u/TurtlesBreakTheMeta

So armored core series: LC’s and MT’s exist to be the dumpster tier mooks you mow down by the hundreds in every mission without being so much as scratched by them in the armored core series. But… they’re almost the same size as an AC, and are piloted so they’re not just drones of some kind.

Given their mass is only a little less, why do they throw away resources building these things considering even 100 times the mass in metal and electronics won’t measure up to a single crappy AC with a mediocre pilot? Even the 1st generation problem of pilots having less than a 10% survival rate of the surgery/implants to let you pilot one wouldn’t mean much given that power multiplier: not to mention it’s meaningless now that the current generation pilots have almost a 100% survival rate.

It just doesn’t make much logistical sense.

This may be more of a question for the ask science sub, but thought I’d ask here first since it’s from a fictional science scenario.

“The two rivers hypothesis” is a cosmic horror game; in it, you’re exploring an abandoned and flooded research facility and piecing together what they were doing there and why it was abandoned. The gist is, a physicist made a theory that universal entropy might not exist in a closed system, but multiple overlapping universes that could theoretically carry entropy from one to the other (the titular “two rivers hypothesis”).

The theory is proven true when researchers discover particle sized plankton like lifeforms that mindlessly drift from one reality to the other, transferring tiny bits of entropy to our universe as they do so; scientist figure out a way to do it in reverse, and the facility is destroyed by angry extra dimensional beings who were using our universe as a toxic waste dump for their own entropy with those life forms and didn’t appreciate it being reversed.

So my question is this: what would “transferring entropy” even be? I know it’s a concept that’s important to theoretical physics, but I thought it generally referred to disorder and the loss of the ability to perform work: I didn’t think it was really a singular measurable value in the same way heat or energy was.

So, in warhammer 40k DIGGANOBZ are humans who painted themselves green and attempted to “be” Orks. Now, every species with a warp signature in 40k empowers something via their emotions or worship: imperium humans empower the chaos Gods and God emperor, and even humans in the tau empower the warp by existing (even so far as creating a greater good warp entity one time in the warp).

Now, here comes the question: Orks, due to the waaaagh!, don’t empower the chaos Gods: their Psionic energy is free for Orks to use without issue, and then in turn empowers their gods, gork and mork.

So, here’s the question: does the Psionic energy of DIGGANOBZ empower Khorne or Gork and mork?

Elements are one of the major aspects of the world of Sara’Fel, and thus elemental magic is one of its primary areas of study.

Magical energy is divided into two primary types, harmonic derived from the world itself, or arcane energy from the outer chaos surrounding Sara’Fel (the wyld in which the fae dwell, the closest and “safe” type of arcane energy, or the outer dark itself, in which the malevolent timeless beings, the Sama’Voyah exist). Elemental magic is, as one might expect, harmonic, being that which the world itself is composed of and the elements rules help to protect Sara’fel from dissolving into the sea of chaos.

The elements are further classified into 6 distinct types, 3 of which pertain to the state of matter, and 3 of which pertain to the state of energy: Aether, Fire and Void for energy, and then Air, Water and earth for matter. Many scholars argue that there exists a 7th element (either Soul or anima, a difficult to understand synthesis of all 6 elements in equilibrium that surround the soul), but this is generally disregarded as pseudo-magic and not substantiated by facts.

The elements:

Elements of Energies:

Aether: the preserving element of energy, Aether is the element of life and order. Often viewed by the layperson as simply that which causes organisms to “live”, it represents much more: It is coherence and form, the ability for non-living objects to resist time and for the statues to stand against time.

All elements can be “corrupted” by the outer chaos touching them and warping them; this is rare, as harmonic energies function as a bulwark against the encroach of the arcane, but will occur either with the direction of skilled spellcasters or extreme amounts of outer dark energies. When corrupted by the outer chaos, Aether becomes destructive, turning things into cancers that bring life that destroys or causes the non-living to grow and expand.

Fire: fire is the force of physical (non-spiritual) energy and motion, that which gives both living and inert matter the ability to move. It is by fire that wind blows and waves crash. When aether collides with fire it locks energy into bonds which can be broken later, and when it collides with Void those bonds are destroyed, even down to the very dust of substance, leaving behind nothing but energy.

Corrupted fire is a freezing reaction that ceases action or even existence as one knows it completely: while it’s known amongst scholars that “cold” is simply the absence of heat, corrupted fire goes beyond this: it actively spreads a lack of energy, seemingly devouring it, with its most horrifying manifestation being a phenomenon known as the “frozen flame”,
A spreading “fire” that stops everything down to time itself: nothing exists outside of that moment inside the corruption. While reversible, without extreme magical care, that which has been caught will “shatter” like glass, ceasing to be like a picture that was erased.

Void: void is the energy of death and entropy, and the most misunderstood element. While feared and hated as an element that merely bring death and disease, its role is actually extremely important, and all healthy life carries vast amounts of void within them: Void energy is what allows the body to discern and remove weakened or diseased parts of itself, and those without sufficient void will find themselves Suffering from either cancers or parasites.
More than that, void also affects non-living objects, time and entropy wearing away at them till they are no more: it is also extremely important for the fire element, as it is used to break down the bonds of aether within something to release its energy anew. It is known by scholars that the entropic nature of void means it is an ever increasing force: little by little, entropy expands in the universe and order breaks down.
Some fear this means everything will fall into a cloud of useless dust, no different than if the outer chaos had overcome the world, while more hopeful scholars view things in a cyclical nature, and believe that either this will cause a massive reversal that will rebirth the world, or that we are merely viewing a long “wave” of entropic expansion before Aether will rebound itself like a pendulum moving back.

Corrupted void is one of the most well known types, being what foul necromancers user, and is a major reason the layperson fears void so much, often confusing normal void energy for necromantic energy: in fact, void is highly destructive to be romantically animated beings, almost as much as aether, as its entropy will enact the inviolable rules of time upon them, causing skeletons zombies to decay and break down as age does its job.
Necromantic energies are vampiric in nature: while void destroys and releases that which it touches, necromancy instead steals for itself When it destroys. Necromantic beings thus survive by devouring others, driving them to cannibalistically seek anima and aether from living beings (or even souls) to fuel their continued reactions.

The elements of form.

Air is the separating element of freedom. It drives substances to break free of bonds holding it to other substances or entities, and also gives it the freedom to move or for entities to seek their own path. Air lifts the wings of birds and fills the lungs of animals, even fish, with the ability to move and change.

Corrupted air is suffocating and heavy, a sticky morass that traps and crushes rather than uplifts. In extreme states, it becomes like a sea that drowns those who enter it.

Water is the unifying aspect of form. Not as free as air or thick as earth, it drives beings and substances to intermingle and become one with another: this has many uses, as running water can either pull impurities from something, or fouled water can carry and taint those same poisons into something. Water can posses either a leaning toward earth or air in it nature, making it repel the other: oil for example is known to be the element of water imbued with an earth polarity, causing it to “reject” water that is either neutral or has an air polarity.
A common misconception is that Fire and Water are opposed elements due to water putting out your average layperson fire. However, as aspects of energy and form, they cannot oppose each other, being independent types; in fact, when exposed to void energy, water is known to release large amounts of fire elemental energy, in an almost explosive manner.

Corruptive water is one of the most vile types. Characterized by a thick, black sludge, it desiccates and entraps others. Regular water encourages mixing, but corruptive water does the opposite: it acts like a cocoon, gripping and entrapping that which it touches, worming its way all the way through ever crevasse as if it were alive, and forcefully causes the object or being to seperate into their base parts: a living being will find their humors calcified, crystals of salt and calcium replacing their bones, iron, water and other components painfully solidifying into ingots and pools in their body. It is known as “dark water” to sailors, and those sailing oceans known for their corruption are terrified of its sight.

Earth is the separating element of endurance and shape. With its energy, objects and beings gain the power to resist change and hold firm in what they are: the shells of a turtle, the bark of a tree and the steel of a sword all draw their strength from the earth energy inside them.
Earth is also the aspect of weight, and what scholars call “gravity”, what pulls things to the ground and holds them fast, with supposedly larger beings having more of this energy than others.

Corrupted earth inverts its attributes, becoming weak and bondless. The very wind will tear something asunder that has had its earth element inverted, as what was once strong becomes weak; patches of earth collapse into a muddy “air” akin to a brown sea, and those who set foot into it will never return, falling into the mire.

Corrupted earth can also undergo a strange synthesis when exposed to vast amount of aether in which it maintains its form, but instead its weight and gravity are corrupted, becoming what is known as “sky stone”, a dirty, foul smelling rock that floats into the sky, and is sought after by both mages and alchemists for this property (though long term unshielded exposure to sky stones will generally result in literal liquification as one’s earth element stops holding them together). The mountain of woe (previously known as Dul’thin’s throne when it was a floating mountain in the sky), in which the high elves greedily had their human slaves hollow out until it crashed into the ground and released the prisoner at its core, was one of the most well known sources of natural sky stone.

Magical use: elemental magic is one of the simplest and most well known of all magics, being both straight forward and ample in supply. It is both theurgic or evocative, as the users of it can either call from the elemental planes for higher level use or project it from the elements within themselves. In either case, the Practitioner utilizes the anima within them that surrounds their soul as “fuel” to call upon or project this energy. This is generally with little to no danger to the caster, as such shallow anima cuts will renew themselves without soul-scarring, though some darker practitioners can utilize it in more harrowing ways.

Most straight forward are soul-scarred casters who learn to hew larger chunks of anima out of their own soul, leading to ill-formed bonds of anima forming in the cavities, just as scars will form from a deep cut in flesh. Memory loss or sociopathism as processing empathy becomes more difficult are common side effects.

More dastardly and dangerous are those elementalist who profane their studies with that of the outer dark and learn how to intentionally corrupt the elements with arcane energies. In such cases, the anima cuts to their soul will often be tainted with corruption as well, an like dirty wounds, will fester, allowing the animosity of the Sama’Voyah that shine within the dark or their larvae to infect their minds.

So, trying to wrap my head fully around how the red moon set works so I understand it: if I gain feral rage from blood hunt, but feral rage ends before blood hunt ends, if blood hunt is still active will feral rage re-trigger 40 seconds later, or do you have to let blood hunt re-expire?

The set bonus just seems kind of clunky and trying to figure out wonky power spikes as a wolf.

Besides “just use less apples” are there any good tips to keep apple pies from bubbling over? It’s not more than an annoyance, but everytime I make it I cook it (9 inch pan) on a tin foil cooking sheet because it’s going to spill over.

I know the “simple” solution is less filling, but it doesn’t seem to be overfilled after It cools and I eat it. (3 Granny Smiths, 2 honey crisp, 1/2 cup walnuts, 1/2 cup butter and 1/4 cup honey).

My magic system has six elements rather than the classical 4, with life (such as positive energy from dnd) and “death” (entropy as well as life dying) part of it: “corruption” could be seen as a technical 7th in that things like necromancy (death animating something) or other perversions of an element function from its affecting them.

The question comes down to what a combination of the original four with life/death would result in: combining things like earth and water (mud) are easy to divine, while the effects of such esoteric elements on the other 4 are harder.

What do you think life/death combining with each of the 4 classical elements would produce? Earth and life seems simply (wood/plants), but a bit harder for say earth/death.