Omnilium, Summoning, and Science.

[Dane Regan]

Quick note: This isn't a question thread. It's more of a speculation thing. TL;DR at the bottom, I ramble. Sorry.

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As far as I'm aware, no player has (at least recently) tried to do any Omnilium based research. From the basic level of "what are the rules of summoning?" to the more complex "how does it work?" and "what is it made of?" no one has really tried anything explicitly. 

The actual rules are naturally the same as the site rules. But, to our characters, those don't exist. And, as far as I'm aware, there's no official rule that says "you cannot summon laser gun unless you've seen a laser gun" for example. The established canon is that you just need to be able to visualise it. So an imaginative character can try to make anything. Of course, it's fairly obvious someone can't, or shouldn't, suddenly be able to visualise and summon something they'd have no reason to consider or imagine. Like a spartan coming out the fountain for the first time and getting a machine gun. 

The only site rules for summoning are (hopefully I'm not missing anything):

• Anything larger than a small shack or vehicle probably costs you site OM.
  
• No flying vehicles can be summoned outside of Camelot, Coruscant, and the Dataverse.
  
• The limiting with well known secondaries and ones from outside your character's source. As well as the number of secondaries you can summon.
  
• Anything that gives you an actual mechanical benefit costs site OM.
  
• It takes at least 3 minutes. You can't move and have to concentrate.
  
• Anything that doesn't cost site OM is handwaved (so for rp purposes still costs a little bit).
  

This might seem simple. But for your characters, some things "cost" them much more than others. And some things just can't be made in some areas. Naturally, an inquisitive character would probably be confused at this. Or maybe just assuming Omni is messing with them.

Suppose, for example, someone builds a mansion with raw materials. That would count as a base in the rule system, and thus cost OM. But they never actually summoned anything. So, unless you spend about 10k words describing it (ignoring rest points), suddenly they've been drained of Omnilium. What would happen? Would it suddenly collapse should they not pay the OM? 

The last more of a gaming the system type thing. This following would probably be more confusing (I might properly write it after DA some day), and it fits within the rules:

[Somewhere in the Vasty Deep, on a small island.]

Dane wiped the sweat off his brow as he looked at his creation. He'd show Omni, he thought. The Omnilium couldn't tell him what he was able to do. At last, he had finished building a hot air balloon. The wind was just right, so it should be able to carry him over to the Nexus gate.

It was strange. Dane hated the rocking of boats. It made him sick. Yet he had no problem sitting high up in the sky. All that was left was test his creation. The calculations checked out, the warmed air should easily be able to lift him, the balloon, and the basket.

And so, Dane sat inside and pulled down the cord. The flames roared. The balloon rippled. But, inexplicably, the vehicle failed to rise. Why? It should be flying. Why wasn't it? 

Suddenly, you have an instance where physics doesn't seem to be working. All to fit the balancing rules. To Dane, it looks like Omni is just being a jerk to him. We know the valid reasoning as to why, but the characters don't.

[Continuation]

Leaving the flames on, Dane hopped out of the basket to take a better look. Surely it would at least feel lighter now that the air was hot. Touching the base from the sides, he found he was able to raise it. Was the lift generated simply not enough? He pondered.

He removed his hands and stepped back, hoping to let balloon fall to the ground so he could examine it further. The opposite occurred. Up into the sky the hot air balloon rose, deprived of its rider and free to drift as it pleased.

"Screw it, I'm swimming," Dane stated in annoyance. It seemed the rules of this world wouldn't be bent so easily.

If anyone was in the Oververse as these events transpired, they might just be able to hear Omni's cackling laughter.

Of course, that could be continued with more sketches added as Dane attempts to break the rules or catch Omni out. Naturally every attempt would fail in some way. Either the balloon would pop. The basket would detach. The hot air balloon would fly away without him. Similar things might occur for a helicopter or plane. Such as it ejecting Dane and taking off without him.

Besides those two aspects, Omnilium, to your characters, follows some generic rules: you have to be able to visualise it, if it give you a combat advantage it costs more, it generally can't be larger than a vehicle. But how does it work? How would a character conclude summoning works?

The three main conclusions I can think of are:

• It's a trade with Omni, hence the varying prices.
  
• It's a ball of energy. Energy is made into matter. Using too much at once drains you.
  
• It summons things similarly to how Primes were summoned. But grabbing them from other worlds and bringing them here. (This is definitely wrong, but a character might conclude it). So cost is based on how valuable those items were in the other world.
  

And then there's the changed damage and strength of moves in the Omniverse compared to prior. Everything is uniform. More drawbacks => more damage. A prime might notice this, and try to "game" the system to have stronger moves (with drawbacks) and such. Generally, there's a lot of research to do. And lots of tests to be done.

There's also the case that while many people use magic, lots of people use it in different ways. Some with words or gestures, some without. The Omniverse caters to all, even though some ideas utilise a "magic field" and such. And some concepts of magic conflict.

The final topic is time dilation. As we know, due to our real lives, time goes faster at some places compared to others. So a 30 minute fight could last a week elsewhere. To a character, it probably doesn't seem completely random, as the areas with more action or interaction are slower. An idea might be to give people watches and compare with everyone giving descriptions of what they did. If you put a watch somewhere in the middle of nowhere and locked it in an abandoned watch, would it run at the standard time? Would it run infinitely fast? Of course, you won't know until you open the box, by which it'll run at normal speed. But you could have it keep track of days and such.

Quick conspiracy theory: If the Omnilium summons things based on what we think, is it reading our minds? Does that mean Omni knows what our characters are thinking? Our characters also know how to use Omnilium innately, so does that mean Omni messed with their brain?  :ttiot: 

There's a lot for one prime to try and do by themselves, and a lot of tests involving others. Looking at Omnilium under a microscope, hitting it with a hammer, trying to dilute it, and testing the above. As well as comparing people's moves under standard conditions. So, if there's not one already, we could have a science club. Not a faction, it wouldn't have a political stance. Just a club set up somewhere with a nice lab and such. Not even an actual base, likely just a rented room at one of the sub-locations. We could probably move the location about a lot.

TL;DR: The balancing of the Omniverse leads to inconsistencies from our character's perspectives. How might they explain, work around, exploit, and avoid them? Is Omni reading our minds? Who's down for a science club after DA? Or a drop in thread similar to the Coruscant torture quest but without the torture - so just testing moves and their relative strengths. Topics of interest:

• How does summoning actually work?
  
• Why do the costs vary?
  
• Why can some things not be summoned in some places?
  
• What is Omnilium?
  
• How do move strengths vary?
  
• What types of magic are there, how do they work?
  
• How does the time dilation vary?
  

[Omni]

Just a correction:

"Anything larger than a small shack or vehicle probably costs you OM."

Everything you summon costs you some OM. We just hand-wave that for game purposes, in that case and many others.

[Dane Regan]

@Omni: Fixed. I made a few tweaks.

[Amaterasu]

A loooot of stuff is in here, but you need to separate "in-universe" elements such as the inability to use flying mounts in some verses, but then you can in others, and the "metagame" elements which serve to balance the game as a whole so that Superman and Goku don't auto-win every fight.
I'll just separate those two to make the discussion easier to follow.

DISCLAIMER:
These are things "as far as the Primes know", which may be mistaken. I also bring in a lot of my personal findings, which may be incorrect.

Metagame elements

• OM as a number is a way to quantify the amount of Omnilium you have. Just as you can't say "I have one water", you can't say (in-universe) "I have one Omnilium."
  
• Any character can summon anything within certain limitations (such as not pulling characters from unrelated media), limited only by their imagination. Some imaginative Spartan could think of a "sword made out of glowy light" and summon a lightsaber.
  
• 3+ minutes is mainly a metagame rule, explained in-character by "Your character must concentrate, visualize the item etc." but it is also there to prevent pulling solutions out of your ass and other imbalance issues like instantly summoning a car while fleeing a battle, and driving away. Things such as moves that summon items are more of a "supernatural power" than Omnilium summoning, and fall under a different restriction.
  
• The balancing of moves is completely and entirely a metagame element. If Camelot didn't have magic their weapons would be weaker than Coruscant's because they are not as technologically advanced, for instance. This is to keep people from having a "home advantage" by picking the strongest possible character and dominating the entire game just because of that.
  
• The number of secondaries is a metagame element to prevent people from raising armies out of nowhere. If it was an in-universe element Palpatine, Aragorn and Diablo would have armies of a couple dozens of guys. That'd be underwhelming.
  
• The OM cost of "mechanical benefits" is to limit your character's ability to obtain advantages through the amount of OM that you have. Otherwise it would be no use having a currency implemented.
  
• The costs of things are a metagame element that cannot be quantified in-universe. Otherwise, why would five cellphones (Communicators) cost the same as a mansion and a small village (a Base)?
  
• OM gain is independant of the actions of your character (walking around for 100 words or Omnilium extracting for 100 words is worth the same OM). To compensate, hand-waving exists.
  
• Time dilation is a way for the site to explain how despite different speeds that one or another thread may progress and thus different Primes may perceive time differently, there is still one continuum. The only measure that we have is real-world time. We are NOT allowed to use time dilation to fast-forward the time faster than it passes in the real world (you are not allowed to have your character do a 10 day IC trip in 5 days OOC time - correct me if I'm wrong on this).
  

In-Universe elements: As far as we know, anyway.

• Everything in the Omniverse is made out of Omnilium. Primes, Secondaries, the environment etc.
  
• Omnilium is both matter and energy.
  
• Summoning anything costs Omnilium, extracting Omnilium from anything gives it to you. Even if those gains and losses are hand-waved (they don't count towards your Spent OM), in-character your character gains or loses some Omnilium.
  
• If you "run out" of Omnilium your character would simply not be able to finish what they started. If Omnilium is lego bricks you can build with them until you run out, but you can't have a negative amount of lego bricks in your box because you used more than you had.
  
• The abilities that distinguish Primes from Secondaries are the ability to manipulate Omnilium, and the ability to respawn upon death. I believe that Primes carry their Omnilium with them at all times, and slowly absorb more subconsciously (gaining OM even when your post is about your character picking their nose for 10 minutes). Perhaps it is a "trade" with Omni, or perhaps they really transform an amount of Omnilium into an object or creature.
  
• Magic is just one form of force - ki, chakra, mana, Ember, whatever you want to call it, they all fall under that umbrella.
  
• Elemental advantages ("Fire is weak to water") exist in-universe. We are just not allowed to exploit them for an unfair advantage in battles.
  
• "Our characters know how to use Omnilium innately" Well I mean, it ain't rocket science to visualize an item in your head. And Omni explains it in the Intro. (he may have messed with our heads tho).
  

EDIT:
Omni has noted that a lot of the stuff said in here is wrong. Don't read too much into it until he responds and corrects me.

[Omni]

Just to say that while Ammy is a staff member, almost 100% of the above information is incorrect at least partially, so please take non-experienced responses with a grain of salt.

[Omni]

Metagame elements
OM as a number is a way to quantify the amount of Omnilium you have. Just as you can't say "I have one water", you can't say (in-universe) "I have one Omnilium."

[*]
Incorrect. That would make doing business extremely difficult. But we don't talk about it in RPs because we don't have a list of costs for everything.

[*]Any character can summon anything within certain limitations (such as not pulling characters from unrelated media), limited only by their imagination. Some imaginative Spartan could think of a "sword made out of glowy light" and summon a lightsaber

Sort of correct but misleading. They'd see what they imagined. That doesn't automatically translate to a Star Wars technological lightsaber.

3+ minutes is mainly a metagame rule, explained in-character by "Your character must concentrate, visualize the item etc." but it is also there to prevent pulling solutions out of your ass and other imbalance issues like instantly summoning a car while fleeing a battle, and driving away. Things such as moves that summon items are more of a "supernatural power" than Omnilium summoning, and fall under a different restriction.

Misleading. It's a rule for a number of reasons.

The balancing of moves is completely and entirely a metagame element. If Camelot didn't have magic their weapons would be weaker than Coruscant's because they are not as technologically advanced, for instance. This is to keep people from having a "home advantage" by picking the strongest possible character and dominating the entire game just because of that.

Incorrect.

The number of secondaries is a metagame element to prevent people from raising armies out of nowhere. If it was an in-universe element Palpatine, Aragorn and Diablo would have armies of a couple dozens of guys. That'd be underwhelming.

Incorrect.

The OM cost of "mechanical benefits" is to limit your character's ability to obtain advantages through the amount of OM that you have. Otherwise it would be no use having a currency implemented.

Not sure what is being said, maybe partially correct.

The costs of things are a metagame element that cannot be quantified in-universe. Otherwise, why would five cellphones (Communicators) cost the same as a mansion and a small village (a Base)

Correct.

OM gain is independant of the actions of your character (walking around for 100 words or Omnilium extracting for 100 words is worth the same OM). To compensate, hand-waving exists.

Sort of correct.

dilation is a way for the site to explain how despite different speeds that one or another thread may progress and thus different Primes may perceive time differently, there is still one continuum. The only measure that we have is real-world time. We are NOT allowed to use time dilation to fast-forward the time faster than it passes in the real world (you are not allowed to have your character do a 10 day IC trip in 5 days OOC time - correct me if I'm wrong on this).

Correct.

In-Universe elements: As far as we know, anyway.

All pure speculation.

[Kopaka]

The Institute intends to investigate many of these questions, but also approaches the omniverse with a sense of pragmatism, so not all of them are considered important.

[Amaterasu]

The Institute intends to investigate many of these questions, but also approaches the omniverse with a sense of pragmatism, so not all of them are considered important.

The problem with research and investigation is that the only way of actually discovering something is if someone who knows the answer (such as Greg) intervenes as Storyteller, tells you the answer via PM or some such. If you write the answer to the question of "What happens if I hit this orb of Omnilium with a hammer?" yourself, then you can't be certain that this answer is actually the correct one.
(Unless of course you know of some way I have not thought of? I'm genuinely curious!)

[Kopaka]

....asking OOC and using that answer. :frog:

If no answer is given, give up and move on to the next thing.

[Dane Regan]

Generally, the "why does this work" is not something anyone we'll be able to answer. You might be able to do the "how does this appear to work" and you can probably do the "what rules does this seem to follow". The latter is what I'm aiming for.

[Dark Link]

This is a somewhat random point, but because of the topic, I wanted to link to this thread that I made back when I was a regular member. I feel like it might be of some interest to people who are curious regarding the IC nature of summoning.