Character Scramble II Sign Up Thread

[u/mrcelophane]

Welcome to the sign up thread for the second Character Scramble!

Don't know what the Character Scramble is? Well, aren't you in for a fun time?! To play, all you have to do is pick 5 of your favorite characters that fit this season's theme and enter them into the tournament. Then, the characters will be scrambled, and you will receive 5 random characters that will become your team for the remainder of the tournament.

Not enough description? Well here is the hub post from last season!. That contains every post for season 1.

Now, onto the rules for this season and how to sign up.

The Grand Champion of Season 1, /u/xahhfink6, has decreed that the teme for season 2 shall be Mid Tier Heroes. This has been defined as somewhere between the power level of Spiderman (last season's upper limit) and Aquaman. Only characters that are/would beat Spiderman and are/would lose to Aquaman should be submitted.

Rules:

• Each entrant will list 5 characters. Each character should have a link or two with information on them. These links should include Fan-wiki pages, Respect Threads, and anything else you think would help them out in learning all about them.

• Submissions are player policed. If you see someone outside the bounds of the power limits and caps, please explain to the entrant your views as to why they should not submit that character.

• Please be as specific as you can in terms of iteration of the character you are choosing, any modifiers (we had Deadpool without healing factor last season), and anything else you think is relevant.

• It is not against the rules to submit a character that has already been entered by someone else. It is encouraged, however, to make that person a different version of the character to make it interesting.

• After posting your character to this post, you will then go to this google form and fill it out. After that you are officially in the tournament.

• Please keep the link that lets you edit your post. Someone may convince you that one of your characters is too underpowered/overpowered and therefore needs to be changed. It is much easier for you to edit your post than for me to do it. This will save everyone time.

• Rosters will be rerolled until no one has more than one character that they suggested on their roster.

• Participants will receive the permalink to your post if they receive your character. That is why it is important to have a lot of information on it. They will be encouraged to reply to that comment to ask questions.

• Brackets/Pairings are randomly decided.

• Every week, you will have to explain, either through role play or arguments, why your team would beat the other one.

• Every week, the scenario may be different. It may change the way the fight is structured, or it may make it not a fight at all.

• The Scenario topic will be posted, and players are expected to argue why there characters would defeat there opponents.

• At least 48 hours later, the voting topic will be posted.

• Entrants must vote on all fights, and there votes count double. Not voting results in forfeiture. If you cannot vote due to time constraints, msg me and we can work around that.

• Voting will be done using Google forms

• The grand champion is allowed to pick the theme of the next tournament

And that is just about it! Lets have a ton of fun, guys! Sign ups close on Sunday sometime after NFL football, so tell your friends! If you have any questions, please ask away.

TO MAKE IT CLEAR, YOU ARE NOT IN THE TOURNAMENT IF YOU DO NOT FILL OUT THE GOOGLE FORM. DON'T KNOW WHAT I'M TALKING ABOUT? THEN YOU DIDN'T READ THE RULES

[u/angelsrallyon]

i edited my last post, i'm going by this theory http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Novikov_self-consistency_principle

[u/TimTravel → u/angelsrallyon]

That's what I'm trying to explain. That's NOT a theory, it's a category of theories. It doesn't explain what's likely to happen.

[u/angelsrallyon → u/TimTravel]

That why we have writers who can make their own decisions. i'm not sure what the problem is. Also, a Theory does not explain what is likely to happen. A theory describes WHY something happens. A Law describes WHAT happens. but that is besides the point.

For example, in your alice example, under this principle, asking what would happen in that senario would be as nonsensical as asking what would happen if two pieces of matter occupied the same space, or if something went faster than light, or if an unstoppable force met an immovable object. The point is that it can't happen under this world view because it tautologically can't by the definitions put upon it.

In your situation, Alice simply could not go back and change the past. She may try to go back and try to find out who did it, but if Bob knows this, he can try to cloak himself somehow, and would either be seen, or not be seen while stealing the dollar. The fact that she goes back in time cannot change what has occurred. if she goes back, it is because the dollar was stollen.

In fact, if both parties were intelligent enough, Alice would never be stollen from and would never have to go back in time, because bob knows he will be caught if he tries. If he does try and gets caught, it is because Alice caught him in such a way that it did not prevent him from stealing the dollar.

A situation where bob is caught and then decides not to steal the dollar simply would not happen.

In a situation like the one we are in now, where writers will have power over their own universes, i believe this definition is sufficient for giving people leeway, but not too much power, and eliminating time travel paradoxes. Since, by definition, these writers will have complete control of the story, they will be able to enforce these laws in any way they see fit, and they can decide what the likely outcome will be for themselves.

[u/TimTravel → u/angelsrallyon]

Ah, now we're getting somewhere.

Alice doesn't intend to change the past. She intends to find out who stole her money then go steal it back in her present time.

The problem is that you could say "Hermione hacked into the computer because her future self gave her the password.". This effectively gives an oracle to NP. It lets her Contessa: her future self tells her the path to victory and she follows it and gives the answer to her past self. This is a consistent timeline.

There have to be laws of physics even in fictional universes. They can be very strange indeed but they have to exist. In deterministic universes there have to be hypothetical versions of them with different initial conditions and in probabilistic universes there have to be other timelines, at least hypothetical timelines.

There is a notion of believability: how closely the universe follows its own rules. If you don't have a model of time travel which can evaluate the believability of your fictional universe then all events are arbitrary and there's no such thing as causation and it turns into a series of suppositions instead of a story. If you throw out any notion of believability you could have Thomas the Tank Engine turn into Antispiral and kill Superman for no reason. A good model of time travel will prevent Contessaing but allow mild help from the future.

[u/angelsrallyon → u/TimTravel]

Alice doesn't intend to change the past. She intends to find out who stole her money then go steal it back in her present time.

It does not matter what she intends. Only what happens. Her actions cannot change the past, directly or indirectly.

The problem is that you could say "Hermione hacked into the computer because her future self gave her the password.". This effectively gives an oracle to NP. It lets her Contessa: her future self tells her the path to victory and she follows it and gives the answer to her past self. This is a consistent timeline.

I see what you are saying now. How about we don't allow explicit Catch 22's? For example, Hermione can't generate the password Via time loop, but lets say the password will be told to her in 6 hours time regardless of weather or not she uses the computer. She could then go back and tell herself the password to open the computer.

Lets say she knows the password is written down in a document in the computer, but she needs to log in to get it. in this situation, she would not be able to get the password or open the computer because this is an explicit Catch 22.

There have to be laws of physics even in fictional universes.

Not really. it could just be nonsense words on a page. Well, there does for a GOOD one i guess. and people are trying to win a competition here. if someone wants to make a good story, i have a feeling they would try to make it believable.

[u/TimTravel → u/angelsrallyon]

I see what you are saying now. How about we don't allow explicit Catch 22's? For example, Hermione can't generate the password Via time loop, but lets say the password will be told to her in 6 hours time regardless of weather or not she uses the computer. She could then go back and tell herself the password to open the computer.

Lets say she knows the password is written down in a document in the computer, but she needs to log in to get it. in this situation, she would not be able to get the password or open the computer because this is an explicit Catch 22.

I like that restriction a lot but I'm not sure it covers everything. Mild catch 22s seem fair. If you can't do anything with time travel that you can't do without then it's unclear how it's useful.

Suppose before the battle she decides to fight the battle six times with time-copies of herself. She would witness at the beginning of the fight that all six are present. Does this mean that she can do anything she wants and survive no matter what, because of time-destiny? In the model I describe it's technically true but timelines in which she does risky things in earlier iterations are unlikely, so by the anthropic principle she's unlikely to be in a timeline in which she'll survive risky actions.

A different example that comes up a lot in Doctor Who and Homestuck. Suppose you see yourself in the future shooting yourself in the foot. What should you do? If the model I described is in effect, you should have a policy of doing your very best to prevent it, even though if you see it it's inevitable. This is because if you have a policy of not going along with prophesies of you shooting yourself in the foot, timelines in which you see a prophesy of you shooting yourself in the foot are unlikely, so by the anthropic principle you are unlikely to be in one. Suppose for simplicity that ignoring paradox prevention you are nearly 100% capable of not shooting yourself in the foot after being warned of that happening in the future. Your brain melts instantly when you hear such a prophesy. Then seeing such a prophesy would already be a paradox. As I described earlier, if you keep following this line of reasoning, it leads to the universe conspiring to prevent time travel because any time travel requires a lot of atom-by-atom consistency which is unlikely in the prior physics distribution of timelines.

If what you're saying is true, then I think that means that there's nothing you can do to prevent the universe from giving you a prophesy of you shooting yourself in the foot in the future. That seems strange, especially in cases where it would be highly out of character for you to do it if you weren't time-destined.

---

I've been trying to avoid linking to this massive wall of text I wrote on the nature of fiction but we've discussed it enough that summaries aren't really sufficient. It's written sort of like a lesswrong sequence in that it's extremely detailed and it's ok to skip sections you understand. It should cover most of the questions we've been discussing that don't directly relate to time travel.

As a quick possible patch depending on what you mean: it seems reasonable that there is such thing as an objectively well-crafted hammer, separate from popularity, affordability, or usefulness to a particular person. In the same way, it seems reasonable that there is such thing as an objectively well-crafted story, separate from popularity, difficulty to achieve, or appeal to a particular person. A hammer that weighs 10 tons designed for superhumans could be well-crafted even though I couldn't use it. A story could be well-crafted even though I don't like it. I cannot state a complete objective definition of a well-crafted hammer or a well-crafted story but that doesn't mean they are meaningless terms. I claim that believability is a property of a well-crafted story. Someone might like an unbelievable story, but that doesn't make it more well-crafted. Someone might like a hammer with a handle made out of feathers and might find it more useful because it works for dusting too but that doesn't mean that feathers make a hammer more well-crafted: they would make the handle more slippery, taking away from the utility of the hammer for the purpose of hammering.

Believability is arguably the only matter of discussion on this subreddit: we debate whether it is more believable that X beats Y or that Y beats X. The rules of the fictional universe are in effect. We appropriately account for story lens things like authors forgetting superpowers, luck, excessive boasting that can't be backed up, etc. When writing an explanation of what happens when your team fights another, the central question for the voters is whose victory is more believable.

Suppose I have a policy of attempting to cause a paradox unless my lucky coin comes up heads. The model I described, which was implied by EY (remove all paradoxical timelines from the set of possible timelines) makes it so that the coin becomes more likely to be heads.

[u/angelsrallyon → u/TimTravel]

I like that restriction a lot but I'm not sure it covers everything. Mild catch 22s seem fair. If you can't do anything with time travel that you can't do without then it's unclear how it's useful.

Time travel allows you to do many things you could not already do in this situation. Lets use another situation.

Hermione wants to get to the other side of a door. in 6 hours time she will be given a key, regardless of wether or not she enters.

With a time turner she can enter. Without a time turner, she cannot.

If the key is on the other side of the door, meaning, the door must be opened before she can get the key, she will be unable to get it even with a time turner.

This gives her a buff, something she would not have otherwise, as well as limitations.

Suppose before the battle she decides to fight the battle six times with time-copies of herself. She would witness at the beginning of the fight that all six are present. Does this mean that she can do anything she wants and survive no matter what, because of time-destiny? In the model I describe it's technically true but timelines in which she does risky things in earlier iterations are unlikely, so by the anthropic principle she's unlikely to be in a timeline in which she'll survive risky actions.

In this situation, if there are six of her, it doesn't mean she can do anything she wants and still survive. It means it has already happened. Granted, it may seem pedantic to separate the two, but the connotation is different. if she was unable to create 6 copies, they would not be there.

If she decides, "i am going to use 6 copies of myself" and no copies show up, it might tell her she will die soon, or something else will interrupt her, or she will think of a better plan. In this situation, her NOT seeing copies of herself, can also tell her something about the future.

I suppose she could get herself killed by doing something stupid, and it turns out that the other 6 copies were just illusions, or clones, or something. but if they truly are her, it means she has already survived. or perhaps she was wounded, but hid her wounds to the original would not see.

A different example that comes up a lot in Doctor Who and Homestuck. Suppose you see yourself in the future shooting yourself in the foot. What should you do? If the model I described is in effect, you should have a policy of doing your very best to prevent it, even though if you see it it's inevitable. This is because if you have a policy of not going along with prophesies of you shooting yourself in the foot, timelines in which you see a prophesy of you shooting yourself in the foot are unlikely, so by the anthropic principle you are unlikely to be in one. Suppose for simplicity that ignoring paradox prevention you are nearly 100% capable of not shooting yourself in the foot after being warned of that happening in the future. Your brain melts instantly when you hear such a prophesy. Then seeing such a prophesy would already be a paradox. As I described earlier, if you keep following this line of reasoning, it leads to the universe conspiring to prevent time travel because any time travel requires a lot of atom-by-atom consistency which is unlikely in the prior physics distribution of timelines.

I think you are trying to rationalise this Theory with other Theories. Dr. who and Homestuck have a different Brand of Time Travel. Atom-by-atom consistency is not unlikely in this system of time travel, it is a universal law.

In the Situation you have proposed, IF there was 100% chance that you could have prevented it, you would not have seen it happen. The fact that you saw it happen in the first place means that it is not only possible, but inevitable. In the same way that you can't go back and change the past, your future cannot be changed either.

The Paradoxes would not occur in this system because it's the law. if you want an explanation that includes multiple timelines, you could call it "The most stable time loop" but calling it that i believe misses the point.

In essence, if you shot your left foot yesterday, and you see yourself shooting your right foot tomorrow, each event is just as real. And each event cannot be "prevented" because, in essence, both have already happened.

If what you're saying is true, then I think that means that there's nothing you can do to prevent the universe from giving you a prophesy of you shooting yourself in the foot in the future.

In the system that we are proposing, The future is just as immovable as the past. The universe it not an active participant. If you shot yourself in the foot, you shot yourself in the foot. i may not know why, you may not know why, but you did. Don't blame the universe. I'm sure you had/will have a good reason.

That seems strange, especially in cases where it would be highly out of character for you to do it if you weren't time-destined.

If it is out of character, or strange, then it would not be "time destined" in the first place.

To your next argument... i guess i will keep going, cause i like this discussion. Tangent here i come.

I don't believe in objective good i guess. You could say that there is rhyme and rhythm to some arrangement of words, or that something took a lot of effort, or is symbolic, or that it appeals to a wide readership, but a man/woman who can't read has no value is such a story, an assortment of words, markings on paper. The story, the words, the marks, are given power by those who read it.

Even with the hammer. What makes a good hammer? Does it hammer in nails well? Shape metal well? Crush skulls well?

You were judging a hammer based off of what you were going to use it for. Who says a hammer should be used on nails? who says a hammer should be used for Hammering? Philosophically, all you are doing is writing yourself into a corner, giving names objects and an arbitrary restriction on how to use it. A tool is only as good as the one who wields it.

And then we come back to the book. A hammer can only be deemed "good" or "bad" once you name it, because you have a mental image of what a hammer does, and what a hammer means. A hammer is suposed to hammer things. But that's not true. A piece of wood with a heavy piece of metal on it with a tag that says "Hammer" it not destined to do anything. It has no hidden potential or objective use. It may be more suited to do one thing than another, but if you say something is a better "hammer" than another, what you mean is that it fits your mental definition of what a "hammer" is better. The only objective power a hammer has is the same you give to a book. A man can see the first hammer he has ever seen in his life and have literally no use for it, it has no meaning to him. It could be made "well" whatever that means(time put into it, being good at it's job, lasting a long time, easy to make/replace, ect) but that doesn't change the fact that a "Hammer" is just a concept we have placed upon a shape of a certain object. to quote Shakespear, "a Rose by any other name would smell as sweet." if you called a Rose a Hammer you could say it was objectively a bad hammer. But only if you personally put power and meaning into the word and name "Hammer".

Believability is arguably the only matter of discussion on this subreddit: we debate whether it is more believable that X beats Y or that Y beats X. The rules of the fictional universe are in effect. We appropriately account for story lens things like authors forgetting superpowers, luck, excessive boasting that can't be backed up, etc. When writing an explanation of what happens when your team fights another, the central question for the voters is whose victory is more believable

Just because someone likes a story does not make it believable, or vice versa. I could like a story for comedic value, or fanservice, and it still might sell like hotcakes.

However, i do agree with you that this community values believability(or in better words, "consistency") above other values.

But the point i am trying to make here is that Believability is not what people are going for here. it may help, and they probably will try, but in essence, they want votes in the context. Consistency may help them to that endgame, but it is not an inherent goal here.

That being said, my point was that it will be the Writers job, not Mine, to make it believable. My job is to limit the power(like i have). they may interpret believability on their own, since that is the writers job. if they chose not to be believable, it's their fault, and their choice.

Suppose I have a policy of attempting to cause a paradox unless my lucky coin comes up heads. The model I described, which was implied by EY (remove all paradoxical timelines from the set of possible timelines) makes it so that the coin becomes more likely to be heads.

If attempting to make a paradox would lead to one happening (an assumption, since you could fail) Then it would inherently always land heads.

However, more likely, since there are infinite probabilities when you don't attempt, and infinite when you do, an infinite(but a small infinity) amount of options would be taken away because of paradoxical probabilities. however, because we are dealing with infinite numbers, it wont affect your chances very much, if at all. If you attempt to make a paradox, than one of the many infinite worlds in witch you fail becomes a reality.

Again, i don't like that way of explaining it since it misses the point that there is only one true world in the system the Time Turner works in.

[u/TimTravel → u/angelsrallyon]

I have to go to bed. You said lots of interesting things I want to respond to but the most immediate stuff first before I go.

I think what you're saying is implicitly the same as my system, especially in light of your response to the 6 Hermiones example. There is a probability distribution of timelines and a particular story is one sample of it. The believability of a timeline is its probability of being sampled by the fictional laws of physics. It doesn't matter if only one timeline happens. The fictional laws of physics allow for the others to mathematically exist even if they don't physically exist. More importantly, the probability distribution exists. Even if there's only one timeline, it's likely to be a likely timeline according to the probability distribution of timelines that we call "the fictional laws of physics" of whatever system is in effect. It's the probability distribution that makes a timeline believable or unbelievable. If there is no such probability distribution then there are no laws of physics and it becomes a series of suppositions: arbitrary.

[u/angelsrallyon → u/TimTravel]

I'll be interested to here your reply in the morning. Good night.

[u/TimTravel → u/angelsrallyon]

Again, i don't like that way of explaining it since it misses the point that there is only one true world in the system the Time Turner works in.

I think this is the central confusing issue. What implications are you drawing from this? Just because only one universe got sampled from the probability distribution of universes and was made to exist in some meaningful way doesn't meant that the probability distribution itself doesn't exist.

I think you might be implicitly assuming that the thing that ticks the clock and makes the next instant happen is doing computation based on the current state of the universe to determine the next state, instead of there just being one timeline and there's some thing that makes it Real in some meaningful way. This is a strange way to think of it and it leads to bad things I'm too tired to explain clearly. If you read the first thing I pasted it should cover it.

[u/angelsrallyon → u/TimTravel]

Just because only one universe got sampled from the probability distribution of universes and was made to exist in some meaningful way doesn't meant that the probability distribution itself doesn't exist.

The assumption of a Time Turner based system is that there is no probability distribution, and that the world is deterministic instead of probability based. There are not multiple worlds, only one. In Einstein's words, "God does not play dice". I believe Rowling herself, as a Christian, does not believe in chance or multiple worlds either and has stated that many of her plot lines were based off of her religious beliefs.

Curent Quantum Physics vehemently disagrees with this, asserting that God does in fact play dice and fuck you Einstein. Neither viewpoint can be PROVEN per se, but Quantum physics has far more evidence and is the "simpler" and better theory for predicting the results of experiments.

I am in no way saying that the Real world works that way, i agree with Quantum physics here since they have the empirical evidence at the moment. But in a Time Turner based system, in this context, when you flip a coin, the trajectory of the coin can be measured, all variables can be accounted for, and a perfect system could calculate how it would land, and in fact, the coin is destined to land in that way unless you have not accounted for some variable. It is all Very Newtonian.

In the context of balancing an online debate with characters fighting eatchother, This system should not have any contradictions unless she has to face other time Travelers that have powers that work in dirent ways. in that instance, i think it would be safe to let the writer have leeway and artistic licence.

[u/TimTravel → u/angelsrallyon]

Quick answer is determinism is not falsifiable so it can't matter here. More when not on phone.

[u/TimTravel → u/angelsrallyon]

Consider Newcomb's problem. Even if only one timeline happens, it is important to consider the other possibilities. Those who do not get less utility. If you are in a universe, you are a part of it, so you can change its probability distribution of possible timelines. Certain policies will do just that. Technically every policy will, but certain ones will do it in an interesting way when time travel is a possibility.

[u/angelsrallyon → u/TimTravel]

determinism is not falsifiable

Yes, but let me put it this way,

In a certain Fictional world being made, The world is assumed to be made by intelligent design. A Christian god made it. In this world, their are angels. these angels can fly, cannot die, and have other seemingly magical powers. It makes sense because they are made by this god, who exists in this world.

You could argue that the original assumption for this fiction world is false, and that "having an almighty god is not falsifiable" but then you would need to justify the existence of angels with other terms. You would need to make a system of explaining the origins, and range of powers, with some of theory of the universe. Newtonian laws would have trouble, but with enough work you may be able to work out a quantum explanation.

You would make something like Ptolmeys system of the universe, where it functionally works because of all the math envolved, but the answer is not as simplistic as the assumed answer.

This is why in the REAL world, Scientists assume the age of the earth is millions of years and not thousands, not because it is IMPOSSIBLE for a god to have made the earth the way it is right now, but because it assumes far too many variables and you would have to make a crazy math system to explain simple phenomena(like evolution, Aspects of Geology, ect). So in this sense, Science gives the better theory.

In the same way, Time Turners work very simply from a Deterministic perspective. You CAN make Multiple world Theory apply to it, but then you have to deal with a lot of tricky problems that we have been discussing at length for quite some time. All these problems(or at least, most) go away when assuming a deterministic universe.

[u/TimTravel → u/angelsrallyon]

I don't think they do go away with a deterministic universe. Can you elaborate on that?

Regardless, there still has to mathematically exist a graph of universe configurations following the laws of physics in effect with out-degree one on every vertex if it's deterministic. Given complete knowledge of the laws of physics you could walk the graph from some initial state. The important issue is that there is doubt on both the initial state and on the laws of physics. The most reasonable interpretation of the laws of physics in a story is some sort of Solomonoff induction on its laws of physics or some heuristic to it.

edit: Not sure how relevant that paragraph is. I want to hear your answer first.

[u/angelsrallyon → u/TimTravel]

You keep asking about the infinite possibilities brought out by probability, as if the system works on probability. If the universe being explained is not probabilistic, but deterministic, all of those arguments are irrelevant since probability, in essence, does not truly exist(in this system). As you say, this is not provable, since you can have the same results in a probabilistic universe, but it is much simpler.

For example, in a probabilistic universe, you could know EVERYTHING and still be unsure about the future, because truly random occurrences can happen.

In a deterministic world, the universe is a kind of Finite State Machine, as you say in your crossed out text. In a deterministic world, someone who knows everything about an initial state can predict with impunity what will happen forever onwards. However, if this being is part of the universe, he still cannot change anything. This may led to a Dr. Manhattan type senario, where he can see the future coming but cannot change it. "We are all puppets, but I can see the strings"

Here is an example of why it is simpler,

Lets say Hermione wants to go back in time and have a conversation with herself.

In Determinism, one of two things will happen. Either, Something stops her from doing this, or not. If she does have this conversation, then in the future, Hermione is bound to go back in time and have a conversation with herself again. And it is going to be the same one, because it has already happened, and it is just as adamant a fact as anything else that has already happend.

With a Probabilistic universe, this gets scary. Every possible universe where Hermione makes a mistake, gets something wrong, changes something important, breaths wrong, trips, anything, has to somehow be accounted for and removed as a possibility. Then you have to remove all possibilities of other types of Paradoxes. There would have to be some strange laws put into place to disallow such actions, and I can't even begin to describe how convoluted they would have to be in order to disallow so many different possibilities. It isn't just an infinite amount, I would say the laws would have to outlaw a majority of the infinite possibilities in a seemingly arbitrary fashion.

SO in this way, a Deterministic View solves most of the problems in a much simpler way(with the exception of Catch 22's. Which we have disallowed.)