher from Ëa Since: Nov, 2009
Shadowed Philosopher
#2655: Aug 9th 2012 at 12:15:25 AM

There are some parts of some segments of Christianity which hold that there's a natural progression for a soul through the natural world into the afterlife, and would hence disapprove of biological immortality. I kind of think those would disappear rather fast when you actually gave people the choice.

Shinigan (Naruto fanfic)
Bluelantern2814 Mage of Life-Breath-Doom Since: Sep, 2009
Mage of Life-Breath-Doom
#2656: Aug 10th 2012 at 4:42:29 PM

I think judaism wouldn frown upon being a werewolf

Never Forgotten - Chapter 30 - Remembering Regretting

So, that is it, I have 35 chapters that are just... trash, and I am still deciding what to do with them, but currently, that is the end of Never Forgotten, thank you for your time. =/

"Here to welcome our new golden-eyed overlords," said Addy promptly.
Skylark2 A Sequel To A SF Novel from Australia Since: May, 2012
A Sequel To A SF Novel
#2657: Aug 10th 2012 at 7:10:41 PM

[up]Another Being Human fan, cool!grin

Was Once Zolnier Also a cowboy, and a Doctor.
Bluelantern2814 Mage of Life-Breath-Doom Since: Sep, 2009
Mage of Life-Breath-Doom
#2658: Aug 11th 2012 at 3:37:14 PM

[up]Actually I was just looking over Fantastic Religious Weirdness and saw that.

Hum... now I really want to know what judaism would think of the Luminosity's supernatural wolf, especially if say, an werewolf or vampire imprint or mate on a jewish girl (if I am not mistaken judaism is considered pass on from the mother)

"Here to welcome our new golden-eyed overlords," said Addy promptly.
Zephyr Since: Jul, 2012
#2659: Aug 14th 2012 at 3:33:16 AM

I can think of at least one extremely incompatible philosophical/political viewpoint, vegetarianism.

Skylark2 A Sequel To A SF Novel from Australia Since: May, 2012
A Sequel To A SF Novel
#2660: Aug 14th 2012 at 9:28:18 AM

You know there may not be much fundamentalist opposition to "witch craft" if they heard it first under a different name. Since well they are more like superpowers than sorcery. And the Bible is full of weird powers.

Was Once Zolnier Also a cowboy, and a Doctor.
alethiophile Shadowed Philosopher from Ëa Since: Nov, 2009
Shadowed Philosopher
#2661: Aug 14th 2012 at 12:44:37 PM

[up][up]Not once they get the artificial blood down.

Shinigan (Naruto fanfic)
Bluelantern2814 Mage of Life-Breath-Doom Since: Sep, 2009
Mage of Life-Breath-Doom
#2662: Aug 20th 2012 at 7:44:18 PM

Thanks to the discussion over Elcenia, I have been wondering what pokemons would suit some Luminosity characters

>.>

Yes, I am that weird.

"Here to welcome our new golden-eyed overlords," said Addy promptly.
Skylark2 A Sequel To A SF Novel from Australia Since: May, 2012
A Sequel To A SF Novel
#2663: Aug 21st 2012 at 3:19:20 AM

Now I'm wondering if there are any faith healers who are actually witches in the Luminosity verse.

Was Once Zolnier Also a cowboy, and a Doctor.
Alicorn Since: Aug, 2010
#2664: Aug 23rd 2012 at 11:58:10 AM

[up][up]I think Bella would go for powerful, fully-evolved, elegant-looking straight-up elemental types like Rapidash or Dewgong or any Eeveelution, perhaps a Linoone if she wanted a Normal type, and maybe a Steel type too like Skarmory. Edward would like the suitability of Psychic-types but might lean towards dual typing for versatility: Xatu, Victini, Starmie, Solrock. Elspeth would like reasonably cute Pokémon that don't evolve so she could get used to them how they are, of assorted types (Pachirisu or Emolga, Lapras, Chatot, Torkoal, Absol). Jacob would like fierce ones with teeth and it would honestly be a coincidence that most of those are canine-like (Arcanine, any legendary dog he could get ahold of, Houndour, Mightyena, Lucario).

This is more fun than it has business being.

ETA: Siobhan would like defense-heavy Pokémon and then she'd teach them "gotcha" TM moves - stuff that will be effective against the types that get brought out to attack them. Like a Golem taught a fire move to attack ice and steel and grass, and an electric move to attack water. (It would have gaps, but that's what the other Pokémon in the party are for.) She'd like things like Glalie with no weaknesses, too [EDIT: apparently I misremembered and Glalie is pure ice, I don't know what I was thinking of][EDIT 2 it was Spiritomb], and Magemite-series critters with Levitate's immunity to ground.

Allirea would like anything with those two-turn moves where you can't be hit during the prep round (Dig, Fly, Shadow Force).

Addy would have a party of Smeargle plus stuff that can learn Copycat. They'd know other things, too, because plenty of types resist themselves.

Chelsea would have things that can learn Charm. She wouldn't necessarily rely on it, since that alone can't win, but she might rely on moves that cause confusion to do more damage than direct attacks.

edited 26th Aug '12 12:53:31 PM by Alicorn

Bluelantern2814 Mage of Life-Breath-Doom Since: Sep, 2009
Mage of Life-Breath-Doom
#2665: Aug 23rd 2012 at 8:28:02 PM

The 3 alpha should split up the legendary beasts trio, the twins should get water and fire? Which character would be the most likely to play pokémon?

"Here to welcome our new golden-eyed overlords," said Addy promptly.
Alicorn Since: Aug, 2010
#2666: Aug 23rd 2012 at 8:41:47 PM

We're giving Jake Raikou? Okay, Suicune for Rachel and Entei for Becky, then.

Bluelantern2814 Mage of Life-Breath-Doom Since: Sep, 2009
Mage of Life-Breath-Doom
#2667: Aug 24th 2012 at 3:36:52 AM

Must resist... the urge to create Fakemons...

[up]Well both he and Elsie will have eletric types

"Here to welcome our new golden-eyed overlords," said Addy promptly.
Bluelantern2814 Mage of Life-Breath-Doom Since: Sep, 2009
Mage of Life-Breath-Doom
#2668: Aug 26th 2012 at 7:13:40 PM

Now I'm wondering if there are any faith healers who are actually witches in the Luminosity verse.

I have already *decided* that in a few years, The Church of the Vampire Christ will emerge in the luminosity-verse :3

"Here to welcome our new golden-eyed overlords," said Addy promptly.
Alicorn Since: Aug, 2010
#2669: Sep 26th 2012 at 8:24:37 PM

This thread seems to have died to the point where I'm going to stop checking it; if anyone wants my attention they can email me at the address on my websites.

Bluelantern2814 Mage of Life-Breath-Doom Since: Sep, 2009
Mage of Life-Breath-Doom
#2670: Sep 27th 2012 at 6:15:14 PM

So... Never Forgotten 2 - Chapter 1 - Remembering Fire

I am so very sorry.

"Here to welcome our new golden-eyed overlords," said Addy promptly.
Bluelantern2814 Mage of Life-Breath-Doom Since: Sep, 2009
Mage of Life-Breath-Doom
#2671: Sep 30th 2012 at 3:42:20 AM

Never Forgotten 2 - Chapter 2 – Remembering the date

Never Forgotten 2 - Chapter 3 – Remembering Learning Things

Never Forgotten 2 - Chapter 4 – Remembering Russian

Things go faster when you don't make corrections :p

edited 30th Sep '12 3:42:48 AM by Bluelantern2814

"Here to welcome our new golden-eyed overlords," said Addy promptly.
Exetera Since: Jun, 2012
#2672: Oct 14th 2012 at 1:02:08 PM

OK, so... I mentioned elsewhere that I thought Luminosity went rapidly downhill following Chapter 15. (NOTE: Luminosity seems to have changed chapter numbering systems at least once. I'm referring to the most recent chapter numberings on Alicorn's web page, in which Chapter 15 contains the wedding and honeymoon.) I had been hoping that a lot of other people would say, "yeah, we know there's a problem with that, you should pick back up with chapter 2πx and it will be just as fun as when you started." I wasn't necessarily expecting that, but I was surprised to find that nobody else seemed to have the problems I did. And it seems several people would like me to explain. Well... OK. I'm warning you, this is going to be a bit long. I'm moving back to this thread to avoid derailing the one I started in. Note that I have read only chapters 1 to 19.

First, Bella's values become staggeringly unjustified and unearned after she turns. The most obvious is her regard for human life. Throughout the story, she doesn't care about the deaths of animals. Naturally, the dividing line between killing animals and humans would be very bright indeed for a human, but it doesn't seem like it should necessarily be that obvious to her as a vampire. After her turning, she doesn't so much as think about it, let alone reconsider it, at least from what I read. Likewise, her desire for universal immortality. Again: sensible to a human who would very much like to justify becoming immortal in the near future, but not necessarily as obvious to a vampire who is already immortal. It also presupposes that problematic value regarding human life. Note that these are apparently not weakly-held values given that she risks a lot for them; I would certainly say that I value human life, but when push comes to shove I have staked astonishingly little on protecting it. Certainly I would not risk my life or the lives of my family to protect another, as Bella does; I suspect few would absent a social obligation. We should know why she believes so strongly, or her beliefs will ring false.

Look, these are supposed to be deep, strongly-held values. This makes them hard to justify. Eliezer managed it in Methods, but only as the result of a whole lot of work: Harry consistently demonstrates these values all the way back to the beginning of the story, he made possibly the most eloquent speech I have ever read explaining his views on the subject (his Dementor-killing speech in Chapter 45), and he also had some personal tragedy in his background which would naturally make it a bit more understandable. Bella, however, is not especially consistent. When she's talking about universal immortality in Chapter 7, though her logic is sound, her reasoning for not wanting to turn everyone immediately comes off suspiciously like a rationalization, and I found a premise to be quite dodgy. Likewise, in the Chapter 11 region, Bella does not seem as concerned as she ought to be about the various incidental deaths surrounding her capture and flight to Volterra. When she's steeling herself not to eat her first human houseguest after turning in Chapter 14, she doesn't mention any values of her own that might be violated, instead choosing to frame her opposition in terms of other peoples' values. So when this regard for human life pops up exactly when it would be most risky for her, and also when it would allow Alicorn to move the plot along nicely... I get suspicious.

She also seems to be following those (awkward, unjustified) values extremely poorly. For instance, in Chapter 15, Bella saves Gianna from the Volturi. Saving a life is, of course, in line with the first value I mentioned... but this seems to be selective to the point of Chronic Hero Syndrome. Remember, if she wants to save people she's going to have to topple the Volturi eventually. A good way to start with that is to not become overwhelmingly obvious to those Volturi before she's ready to take them on. Pulling stunts like that in front of them is an extremely bad way to avoid attracting attention. What's more, she's also evidently not interested in doing any of the other obvious things she could do to save lives... say, going to the city with Alice and pulling people out of the way of car accidents. From an utilitarian perspective, she's morally better off saving two people in some other way (which would not be hard for her) instead of Gianna even without getting into the quagmire of "will this action jeopardize my ability to save others in the future." Then, of course, Bella vampirizes Gianna's brother, which... look, you already flipped the bird to the Volturi once, there's no reason to do it again. And, given that Carlisle is a doctor, she could very easily come out ahead from the utilitarian perspective by turning two arbitrarily selected near-corpses.

Another way in which Bella actualizes her values poorly is when she begins bringing back the werewolves. Now, she actually tries to justify this as optimal by making a hypothesis about "well, what if Aro can remember later things he read from someone else's mind but didn't think about while learning them," but this seems to be a wildly improbable hypothesis. First, it requires (extremely dubiously) that Aro hasn't thought at all about werewolves in the years or (possibly) decades since the last time he'd touched a Cullen after their treaty with the werewolves... and, second, Aro is shown not being able to recall something he would have learned through a mind-scan under that hypothesis, when he's baffled by Bella's talk of her upcoming children as she rescues Gianna. Were the theory true, he should have found out about that through touching Edward.

Okay, so Bella's hypothesis excuse is obviously wrong, but that doesn't tell us why saving the werewolves would conflict with her values. There are a lot of reasons for that. First, she seems perfectly willing to kill vampires (ie. the Volturi) to save humans. Yet she doesn't even think about the risks to human beings inherent in bringing werewolves back. She has a little bit of information suggesting that werewolves in wolf form are not especially controlled; it's quite possible from what we know that they can't abstain from human flesh as vampires can. And she doesn't bother looking into that. She also doesn't bother to, um, ask the werewolves not to kill people. This is not even going into her decision to turn her first werewolf, without knowing exactly how that would work, in the middle of a major population center. As usual, this was without bothering to ask someone else about it – surely Carlisle would know enough of the details about how werewolves turn for Bella to avoid that particular gaffe. Even if we take "save the werewolves" as a new, special value above all others, it still wouldn't make sense for her to bring the werewolves back – inactive werewolves will surely be much harder for the Volturi to find, and we already know that active werewolves are no match for the Volturi on account of their being otherwise extinct.

Early-chapters Bella was not significantly less intelligent than I am. Most likely, she was smarter. In the intervening time, she's become a vampire and therefore (theoretically) even smarter than that. I should not be seeing holes in Vampire Bella's plans on a casual read-through. That's character derailment, as far as I'm concerned. And it's downright painful to read. It's possible that this foolishness is the result of being a newborn, but aside from the bloodthirstiness it doesn't seem like that's supposed to affect vampires in quite that way... and if it were, I would expect Edward or one of the other Cullens to stop her, for her own safety as well as theirs.

Human, rational Bella was also just plain more interesting! Even aside from the rationality stuff (Bella will be on my mind when I finally finish that journaling system I've been meaning to write for years...) watching Bella up against such outrageous odds was quite interesting to me. Remember, Bella was facing supernatural and nigh-invulnerable beings with nearly-infinite resources; the absolute worst she could possibly have done at any point prior to becoming a vampire was to inconvenience the Cullens into moving. I like to express the tension in a story as a question, and here it is undoubtedly "Can her brains overcome her lack of ability?" That's interesting! I really like that in a story! Problem is, when Bella actually becomes one of those supernatural and nigh-invulnerable beings with nearly-infinite resources, the story doesn't seem to think through what needs to change in its source of tension to accommodate that; instead, the question seems to bend back on itself with the aid of Bella's newly-acquired stupidity to become "Can her lack of brains overcome her ability," or more laconically "When will these stupid, stupid plans she keeps making backfire?" These are not questions that I find interesting. And I do not feel like slogging through more of the story as it is at Chapter 19 to answer that question. I would really just like to know if it ever fixes these problems so I can know when to pick it back up.

edited 14th Oct '12 1:21:01 PM by Exetera

alethiophile Shadowed Philosopher from Ëa Since: Nov, 2009
Shadowed Philosopher
#2673: Oct 14th 2012 at 4:03:59 PM

I can understand your explanation of each individual problem you're having, and even agree with some of them, but from this I'm completely unable to identify the trend in the story which you dislike, and so can't really answer.

Though I will say that the overwhelming-odds-against of the early story do come back with a vengeance from the end of Luminosity all through Radiance.

Shinigan (Naruto fanfic)
Bluelantern2814 Mage of Life-Breath-Doom Since: Sep, 2009
Mage of Life-Breath-Doom
#2674: Oct 14th 2012 at 4:25:43 PM

[up][up]I would just like to point out two mistakes mistakes:

  • The Cullen's (and therefore Bella's) information on the werewolves was that being around' (as in near, breathing the same air) vampires causes werewolves to activate eventually this was what happened in canon with Jacob, Edward was nearby and Jacob had time to return to the reservation before even experiencing any disconfort from activating, if I am not wrong (haven't read the book).
  • The Cullen's haven't met the Volturi after their encounter with the La Push werewolves, or at least that is the impression I had. Carlisle is the type that might even write letters to them, but casual visits aren't stuff that you do with the Volturi.
EDIT:
  • Also, another thing. About Vampire "Inteligence"... well, Luminosity!Vampires have... "bigger minds", which I guess is like bigger processing power, even Emmett could do complex mathematical problems faster than any human, however Emmett and no other Cullen ever considered stuff like using in vitro fertilization for Bella. Just pointing this out because using the term "Inteligence" can lead to false assumptions on vampires capabilities.

edited 14th Oct '12 4:30:21 PM by Bluelantern2814

"Here to welcome our new golden-eyed overlords," said Addy promptly.
JamesOrland Since: Jul, 2011
#2675: Oct 14th 2012 at 4:26:37 PM

[up][up][up] Bella is a transhumanist. I am a transhumanist. I have never suffered any traumas, have never seen death too closely, have lived a sheltered life in an intellectual and economical elite, and still I would lay down my life if that would save more people than the expected number of people I could save if I stayed alive. And from canon, turning into a vampire is basically freezing yourself in time. That is, any values you had when you turned would remain with you forever, and be heightened. If she was a transhumanist before turning, after turning she would be an even stronger one.

So, I don't think it's hard to justify those values, because anyone that identifies as a transhumanist... well, we just sort of take them for granted. We already thought deeply about them, and they're pretty much a big part of our identities.

Also, werewolves don't eat people. I don't know where you go that from, but they were created with the sole purpose of protecting people, so they don't ever eat people. Activating as many werewolves as possible is a very good idea indeed to someone who wants to protect human life.

edited 14th Oct '12 4:27:02 PM by JamesOrland


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