Nonexistent Physiology (Type 3) is nonsense

[Keeweed]

So nonexistent is an ability that is pretty clear cut. It’s to not exist, so let’s see what type 3 is about: “Characters still exist”.
Immediately, we hit the broad side of a wall with a freight train. The most obvious contradiction to a power to ever exist ever and it’s just allowed to be there for some reason. The power is literally to not exist and type 3 is to exist.

The ability further tries to clarify itself, contradicting the point of nonexistence even more. “Characters of this nature often exist as something beyond the normal scope of the physical and metaphysical worlds and instead exist as an idea or other unconventional state.”

An idea exists, and we already have a power for that, it’s a little thing called Abstract Existence. And an “unconventional state” would just be whatever unconventional state it is. If it isn’t nonexistent there is no reason to list it as such.

Maybe it’s trying to say purely the power is for you both exist and not existence, as in a paradox of the two. But no the ability 100% says that isn’t what it’s about at all “Characters still exist, but paradoxically behave as if they don't when attacked“
It 100% clarifies it means you exist. Why does this share a page with a power about being nonexistent!? I get it’s trying to say they behave like they don’t exist, but they do exist so that’s a different power entirely. A power that is already heavily covered by Abstract Existence all things considered. And if different still wouldn’t be NEP because they do exist.

I would say type 3 needs a rework but let’s read the innate description of NEP to begin with “Nonexistent Physiology refers to the ability to lack certain aspects of one's existence, to paradoxically 'exist,' yet lack certain identifiable traits of existence or exist outside of a particular scope of 'existence.”
So a paradoxical existence of being nonexistent is already innately covered by the sheer concept of the ability. Meaning there would be no reason to have a type for it since being paradoxical in that way is written as innate with the profile further saying “true nonexistence is impossible to prove” (which feels weird after the tier 0 changes).
So type 3 in that sense won’t work because apparently being paradoxical is already baked into the ability from the ground up, so type 3 won’t have a purpose if reworked into that. And the current type 3 very clearly isn’t NEP as it constantly talks about how you exist multiple times, so I think it should just be removed.

 

[Lordhesperus]

Is there a meaningful difference between behaving as if nonexistent versus being nonexistent?

 

[Keeweed]

Yeah the fact you exist. That’s a pretty big distinction. Just appearing to be nonexistent can have dozen of causes that isn’t to actually not exist. One means you need the ability to hit something that actually doesn’t exist while the other one would need an entirely separate form of non physical interaction. Plus for stuff like nonexistent erasure, and abilities that interact with nonexistence in particular that’s different than a guy being something entirely unrelated.

 

[Lordhesperus]

Yeah the fact you exist. That’s a pretty big distinction. Just appearing to be nonexistent can have dozen of causes that isn’t to actually not exist. One means you need the ability to hit something that actually doesn’t exist while the other one would need an entirely separate form of non physical interaction. Plus for stuff like nonexistent erasure, and abilities that interact with nonexistence in particular that’s different than a guy being something entirely unrelated.

after reading about Nonexistent Physiology (Type 3) could specifically deal with entities that can toggle between existent and nonexistent states in specific ways, making it a unique and useful classification. as following question:

• Does Type 3 serve a practical purpose in describing certain character abilities that the other categories don't cove?.

 

[ShionAH]

At worst it should have its own page called Paradoxal Existence.

 

[DontTalkDT]

For one, we do allow paradoxical powers. See nonduality. As the page says "In terms of binary, where existence is 1 and nonexistence is 0, this would be part 0 and part 1 simultaneously." You can now be pedantic and say "being part 1, means not true nonexistent" but then you can make the same point about Type 2 NEP covering things that are not nonexistence in the strict sense. We are ultimately dealing with weird fictional void characters here that obviously can't work like true nonexistence.
It's valid to classify as NEP in the sense of us focussing on the nonexistent attributes for the ability, not the existing parts.

That aside, I feel like reading the examples pretty much would already clear up the use case.

An example of that would be a character who is able to think, and hence has a mind, but is stated to be immune to regular mind manipulation as said mind is paradoxically nonexistent in nature.

It's because fiction is weird and sometimes assigns nonexistent attributes to things that partially function as if they were existent. It makes sense to index the power and its mechanism, and given that the mechanism and nature is in practice void-like it makes sense to do so on this page. No other page is more fitting.

As a practical example let me just quote from my Obisian CRT:

Let's start with the big one. Even Darquesse says she possibly can't kill Obsidian, as Obsidian is nothingness.

Sebastian looked at her. “Can you stop him?” “Maybe. I don’t know. He operates differently from anyone else I’ve ever encountered. He is nothingness. I don’t know if my power would work on nothingness. I could try. I could go after him right now and try to stop him.”

Landy, Derek. Until the End (Skulduggery Pleasant, Book 15) (S.421). HarperCollins Publishers. Kindle-Version.

Valkyrie’s legs went and Skulduggery held her up, and they watched Darquesse approach Obsidian. “You are interesting,” she said. “I was brought here to stop you, but I don’t know if I can. I’m … plugged in. You know? I’ve visited every corner of the universe. I’ve seen what makes up life, and what makes up matter, and what makes up the things between and beyond. I’ve seen everything. I am everything. But you … you’re nothing. And I don’t know if everything can beat nothing. I don’t even know if I want to.” She put her hand on Obsidian’s cheek. “You’re beautiful.”

Landy, Derek. Until the End (Skulduggery Pleasant, Book 15) (S.643). HarperCollins Publishers. Kindle-Version.

Now this is of course just a possibly. But a nigh-omniscient universal reality warper thinking they possibly can't kill you means something.
Whatever things he gets from this would of course just be a "possibly". He would otherwise just scale to lesser top-tiers of the verse due to being considered indestructible by any means except one specific weakness we will get to.
For the possiby there are multiple approaches, though. One would be possible Universe level durability and possibly the resistances he needs to resit Darquesse's powers.
However, Darquesse strictly speaking didn't say she can't kill him because he's though, but because he is nothingness. And with that we get to the debate on his nature. Obsidian was created by a boy called Auger stabbing himself with an obsidian which was nothingness enclosed in a very special rock. He then turned into that rock himself.
Let's look at the origin story of the nothingness rock:

Skulduggery seemed to recognise her mood, and continued. “When the Big Bang occurred and the universe began to spread outwards, existence snagged, forming a minuscule gap in the fabric of reality. A sliver of nothingness. A hole in the sock of what is.” “Sometimes your words are like poetry.” “Over time, this piece of nothing drew the detritus of the universe towards it – particles of matter, sprinklings of dust – until it attained a weight of its own. This speck of nothingness, entombed in rock, drifted through the cosmos until it fell to Earth as a meteorite where the Faceless Ones found it, discovered its obsidian centre, and forged it into a knife.”

Landy, Derek. Until the End (Skulduggery Pleasant, Book 15) (S.78-79). HarperCollins Publishers. Kindle-Version.

As the novel explains the meteorite, i.e. the rock the nothingness is in, is the only thing that can possible harm Obsidian.

“Shut up.” She opened her eyes. “The meteorite,” she said. “Mevolent made the handle out of the meteorite because the one thing the obsidian hadn’t wiped from existence was the rock that had formed round it. So that’s the only substance in the universe, or in any universe, that can stand up to it.” “Precisely.” “So we find the Void meteorite and we … what? Make a pair of shackles?” “If we can. It all depends on how much we can find.”

Landy, Derek. Until the End (Skulduggery Pleasant, Book 15) (S.82). HarperCollins Publishers. Kindle-Version.

This is also demonstrated. With bullets made out of that stuff Obsidian could even be harmed by a regular gun.

Valkyrie narrowed her eyes, examining the weird energy that twisted around the bullets in the gun. Meteorite-infused bullets. Creed had made a weapon out of it. “Die,” Creed whispered, and fired again and again, each shot sending Obsidian backwards, each cutting through his skin, cracking the surface and burrowing into what lay beneath. Obsidian fell to his knees. Creed aimed at his head and pulled the trigger and the hammer clicked on an empty chamber. No more fancy bullets.

Landy, Derek. Until the End (Skulduggery Pleasant, Book 15) (S.457). HarperCollins Publishers. Kindle-Version.

So universe level reality warper can't harm it, but the one material that can stand up to nothingness can. Implications.

Obsidian himself states he is nothingness and after Auger's mind vanished he had no mind (well, in a paradoxical nonexistence sense if we use NEP standards despite him being corporeal)

“There is no coming back,” said Obsidian. “Then who are you? If you’re not Auger, who are you?” “I am the nothing.” “You can’t be nothing. You’re talking to me. The person who’s talking has a mind. You have a mind. So whose mind is it, if it isn’t Auger’s?” “I am the nothing.” “You’re my brother.” “Your brother is dead. I have his fading memories.” “What happens when they’re gone?” “Then all trace of Auger Darkly is gone, and there is only nothing.”

Landy, Derek. Until the End (Skulduggery Pleasant, Book 15) (S.426). HarperCollins Publishers. Kindle-Version.

Valkyrie pulled her mask and hood away from her face and focused her thoughts, sending them straight out without giving Obsidian a chance to assess the situation. But instead of staggering him they found nothing she could identify, nothing she could attack, and he looked at her and she tried to pull those thoughts back, but he’d latched on to them. Her knees buckled and then he released his grip, and Skulduggery caught her.

Landy, Derek. Until the End (Skulduggery Pleasant, Book 15) (S.617). HarperCollins Publishers. Kindle-Version.

So he definitely also have some kind of resistance to mind manip, but that isn't the point.

Everything the novel tells us about his nature says that potency of the attack against him isn't the issue, but the fact that regular attacks just don't work on nothingness is the issue. Easy case for NEP one might think. The only problem with that is that Obsidian is with 100% certainty tangible.

If the story tells you that the guy is nonexistent, gives you his backstory with the mechanics of his abilities which are based on being nonexistent and you try to attack it and notice that absolutely nothing works against it because there is nothing there to attack, it becomes silly to say "but it walks and seemingly has some kind of sentience, so it can't be nonexistent. Actually has no power". Of course it would, simultaneously, be just as silly to pretend that the guy is nonexistent in the way we would usually believe that to be the case.
So at that point you just got to accept that the author meant to write a void entity but didn't manage to keep its attribute straight. And that's what Type 3 is for.

 

[Keeweed]

The example, like the broad one, you gave is type 1 or 2 though. You say in the description himself he doesn’t exist, type 3 says he does and is just some form of idea or unconventional nature. Nether is which don’t exist.

 

[Keeweed]

If he fails to meet the requirements for type 1 or 2 he should just not have this power. He exist. We have stuff like pseudo black hole creation for example when something tries to emulate a concept and fails. They don’t have the actual power, because that’s not what was shown or written.

As for it being fiction, the description for all types has that it’s going to be a bit contradictory literally written into it. I showed the sentence, it’s the first one of the page.

 

[DontTalkDT]

The example, like the broad one, you gave is type 1 or 2 though. You say in the description himself he doesn’t exist, type 3 says he does and is just some form of idea or unconventional nature. Nether is which don’t exist.

No, it wouldn't apply for either type 1 or 2. As those may not have those existent traits.

If he fails to meet the requirements for type 1 or 2 he should just not have this power. He exist. We have stuff like pseudo black hole creation for example when something tries to emulate a concept and fails. They don’t have the actual power, because that’s not what was shown or written.

Yet we list pseudo-black hole creation as a thing. We just index it separately. As a different type of black hole creation, so to say.
You can call type 3 pseudo-nonexistence (just as type 2 is) but it's still a power we should index. And since it's for characters who are called nonexistent, who have a mechanism based on nonexistent and who behave for virtually all relevant purposes nonexistent it makes sense to have this separate type on the page for nonexistence, where people would look for it. It's a rather pendantic approach to say the types need to be separated into different pages due to not being exactly the same thing. That's what types are for. It's for that same reason we have types of concept and information manipulation, despite these things not all being the most direct version.
You may as well argue that the occasional black fire in fiction should not be fire manipulation since that's not how true fire works. This as well is merely the pratice of listing the magical equivalent of a mundane phenomena under the same power.

As for it being fiction, the description for all types has that it’s going to be a bit contradictory literally written into it. I showed the sentence, it’s the first one of the page.

in very different ways. What you quote is from the general text, it doesn't supersede the specific type descriptions. A type 1 has to actually meet type 1 requirements. A type 2 has to meet type 2 requirements. A type 3 has to meet type 3 requirements and not the other two.

 

[Keeweed]

Pseudo black hole creation isn’t its own type though and is often just rated more akin to gravity manipulation that tried and failed to be the actual power.
If type 3 is a pseudo failed version it should be written as so and treated as such.
However type 3 specifically says the target exist, not that they don’t existence but just aren’t really written that way. Multiple characters that have absolutely nothing to do with non existence meet the descriptions with one of the parts saying just being an idea beyond the physical world qualifies. Despite nothing in the description saying it doesn’t exist. Especially for the unconventional nature, that has literally nothing to do with non existence at all yet is one of the qualifies.

NEP is about not existing, why the heck would one of the types specifically be about you existing? Which is innately what it says and clarifies multiple times.

 

[Eseseso]

I will say that I find it weird to have NEP 3 as its own thing when it can be interacted with so long as you can affect NEP1.

 

[Antvasima]

Thank you very much for helping out, DontTalk.

Should we close this thread then?

 

[Keeweed]

I want to talk on it more and heavily disagree with him still. I just have massive projects for school right now.

 

[Antvasima]

Okay.