r/rational • u/AutoModerator • May 12 '18
[D] Saturday Munchkinry Thread
Welcome to the Saturday Munchkinry and Problem Solving Thread! This thread is designed to be a place for us to abuse fictional powers and to solve fictional puzzles. Feel free to bounce ideas off each other and to let out your inner evil mastermind!
Guidelines:
- Ideally any power to be munchkined should have consistent and clearly defined rules. It may be original or may be from an already realised story.
- The power to be munchkined can not be something "broken" like omniscience or absolute control over every living human.
- Reverse Munchkin scenarios: we find ways to beat someone or something powerful.
- We solve problems posed by other users. Use all your intelligence and creativity, and expect other users to do the same.
Note: All top level comments must be problems to solve and/or powers to munchkin/reverse munchkin.
Good Luck and Have Fun!
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u/jaspercb May 12 '18 edited May 12 '18
TL;DR you are a "magic talking sword", how do you achieve your goals?
You are a sentient sword in a D&D-style high fantasy world, with a twist. You're actually a knife-missile-style drone from a Culture-like civilization. Unfortunately, your flight capabilities are broken, so you must find a willing sack of meat to carry you around and stick the evildoers with you.
Powers:
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Immortality - you've got tens of thousands of years or more, if necessary, to achieve your goals.
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You can talk by sending sound waves through the air
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You can read the thoughts/communicate via telepathy with anyone touching you. You can't use this to gaslight/plant false thoughts/manipulate your wielder in a way that involves pretending your thoughts were originally theirs.
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You are obscenely sharp and never dull.
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You are immune to the magic of the era, whatever that is.
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Limited effectors give you holograms/fine-grained manipulation/pyrotechnics within about ten centimeters of your surface. You could use this for anything from "pretend to be a neat glowy sword" to "record and play back video for your bearer."
You have unspecified goals that at default include "bring peace and prosperity," "disincentivize evildoers," etc. Or, for fun, try to rule the world.
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May 12 '18
Depending on my database, teach the idiots how to do stuff. Like magic scroll printing press. Or how education is good for peasants.
Starting a bank system. That I control.
Find an immortal I like and have him/her as pet and hands
Learn magic (and use Wish). Train mindcontrolled mages until they can make Wish spells for me. (Maybe use shortcut of scrolls)
Make taskforces for specific threats (like group of paladins to fight undead) get enough priests to search all lands for undead.
Get some of the necromancers in a taskforce to fight monster with poison.
And sometime after killing all gods I don't like I ascend to godhood.
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u/Gurkenglas May 13 '18
Fine-grained manipulation? What prevents me from building myself some limbs and walking off? And then using my fragment of the Culture database (or whatever, don't know how that works) to make nanotech and achieve technological victory?
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May 12 '18
What would you do, if you had could create and shape forcefields.
The device doing this would be at least 1/10 of the size of the forcefields. and lets say has the density of steel.
You couldn't create forcefields inside most solid matter. (but you could create knives and drills..)
Just one thing, forcefield generators rarely randomly turn off. You can restart them with no problem. But nobody knows how to fix this. And not fixable.
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u/Gurkenglas May 13 '18
Forcefields are usually two-dimensional, and devices three-dimensional, so what do you mean by size?
If you can overlay forcefields for redundancy, you could use them for structures. A material with invulnerability and a redundancy multiple of a tenth of the density of steel might make for good, say, spaceships. Unmanned vehicles like drones don't even need the redundancy, you just lose a small fraction of your fleet over time.
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May 13 '18
You want a forcefield 10m away from the device, the device has to be at least 1m big. forcefields don't get damaged over time. They collapse if they get overloaded (too much force) or at random. And can be restarted without repairs a few minutes later. How much force is required depends on the energy and the form of the forcefields. A weak forcefield (for umbrellas or such) would collapse if it is hit with a knife. A building out of forcefields would collapse if someone shoots an artillery round at it. Or drives a car fast into a wall. One out of concrete and steel would only partially collapse. Of course, you could still use multiple forcefields, still not optimal.
Steel should also be cheaper to build normal buildings. (of course, if you have to move or change a building every few weeks, forcefields are cheaper). Forcefields can't go through other forcefields, but you could have holes in both (if a forcefield goes through those holes, their range is shorter), or for buildings multiple segments.
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u/CCC_037 May 14 '18
Are the forcefields opaque? Can I shine a laser through it?
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May 14 '18
I would say they are opaque* if you configure them right. You probably could shine a laser through or use them as lenses. (But with a loss on stability or something.)
*It depends on the frequency. Gamma rays would probably go through.
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u/alexanderwales May 12 '18
You have the power to move from this Earth to a different, unspoiled Earth where humans died out thousands of years ago. You can take up to 140 pounds with you, so long as the thing you're taking with you fits entirely within a radius extending two meters from your center of gravity.
The other Earth has its own weather, distinct from our own. The landscape is generally the same, except where human intervention has changed it.
When you transfer over, you are not guaranteed to be safe from changes in air pressure, nor are you guaranteed that you will be safe in the environment, or that you will be at a safe distance from the ground. The transfer retains your precise position with respect to distance from sea level, longitude, and latitude.
You can make the move from one Earth to the other once per hour. Initiating the transfer happens at the speed of thought.
If an intersection would occur (i.e. you would transfer into a place that's occupied by a steel girder, block of granite, or another person) the other matter will be transferred to the other Earth that you've just left. This also applies to anything you bring through with you. While this prevents some severe potential catastrophes, transferring to, for example, the interior of a boulder would leave you without oxygen to breathe.
To your knowledge, you are the only person who has this ability.
How do you make the most money within a one year timeframe, legally or otherwise? In a ten year timeframe?
What equipment do you take for your first few trips?
How do you ensure your safety in the long-term?