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Light Speed Standard Revision

Andytrenom said:
Me saying "yes" was just me being lazy honestly. If I were to write a more detailed response I would probably call them 'different kinds of intangibility' instead
Ah I see.

Still, this doesnt negate what I said about DontTalk's earlier point. Verses who have characters that can non-physically interact with spirits should have 0 issues non-physically interacting with light.
 
The problem I have with DT's first point is, while what he said is sound, it adds another weakness to light manipulation that needs to be explicitly clarified, another assumption that we have no basis for. To argue that the user of light can neither use/preserve the mundane nature of light overall when in use, nor can the user do their best to specifically have the speed of the substance of their attack (light) preserved goes against... Light Manipulation. I understand that light moving by its own nature is why it's so fast, and changing the way that it moves is moving it at least somewhat irrelevant to its nature and therefore it has no reason to be as fast as it would be normally, as the cause of its speed, its "nature", is now taken out of the equation. But this again, does what I said earlier, assuming the light manipulator isn't responsible for the speed of their attack, which is ADDING a weakness, rather than inferring a capability based on what the user has shown.

It's more sound to assume the character is in control of their light's speed fully, since they can control its speed in the first place and having control over a substance that can move as fast as it naturally does implies that you can sustain the use of the substance at its natural speed— and unless proven false, we'd be adding a limitation to the character without clarification. It's better to assume the light manipulator has the most control over light possible [within the limits of their showings and capabilities], with context making this vary, obviously.

To assume the character is not responsible for the speed of their attack and that there attack speed is 100% the blame of or to be credited to their substance is to infer a limitation that's hardly ever stated.

It's also pretty all or nothing— just because i'm can influence or am partially influencing the movement behavior of water doesn't mean I automatically relinquish the natural movement behavior water has. I could easily do both at the same time or use one to add to the other.

TL:DR; I think it's simpler to assume a light manipulator is able to manipulate the speed of their attacks as fast as light itself would be allowed to move in the circumstances they provide, and faster if their power improves or works in that way. The alternative implies that the light manipulator is NOT responsible for the speed of their attack, which is a big nuclear take without evidence to support, and it being applied to everyone who uses the power (and powers similar) is pretty out there. Though, this means that there has to be solid statements of it being actual light, not just an energy blast being confused or colloquially called as such.
 
Sigurd Snake in The Eye said:
im quite certain NPI with spirits isn't treated the same as NPI for energy.
Andy and I literally just went over this before you commented.

NPI with spirits is characters hitting beings or things that are entirely intangible, meanwhile NPI with light is a step down from that since in some situations, light can be physically interacted with. Making it "less intangible" in other words.

How can a character hit things 100% intangible and then suddenly not be able to hit things that are like 80% intangible? It makes no sense.
 
Yeah, i'm with Kukui on this one. Unless it's a part of the power in the verse specifically (because assuming the mechanics of that ability isn't something we should do) being able to stop 100% intangible should cover anything other. Unless we're making new types of NPI, and this one covers mystical things and others cover scientific things that are only hard to grasp because they're not solid rather than not having atoms to physically exist on the same plane/dimension if we're to assume the latter is how spirits and mystical things are intangible.
 
Well, I would still much prefer if DontTalkDT handles any rules updates.
 
Antvasima said:
Well, I would still much prefer if DontTalkDT handles any rules updates.
Of course staff should be the ones who apply any new or additional changes to our rules and standards, but argumenative wise, some of us still disagree with DontTalk's argument.
 
Okay. Somebody can politely ask him to comment here again if you wish.
 
I think getting this "highlighted" would at least help get other people with knowledge comparable to DT's in here?
 
DT is one of our absolutely most knowledgeable, rational, and intelligent members. It is why he is a consultant.

Drowning out the staff with a tsunami of comments is not a good idea. It is better to let DontTalkDT handle this. He is our most experienced member when it comes to writing instruction policies.
 
This honestly does feel largely like a calc group issue. Which is why I didn't highlight this myself
 
Well, I still think that DontTalkDT likely made the most sense above. You can ask him to comment here again regarding what, if any, changes he thinks should be added to the page.
 
Okay. It is best if you ask DontTalkDT as well.
 
Amexim said:
It's better to assume the light manipulator has the most control over light possible [within the limits of their showings and capabilities], with context making this vary, obviously.
But if you still need to proof that their attacks are lightspeed, then they probably don't have the showings of producing lightspeed stuff. So the most control within their showings wouldn't be lightspeed.

I think it's simpler to assume a light manipulator is able to manipulate the speed of their attacks as fast as light itself would be allowed to move in the circumstances they provide said:
Andy and I literally just went over this before you commented.

NPI with spirits is characters hitting beings or things that are entirely intangible, meanwhile NPI with light is a step down from that since in some situations, light can be physically interacted with. Making it "less intangible" in other words.

How can a character hit things 100% intangible and then suddenly not be able to hit things that are like 80% intangible? It makes no sense.
NPI is a gathering term for various abilities and it should definitely be segregated (in case you didn't notice: We very often leave specifying details on abilities to the writers of profiles).

Being able to physically smack a lightbeam is a subpower of light manipulation, while physically smacking a soul is a subpower of soul manipulation.

Are you indicating every soul manipulator can manipulate light, 'cause it's easier?

Ultimately your argument is an association fallacy.

If you want another example of why that kind of reasoning doesn't work: Alpha Radiation is a radiation of particles, yet can go to certain degree of matter. Still, as a kind of matter ray it is "more tangible" than light. But do you think every way we can bend a lightbeam will also bend an alpha radiation beam? No, not the case.
 
Most of me forgot what my own point even was, so bare with me on the specifics. Often times I see people using light bending as proof that the attack ISN'T light, and that it's enough to disprove its assumed speed on that front alone, irrelevant to the other pieces of evidence. I think that's what people tried to make happen with Solar Beam, which is stated and acts like light pretty consistently. They argue that because light can be bended by the user, it's not light no matter what. Because light can be made to explode, it isn't light no matter what. I think that if they've done attacks that were considered to be real light as they were then the bending shouldn't count against it?

This took too long but maybe DT is a logical god.
 
Going to reply to DT now.

>But if you still need to proof that their attacks are lightspeed, then they probably don't have the showings of producing lightspeed stuff. So the most control within their showings wouldn't be lightspeed.

This point here would only apply to characters who's light manipulation isnt being considered to being real light in the first place, which is not what my thread is tackling here. There's a distinct difference between saying a non-real light technique being manipulated isnt light speed and an actual real light technique being manipulated isnt light speed, the latter of which I and multiple others don't immediately agree with currently.

>Furthermore assuming that light manipulators generally are responsible for the speed of the light they use means that there is absolutely no reason to assume that is lightspeed due to being light

And, again, this is what I disagree with for a number of different reasons.

For one, no one is saying that the attacks of the light manipulators are light speed just due to being light. It's the other way around. If the attacks are real light, then the speed of the light manipulators moves being light speed. Clearing this small confusion up.

Two, even in real life where we cannot manipulate light (and most definitely no where close to the degree of fictional light manipulators), light bending doesnt automatically make it slower than the speed of light. When light is refracted, it can become either faster or slower depending on which object light is being refracted upon. So already at this point, light being changed to be slower or faster is a 50/50 type of phenomena, so you cannot claim "there's no reason to assume its light speed" when there's also no reason to assume it isnt light speed either for the exact same reasoning. If claiming its going faster or slower, then that should be the burden of proof that needs evidence to back up. So the default assumption for light being bended during use should simply be regular flat out light speed.

Three, light suddenly automatically becoming slower than the speed of light exactly when being bended wouldn't make sense when light manipulators who are actively bending them in the first place are doing that to hit opponents who can dodge light being fired directly at them. A bended beam that supposedly becomes slower would have even more difficulty hitting successfully since the opponent can react to and dodge something faster already, something potentially far faster if the bended beam becomes far slower. If the bended beam is able to hit someone who is already able to dodge light speed attacks, then the bended beam should still be moving at the speed of light. Arguably even faster.

Your point here would be better DT if you argued the light manipulator to be willingly slowing down the beam. Which to make things worse, as Andytrenom already pointed out, would only come to happen under very few circumstances. No where near enough to the point where it becomes a standard of any kind.

>NPI is a gathering term for various abilities and it should definitely be segregated (in case you didn't notice: We very often leave specifying details on abilities to the writers of profiles).

I mean, I did point this out earlier above. But again, this is not the thread to discuss this so it should be taken to its own thread if it should be discussed more.

>Being able to physically smack a lightbeam is a subpower of light manipulation, while physically smacking a soul is a subpower of soul manipulation.

This is completely wrong, especially for soul manipulation. And to prove what im saying, refer to this quote directly from the Soul Manipulation page:

"It should be noted that the ability to interact with souls and other non-corporeal entities directly as if they were physical objects is usually considered Non-Physical Interaction and does not grant the user the ability to manipulate souls in other contexts."


Smacking souls is not considered a sub power for Soul Manipulation at all, it's just Non-Physical Interaction like it was said earlier. Interacting with a soul and being able to actually manipulate it in any way are 2 completely different things. This is the same for Light Manipulation as well.


>Are you indicating every soul manipulator can manipulate light, 'cause it's easier?

Aside from this already not being true anyway due to above, of course not DT.

Im indicating that every soul manipulator can interact with light, which it is. Think of it like this. Say someone is able to interact with water, which is nothing but a pure liquid. Would you say it makes sense for someone to suddenly be unable to interact with ice, which is a step down from water and is only partially a liquid? A frozen solid entirely if its that cold? No because it doesnt make any sense and its the same case here with light and souls. The former is only partially intangible, while the latter is completely intangible. If you can interact with something completely intangible, then anything that is only partially that is within your capabilities of being interacted with.
 
I agree with Kukui on the light speed parts.

The soul part is easily solved by adding types to the intangibility and should likewise be dropped I feel, but this is my guy Kukui's thread, and as professor, he has the control of what points he feels are necessary for this thread and as his aide, I can only advise.
 
And to wit, I understand the intent behind the OP. But already are we thinking about the fact that if there's enough justification, something like light bending shouldn't be enough to discredit light being SoL.

It's just that, and I don't see the issue with this, the moment light is doing this you have no reason to assume it keeps it's other properties when it's already not following others. Of course light can bend or do this and that, but under specific circumstances that are likely not replicated at all in the feat in question.

At the end of the day, it still just means you'll need further backing and evidence to push the bending issue aside, like bending being barely precent and only stylistic or just because of a perspective issue, etc.
 
I mean, I kinda disagree with the idea we need to be hyper conservative with light speed assumptions when we just grant creators the ability to use that "energy" which may or may not even be in use for every creator, because their powers might work differently, or creation just might be a hax like EE and shouldn't be converted into raw AP— the point is, we're pretty charitable in other areas around fiction. Why not here, especially when it essentially argues to nerf characters for a dubious display of actions.

It might be true that it breaking the laws of physics and light could indicate that it's no longer 100% reliant on those two things in how it works, but it would also require us to believe that the light manipulator is incapable of letting light work NATURALLY, which is certainly easier than breaking its rules. If the light manipulator was in a fight, they would likely make their attacks as fast as possible, which would include preserving the speed of light or the functionality of light that makes it so fast to be as close as possible even as they bend it, meaning maybe they could mimic the affects of prisms refracting and increasing lights speed. The method at which they bend light is also dubious, but at the very least we have reference to compare. Either way, this is like saying that an electricity manipulator can't let his electricity move at its natural speed EVER because he can bend it or make it act irregularly.

So even if bending it makes it dubious as to whether or not it is light speed, it bending doesn't prove that their attacks aren't light speed when they go in a straight line, because that would essentially be easier to create than a light construct. This makes the rule effectively useless, because if the light shines through mirrors or displays real light traits, it doing "fictional light bending" is the least compelling argument when it's a damn superpower, so we take that instance of it being real light over the instance before, and in cases without the example but it's still stated to be light, this doesn't disprove anything because their straight line lasers being light speed is still highly possible because it's easier to let like work in natural ways than not. Maybe the manipulator can accomplish programming light to bend as if it was refracting off of a prism that increased or decreased its speed slightly— as that is something that preserves the integrity of light itself.

I'm not at all suggesting that we assume every light manipulator can create pseudo mirrors to bend their lasers. I'm saying that it's really bad to argue that light manipulators wouldn't preserve the aspect of light that is responsible for its speed as much as possible, as they are certainly in control of that aspect. So saying that the entire power can't be light speed doesn't work, making the rule useless, and this rule is the weakest argument against it because light bending from the superpower doesn't make it 100% not light, it just makes it not light speed at worse, and even then that might not be true because a light manipulator wouldn't just nerf their attack like that if they're actually trying to use it— they would do everything in their power to preserve that NATURAL and UNALTERED aspect of light, and they do have some methods that could work, or would likely do whatever they could to make the light work naturally and as fast as possible. Whether or not it breaks physics to a degree while doing so is irrelevant, because this power already breaks physics.
 
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