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Old 11-29-2015, 06:52 AM   #11
whswhs
 
Join Date: Jun 2005
Location: Lawrence, KS
Default Re: Insubstantiality and moving vehicles

If your Insubstantiality doesn't keep you attached to your local reference frame, you are going to have to deal with bigger problems than vehicles: The earth is orbiting the sun and the sun is orbiting the galaxy, and both will quickly leave you behind (18.6 miles per second and 124.3 miles per second, respectively). Stay insubstantial for one minute and you'll be floating in outer space. If you can keep up with the combined motions of the earth by "standing" on it then you can do the same trick with an airplane.
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Old 11-29-2015, 09:36 AM   #12
Edges
 
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Join Date: Nov 2009
Location: GMT-5
Default Re: Insubstantiality and moving vehicles

Quote:
Originally Posted by Kuroshima View Post
<physics nerd mode>

...moving away from the site of the big bang...

</physics nerd mode>
<physics nerd mode>

The big bang's "site" is everywhere. It was space itself that expanded.

</Physics nerd mode>

:D
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Old 11-29-2015, 09:46 AM   #13
Anaraxes
 
Join Date: Sep 2007
Default Re: Insubstantiality and moving vehicles

Thanks to the other current thread on Insubstantiality with a Temporary Disad, I was looking back at Powers p119, where it discusses Insubstantiality as a defense. Among other modifers, it says:

Quote:
Originally Posted by Powers 119
Affect Substantial, Can Carry Objects, and Partial Change keep the user from dropping things, falling through the floor, or losing control of other abilities.
The "falling through the floor" bit caught my eye. Presumably that's why Partial Change was included -- to just change your feet or whatever, though maybe it's an reversed interpretation of Can Carry. (In Insubstantial Soviet Union, floor carries you!)

This text does seem to be in contradiction to the "frame of reference" interpretation, or the bit about including Walk on Air so ghosts can climb staircases. So, should we require some or all of these mods to allow ghosts to ride in vehicles? Or revise this text to drop these requirements, at least as far as the falling-through-the-floor bit goes?
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Old 11-29-2015, 10:07 AM   #14
Skarg
 
Join Date: May 2015
Default Re: Insubstantiality and moving vehicles

Probability manipulation? LOL. So I guess you also use your infinite luck to not only miss all the atoms of the wall you want to walk through, but not of a earth you don't want to fall down towards the core of?

Because, if you can't defy gravity, then I'd think you'd fall through the ground. And if you can defy gravity, then I'd expect you to fly off into the sky rather than staying with the planet you no longer interact with.
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