Attack of the Ankle-Biters - Replacment player needed.

[Fyron]

Well, I was going under the assumption that he was not wanting to include magic in the mod. Anything technological or pseudo-realistic has to make some sort of travel path. Instantly warping there is absurd unless you are doing something like folding space (an absurd notion in and of itself), which is well beyond the scope of telekinesis. Even wormholes have a path of travel in realspace.

[geoschmo]

But nothing about telekinesis requires a path. It's using mental energy to manifest a force out of nothing. If we are going to accept a weapon that violates the laws of thermodynamics as it's fundamental operating principle, we don't have to say the force is created out of nothing at the point of the projector. We can simply say the force is being created out nothing at the point of the target. Either one is acceptable once we get past the initial violating assumption.

EDIT: Put it this way, if the force required a path from the mind creating it to the target it would punch a hole through their own ship on the way out. Unless the psychics are strapped to the outside of the hull.

Geoschmo

[ July 28, 2003, 01:01: Message edited by: geoschmo ]

[Pax]

Originally posted by Imperator Fyron:
Well, I was going under the assumption that he was not wanting to include magic in the mod. Anything technological or pseudo-realistic has to make some sort of travel path. Instantly warping there is absurd unless you are doing something like folding space (an absurd notion in and of itself), which is well beyond the scope of telekinesis. Even wormholes have a path of travel in realspace.

Tell me, Fyron, have you ever heard of the phenomenon called "quantum tunnelling" ... ?

Matter -- that's matter not just energy -- instantaneously jumps form point A to (say) point H ... and does not pass through points BCDEF or G. And it's a real-world current thing, not just SF.

Further, there's also the whole "quantum pair" infinite-distance instantaneous information transfer effect. Create two particles; they will have opposite spin. They will always have opposite spin. If you send particle B to the other side of the universe, uncountable billions of lightyears away while keeping particle A HERE ... and then reverse B's spin ... at the exact same moment, particle A will also reverse it's spin.

All that's required is, they both be in the same universe. (as far as we know so far, anyway; it migh even work across THOSE barriers). A forcefield wouldn't change that. Heck, fourty billion klometers of armor wouldn't change that.

So it is entirely within the realm of quantum physics to posit a mechanism, by which energy can be "created" or otherwise accumulated at some marked distance from teh generator, without effect upon or from intervening energy, matter, space, etc.

So much for your "it has to be magic" argument, hmm? I guess "everything technological or pseudo-realistic" doesn't actually HAVE to have apath of travel, now, does it?

8P

Oh, as for folding space being absurd: tell it to Einstein. He was under the (apparently absurd) notion that space IS foldable, warpable, bendable,e tc. Seems he had this crazy notion gravity does JUST that.

But, of course, that's not possible; never mind the fact that we've PROVEN gravity warps space (that bit, at least, is no longer theory).

[Slick]

*sigh*

not again...


Slick.

[Fyron]

That is all fine. It still does not have anything to do with telekinesis, which is a projection of force powered by mental (psionic) energy from the being doing the telekinesis.

[Phoenix-D]

Explain why the shields could block mental force, then. (hell, explain why they could block -any- force, aside from maybe electromagnetic)

[Jack Simth]

Originally posted by Imperator Fyron:
That is all fine. It still does not have anything to do with telekinesis, which is a projection of force powered by mental (psionic) energy from the being doing the telekinesis.

From the context, it would appear that Pax is suggesting that in his view of how the currently commonly considered imaginary field of telekenesis, the energy generated by the psis' is transmitted through a mechanism that skips distances and interviening matter/energy/whatever in a similar manner to quantum tunneling or the unknown mechanism of quantum pairings; thus skipping shields.

Likewise, from the context it would appear that you are suggesting that in your view of how the currently commonly considered imaginary field of telekenesis, the energy generated by the psis' is transmitted through a mechanism that does not skip distances and interviening matter/energy/whatever.

As the existance of telekenesis is currently open to debate, and thus the mechanism hasn't been studied (assuming that it exists in the first place in order to have a mechanisim) and is thus unknown, debating based on realism wether or not this possibly nonexistant force could get through a shield that is currently only hypothesized is laughable. Or, as Geo put it:

Originally posted by geoschmo:
Are you seriously debating telekinetic powers skipping shields, and using a realism argument? ROFL!

Geoschmo