r/respectthreads • u/SneakyHeat • May 22 '16

anime/manga Respect Father [Fullmetal Alchemist]

Father is the first homunculus, created by an alchemist from Xerxes with Hoenheim's blood, hundreds of years before the beginning of the series. He fools the king of Xerxes into making a nation-wide transmutation circle with the promise of immortality. Next, he purposefully misinforms them, causing Hoenheim and himself to each receive half of the nation's souls.. At this stage, Father should have had 536,329 souls within him, the same as Hoenheim.

Father then left, and taught alchemy to the ancient Amestrians. He planted himself under the ground and built the nation around him, planning eventually to sacrifice every person in it. He also inserted himself as a buffer between alchemists and their source of power so alchemy could not be used against him.

Container form

When you notice an insect on the ground, do you stop to consider it a fool?

  • Fixes Edward and Alphonse: Manga

  • Breaks pipes without moving: Manga Anime

  • Effortlessly summons rock walls without moving: Manga, Anime 1, 2

  • Stops all alchemy in a large area: Manga

  • Makes Greed's stone: Manga

  • Ignores Scar's destruction alchemy: Manga

  • Recreating Gluttony after his stone was burnt out: Manga

  • Alchemy battle with Hoenheim: Manga, Anime

  • Slips through the ground: Manga

Evolved form

Did you honestly believe you're the only one capable of evolving?

After having his container (the body that resembles Hoenheim) damaged, it is revealed that he no longer needs it.

  • Absorbs a thrown kunai, massively increases it's size, and fires it back: Manga

  • Zaps May Chang: Manga

  • Turns his arm into a gun: Manga

  • Warps his body to avoid attacks and wrap people up: Manga, Anime

  • Avoids Greed's attack: Manga

God form

I can create a sun right in the palm of my hand. Shall I turn it's flame loose in here?

After his nationwide transmutation circle activates giving him energy from almost all the humans in Amestris, he pulls God out of the sky. He now has over 50 million souls within him.

  • Turns off alchemy with a finger tap: Manga

  • Makes a large explosion, piercing all the way up past ground level: Manga

    • This was left out of the anime. The hole is instead partially caused by May Chang and the surface is pierced by an energy ball deflected by Hoenheim.

  • Creates nuclear fusion in his hand: Manga

Hoenheim activates his reverse circle, and Father loses the souls of Amestris. He now deems it too risky to use nuclear fusion.

Shield

Offence

Other

  • Births humans from the souls in his stone: Manga
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u/SneakyHeat May 23 '16

what is a human worth?

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u/upads May 23 '16

Depends on what unit do you want to measure it in.

Mass wise: Average human is 80.7kg, versus 1,989,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000kg of the sun.

Energy wise: A human on an average burns 1400k calories a day, convert it into joules it's 5,857,600 Joules. If we multiply that by 10 billion we get:

58,576,000,000,000,000 Joules

The sun emits about:

3,800,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 per second

If you line the two numbers up on top of each other:

3,800,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000

58,576,000,000,000,000

You will notice the energy emitted by the sun per second is twice as long as the amount of energy a 10 billion population can burn a day, so the sun is about twice as powerful as 10 billion humans (no).

Any other questions?

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u/SneakyHeat May 23 '16

Why do you think souls are in any way related to the amount of energy a human uses in a day, or at all? I don't know if you've seen what philosopher's stones do but I don't think that theory makes any sense. If that were the case, the homunculi could have sent Mustang (or anyone) through the Gate by running a windmill for a few years instead draining Pride's philosopher's stone to do it.

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u/upads May 23 '16

I did state the soul is worth no more than the body, so by establishing the limits of what the body is worth, I also establish the upper limits that the human soul can't surpass.

If that were the case, the homunculi could have sent Mustang (or anyone) through the Gate by running a windmill for a few years instead draining Pride's philosopher's stone to do it.

As an engineer, I can explain that with the requirement of the gate opening to have a minimum amount of watts, which if we run a windmill over a few years, will produce enough energy equivalent of a human, but not enough power bring the elements past the superposition that is required to enter the realms of the gate.

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u/SneakyHeat May 23 '16

So you're saying that a philosopher's stone is just a small amount of joules stored in a form where they can be released really quickly? Why wouldn't they make stones out of something that is easier to obtain without murdering shitloads of people?

I feel like I shouldn't need to bring this up but you seem to be serious. Are you really trying to use a fan theory to say "Father made nuclear fusion except it wasn't actually powerful and also none of the expert alchemists present believed for a second that he was bluffing" ?

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u/upads May 23 '16

Seeing how the expert alchemist present in the show are nowhere near as knowledgeable as the two of us are, in modern times with access to google, internet and scholar articles...I'd say they believed it. But people who know better shouldn't----and there are many reasons to not believe so. The worth of a philosopher stone is just one sign.

If you don't mind, I'd like to hear your version of fan theory of how much a philosopher is worth, what its limits are and what it can/cannot do.

The philosopher stone is a such a sophisticated plot device it deserves a respect thread of its own.

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u/SneakyHeat May 23 '16

FMA seems to have tech comparable to 1940s Germany, nothing we have discussed is even close to being out of the range of their scientific knowledge. Hoenheim is as old as Father and shares his power source (shitloads of souls), if anyone was going to call him out, Hoenheim would have (and did, though for something unrelated).

I think philosopher's stones store a vast amount of energy, as evidenced by the massive scale kinetic energy which Hoenheim, Father, and every other stone user output casually without any concern about using it up (except when the plot demanded that Ed and Al not get their hands on one).

The reason for rebounds on human transmutation is commonly said to be due to nothing equalling the worth of a human soul. This is said outright in the dub opening of the first few episodes, and the wiki says the same thing, but I haven't found a canon source yet.

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u/upads May 23 '16 edited May 23 '16

I think philosopher's stones store a vast amount of energy

No doubt about that. I'm just saying the amount of energy required to recreate the sun is not just "vast", is stupidly ridiculously ludicrously completely brilliantly vast, the energy stored in one can't even come close to it.

nothing we have discussed is even close to being out of the range of their scientific knowledge.

True, but unlike us, each alchemist in the show have their own expertise and are most likely clueless on things that they don't study on. While I can simply type "how much energy in the sun" on google and get the answer, despite having zero academic background on astrology at all.

Well, the fact that they're on the frontline and we're calm in our armchair should also give us much more advantage too.

The reason for rebounds on human transmutation is commonly said to be due to nothing equalling the worth of a human soul.

Actually, that statement is stated by one of the characters in the show, not by the narrator of the show at all (there's none), so they are subjected to the doubt where they do not have complete understanding of the truth of alchemy. In my own fan theory, the rebound of human transmutation is from Aristotle's Psychology, where it says a person's soul will change to fit the body. The alchemists don't know that, and when they transmute humans, they failed to transmute the soul along with the physical component of the body, causing a soul to be forced down a body that doesn't fit----thus all accident.

But this is just my theory. A fan theory.

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u/SneakyHeat May 23 '16

I'm just saying the amount of energy required to recreate the sun is not just "vast", is stupidly ridiculously ludicrously completely brilliantly vast

If we go by what Hoenheim (I think it was him) says instead of Father, he creates nuclear fusion in his hand. It sure doesn't look like a star the size of our sun, and that's a far more sensible amount of energy. I have no doubt that he could vaporize everything in a considerable distance with it though. He mentions not wanting to destroy "this place" after all.

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u/upads May 23 '16

Good eyes! I agree with Hoenheim's stating that father creating a nuclear fusion (it's actually a fission, but the end result looks so similar it's impossible to tell...).

Hoenheim saw through father's bluff. It's a nuclear fission, not literally the sun itself!

It's still destructive as hell though.

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u/Chainsaw__Monkey May 26 '16

it's actually a fission, but the end result looks so similar it's impossible to tell...).

How do you know this?

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u/upads May 26 '16

With a ball of fusion like that, you will be producing a ball of uncontrollable FUCK YOU that will kill everyone within a radius of...everyone your naked eyes can see. With fission it is possible to contain the blob of FUCK YOU in a ball of plasma with a magnetic field, which is what the father seems to be doing.

Secondly, the process of creating a fusion and fission is different. You will also need to accelerate two nucleus at incredible speeds at each other to start the fusion process, so if father is to produce a fusion not a fission, you will see doing some sort of clapping-like motion in which he brings two nucleus towards each other with his hands to start it. While if he is triggering a fission all he need to do is to create a bunch of atoms and split them in half.

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u/Chainsaw__Monkey May 26 '16

Oh, so because something fictional doesn't obey all the rules(BTW, Magnetic containment is possible for Fusion), all the characters are wrong. You're basically just making shit up to suit your own headcanon.

Hoenheim saw through father's bluff.

Except Hoenheim confirmed "A Sun" and then specified "Nuclear Fusion", that's not calling a bluff, that's being utterly fucking terrified

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u/budgetcutsinc May 27 '16

That's not how fission actually works, in fact due to what he did it's much more likely that he produced fusion. In fusion all you need is a sufficient amount of force and energy to squeeze two atoms (usually hydrogen) together, while in fusion you need to use neutrons in tandem with radioactive material to begin the "split" which is just the separation of an element into two smaller elements, your explanation makes 0 sense

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u/vadergeek May 26 '16

If it's supposed to be essentially the sun, then it's fusion.

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u/upads May 26 '16

Hoenheim does not agree that it is essentially the sun----instead he says it's a nuclear reaction(the English translation says "fusion" but if you read the raws it just says "nuclear reaction" which can mean fission or fusion).

Hoenheim's claims makes more sense than father, and thus we know the father is bluffing.

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u/vadergeek May 26 '16

One says it's a small sun, the other says it's a nuclear reaction, fusion matches both while fission actively contradicts the first.

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