Voldemort vs The Courier 0-6-0

[Armorchompy]

I dunno, they probably can if you specify it in OP, it's just SBA that prevents it. Even if they could though I don't really think it's that realistic of an option in a fight unless it's explicitly supernatural

 

[Stillwinston]

I mean Courier's got really cracked luck though that might as well be supernatural, legit the guy is lucky enough to solve a password system just by yelling ice cream. Plus he could cow Voldemort into submission with terrifying presence and make him flee/commit self BFR, worked on a pack of bloodthirsty raiders iirc.

 

[Keeweed]

Why would the couriers SI need to be supernatural to work here. He’s constantly convinces people to back off or leave in his game all the time. He can convince people that spent years of their lives hating them to give up and switch sides, a general to just give up on a war he’s been fighting for years, a literal security system to just give up, a squadron of brotherhood soldiers to just surrender (despite them being able to easily kill him and it completely ruins their way of life if they fail), and can convince drug crazed lunatics to surrender or run away.

He should absolutely be able to talk Voldemort into walking away here, or at least could scare him with frightening presence.

 

[Keeweed]

I would edit the original post, but this is important. The courier with one of the perks can literally convince Benny to do it with them immediately. Benny both absolutely hates the courier, and is terrified of them, yet the courier can say the equivalent of “let’s do it, okay” and they do it. The courier’s social influencing is insane.

 

[Keeweed]

I don't understand. What exactly are people FRA'ing?

This post doesn't sound like a vote for either combatant, nor a justification for a vote. There literally isn't a single post that has a vote + a conclusive version for the vote. The original vote was this:

But he said he'd only vote for now and didn't give any conclusive reasons. Hell, Keeweed seemed to have become more unclear on the match a sthe discussion went on.

Ngl, every single vote should be annulled because the FRA Train has no track.

I just want to clear this up (sorry for posting multiple times, but this is responding to a different post). I original was on the fence about who I think would win, yeah. But when I made my vote I decided to make my final decision after remembering stuff about both the courier and Voldemort. I think the FRA are legitimate right now (unless SI needs to be talked about but it seems to be a site wide thing that could just be changed in the op to make this match more coherent as a thread on the site wide issue is made).

Though, if you want stronger clarification for the FRA.

The courier regularly convinces people that absolutely despise him (for really good reason) to either surrender, flee, give up, or completely switch sides. Voldemort here is already extremely arrogant, so he not going to start this fight seriously, giving the courier an easy chance to get him into a chat. The courier will absolutely start with talking because the large majority of NV is designed around talking, and multiple canon events can only be resolved with talking while none can only be solved with violence.

If the social influencing needs to be supernatural, terrifying presence or the couriers romance perks should work. They are both perks, not normal talking ability (and terrifying presence is just straight fear manipulation). Though I think all the courier’s social influencing would classify as “supernatural” (unless you meant magical, but that would be an super silly requirement with no justification), normal people can’t yell ice cream at a security system to have it give up, or convince their greatest enemy to bang immediately, or convince an entire squadron of soldiers to just give up despite the numerous advantages they have, and their way of life being ruined if they fail.

 

[Armorchompy]

Ok but like, if you're arguing it's supernatural that probably means it's mindhax (which I honestly would consider given some of the examples), which is fine.

But if you're going with the idea that it's just convincing people through purely logical, non-supernatural means (which is the definition of Social Influencing), then no matter how it works in verse, those means don't exist in this situation, unless he maybe actually gets Voldemort to open up even a little bit in a talk. If they are supernatural then it's just mindhax, unless there's some further explanation behind the ability's potency (if there is, that's fine too, I have a character who passively afflicts the subconscious those observing him like some really hard-core subliminal marketing listed as Social Influencing, though that's a pretty old file admittedly)

But saying that, with no further reasoning, something like just shouting "hey, give up!" will work is... silly, charisma can't logically get you there no matter how much you have and SI is one of the very few abilities (maybe the only one) here that's actually bound to logic in VS Matches. It's the same reason that, in a VS match, we wouldn't allow precog to make up for speed gaps in the 100x even though it may be portrayed that way in the setting, because it just wouldn't work that way (no matter what the precog character does, the other will be capable of adjusting to it too fast for them to dodge) and we shouldn't let a verse's logic somehow affect an unrelated character.

Quite frankly unless proof is brought forward that Voldemort can actually possess in combat-applicable ways I would be inclined to vote for the Courier, for the record, but only via superior combat prowess. Also I disagree that it's a site-wide thing, unless you can point me at standards saying SI can be used this way.

 

[Keeweed]

He can convince a security system to give up.

Ignoring that, biggest thing; why does it need to mind manipulation. Social influencing is a power on this site, we have it listed as a power on this site, the courier has consistently used it hundreds of times to stop fights.

Almost every power ever doesn’t work realistically, have you ever seen videos on realistic super speed, or super strength.

So why does social influencing suddenly stop working out of verse when no other power does. The courier isn’t winning for a non existent reason, he specifically is using something he, as a character, has to win. It’s an ability he has, it isn’t just regular talking it comes from perks which are specifically abilities. One of his social influencing abilities passively just makes animals like him or can induce intense fear (not even through talking sometimes).

I don’t get why you think it’s completely unusable when the game is specifically designed heavily around it. Well over half the game doesn’t work if the courier doesn’t have the insane charisma he has.

If social influencing truly doesn’t work, then why is it a power on this site. So we list it on their profiles as something they can do, they consistently do it all the time, but because logically it doesn’t work (when many other powers don’t logically work) it suddenly shouldn’t work.

I’ll make a thread on it later then, because either social influencing should be nuked (because apparently we don’t accept as usable unless it’s mind manipulation (another power), or it should be usable because we aren’t this anal on literally any other power.

 

[Ayewale]

I just want to clear this up (sorry for posting multiple times, but this is responding to a different post). I original was on the fence about who I think would win, yeah. But when I made my vote I decided to make my final decision after remembering stuff about both the courier and Voldemort. I think the FRA are legitimate right now (unless SI needs to be talked about but it seems to be a site wide thing that could just be changed in the op to make this match more coherent as a thread on the site wide issue is made)...

• Part of why the FRAs are invalid is because no one justified the Courier starting with SI til date, and this isn't stated anywhere on his profile so it's a claim without justification.
• But the Courier convincing other, specific individuals in a specific verse doesn't suggest that he would be able to pull off the same thing against a complete stranger to which he knows nothing about and has an entirely different lived experience than the inhabitants of the fallout verse--the only world the Courier's ever known.
• That's really weak argument for starting with talking being his opening tactic.
  • Evidence for something being an opening tactic is as follows: The character uses it as an opening tactic. What you posted is "he can talk a lot" (as if he can't shoot and kill a lot too??) and "some events can only be solved with talking". This means literally nothing as far as his opening move goes. All this proves is that the role-playing game allows you to roleplay.
    • This would be like saying Revan's opening move is social influencing because you can talk your away out of combat scenarios sometimes and you can only recruit Juhani with talking.
• The claim that Voldemort wouldn't take the fight seriously doesn't really make sense. Voldemort is definitely arrogant but where did you get the idea that he'd fight worse than usual because of it?
  • He ordered cedric diggory dead the moment he saw him.
  • He killed Harry's parents immediately and attempted to kill Harry (a defenseless baby) with just as much haste.
  • Versus Harry ******* Potter in the first book, the only reason why he talks to Harry is to convince Harry to join him at his side and give him the stone. Once it's clear that isn't the case he tells Quirrell to kill Harry pretty quickly.
  • He does entertain Harry for a while in The Goblet of Fire, but the circumstances are extraodinary: he had just come back to life and had a dozen dark wizards surrounding him.
  • Once Snape has run out of useful Voldemort has Nagini pretty mercilessly kill him, and Snape was a very trusted confidant in Voldemort's ranks up until that very moment.
  • For the locket Horcrux, he entertained Hepzibah Smith (the owner of the locket) only as far as to get close enough to him to kill him quickly, then finished him off.
  • There is a lot of evidence overall that Voldemort doesn't play around when it comes to fights. All things being equal, when fighting the Courier Voldemort would simply hit him with Avadra Kevadra until he's dead. Obviously he's incredibly sadistic, but the books make it pretty clear that it is mostly personal: while he tortures harry for a while in Goblet of Fire (and I already described why that's definitely not applicable to Courier), he murdered Cedric on the spot.

Quite frankly unless proof is brought forward that Voldemort can actually possess in combat-applicable ways I would be inclined to vote for the Courier, for the record, but only via superior combat prowess. Also I disagree that it's a site-wide thing, unless you can point me at standards saying SI can be used this way.

In the books it's described that he was jumping between the bodies of rats and snakes to try and regain his body. He was doing this specifically to regain magic power, so I don't think the body possession required a ritual of some sort (because if it did, Voldemort wouldn't be able to do it). Tom Riddle was also able to possess Ginny several times once he was freed from the book and since it's powered exclusively by Voldemort's magic I don't see why he wouldn't be able to do it as well (in case you forgot, tom riddle and voldemort are the exact same person). He also just up and possessed Quirrell in the very first book.

The reason why he doesn't just always possess people is because most of the time he's not dead. Additionally it's mentioned that being in a rat reduced his magical power; given how powerful Voldemort is, we can assume just possessing any old far would be detrimental...which is further proved in Goblet of Fire, where he creates an entire new body for himself.

Almost every power ever doesn’t work realistically, have you ever seen videos on realistic super speed, or super strength.

So why does social influencing suddenly stop working out of verse when no other power does. The courier isn’t winning for a non existent reason, he specifically is using something he, as a character, has to win. It’s an ability he has, it isn’t just regular talking it comes from perks which are specifically abilities. One of his social influencing abilities passively just makes animals like him or can induce intense fear (not even through talking sometimes).

Social Influencing is probably the most context-specific power on the site, which is why it's usually barely able to do anything, much less consistently work outside of the user's verse. Also being realistic to some extent is pretty much the only reason why the site exists. 'Realistic super strength' is why we scale striking strength to durability. 'Realistic super speed' is why we considered moving in a timeless void to be infinite speed. So on and so forth. Realism and logic is in fact a large part of the site.

If social influencing truly doesn’t work, then why is it a power on this site. So we list it on their profiles as something they can do, they consistently do it all the time, but because logically it doesn’t work (when many other powers don’t logically work) it suddenly shouldn’t work.

I’ll make a thread on it later then, because either social influencing should be nuked (because apparently we don’t accept as usable unless it’s mind manipulation (another power), or it should be usable because we aren’t this anal on literally any other power.

We're anal on lots of powers, social influencing included. And you seem pretty close to just concluding that it's a pretty garbage power, so it might face revisions soon. 'Why is it a power on the site' assumes that being on the site means it's good or that it works, but sadly that isn't the case.

 

[Keeweed]

The courier doesn’t know anything about half the people he’s talked down. The general he talked down he only met in at the end of the game (the only other times you meet legate is when you’re his teammate), you only saw the security system when you yelled ice cream at it, you only met the brotherhood members in that conversation, the drug crazed lunatics are people you randomly meet, the only interaction you have with Benny is that he shots you in the head. Yet you can convince him to screw you as soon as you remeet him.

The courier has never needed prior knowledge to convince people. Ulysses has an alternate ending based on prior knowledge. Having him join you is not reliant on that.

Edit: “And you seem pretty close to just concluding that it's a pretty garbage power”

That’s not what I think at all. I think we are overly strict on the power. Why would you not be able to convince someone to do something. People in real life can convince people to do crazy stuff (like form cults, help with genocide, and to harm others). Real people do it through a lot of work and knowledge, but that doesn’t mean fiction characters need to. Characters can have in human charisma. It happens all the time in fiction. The characters consistently showcase the ability to convince other people easily, I have no clue why you guys think it shouldn’t work when the verse allows it to work. I can think of verses that have pure killing intent BFR people. Should that not work now because it isn’t logical? Sometimes social influencing is realistic and won’t work. But for characters like the courier I see no reason as to why it should suddenly stop working.

 

[Keeweed]

I just want to say, let me make the thread on social influencing, please. I want to argue for the powers case, rather than saying the power should be up and deleted first (though I know most staff for some reason really hate it, so it’s likely going to die). I’ll make the thread tomorrow.

 

[Stillwinston]

I mean there's also the Courier's bullshit luck that can be a factor in this, legit most attacks can miss him even from being point blank. Crucio won't work either as iirc Courier's body is stuffed with cybernetics and as stated above his brain could very well just be tesla coils, I feel like I'd need proof or a compelling argument that Voldemort can possess someone that is practically a machine at that point. AK should still work though from what I've seen with Courier at least.

 

[Armorchompy]

I just want to say, let me make the thread on social influencing, please. I want to argue for the powers case, rather than saying the power should be up and deleted first (though I know most staff for some reason really hate it, so it’s likely going to die). I’ll make the thread tomorrow.

???????

Literally nobody is arguing any of this, I think the power should stay lol

 

[Keeweed]

I’ve seen other people think it should be nuked before. I know many people that really don’t like that social influencing is even a thing on this site. I feel Ayewale was arguing for it not being a thing, but I’m pretty sure both of us have been completely misunderstanding each other, so fair there.

However, why keep it if it literally is usable unless it’s straight mind control (as you were saying earlier (unless I am horribly misunderstanding your point)). Because it isn’t its own power then, that would just be plain old mind manipulation.

Just want to clarify, I think it should work on its own. If a character has showcase social influencing that can end fights and have people they don’t know switch sides it should absolutely should work in a versus thread (especially since the courier’s work on mindless robots that just follow a program). (More so clarifying for Ayewale, not you Armorchompy)

 

[Armorchompy]

I’ve seen other people think it should be nuked before.

You see a lot of dumb shit on this site, is the thing.

However, why keep it if it literally is usable unless it’s straight mind control (as you were saying earlier (unless I am horribly misunderstanding your point)). Because it isn’t its own power then, that would just be plain old mind manipulation.

Powers don't need to be VS Thread-relevant to be indexed. Plus I think there's combat applications for it, I just don't think getting someone to do whatever you want with a single sentence is one of them.

Just want to clarify, I think it should work on its own. If a character has showcase social influencing that can end fights and have people they don’t know switch sides it should absolutely should work in a versus thread (especially since the courier’s work on mindless robots that just follow a program).

I mean like, SI is meant to not have any supernatural elements to it. If you say it does then it's mindhax, and if it doesn't then it can't be expected to work like you're saying it should on characters who realistically could not be convinced of something, since there isn't any supernatural effect at play that would actually sway their sense of judgment. Even if it does work that well in-verse, sometimes verses have dumb things happen that don't hold up to scrutiny (Like, I dunno, have you seen any of the weird pseudo-science shit Baki characters do?) and that doesn't mean unrelated characters should be forced to conform to them.

 

[Keeweed]

But the courier consistently can convince such a wide variety of people that I don’t see why it would counted as verse stupidity versus being an actual power. Especially since it is listed as an actual power since you get it from perks and from increasing your charisma. The base courier can’t convince everyone like their lemmings, he specifically needs to increase his charisma to inhuman levels.

Again, he convience a computer program to walk away, that’s not human stupidity. He’s convinced multiple people with genius level intelligence before. He’s convinced people that have every reason on earth to hate him to be his friend or ****. He specifically has a perk, not just innate charisma, to be sexually attractive to other people.

In the courier’s case it’s an ability, an ability that works. The characters aren’t being dumb, the courier is specifically stated and shown hundreds of times over to have charisma far beyond a normal man.

It isn’t even convincing people through context or just general human interaction. Ulysses and the think tank specifically have alternate endings for you convincing them through getting to know them and gaining trust. The speech ending has the courier not know these people at all, and they absolutely want to kill him for dozens of reasons, yet he gets them on his side.

Why does it matter if it’s not all that logical when it’s specifically shown and stated to work that way, and does so constantly.

Edit: If social influencing just isn’t a thing in versus threads, then how is it a power outside of versus threads? It either is a thing, in which case why would it not work, or it isn’t, in which case how is it a power?

 

[Stillwinston]

Also there's the fact that Courier can use Terrifying Presence and just do this to possibly get Voldemort to flee if this helps

 

[Armorchompy]

how is that not just fear manipulation

 

[Keeweed]

I mean, it is listed as fear manipulation on his profile, but it comes from his charisma. That’s the big thing, even being pedantic with social influencing, the courier can use his charisma in a way to be an actual ‘usable’ power through inducing intense fear. This is shown to work on the brotherhood squadron and they are 9-As with weapons that can flash vaporize titanium while the courier can be 9-B (Edit: you need power armor training to wear 9-A armor, so you straight up just are 9-B (durablily wise) during that interaction) and still cause them to panic and flee. So it’s definitely a power (it’s specifically said to be as such in game).

 

[Armorchompy]

I mean, it is listed as fear manipulation on his profile, but it comes from his charisma. That’s the big thing, even being pedantic with social influencing, the courier can use his charisma in a way to be an actual ‘usable’ power through inducing intense fear. This is shown to work on the brotherhood squadron and they are 9-As with weapons that can flash vaporize titanium while the courier can be 9-B (Edit: you need power armor training to wear 9-A armor, so you straight up just are 9-B (durablily wise) during that interaction) and still cause them to panic and flee. So it’s definitely a power (it’s specifically said to be as such in game).

So it's mindhax lol

 

[Popted2]

Courier FRA

 

[Stillwinston]

So from what I'm gathering here Ayewale is inclined to vote for Voldemort though I'll wait till I hear from there here to do so just in case, I know they've requested the FRAs for Courier to be dismissed however I have to add my two cents into this

We have established with Keeweed and myself explaining how Courier can achieve victory via SI, with him also having the ability to win via fear manip and making his opponents flee from the fight.

On the topic of Voldemort being able to possess, from what I've seen it could possibly work. However Courier is chock full of cybernetics including his brain, making this reasoning sketchy for me as I feel that its interacting with tech enough to the point that I would like to request some more detailing about it. Also considering Courier's luck the possession might not work on him or Voldemort might end up possessing something else like a rat nearby. AK should still work and most of Voldemort's other hax though.

 

[Stillwinston]

Bump

Now that I think on it I think there might be a chance for Voldemort's possession to work, there is the feat of the weasley's being able to enchant a car to fly and have possible sentience in book 2. So I wouldn't put it past the fact of Vol being able to possess Courier there. There is still his bullshit luck though

 

[Stillwinston]

Bump

 

[Undylan]

Courier FRA

 

[BEASTHEART8800]

Courier FRA

 

[Stillwinston]

Grace is over, if anyone has issues please bring them up to the removal request thread. I will get this added.