Speed From KE

[Agnaa]

Our page on Kinetic Energy Feats says that fiction often fails to differentiate between the attack potency and the speed of a character, and because it leads to unrealistic values.

Does this leave any room for specific cases where neither of those seem to apply?

I'm specifically thinking of profiles I'm working on from a story where characters running quickly create explosions when they fall over (i.e. when they'd be crashing with all their kinetic energy into the ground).

These characters are running quickly, but to an unquantifiable extent. And those calcs likely wouldn't involve destruction above the low tier 8 region, which wouldn't contradict them being somewhat smaller than a monster that moves at 900,000 m/s, since those speeds for human bodies would reach 7-C, well beyond the destruction we see.

 

[Armorchompy]

I would say that our standards that are put in place to prevent realistic treatment of something that is commonly treated unrealistically in fiction (Black Holes, KE, Mass-energy conversion, Total seismic energy of earthquakes, basically anything that has to do with Relativistic speeds...) should be ignored when the portrayal of the feat in question is actually making a serious effort to be realistic. For example the KE standards page mentions that while normally relativistic KE has a limit, that would not apply in cases when it's explicitly brought up, making an example of Flash hitting with the force of a dwarf star.

I think this would be the same case, if extreme speed is clearly treated as something that would generate extreme amounts of energy, I think it's fair to get KE out of that sort of speed.

 

[Armorchompy]

Ok so it appears I have misunderstood (agnaa's fault, i'm sure), and this is asking if it's fine to get speed from destruction results rather than KE from speed.

Uhhh I think it's fine on paper, granted that there are no anti-feats of any sort, but it is a bit of a slippery slope and something that I'm not sure giving the OK to. So, neutral ig

 

[Wokistan]

I end up in a similar spot to armor. I'd be fine enough with this specific example, and it's not like I couldn't imagine some non hyper-specific example of something I'd similarly be okay with arguing getting this from. I was also told that this method actually produces a lower result than the alternative, which would help this one's case in particular since the reason we don't allow the reversal is to ward off inflated speed ratings.

At the same time, I really just don't want to open the metaphorical floodgates on this one in such an uncontrolled way as allowing for an exception without setting stuff up around it.

 

[DarkDragonMedeus]

I think the real issue is that once characters start moving Sub-Relativistic levels, kinetic energy starts to become less linear and there is a reason why "Relativistic Kinetic Energy" calculators are a thing. So on paper, while various tier 7 striking feats would net Relativistic speeds via linear KE calculator methods, they'd actually not be quite that fast realistically, and the same supposed speeds would have gotten much higher energy yields. Especially if speeds extremely close to lightspeed and better ones that actually reach lightspeeds would result in 3-A and High 3-A respectively if Relativity was taken into account. So it's for that reason that using given KE values to find speed is something strongly preferred to avoid.

Though there are specific cases where using a given speed to find KE is usable if there aren't any contradictions and/or is very specifically explained to us. But it's mainly the theory of relativity is the reason why doing the opposite is ill advised.

 

[DontTalkDT]

No. Strongly against "Speed from KE" on any level whatsoever. Fiction treats those as pretty different, so just because a fiction acknowledges you need strong legs (which cause lots of destruction when moved) to run fast it should not result in immensely high speeds.

It's really not different from how a punch that destroys mountains should technically be a fast punch. Many fiction will even acknowledge that such a punch should be fast. It's just that there is generally no connection between exactly how fast and the strength.

Honestly, it sets a bad precedent, since there are so many feats where you could debate whether it technically in some way seems to connect. Say, calculating Saitama's moon jump from the massive crater or something. Or AP feats via body checks which are essentially the same as what happens here. Here you might say it's Tier 8 and harmless (although it still is plenty not harmless IMO), but if we set this standard we have no justification to not use it for Tier 7 where everyone suddenly become relativistic.

Absolutely don't feel like softening up that standard.


(We can talk about an exception when the verse starts spelling out the KE formula for the feat. Had a verse do that with PE...)

 

[Agnaa]

I mean, I think it's harmless since the alternative ratings for this key are:

• Unknown.
• At least Superhuman.
• Massively Hypersonic+ (via downscaling).

While this would probably give Supersonic to High Hypersonic+, which seems more accurate.

But fair enough about precedent and this not giving enough info.

 

[DontTalkDT]

It's a bit like calc-stacking that gives a consistent result. Might not seem bad in isolation, but sets too bad of a precedent to allow it.

 

[Agnaa]

Yeah I guess. Feel free to close this.

 

[DarkDragonMedeus]

I will close this then.