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Post by cespinarve on Jan 17, 2009 6:07:57 GMT
Ah. Robox is Awesome. Indeed. Robox, Hail!
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Post by Babble-jargon Bill on Jan 18, 2009 3:51:27 GMT
Obviously due to the so-called awesomeness of some smiley box with legs, hardly anyone has actually talked about how Annie's blinker training has begun. So, let's get back on topic. We already know that the blinker stone has the power to create fire through telepathy (I guess) and to create great symbols of light in the sky, but what else do you think it can do? I bet it can turn into lot's of things provided the user can keep their concentration on it long enough. Maybe stuff like water, or a plant, or maybe even a rocket-launcher, heaven help us all if the latter should get into the hands of Reynardine.
What do you think the blinker stone can do and what do you think Annie will use it for? Suppose it could be used in conjunction somehow with that beacon that Eglamore gave Annie back in chapter 20, how would that work? Let's just talk about something other than some stupid contraption with a cute name!
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Post by Mezzaphor on Jan 18, 2009 6:42:09 GMT
I've two tentative theories about the functioning of the blinker stone:
1. Blinker stones telepathically generate heat and light. Hence, it can create a perfect replica of a bonfire, or a giant glowy symbol in the sky. Or...
2. Blinker stones work on the principle of summoning. Annie used it to summon a fire; Anja used it to summon the Forest to parlay.
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Post by todd on Jan 18, 2009 11:38:40 GMT
Obviously due to the so-called awesomeness of some smiley box with legs, hardly anyone has actually talked about how Annie's blinker training has begun. I think that part of that might be due to the fact that we knew already that Anja was going to be teaching Annie how to use the Blinker Stone (it was mentioned both in Chapters Fourteen and Twenty, and the title of this chapter further implied it), so her announcement seemed like old news to the readers and they focused on the new character instead. I've noticed similar cases where, when the story gets advanced, but in ways that we already knew were coming, the conversation revolved more around something else (for example, at the start of Chapter Seventeen, we knew when Jones showed up that she was going to ask Annie to come away with her for medium classes, so most of the talk was about Kat's enthusiasm for double physics or Annie seeming older because of the way her hair was caught in the back of her sweater). I think that the side-gags like Robox become less distracting when you read the chapter as a whole than when you read it one page every couple of days. The chapter title, "Blinking", makes me somehow think of teleportation, but I don't think it actually possesses that property; that doesn't match its known properties (creating a small campfire and sending up signals).
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Chrome
Full Member
The Shiny One
Posts: 232
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Post by Chrome on Jan 18, 2009 15:25:05 GMT
My suspicion is that it's basically an etheric holoprojector. It's already been used to make a warm fire, or to project gigantic images. So to expand the capabilities, I'd bet it could project entire memories from a mind to images, construct random "holographic" images based on the person's thoughts, or maybe to even holographically mask a person (ie, "blinking" could be to mean blinking in and out of visual sight). I bet Annie could do a good spoof of "Obi-Wan Kenobi, you're my only hope" by projecting a hologram of herself a long distance to whoever needs to get the message.
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Dominic
Junior Member
touched by his funk
Posts: 65
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Post by Dominic on Jan 18, 2009 16:09:35 GMT
The chapter title, "Blinking", makes me somehow think of teleportation It took me several hours to remember where that's from. Teleportation is called "blinking" in Charmed.
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Post by Azeltir on Jan 18, 2009 18:01:55 GMT
Blinking is also a good old fashioned D&D method of teleporting into and out of material existence, so you can bypass walls, creatures, or other nasty obstacles. I somewhat doubt that's what the nature of this stone is. But perhaps a yet further metaphorical type of blinking is what this is about - like the world changes in such a matter as though the user had blinked and something were different. Check out www.gunnerkrigg.com/archive_page.php?comicID=137, where we see the fire instantly appear. It's a blinker stone because it makes the world blink, and when its eyes open again it has changed enough. But, hey, I'm prolly wrong. Ben
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Post by todd on Jan 18, 2009 23:17:21 GMT
Yes, I had the D&D term in mind when I said that.
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Trism
Full Member
Blink and you'll miss it.
Posts: 125
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Post by Trism on Jan 19, 2009 2:02:54 GMT
And I thought of blinking from World of Warcraft, that is to say teleporting 40 yards forward. For shame.
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