Maybe this would go better in the Info Kiosk, but I wanted to get this settled once and for all. Fa'lina's claim of being "semi-omnipotent" never did seem right. Her profile in the Wiku-Wiki backs what it originally sounded like to me - she comes off as closer to omniscience than omnipotence (which, various other implications aside, would put Dan at a rather significant disadvantage if they ever did fight).
And yet, there it is in the non-open-source comic. And we haven't actually seen anything to imply real limits to her power. So I gotta ask - which one's right?
You know, the former I've always thought of as a hasty generalization, theory or otherwise.
"Fa'lina is semi-omniscient, not semi-omnipotent."
We have yet to see Fa'lina's entire story or her nature/background (barring the extremely brief history lesson and the demonology article; we need -relevant- evidence pertaining to her semi-omnipotence)--
--if that will ever be revealed to us, for any purpose.
There not being any other relevant evidence on the matter makes the outcome of this query depend on whether or not Amber will reply to you right here and now.
I'm sorry to say, tragic waste of topic; unless you enjoy the wild theories that people will come up with, which may or may not truly answer your question.
omnicence- all knowing
omnipotent- all powerfull
omnicence and omnipotence are usually hand in hand. consider, if you KNOW everything, does that not make you nearly all powerful?
lets say you were a military commander, if you were omnipotent you could flatten the enemies cities and troops with divine wrath or turn them all into piles of aged cheese. if you were omnicent you would know exactly where they would move, send your troops accordingly, know exactly where their troops are not and where your troops should not be. victory is assured either way.
knowledge is power, especially in a place like furrae where you can know exactly what someones weakness is, possibly know obscure spells you've never heard of just by thinking, and knowing exactly where every trap door, enemy reinforcement, allied warrior, wandering monster, man eating plant, and whatever else will be.
QuoteDon't make me get old testament on your asses
This is my take on it: http://dmfa.wikia.com/wiki/Fa%27Lina
(That's the only item we have on Fa'Lina right now, by the way. Any takers?)
And to be anal, there is no such thing as "semi-omni _____"
Its just a pet peeve of mine who use terms like nigh-invincible.
Its either your are have infinite power, or you have finite power... even if you have oodles of power but is has a limit then it is not infinite.
Quote from: Brunhidden da Muse on February 27, 2007, 03:41:42 AM
-snip-
Your argument is sound, but it works on different assumptions. We're assuming that omniscience and omnipotence are different. Whether or not they are is not the question, the question is whether or not Fa'lina is one or the other.Quote from: Tapewolf on February 27, 2007, 04:58:36 AM
-snip
"Apparently in error"?
We have nine thousand years plus years of her life we do not yet know of, and the depth of her character we have not fully explored. Offhand comments and appearances in recent events does not a character's biography make, and consequently we can not conclude that she is not semi-omnipotent.
Unless of course, I'm expecting the evidence to which you can back up that it was indeed an error? In my mind, I'm thinking that there might be, and that you know of it. Especially since I haven't been keeping track of the forums as vigilantly.
I cannot refute that, but otherwise my statement stands.
EDIT: And the former post just enforces my doubts on that. Could be that it was an error, considering the awkwardness of the word's meaning itself.Quote from: King Of Hearts on February 27, 2007, 05:35:08 AM
-snip-
Bravo. I salute you for that.
Quote from: Ink on February 27, 2007, 05:53:11 AM
"Apparently in error"?
We have nine thousand years plus years of her life we do not yet know of, and the depth of her character we have not fully explored. Offhand comments and appearances in recent events does not a character's biography make, and consequently we can not conclude that she is not semi-omnipotent.
I say it's an error, because,
as we discussed last time this came up (http://clockworkmansion.com/forum/index.php?topic=1170.msg53159#msg53159), she says she is semi-omnipotent and then promptly describes
omniscience. That looks like a typo to me.
Besides, it's a wiki. If you don't like what I've written, you are perfectly free to do a better job yourself.
**EDIT**
I'm not ruling out omnipotence, but I haven't seen any evidence of it so far. Some form of omniscience she may have, but it's obviously not bug-free.
Quote from: King Of Hearts on February 27, 2007, 05:35:08 AM
And to be anal, there is no such thing as "semi-omni _____"
Its just a pet peeve of mine who use terms like nigh-invincible.
Its either your are have infinite power, or you have finite power... even if you have oodles of power but is has a limit then it is not infinite.
Reminds me of an episode of
Daria when Trent ponders how something can be colder than subzero...
Trent: Even if it's colder, that's still subzero.
Max: Yeah, but Trent, it's the wind chill.
There can be something colder than sub zero since the term is used to describe anything below 0 degrees celsius... Assuming of course that the sub zero temperature in question is not Absolute Zero. [0 Kelvin]
But yeah if the term is used to describe a temperature down to Absolute Zero then there shouldnt be anything colder than it.
Quote from: King Of Hearts on February 27, 2007, 05:35:08 AM
And to be anal, there is no such thing as "semi-omni _____"
Its just a pet peeve of mine who use terms like nigh-invincible.
Its either your are have infinite power, or you have finite power... even if you have oodles of power but is has a limit then it is not infinite.
infinite / 2 = infinite.
That's one of the neat properties of infinities. If you're only half-infinite power, you're still infinite power. It doesn't make sense, because it doesn't make sense. Nothing more, nothing less.
maths is weird. :-)
Divide by Zero, O shi--
Another reason why the term shouldnt work.
The term uses "semi" in its definition as partial in this context, however.
Guys, I think, at this point, that Fa'Lina, whatever her powers (i'm leaning towards omniscience, if a Cubi) relies on SAIA as a source of all magic etc. Then that Cubi will use that power, towards ones ends. Since Fa'Lina created that academy in the first place, I think the location where the magic is so strong, and can be given to all Cubi's, but when leaving the academy, I think their magic is only temporary until they need food - like sucking emotions and stuff - to replenish that lost magic. In a nutshell SAIA is a endless supply of energy and the Cubi's are the rechargeable batteries to absorb that magical energy.
(See a pattern yet?)
For once someone might be right. Just keep sure hold onto that theory,we might find out soon or later people cause we caution our minds with knowing most all I hope.
Coherence is a gift...
Let me give it to you.
Quote from: King Of Hearts on February 27, 2007, 06:53:54 AM
The term uses "semi" in its definition as partial in this context, however.
Well, I'm halfway certain that any part of Infinity is still Infinity :P
I usually use "quasi-omnipotent" or "quasi-infinite powers" to describe "heckuvalot powah". Not the most scientific term, but at least it's a bit harder to tear apart by people who know their definitions ;)
On-topic, I think that this comic (http://www.missmab.com/Comics/Vol_740.php) pretty much explains things, at least from Fa'Lina's point of view. Within SAIA, she has "complete insight and power" (even though I personally doubt this to a degree). Outside of SAIA, she finds her limits.
Personally, I trust Fa'Lina to tell the truth.
No, really.
(Not.)
I first read this topic as Semi-impotence.
There was much relief when I read the thread. HEY I'M A POET AND D*Headshot*
Quote from: Jim Halisstrad on February 27, 2007, 09:26:55 AM
I first read this topic as Semi-impotence.
There was much relief when I read the thread. HEY I'M A POET AND D*Headshot*
I AM IMPOTENT! :mwaha
*henchmen snigger*
...wait, I didn't mean that... it didn't come out right! D:
Quote from: Brunhidden da Muse on February 27, 2007, 03:41:42 AMomnicence- all knowing
omnipotent- all powerfull
omnicence and omnipotence are usually hand in hand. consider, if you KNOW everything, does that not make you nearly all powerful?
Well, there's Cassandra, who could predict the future, but was doomed to have no one believe it. Croesus also sought out the oracle at Delphi for advice on whether to go to war. The oracle responded that if he should march against the Persians he should destroy a great empire.
The empire that he destroyed was his own.
Quote from: llearch n'n'daCorna on February 27, 2007, 09:16:13 AMCoherence is a gift...
Let me give it to you.
There are few things more annoying than someone repeatedly calling someone (be it myself or others) annoying. Which is why I tend not to say that a lot. On the other hand, you can't argue with results. Any chance of paragraph breaks?
(what if ShiningShadow were gifted with omniscience? Would that result in omnipotence?)
You know, this all really only becomes amusing when you take into account the finity of the amount of energy in the universe, dark energy, and the hubble constant. Then, you start to see some funky-ass shit. Like raisin bread everywhere. Wowaweowah!
Quote from: superluser on February 27, 2007, 10:16:43 AM
There are few things more annoying than someone repeatedly calling someone (be it myself or others) annoying. Which is why I tend not to say that a lot. On the other hand, you can't argue with results. Any chance of paragraph breaks?
We're attempting to train, here. If it happens that more intervention is needed, we'll think about it.
I'd throw a paragraph break in, but it was a single paragraph. So the only way I could do that is by breaking the flow of the sentences, which wasn't the aim.
Maybe next time?
Quote from: King Of Hearts on February 27, 2007, 06:53:54 AM
Divide by Zero, O shi--
Another reason why the term shouldnt work.
The term uses "semi" in its definition as partial in this context, however.
Now wait just a minute there philosophical sports fans, "infinity" and "all of it" are two different things.
Say you want to know everything.
Catalog every position of every particle, to the subatomic, and every force acting on it, along with every position it ever will have.
Impossible, obviously, but you would then know everything.
Once that's done, anyone who sat down and read half your notes would be semi-omniscient. Indeed we could get sloppy with the term and say anyone who'd read a significant fraction of your notes was also semi-omniscient as in "a jolly good fraction of" as opposed to "exactly half".
So she can be semi-omniscient, semi-omnipotent, and even nigh-invulnerable because these terms do not imply the infinite, merely the very very LARGE set of possibilities in the universe.
Which is still (assuming we're looking at things with our radiotelescopes) finite.
Okay then what if Falina has the ability to see the endless possibilities of each action is taken.
Then there are many scenarios that Falina see and she know the outcome of it, perhaps to somehow to alter it for her ends to get the right action taken.
That's how I see it at this point and don't forget when she was at SAIA she knows everything and how to planned them accordinly. But when she left the grounds of SAIA her powers were dimishing making her less powerful than before.
I think she tends to be manipulative towards other beings to get the results in the scenario she has seen before it has happened.
Am I wrong with this pattern and how Falina thinks when she does the knowing all and seeing all act.
Yes.
I think, ShiningShadow, that her -powers- aren't diminished by leaving SAIA - but her -foresight- is.
So... she can do just as much, but she can't manage to figure out ahead of time what the result of those actions is, quite as well as she would when she is back at SAIA.
As for her motives - the people would like to register this (http://missmab.com/Comics/Vol_591.php) as evidence... Particularly panel 4...
Quote from: llearch n'n'daCorna on February 27, 2007, 06:37:06 AMThat's one of the neat properties of infinities. If you're only half-infinite power, you're still infinite power. It doesn't make sense, because it doesn't make sense. Nothing more, nothing less.
Perhaps so, but, building on MaskedRetriever's comments, let me offer a bit of counterargument. Let's say that you know e. Not just 2.7 Andrew Jackson squared isosceles right triangle, but every last digit out to infinity. You now have an infinite amount of knowledge.
Now you learn that there's another number, called pi. You don't know pi to even one digit. You still contain an infinite amount of knowledge, but you're only semi-omniscient about pi and e.
Edit: Ooh! Actually, that would be fun, because if Fa'Lina's omniscient in SAIA, you could run all sorts of precise scientific experiments there and know the outcomes to extremely high confidence levels. And you'd know the answers before you ran the experiments. Gravity Probe B would be completely unnecessary.
You are all also forgetting the possibility Fa'Lina chose that particular phrase not for its accuracy, but because it was something that Dan could understand since he likely wouldn't be the type to fuddle over the definition.
Quote from: Amber Williams on February 27, 2007, 05:43:42 PM
You are all also forgetting the possibility Fa'Lina chose that particular phrase not for its accuracy, but because it was something that Dan could understand since he likely wouldn't be the type to fuddle over the definition.
Heh. I had been wondering if it was a slip-of-the-tongue, e.g. "Did I say omnipotence? I meant 'omniscience'."
While that would be slightly out-of-character for Fa'Lina, it is something which I haven't seen in comics very much - even though it happens a lot in real life.
Quote from: Amber Williams on February 27, 2007, 05:43:42 PM
You are all also forgetting the possibility Fa'Lina chose that particular phrase not for its accuracy, but because it was something that Dan could understand since he likely wouldn't be the type to fuddle over the definition.
I didn't! I said I didn't trust her to tell the truth at all!
... or was that a different thread?
I can never tell. Sometimes whenever people mention Fa'Lina, the only thing I ever hear is Stygian going "rawr. I hates Fa'Lina. Grrr." :P
Quote from: King Of Hearts on February 27, 2007, 06:10:33 AM
There can be something colder than sub zero since the term is used to describe anything below 0 degrees celsius... Assuming of course that the sub zero temperature in question is not Absolute Zero. [0 Kelvin]
But yeah if the term is used to describe a temperature down to Absolute Zero then there shouldnt be anything colder than it.
Actually, you _can_ have temperatures below absolute zero, but they're actually really hot temps.
Essentially, the way it works is this. Thermodynamically, temperature is defined as the reciprocal of the partial derivative of entropy with respect to energy with volume, number of particles, externally produced magnetic fields, etc etc etc held constant.
Basically, temperature is how much energy changes if you tweak the entropy.
Now, it is a nontrivial fact that a very large class of physical systems (pretty much any system you're likely to run into in Real Life(tm)) have temperatures proportional to the average energies of their particles. But this is not actually the definition of temperature. The "intuitive" definition is along the lines of to what extend does the object tend to spew out energy, and the technical definition is as I mentioned above.
There do exist systems though that one can contrive to put into a state of negative temperature.
Essentially, that would mean that a _decrease_ in its energy would cause an increase in its entropy. To anthropomorphize it, it really really really really really wants to dump energy.
One way to actually achieve this is the weakly interacting two state paramagnet. Essentially that's a system analogous to a series of coins, in which the energy of the particle depends on if the coin is heads or tails, and the particles can exchange energy randomly, but have little other influence over each other.
Now, if I'm remembering this right, if you set up that system, get it cold, then flip the external magnetic field fast enough, then you'll have more then half the "coins" in the high energy state. And that will, if you compute it, turn out to correspond to an actual negative temperature. Of course, it'll really quickly dump that energy and drop down into a positive temp again. (essentially, you can't get to negative temps by passing zero, but you can by taking the long way around, "passing" infinite temp.
Quote from: Amber Williams on February 27, 2007, 07:09:33 PM
I can never tell. Sometimes whenever people mention Fa'Lina, the only thing I ever hear is Stygian going "rawr. I hates Fa'Lina. Grrr." :P
Hey! Now, I have a perfectly good reason to! What? Am I not permitted to loathe such despicable little power-crazy, manipulative, patronizing, disrespectful and tactless twits now...?
...no, really. It's just that I don't see any good sides to her. Not yet, that is. That can definitely change, of course, but right now all I've seen of her is a wise-ass bitch.
In regards to the "semi" issue, given the (fairly) recent developments with Pyroduck, I'd say it's reasonable that "semi" roughly means "within SAIA".
Quote from: Amber Williams on February 27, 2007, 05:43:42 PMYou are all also forgetting the possibility Fa'Lina chose that particular phrase not for its accuracy, but because it was something that Dan could understand since he likely wouldn't be the type to fuddle over the definition.
...
*Thinks about that for a minute*
We're not supposed to know, are we?
I will say that a few times I have been confronted by people who think what a character says/thinks is something I personally think as well. Which is understandable given the medium. Though I admit there have been times I have gotten railed over what was an intentional grammer mis-using and I eventually did change it back because people kept nagging over it. Which is rough when I am wanting to do something particular but people insist that every character needs perfect grammar and diction.
That said. Fa'Lina? She's a tricky one, though for reasons not anyone would suspect I think.
Reasons that, I assume, you're not going to tell us. :cry
I'd tell you, but then it would spoil the magic of me complaining about having to draw the arc explaining it. And no one wants that! :boogie
Quote from: Amber Williams on February 27, 2007, 08:34:46 PM
I'd tell you, but then it would spoil the magic of me complaining about having to draw the arc explaining it. And no one wants that! :boogie
I'm going to say... intentionally using her increasingly convoluted and annoying mystique to keep people away in a manner somewhat similar to Abel, serving as a partial basis for their strange, but undeniably close relationship.
Or maybe she has some degree of fourth-wall-pushing abilities and likes to annoy on as grand a scale as possible, which may or may not be for related reasons.
Just off the top of my head.
As to the original topic, going to say that we're not supposed to know
yet, then.
I think she's just kinda an asshole. :<
Quote from: BillBuckner on February 27, 2007, 09:26:26 PM
I think she's just kinda an asshole. :<
Also a distinct possibility, which was my original take on her and one that doesn't look likely to be abandoned anytime soon.
Quote from: MaskedRetriever on February 27, 2007, 11:20:09 AM
Quote from: King Of Hearts on February 27, 2007, 06:53:54 AM
Divide by Zero, O shi--
Another reason why the term shouldnt work.
The term uses "semi" in its definition as partial in this context, however.
Now wait just a minute there philosophical sports fans, "infinity" and "all of it" are two different things.
Say you want to know everything.
Catalog every position of every particle, to the subatomic, and every force acting on it, along with every position it ever will have.
Impossible, obviously, but you would then know everything.
Once that's done, anyone who sat down and read half your notes would be semi-omniscient. Indeed we could get sloppy with the term and say anyone who'd read a significant fraction of your notes was also semi-omniscient as in "a jolly good fraction of" as opposed to "exactly half".
So she can be semi-omniscient, semi-omnipotent, and even nigh-invulnerable because these terms do not imply the infinite, merely the very very LARGE set of possibilities in the universe.
Which is still (assuming we're looking at things with our radiotelescopes) finite.
Assuming of course that all things such as time, space, knowledge, power or metaphysical concepts such as free will is finite.
Quote from: Amber Williams on February 27, 2007, 08:34:46 PM
I'd tell you, but then it would spoil the magic of me complaining about having to draw the arc explaining it. And no one wants that! :boogie
Well then you have this expertise of fleshing out your characters. I love them what you did with Abel and Dan I never nitpick on the diction i'm more like a actions kind of person. It's speaks for itself by the actions of the characters of DMFA, I will wait paitiently for the arc to presents itself and we will talk till no ends.
Quote from: ShiningShadow on February 28, 2007, 10:43:05 AM
Well then you have this expertise of fleshing out your characters. I love them what you did with Abel and Dan I never nitpick on the diction i'm more like a actions kind of person. It's speaks for itself by the actions of the characters of DMFA, I will wait paitiently for the arc to presents itself and we will talk till no ends.
I guess it's ironic that your grammar is so bad that I'm not sure what you just said. :mowdizzy
Quote from: Amber Williams on February 27, 2007, 08:25:35 PM
I will say that a few times I have been confronted by people who think what a character says/thinks is something I personally think as well. Which is understandable given the medium.
Do you really feel that? I don't.
If you can't disconnect from your characters at that level, you're not good at creating credible characters.
Summa summarum: I don't think, and I think that no one else should think that, anything Fa'Lina says or does has anything to do with your personal thoughts or opinions, other than perhaps on a subliminal level, what with you being the author of the comic and General Mistress of Plot after all...