Network - 03

[graveyounglady]

Who: Mercy Graves
Username: mercyme
Warnings: Discussion of the wax tablet on the TDM.

To the Gentlefolk of Other Worlds,

This is Sister Mercy Graves. Do you believe in fate? That your truth may be written and set before it has happened? I have come across a most peculiar and troubling object at the museum that has recently opened its doors.

May the spring bring life to you and yours,
Mercy Graves

Comments

@GasStationJack

[stations]

Hey, Mercy

I believe that there are entities that decide they want to make something happen, and are powerful enough to manipulate it into coming true. That isn't fate, that's just influence. It doesn't guarantee anything, not unless you let it wear you down enough that you stop trying.

As long as you don't give up and give in, there's no such thing as fate.

[graveyounglady]

That may be the Entities here, then. Have you been to the museum, Jack? There is a tablet there that seems to make predictions about our futures. Our specific futures. I have known diviners to speak in prophecy, but never an object.

[stations]

I haven't been, but we had something like that back home. It can be really tempting to get obsessed with it, but absolutely nothing good comes from that.

Have you been going to see it a lot?

@jelica

[musicdied]

No. Fate's an excuse people use to avoid making choices.

Anything you find here's probably just another mind game.

[graveyounglady]

I do not know that the prediction made could have changed my choices. Or made me avoid making one? I saw writ upon a tablet that I would slip on the ice and sprain my wrist. I took great care after seeing it, but this morning, I slipped coming to work, and caught myself on my hand going down. My wrist has been much aggravated since.

[musicdied]

You just described it changing your choices. Would you have been that careful if you hadn't seen the message?

If I was at home, I would say it was a coincidence. Here, I would say I don't think the tablet predicted your future, but it might have caused your accident.

@Aberration

[aelwyn_aberration]

To my dearest Mercy Graves,

Fate is an element in the fabric that makes up all of reality, though it's not as set in stone as some would have you believe. Even knowing how something might turn out gives you what you need to avert it. This is one of the primary principles of the school of divination.

Don't stress too much about it.

Yours,
A.A.

[graveyounglady]

[She knew she could trust Aelwyn to have a wider magical view of things.]

What about set in wax? Have you known an object to make predictions about the future without a diviner there to imbue it or contemplate its meaning from bones, feathers, or the like?

There is a tablet at the museum that predicted I would injure myself. I was very careful, but lo... it has come to pass.

[aelwyn_aberration]

When you say injured, how badly? Are you okay?

Also, yes, it's quite common for magic to be imbued into items instead. It's likely a relic of these entities, probably the Web or the Eye. So in that sense, there is a diviner, indirectly, in the form of the entity themselves being channeled through the wax.

@awarewolf

[wolfssegen]

I can't say that I do believe that. I like to think people make their own decisions and get where they are in life by merit of those decisions.

What did you find?

[graveyounglady]

There is a tablet at the museum that just opened its doors that seems to grant predictions of the future. Some are more benign than others. I do not know what others might have seen writ for their fortunes.

text; @stark

[fightinginfinity]

Well as we science people say there are infinite probabilities, and science is always right whether you believe it or not

Outcome is always determined by variables, and there are infinite combinations of those. So I guess if the right conditions are met then sure, but it's got a snowball's chance in hell of happening naturally

There's such thing as self-fulfilling prophecies though. Science people got a term for that too, the 'placebo effect'. Like you read on a mommy blog that your fermented-cabbage-juice cleanse will work so you feel an effect even though it's doing nothing but giving you gas probably

[graveyounglady]

You must forgive me as you speak with some learned words that I do not fully understand. I have learned something of Science here, and it seems a fine god to find yourself an acolye for.

[Yep. Science the god.]

Though, I understand that most would not call it as such. What does Science say of prophecies that seem to have no personal impact on a person? Coincidence? One future said I would simply see a particular pair of birds performing a particular act in a particular place. And so I saw them later that same day. It is a most extraordinary coincidence, if it is only that.

[fightinginfinity]

[ Science is a 'god' he's an 'acolyte' for, huh? That's...new. Ok so clearly this lady is some kind of religious wackjob, but she seems harmless enough, so Tony won't give her a hard time. For now. ]

It could be a coincidence sure, but what's more likely is that whoever or whatever showed you this 'prophecy' engineered that thing to happen

In this case they must have used some kind of magic or tapped into whatever spooky mojo jojo makes things tick around here

[ People on this network are inevitably learning that the 'typing...' never seems to stop with him. Sorry, but no matter what method of communication you're using to talk to Tony Stark, he's going to talk a lot. ]

While I accept that there's a lot about this place that defies scientific explanation it's like I said, outcomes are determined by variables and the number of possible combinations of those variables is infinite

In other words predicting the future is impossible

text; un: Username

[canofmanji]

no.

what did you find?

[graveyounglady]

[There are so few people who believe in fate. Goodness!]

A wax tablet at the museum that opened recently. I holds prophecies of the future. Some benign, others less so. Or it held prophecies of my future.

[canofmanji]

you got proof of that

we have people where im from that say they see the future. most are hacks

@jermiacumberbatch

[murderology]

SCREW FATE i do what i want

what'd you find?

[ Hello meet the reason Jack is talking about how easy it is to become obsessed with future telling devices. ]

[graveyounglady]

[Well... he's not saying he doesn't believe, just that he'd fight it. Which is different.]

A wax tablet that predicts the future. It seems to be residing in the museum that opened its doors near the castle to the north. Would you truly strike out against fate itself, if you knew it? Would you try to make the opposite of a prediction come true?

[murderology]

well shit

to answer your question, hell yeah

creating happiness isn't enough to make the world better, so logically you have to do so by DECREASING unhappiness
if you can see something bad is gonna happen before it happens then you should stop it to prevent suffering right?

@GasStationJack

[stations]

Jerry, do NOT go look at the tablet.

un: archivist

[the_archivist]

No. I don't. It's all choices in the end.

There are some things that are very adept at stacking the deck in their favour is all.

[graveyounglady]

How is a prophecy about the birds one might see a choice?

@bruno

[brunonono]

I wouldn't call it fate, just because it knows what's going to happen doesn't mean it's MAKING it happen, you know? And sometimes you don't know the whole story or it could be true but it could still turn out a couple of different ways and I think we should all take a step back here and not worry so much about fortune telling or blaming things on someone that told us the future and maybe just accept that it's better not to ask in the first place

[graveyounglady]

[A few people have suggested that the tablet is making things happen, so this seems... absolutely reasonable to argue against.]

I do not think it is the tablet making things happen, Mr. Bruno.

[She assumes... that's a name?]

Nor was there anyone writing upon it. It is something that seems to write itself, then wipe itself clean. I think, perhaps, the only way to get a full view of things may be to look at the tablet more than once. Or, perhaps, to have more than one person view it.

Would you have an interest in such?