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I'm going to list off some hypothetical powers. If you were given one of these powers, would you use it?
1. You can overwrite any person's personality with your current personality. This effect is permanent. Only your original body has this power.
2. You can send your personality into another body, leaving behind a copy of your personality that does no remember having this power. This power goes with you into the new body.
3. You can erase the existence of others. After doing so, you can turn into that person and have access to all of their memories. You can change forms at will. When a person would naturally die, including your original self, you lose all of their memories.
4. You have seven days to live. When you touch someone, you can will them to die. Within the next month that person will die by either disease, violence, or an accident. Every person you kill this way extends your life by one day. You gain perfect immortality, and can only die when your time runs out.
5. You are made aware of the afterlife and are guaranteed to go to the heaven equivalent. You may grant yourself nigh god-like powers, allowing you to alter and shape existence to your will. After doing so, you cease to exist.
6. You may perform any kind of magic. Your magic is fueled by the suffering and death of those you care for. You will not know the cost of a magical act ahead of time. Should you run out of people you care for, you will automatically die.
7. You may instantly travel 1000 years into the future to a safe location near your current one. No force in the universe can make you go back in time. This power can be used as frequently as you want.
8. You may alter the speed at which you age. However you alter your age speed, the inverse happens to those around you.
9. You may will anyone to instantly die. Every time you do, a random innocent you don't know dies horribly.
10. You may grant everyone perfect immortality, except yourself.
11. You may turn into a specter that can watch anything. After doing so, you are immortal and cannot turn back. As a specter, you may only observe and cannot interact with anything.
12. You can become a true-God with the all the capabilities that come with that. Consequentially, you can no longer interact with this universe.
13. You can make a person forget their hopes and dreams. These hopes and dreams become incorporated into your own.
14. You can cause a person to experience true happiness, but they die immediately afterwards. Doing this causes you to experience every sad moment in their life.
15. You may heal any health problem. Someone you care about receives the problem instead and you cannot heal it. If you have no one you care for, health problems you heal are transferred to no one.
16. You may cause any person to instantly die. Doing so causes you to learn about perspectives and information that makes that person's passing regrettable.
17. You can cause the most evil person currently in the world to die, but you lose a finger. You do not know who these people are or if they are already incarcerated.
18. You can grant yourself the ability to be the perfect Judge and all people recognize your authority. Should you give yourself this ability, you cannot turn it off and will judge all you meet.
19. You can bring the dead back to life, but those risen forget about the person most important to them.
20. You can swap bodies with one person. After doing so, you forget you had this power.
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No to all of them except 5.
I have to give credit to Madoka for the inspiration, but I would definitely use 5. I would use the power to make the world a better place for those I care about. Knowing I had done so, I could happily cease to exist.
So, I can use 5 to reshape the universe to my will, create a clone double of myself, pour all of my memories and personality into it, give it amazing magical abilities, and then do what I please as my original self disappears, but to no real change since the me with all my memories and personality is still just me.
If not, does 12 let me interact with other universes? And/or create my own? That sounds fun.
If not, that's not really true godhood, since all you've done is given up all ability to EXIST since you've given up the capability of interacting with this universe in any way.
Totally stealing #4 for an antagonist.
I don't think I'm good enough for any of the self-sacrificial ones or evil enough for any of the others. 10 would make for a great con; dish out immortality for a price and by the time people realize how problematic everyone being immortal is I've already been dead for a while after spending my life swimming in all of my cash.
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1 and 2 seem viable. I like myself and would get along with myself, and there are certainly people the world would be better off without...so yeah, I would use those. Carefully.
For 3...I'm terrified of ceasing to be myself, so I'd be very reluctant. Probably not.
For 4, I'd maybe go on a bit of a spree killing bad people. Then I'd calmly let myself die. Same as any other terminal illness.
For 5...Rynjin has it right. If you can manipulate reality, you can ensure your own survival.
6, 8, and 9 are monstrous, and I wouldn't do.
7 and 11 just sounds depressing and are likewise 'No.'
10 I'd do in a heartbeat.
12...I see no earthly reason you couldn't move people from one universe to the other. And build one to suit yourself. So, yeah, totally.
13 and 14 are pointless and would never be used.
15 seems ugly, and I'd avoid.
16 seems quite practical, and I'd use, y'know, whenever killing someone was necessary. It's a little hard on you, but better to have it and not need it than need it and not have it, y'know?
17 Ouch. I'd never use it until I was about to die, but sure, I'd take it.
I'm not even sure what 18 means precisely.
19 seems workable and useful. Sure there's a price, but it's not an unpayable one.
20 is...really odd. Maybe if someone was about to kill me?
4: The only problem I'd have is that most of the people I'd want to use that would be difficult or dangerous to touch, being criminals.
5: Would heal and magnify the Multiverse and make it unbreakable and impervious to any kind of suffering without even thinking about it.
10: That would be more a punishment for others, than a boon.
12: Depends on what it is that I'll be able to interact with.
16: Well, this is sort of #4 on steroids... I can handle some regrets, comparing them with the benefits of some people's end.
18: Is there anything wrong with this? The ability to judge good and bad is one of the main things that makes humans supposedly more advanced. The only problem is that almost everyone has that ability all screwed up and judges without knowing all they'd have to know for a proper judgement. This power fixes it.
19: Unless you're going to revive some bad dude, is there a reason for not using this one? Better to have them alive, than not at all. They may come to know again the forgotten person over time.
If not, does 12 let me interact with other universes? And/or create my own? That sounds fun.
If not, that's not really true godhood, since all you've done is given up all ability to EXIST since you've given up the capability of interacting with this universe in any way.
You can create your own. You and this universe can't interact, because if you could that would mean there would be rules and definitions for interaction outside yourself. As a true-God nothing you can interact with exist outside yourself, but you are an entity that is completely self-defined and thus infinite in awareness and comprehension.
In truth, you can recreate our own universe and yourself in it. But the universe you came from didn't stop existing.
Whether or not this state is enjoyable depends on if the unfathomable state of true God-hood is a pleasant experience.
EDIT: You can do what you described with #5, but you still cease. That construct is essentially you, and will be so to your friends and family. But that is a new existence. You and your awareness still experience the downside.
Assuming you can't rules lawyer your way into the benefits of 5/12 without the costs at least. Then they're givens.
"rules lawyer-ing" 5 & 12 depends more on your philosophical outlook than legalese.
Each of these is a separate hypothetical.
19 is more of question of how comfortable you are deleting what might be the most important part of a person. Also those still remembered have to come to terms with not being the most important. Like resurrecting a single parent who forgets one of their children.
No to all.
I think it may only be fair that I answer too.
1: Yes
2: Yes
3: Yes
4: Yes
5: No
6: Very Sparingly
7: Yeah. I would have fun seeing if there is some sort of super future.
8: Yes
9: There are times I would use it.
10: I would hold off until I finish trying to invent immortality. If I fail, I would use it then.
11: No
12: I'd have to say yes.
13: I could see uses for this.
14: Yes
15: Nope
16: Yes
17: Nope
18: No, I don't want to know these things.
19: Mainly used on dead kids. I'm sure the parents could care less if one of them was forgotten.
20: This could be fun depending on the person.
I actually didn't really write these thinking about myself. After close inspection, I may just be a horrible person. Hmmmmmmm
There MUST be something wrong with 7 because there is nothing dismally wrong with it, like all the others. Obviously I'd choose 7 in a heartbeat. Of coarse it can be chosen only so many times.
I don't want to be a pseudo-god.
But I'd love a chance to defeat somebody with one of these powers.
In, like... a Bruce Willis flick or Star Trek episode or Death Note spinoff or something.
There MUST be something wrong with 7 because there is nothing dismally wrong with it, like all the others. Obviously I'd choose 7 in a heartbeat. Of coarse it can be chosen only so many times.
More likely than not, everyone you knew would be dead.
In a sense, it is like voluntarily dying. In another sense, it would be a fresh start.
no.12 FTW
1. No. I have trouble enough handling one me.
2. No. You recently found out about Vetala Vampires, didn't you?
3. Seriously, three for three powers that I would not use. What's next? Turning into the Incredible Hulk when I'm asleep?
4. I'm the sort of person who has no problems with dying if the alternative means inflicting pain and suffering on others. So no, I would not use this blatantly Evil-aligned power either. Ironically despite being the most Lawful Good person I know, I've yet to come up with a paladin character concept I could stand.
5. This question is contradictory, if I'm guaranteed to go to a heaven-equivalent, how can I cease to exist? Being somewhere requires that I exist. Assuming I can shape reality as I please and still go to heaven, I think I'd settle with killing an African Warlord and teleporting their oppressed population to a newly created resource-rich island and then quit while I was ahead. I figure if there's a heaven, then there's a God, and He's probably got better ideas than I do.
6. No.
7. Finally, a power I'd feel comfortable about using. Yes, I would use this power. If something starts going wrong, I just travel another 1000 years to a safe location.
8. I'm sure a math junky could wreak havoc with this sort of thing, but I'm not one of them, although if I could reverse my aging there could be no end of fun with this.
9. You do realize that technically speaking, with varying degrees of how instantaneous the death is, everyone already has this power without the random person dying? You know PvP is turned on in reality, the admins just don't remind people about it. So no, I would not use such a power.
10. No, not even if I could grant the immortality to myself.
11. Several years ago I would have said yes. Today? No.
12. But I can create another universe and interact with that one? If so, I'd take that.
13. No.
14. No.
15. No. And I'm so tired of saying no to so many powers that it's getting hard to think up of clever ways to say no. Maybe I'll start saying no in foreign languages?
16. 没有
17. Yes. I'd also probably kill the evil people as I'm performing magic tricks so I can laugh at all the scared people when my trick to remove my thumb actually does it.
18. So basically question number twelve, but with less comedic potential? I think I'll pass on this one too.
19. I'm sure this power has absolutely no way in hell of going horribly wrong for the people forgotten by the risen dead. I would absolutely do th-- Oh look, opposite day just ended!
20. One person, and I remember being myself in another body, but don't remember the transfer powers? So basically willingly swapping bodies, and then forgetting that it was willing? So many choices that I could go with, I can't decide, but yes, I'd probably use this power.
5. This question is contradictory, if I'm guaranteed to go to a heaven-equivalent, how can I cease to exist? Being somewhere requires that I exist. Assuming I can shape reality as I please and still go to heaven, I think I'd settle with killing an African Warlord and teleporting their oppressed population to a newly created resource-rich island and then quit while I was ahead. I figure if there's a heaven, then there's a God, and He's probably got better ideas than I do.
So the kicker with 5 is that you know paradise awaits you after death, but using the power doesn't kill you. It ends you in a far more permanent manner.
5. This question is contradictory, if I'm guaranteed to go to a heaven-equivalent, how can I cease to exist? Being somewhere requires that I exist. Assuming I can shape reality as I please and still go to heaven, I think I'd settle with killing an African Warlord and teleporting their oppressed population to a newly created resource-rich island and then quit while I was ahead. I figure if there's a heaven, then there's a God, and He's probably got better ideas than I do.So the kicker with 5 is that you know paradise awaits you after death, but using the power doesn't kill you. It ends you in a far more permanent manner.
This kind of rules-lawyering is the reason all of my characters have an exceedingly low opinion of Asmodeus.
This kind of rules-lawyering is the reason all of my characters have an exceedingly low opinion of Asmodeus.5. This question is contradictory, if I'm guaranteed to go to a heaven-equivalent, how can I cease to exist? Being somewhere requires that I exist. Assuming I can shape reality as I please and still go to heaven, I think I'd settle with killing an African Warlord and teleporting their oppressed population to a newly created resource-rich island and then quit while I was ahead. I figure if there's a heaven, then there's a God, and He's probably got better ideas than I do.So the kicker with 5 is that you know paradise awaits you after death, but using the power doesn't kill you. It ends you in a far more permanent manner.
Sorry. I just do not see ceasing to exist and death as the same things, especially in a cosmology with an afterlife.
Although, I am implying that we do exist and are thus real. So I can't claim that I am using metaphysically exact terms either.
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I'm going to list off some hypothetical powers. If you were given one of these powers, would you use it?
1. You can overwrite any person's personality with your current personality. This effect is permanent. Only your original body has this power.
No.
2. You can send your personality into another body, leaving behind a copy of your personality that does no remember having this power. This power goes with you into the new body.
No.
3. You can erase the existence of others. After doing so, you can turn into that person and have access to all of their memories. You can change forms at will. When a person would naturally die, including your original self, you lose all of their memories.
No.
4. You have seven days to live. When you touch someone, you can will them to die. Within the next month that person will die by either disease, violence, or an accident. Every person you kill this way extends your life by one day. You gain perfect immortality, and can only die when your time runs out.
No.
5. You are made aware of the afterlife and are guaranteed to go to the heaven equivalent. You may grant yourself nigh god-like powers, allowing you to alter and shape existence to your will. After doing so, you cease to exist.
Maybe.
6. You may perform any kind of magic. Your magic is fueled by the suffering and death of those you care for. You will not know the cost of a magical act ahead of time. Should you run out of people you care for, you will automatically die.
No.
7. You may instantly travel 1000 years into the future to a safe location near your current one. No force in the universe can make you go back in time. This power can be used as frequently as you want.
Probably not.
8. You may alter the speed at which you age. However you alter your age speed, the inverse happens to those around you.
No.
9. You may will anyone to instantly die. Every time you do, a random innocent you don't know dies horribly.
No.
10. You may grant everyone perfect immortality, except yourself.
Depends on what "perfect immortality" means. I'd presume invulnerable and ageless. I'm also not sure if this is a blessing or a curse. Maybe.
11. You may turn into a specter that can watch anything. After doing so, you are immortal and cannot turn back. As a specter, you may only observe and cannot interact with anything.
No.
12. You can become a true-God with the all the capabilities that come with that. Consequentially, you can no longer interact with this universe.
Sure.
13. You can make a person forget their hopes and dreams. These hopes and dreams become incorporated into your own.
No.
14. You can cause a person to experience true happiness, but they die immediately afterwards. Doing this causes you to experience every sad moment in their life.
Maybe.
15. You may heal any health problem. Someone you care about receives the problem instead and you cannot heal it. If you have no one you care for, health problems you heal are transferred to no one.
No.
16. You may cause any person to instantly die. Doing so causes you to learn about perspectives and information that makes that person's passing regrettable.
No.
17. You can cause the most evil person currently in the world to die, but you lose a finger. You do not know who these people are or if they are already incarcerated.
No.
18. You can grant yourself the ability to be the perfect Judge and all people recognize your authority. Should you give yourself this ability, you cannot turn it off and will judge all you meet.
Not sure what you mean by the perfect judge, but this might be a legitimately useful ability that could be used for beneficial guidance.
19. You can bring the dead back to life, but those risen forget about the person most important to them.
Maybe.
20. You can swap bodies with one person. After doing so, you forget you had this power.
Doubtful.
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This kind of rules-lawyering is the reason all of my characters have an exceedingly low opinion of Asmodeus.5. This question is contradictory, if I'm guaranteed to go to a heaven-equivalent, how can I cease to exist? Being somewhere requires that I exist. Assuming I can shape reality as I please and still go to heaven, I think I'd settle with killing an African Warlord and teleporting their oppressed population to a newly created resource-rich island and then quit while I was ahead. I figure if there's a heaven, then there's a God, and He's probably got better ideas than I do.So the kicker with 5 is that you know paradise awaits you after death, but using the power doesn't kill you. It ends you in a far more permanent manner.
Sorry. I just do not see ceasing to exist and death as the same things, especially in a cosmology with an afterlife.
Although, I am implying that we do exist and are thus real. So I can't claim that I am using metaphysically exact terms either.
I think the catch is rather than going to heaven your erased from existence and just end no afterlife for you. That said I might be tempted for 5 if I could create an alternate me to enjoy my improved reality (for family, friends and myself I'm not tampering on a global scale and rewriting humanity) otherwise no to all.
There MUST be something wrong with 7 because there is nothing dismally wrong with it, like all the others. Obviously I'd choose 7 in a heartbeat. Of coarse it can be chosen only so many times.More likely than not, everyone you knew would be dead.
In a sense, it is like voluntarily dying. In another sense, it would be a fresh start.
The Thousand year jump would be a lot like taking a sailing ship to the new world in the late 15th century. You would say goodbye to all that you know to see something completely different.
7 is a big gamble depending on the meaning of "safe". You could end up in a desolate wasteland with no other beings. I would need to pretty desperate before risking a permanent 1000 year jump.
The OP said you can use the power as many times as you want. That wasteland could turn into a fertile valley given enough jumps.
Maybe some alien race comes to settle this place and you get a free trip into space and you get to go to another planet where you get to use your power.
I'm going to list off some hypothetical powers. If you were given one of these powers, would you use it?
1. You can overwrite any person's personality with your current personality. This effect is permanent. Only your original body has this power.
No... This is essentially wiping them from existence and putting myself (The duplicate personality) through a very horrible identity crisis.
2. You can send your personality into another body, leaving behind a copy of your personality that does no remember having this power. This power goes with you into the new body.
Nope. Same for #1.
3. You can erase the existence of others. After doing so, you can turn into that person and have access to all of their memories. You can change forms at will. When a person would naturally die, including your original self, you lose all of their memories.
Hmm... I smell antagonist material, but no.
4. You have seven days to live. When you touch someone, you can will them to die. Within the next month that person will die by either disease, violence, or an accident. Every person you kill this way extends your life by one day. You gain perfect immortality, and can only die when your time runs out.
No can do.... Unless they were irredeemably evil and devilspawn... but how am I supposed to know that?
5. You are made aware of the afterlife and are guaranteed to go to the heaven equivalent. You may grant yourself nigh god-like powers, allowing you to alter and shape existence to your will. After doing so, you cease to exist.
Heck yes. Only do the god power if all of existence was going to be destroyed or screwed over though.
6. You may perform any kind of magic. Your magic is fueled by the suffering and death of those you care for. You will not know the cost of a magical act ahead of time. Should you run out of people you care for, you will automatically die.
Heck no! You wouldn't be really able to use this unless you were insane... On the account that why would you do this to the people you love, if you loved them?
7. You may instantly travel 1000 years into the future to a safe location near your current one. No force in the universe can make you go back in time. This power can be used as frequently as you want.
Yes! Exactly my thing! Unless it leads to a sucky future...
8. You may alter the speed at which you age. However you alter your age speed, the inverse happens to those around you.
.... Hell no!
9. You may will anyone to instantly die. Every time you do, a random innocent you don't know dies horribly.
NO!
10. You may grant everyone perfect immortality, except yourself.
Hmm... maybe... I'm kinda selfish when it comes to something like this... and this could cause a lot of problems...
11. You may turn into a specter that can watch anything. After doing so, you are immortal and cannot turn back. As a specter, you may only observe and cannot interact with anything.
Maybe.... Could be a living hell of boredom though...
12. You can become a true-God with the all the capabilities that come with that. Consequentially, you can no longer interact with this universe.
Heck yes! Why wouldn't you want this? "Because you would leave everything and everyone you know and care about behi-" Shut up!
13. You can make a person forget their hopes and dreams. These hopes and dreams become incorporated into your own.
Why!? No!
14. You can cause a person to experience true happiness, but they die immediately afterwards. Doing this causes you to experience every sad moment in their life.
....Only for certain circumstances.
15. You may heal any health problem. Someone you care about receives the problem instead and you cannot heal it. If you have no one you care for, health problems you heal are transferred to no one.
Again, why would I hurt the people I care about? No!
16. You may cause any person to instantly die. Doing so causes you to learn about perspectives and information that makes that person's passing regrettable.
.....hmm... That sucks... I give this a big no!
17. You can cause the most evil person currently in the world to die, but you lose a finger. You do not know who these people are or if they are already incarcerated.
Maybe....
18. You can grant yourself the ability to be the perfect Judge and all people recognize your authority. Should you give yourself this ability, you cannot turn it off and will judge all you meet.
Heck yes! This gives you power... and everyone knows it... So they either protect you so that you might be useful for mankind, pay/worship you as supreme Judge of all, or... try to kill you so that you can't judge them.... Still a yes.
19. You can bring the dead back to life, but those risen forget about the person most important to them.
Yes, plain and simple.
20. You can swap bodies with one person. After doing so, you forget you had this power.
...No....
I'll take all of them, i like having my options open, not like i HAVE to use them, but i could use them eventually.
though i'd enjoy 11 so long as i could interact with others in the same situation. no fun watching it all silently.
No to all of them. Given the drawbacks, nothing there is even a bit tempting.
18 and 16 I could live with... 19 is probably acceptable too.