Teen Titans (cartoon) speed upgrade

[Eficiente]

Well, it really seems that some minor, if still MFTL+ part of their reactions should scale to their speeds, so idk.

 

[Antvasima]

I am also uncertain. Do you have suggestions for other staff members that I should notify to help with evaluating this?

 

[Zamasu_Chan]

I’ll come back to this a little later. Efi seems to have an interesting point.

 

[Antvasima]

Okay.

 

[Zamasu_Chan]

Starfire telling Robin the secret to move faster than light sounds to me like it could be interpreted as characters like her being able to turn on & off the ability to do so, hence she and Robin don't normally move that fast at all despite being comparable and despite Starfire having just basically stated to be able to move that fast. Should this be the case then her ability to react to things while moving that fast is not a contradiction.

"And that is the secret to traveling faster than light" She's not talking about moving as a whole she's talking about plain old traveling.

That is most definitely an outlier, this guys and all the characters in the show who can keep up with them, meaning pretty much everyone, aren't above MHS+. Starfire and Robin entered a room, Star said that and then something else happened, it's both legit info she has and something meant to be funny. And of course she could be meaning as in only ships doing so but the context of it and the show puts it on a general sense.

Feats > statements that don’t have full context.

The show's full of anti-feats that people have already pointed out before like Kid Flash moving at lightspeed blitzing everyone, Dr. Light portraying an attack at the speed of light as a super fast attack and hence not as fast as himself even tho he can keep up with the Titans, the environment being sometimes a factor to look over, not superhumans keeping up with superhumans, etc.

Where was Kid Flash stated to be light speed and why is an interpretation being treated as > feats? Also this entire fight the Titans are shown capable of dodging them.

Starfire and Blackstar should have their normal speed as "normally" and next to it them being "Massivily FTL+ Reactions, Travel & Flight Speed when travelling faster than light", starting with what Star said to Robin and what I said above about this, then all their feats.

Like I said before we don’t have concrete context to what she was talking about because it was at the end of their conversation. Even then she's only talking about traveling and nothing in the series implies she has to amplify her reflexes to travel at FTL speeds.

Ideally, there should be a blog with everything calc'd, its context explained and the anti-feats listed, but this help is pretty much as much as I can give to the verse given how I don't have it as a priority.

Sounds like a good idea. There's only 1 calc'd speed feat and I'd love to see what anti-feats you’re talking about.

Well, it is against our usual standards to give characters higher reflexes when flying. We can give them separate flight speed values though.

But why? That's not how Occam's Razor works. It should be the other way around.

 

[Antvasima]

But why? That's not how Occam's Razor works. It should be the other way around.

Please elaborate.

 

[Greenshifter]

From our speed page:


High flight speed logically requires similar reaction speed in order to manoeuvre when approaching different objects.

However, certain franchises, such as Marvel Comics (and DC Comics or Image Comics, which follow the same conventions), make a great distinction between regular movement speed and flight speed.

As such, we have generally assumed that the characters' regular reaction or combat speeds are roughly equivalent to their flight speeds unless this is clearly contradicted.

And in the Teen Titans episode Nr. 20 it is supported rather than contradicted.

 

[Zamasu_Chan]

Please elaborate,

Ok. What I mean is, all flight speed feats should scale to combat speed unless proven otherwise. If a character’s natural flight is far greater than their reactions then it’ll be impossible for said character to stop turn or even see where they’re going.

For example:

Character A flies from one galaxy to another with natural flight. This should scale to their reactions.

Character B forms an energy ball around himself and the ball flies him to another galaxy. This should not scale to his reactions because it’s not his natural flight ability.
See what I mean?

 

[Antvasima]

A character flying in a straight line without obstacles from one galaxy to another should definitely not scale to combat speed. Efficiently reacting to several nearby objects while travelling at such speeds should logically scale though.

 

[Antvasima]

And in the Teen Titans episode Nr. 20 it is supported rather than contradicted.

Please explain what you mean.

 

[Antvasima]

Anyway, how do you think that we should solve this dilemma @Eficiente ?

 

[Greenshifter]

A character flying in a straight line without obstacles from one galaxy to another should definitely not scale to combat speed. Efficiently reacting to several nearby objects while travelling at such speeds should logically scale though.

Considering the speed of the Titans’ ship when going between planets, those planets would be classified as nearby. And they had to basically stop at practically every planet so see if Starfire was on it within less than a week.

Robin was also able to masterfully pilot the ship inside of a monster in space and dodge several of it’s internal blade-thingies.

 

[Antvasima]

Not if manoeuvres to avoid them from nearby are not necessary. My apologies, but what you seem to imply is mathematically illogical.

 

[Zamasu_Chan]

A character flying in a straight line without obstacles from one galaxy to another should definitely not scale to combat speed.

That doesn’t matter. How do you expect to stop at your destination if you can’t even see where you’re going?

 

[Greenshifter]

Not if manoeuvres to avoid them from nearby are not necessary.

I mean the manoeuvres Robin pulled are something a fighter jet wouldn’t even be able to do when going much slower. I mean he dodged several of his teeth or whatever while they are 10 meters apart or so while going MFTL+.

 

[Antvasima]

That doesn’t matter. How do you expect to stop at your destination if you can’t even see where you’re going?

If you travel faster than light, you can never see where you are going. It is handwaved in these types of stories.

Anyway, if your supernatural senses warn you well in advance, you can slow down while getting closer.

 

[Antvasima]

I mean the manoeuvres Robin pulled are something a fighter jet wouldn’t even be able to do when going much slower. I mean he dodged several of his teeth or whatever while they are 10 meters apart or so while going MFTL+.

This is a much more valid argument. Maybe they all do have MFTL+ reflexes and combat speed then, despite that it intuitively seems very illogical.

What do you think @Eficiente ?

 

[Antvasima]

Your input would also be appreciated, @DarkDragonMedeus and @ProfessorKukui4Life .

 

[ZoroNotZolo]

If you travel faster than light, you can never see where you are going. It is handwaved in these types of stories.

Anyway, if your supernatural senses warn you well in advance, you can slow down while getting closer.

I always thought of it as the characters being able to perceive light and photons faster than human beings would or something of that nature. That or their planck instances are just absurdly high.

 

[Greenshifter]

if your supernatural senses warn you well in advance, you can slow down while getting closer

I calculated this out before and the timeframe to travel between planets is 0.000000008690021 seconds (not even accounting for them landing and getting out of the ship). Thus their supernatural senses would need to work waaaaaay faster than 0.000000008690021 seconds of reaction time. To the point you might as well say they scale to flight speed (and any attempt to say they slowed down to avoid obstacles in space would make this amount of time even smaller due to the entire trip lasting a week max). This is for both Starfire who has natural flight and the other Titans so it's also consistent.

 

[Zamasu_Chan]

If you travel faster than light, you can never see where you are going. It is handwaved in these types of stories.

Are you seriously using the "you can't be FTL in fiction because it contradicts real life" argument?

Anyway, if your supernatural senses warn you well in advance, you can slow down while getting closer.

What super natural senses for Starfire are you talking about? You’re literally making more assumptions just to say her reactions aren't on par with her flight speed.

 

[Antvasima]

I am just saying that if you travel in an almost straight line without obstacles, you do not need nearly as swift reflexes, and speculated regarding how FTL characters sense their way through space. That is all.

Anyway, Greenshifter seems to have had some better examples, so I suppose that this seems to likely be acceptable to apply, but I would much prefer additional staff input first.

 

[Greenshifter]

Ok, we'll probably get some calcs done as well and maybe put them in a blog for reference and consistency purposes. If you know anyone who would be willing to do calcs for Teen Titans then a recommendation would be appreciated @Antvasima?

 

[Antvasima]

If you provide evidence for the feats in question, I can notify some calc group members and ask them to help us out.

 

[ProfessorKukui4Life]

My bad, was very busy. I’ll try responding later.

 

[Antvasima]

No problem.

 

[DarkDragonMedeus]

I haven't been following the thread too much, but I still pretty much agree with what Eficiente is saying. Starfire doesn't really user her FTL speeds for combat applicable stuff; it's an ability she needs to turn on. And she typically has it off when she's on Earth or fighting other enemies. Also, people like Kid Flash and Dr Light blitzing everyone contradicts the whole "everyone should have Massively FTL+ combat speed." And I don't really find comparing them to other verses other than DC the best method.

 

[Antvasima]

Medeus makes sense to me. Thank you for helping out.

 

[Greenshifter]

it's an ability she needs to turn on

Proof? I have seen nothing that implies this.

Kid Flash also does not move at the speed of light last I checked and the Titans can dodge Dr. Light’s attacks point-blank and you yourself even said you do not consider his attacks to be light speed.

I also don’t know why we would compare it to DC specifically (and even if we do we already explained how even within DC getting tagged by light beams isn’t an anti-feat, such as Superman’s heat vision) when Robin scales to Cyborg while in DC that’s be a no-go.

 

[DarkDragonMedeus]

Eficient seems to have been the one mentioning it, ask him.

 

[Antvasima]

@Crabwhale @Eficiente @GyroNutz @DarkGrath @The_Wright_Way @Ogbunabali @Moritzva @Everything12 @Duedate8898

Would you be willIng to help out here please?

 

[Greenshifter]

It comes from this:

For all we know she’s talking about teleportation or hyperspace or fast spaceships.

 

[Duedate8898]

Give me a bit to read this over and I'll say my piece Ant.

 

[Antvasima]

Thank you for helping out.

 

[Eficiente]

I'll say, this is the type of things I wouldn't mind someone asking a writer or whatever in twitter for clarification.

 

[Ogbunabali]

I'm pretty much in agreement with Eficiente on this.

The piloting thing is a pretty bad argument, considering they were very demonstrably not traveling at FTL speeds when dodging the teeth/asteroids in that sequence.

 

[Greenshifter]

very demonstrably not traveling at FTL speeds

Based on what? Why would they slow down? This assumption that they slow down to dodge every obstacle would increase the speed of the ship when traveling between planets since they need to visit about 100 billion planets in a week at max. Not to mention that Robin would need the reactions necessary to notice the asteroid, slow down, aim for it’s mouth and get back out.

 

[Ogbunabali]

Based on very blatant visual feats. It's up to you to prove they were moving, and for some reason talking, at MTF+ speeds 100% of the time.

 

[DarkDragonMedeus]

They only visited 4 planets on screen before traveling to the "Darkest depths of the galaxy"

 

[GyroNutz]

For the OP, whether or not Dr. Light's beams are real light or not isn't all that relevant when they're explicitly stated to move at light speed. Whether this is consistent or not, idk. But generally spaceship piloting reaction feats aren't really usable due to the massive distance between obstacles in space, giving you more time to react to them.