Race Well, What's Missing?

Almost everything, even the air, has moisture (read: water) in it. Water does reflect light-- haven't you ever seen your reflection in a pond before? Refracting light alone is an illusion, so imagine enemies being completely unable to locate you while you are underwater because your image is refracted all over. A shuriken doesn't have to be a star, it can be a needle or pin, not difficult to shape on the fly. In fact, icicles are one of the most common water elemental attacks in games. Assassination with a blade made of ice leaves no evidence after it melts. Having the ability to extract poisons from wounds would help you with safely using those poisons, and most poisons are water-based. Healing helps you pull off hit-and-run tactics, because you can escape, heal, and attack again before your opponent has recovered.

If you can suck all the air out of someone, imagine how sucking all the water out of them would look. Water makes up about 60% of the human body, and removing even a portion of that can be fatal. In fact, their blood is mostly water, so you could take control of another person's body and frame them for the assassination. Steam rises, so you can transport yourself anywhere using a balloon. If your enemy is wearing clothing that can absorb water, you can easily increase their weight by over twenty pounds, slowing them down a great deal. You can then freeze them, stiffening their joints or encasing them in ice. Water also conducts electricity, and lightning is generated by clouds-- giant masses of floating ice crystals rubbing together to make static.

Honestly, this is a silly argument. Just look at Naruto: there is an entire tribe for all of the cardinal elements and then some, and all of them appear equally ninja-esque to me. Wind would be my second choice anyway. Let's just leave this as a matter of personal preference and leave it at that, okay?

 

Again, wind can be used from a distance to silently assassinate, leaving no blood. Just a corpse that died of unknown means. Furthermore you can only control water, and how to you plan to draw only the water with poison in it out, and not your blood along with it? Furthermore, water doesn't have any healing properties.

Notice how my example didn't require direct manipulation of a person, just the air around them. I imagine sucking out all the water of a person would be much more time consuming and messy. Furthermore wind could be used to achieve the same control by putting pressure on the limbs and moving them around. Controlling a person is a very roundabout means of assassination, a ninja would want to be quick and efficient, leaving no mess. Easily achieved by suffocation from a distance via what is a very simple act of creating a vacuum around their head.

Again, you're only controlling water, not heat. Furthermore where is all this water coming from? You need a source, even though there is water in the air, it isn't enough to do what you suggest. There is so much air that being able to manipulate it would make you a god. No other element would be able to stand up to it. You could create vacuums around flames, extinguishing them, create a wall of sheer air pressure against any water and ranged earth attacks. Really the only thing you would have difficulty defending against is Earth.

But in the long run your enemy wouldn't even be able to initiate an attack as you just create vacuums around their heads and suffocate them all at once. Really, I'd take a Wind Ninja over a Water Ninja anyday.

 

You aren't controlling air though, you are controlling WIND.

 

Right, which involves controlling the air around you. What do you think wind is?

EDIT:

If you can control wind, the movement of air, you can create vaccuums.

 

Oh, I was just assuming that the Water Elementalist had the same level of control that your Wind Elementalist seemed to have.

I mean, if you can do all those crazy pressure tricks and shit, why can't I exhibit the same level of control over water?

Doesn't seem very fair if you can do anything remotely possible with air, but I can only do easy or simple feats with water.

Yet another reason the argument is dumb and should just be left as personal preference.

For example, this:

I could increase or decrease the pressure, like you did with air, to change the temperature to freeze or boil the water.

 

You do, I've assumed you have a total control of water. Which means you can ONLY control water. You can't create water, nor can you control substances found inside water. The reason you can't separate the poison from the blood is because you're just controlling the water. You're limited to the properties of water, you can't heal with it, and even though you can refract light and such, creating illusions would imply control of the light, not the water.

Also notice my wind elementalist never directly interacts with air inside a person, only the air outside of it. You are limited the same way I am, which means you can't directly influence the water already inside a person. Given an adequate water source, your water elementalist would be a decent foe, and yeah you could draw water out of the air/ground/whatever, but it would be time consuming. By that time the wind elementalist could have created a vacuum and suffocated the water elementalist. Of course in most media they don't display the degree of power a wind elementalist could have because, quite frankly, its unfair. The elements are supposed to be "balanced" but they aren't.

It isn't crazy in the slightest. Creating a vacuum, increasing/decreasing pressure, it can all be achieved by controlling air. A vacuum can be created by forcing air to move away from a point, increasing pressure can be achieved by condensing air particles, decreasing pressure by doing the opposite. You can do the same with water. However the level of control you're expressing is far greater than that I'm expressing. If you control water, you only control water. Drawing out poison from your bloodstream wouldn't be possible without also taking out the blood with it, you don't control the poison, you control the water. Drawing the water out of a person is possible, I didn't say it wasn't, but it would be far more time consuming than creating a vacuum by essentially moving the air away from a persons head.

What I've demonstrated with this manipulation of wind is fundamentally simple and efficient, hence wind is a superior element in this regard. Air is everywhere, and even if you're limited to controlling its movement, that gives you a tremendous advantage over someone who can only control H2O molecules.

A rapid decrease in pressure produces cold, a rapid increase in pressure produces heat. So your control of the waters heat would be very limited because your condensed water would heat up and evaporate, and the cold you generate would just create very cold dispersed particles that will pick up heat again swiftly.

 

Until we have the opportunity to actually test magical powers in the real world, there is absolutely no reliable basis for believing that any of these water powers would take more or less time than air related powers. After all, vacuum is a very powerful force-- It might be much more difficult to create an empty space by pulling away all the air without any air moving in to fill the space, compared to creating a bubble underwater which is easier because air can fill the space inside. I think most of this belief comes from the idea that wind and fire are the speedy elements, while earth and water are slow. Of course, a good ninja should need to be fast in the first place, but whatever. The actual belief isn't grounded in any kind of facts, it's all just based on mutable fiction.

Also, you could leach out the poison by dehydrating it, which makes it solid, then using the water around it to push it out of the wound. In the same way, you can close wounds by using the water within your cells to pull them together around the wound, stop bleeding, etc... There are good reasons why Healing is usually assigned to either Water or Earth in cardinal element systems. 60% of the body is water, and the rest is mostly carbon, and the whole thing is made of cells which makes them easier to manipulate.

How about we come to the mutual conclusion that Mental abilities are more powerful than manipulating Physical materials like wind or water? After all, if you won't just leave it at personal preference, I think it is pretty fair to assume that a Mentalist could simply influence the Wind User to kill themselves, or made to be a thrall or something.

 

Hm... returning to discussion about races, I'd agree that a japanese theme seems a good fit for an aquatic race. Though 'Hylotl' is a central american name...

I've also made yet another middle-eastern themed race (inspired by reading the OP to this thread in fact). If you're intrigued by the idea of a genie-inspired race of nanobot-swarms, then check it out!

(Shameless plug, because I'd really like to get some sort of feedback...)

 

That mean you can control EVERYTHING in air? You act like it is one element. Oxygen isn't even the dominate element in air. Also, being able to directly control water would allow you to control water vapor, which is in air at all times and can actually become quite a large object. This is getting mythical, not scientific. Also, you wouldn't be able to control pressure as it is another force entirely. You could change pressure through the use of oxygen manipulation, but as you are being vague as to what element you control (Wind, Air, Oxygen) it is quite hard to ascertain your abilities.

Edit: Nice job proving yourself wrong. In a vacuum there would be no air for you to control, rendering your tactic inefficient. You would constantly have to force the vacuum into existence as the air seeps back into the area of which you have no control. Also, I doubt you have the ability to change a particle on the atomic level, that is quite absurd. If that was the case the water elemental could merely gather water into a single dense point, effectively creating a center of gravity and an unavoidable attack (kinda like your "suffocation" that has no possible way to beat)

Edit Edit: If a water elemental shares the same level of control you do, then they would be able to manipulate more than H20 particles. Any liquid matter would be a fair guess. That also means you could battle over the liquid or gaseous state of the liquids/gasses, putting you at a stalemate. You could control mercury, but the water elemental could convert it to a liquid.

 

I don't think you know what pressure is. You can increase or decrease pressure by increasing the amount of something in a set space. So if you can control the wind, hence the air. So you can easily control pressure if you can control a certain substance.

I don't recall saying I could change particles at the atomic level.

Also I never said you create vacuums out of nothing, I did explain you would move air away from a certain point. A vacuum is just the absence of an atmosphere and is not as hard to create as you think it is. Also creating that center of gravity you're alluding to would require an immense amount of water condensed in a single point. It is a much more difficult thing to do than simply moving air away from a certain point to create a vacuum. I didn't say this ability wasn't overpowered, I was demonstrating the kind of power a Wind Elementalist would have if he was smart with his abilities. Creating a vacuum around a persons head would be simple and efficient.

Actually no they wouldn't. A water elementalist is limited to water. If he was a LIQUID elementalist then fine, but that isn't a case. You'll notice we don't call wind elementalists "oxygen" or "nitrogen" elementalists. They control the air around them. So no, the water elementalist wouldn't be able to use other liquids because we've specified that he is a WATER elementalist.

Three things wrong with this.

1. How do you determine which water is in the poison and which water is in the blood? Poison doesn't travel as a blob in your body, it disperses. Forcing it out of your body as a solid form would cause more damage if you were to somehow get it all in one crystal.
2. Healing doesn't work the way you think it does. Drawing cells together would stop the bleeding, but you wouldn't close the wound. The same effect could be achieved with wind, creating pressure on the wound to stop the bleeding.
3. Creating an empty space is not difficult in the slightest. Vacuums are not a force. What you're thinking of is the pressure gradient, air would be trying to rush into the empty space. However it can't do so if its being moved away from that point. Hence easily creating an efficient vacuum. If the pressure gradient was as strong as you suggest, then all I'd need to do is create the vacuum for a split second and let the air rush back in and crush the victims head. Which wouldn't happen, because we live in 1 atmosphere of pressure which is not a lot of pressure, and so would be easy to act against.

 

I am enjoying this debate. (I know that a wind elemental is quite 'OP' and that in a fight they would win. I just enjoy debates.)
Question/explanations: The atomic level comment, would have been directed at your ability to meld 'air' into a single element. I do understand how pressure works (Trust me, I'm making a pneumatic rifle at home right now.) but you describe changing an entire spectrum of pressure, not just Psi, water pressure, ETC.

On topic:

You can ONLY control 'air' so forcing air out of a space would create a vacuum, but you cannot prevent air from entering said vacuum because there would be no air to control to prevent it from entering the vacuum, (Gas can't be held in a solid state, at least not in the way you are describing. So you wouldn't be able to 'hold' the air that you had directed from your targets head as the air would simply move back. The rush would probably knock your target unconscious though, rendering a similar effect.) thus rendering it ineffective.

Off topic again: Why do I always pick the hard sides of debates? Damn wind elemental. Shake on a good debate (couldn't find a handshake, so have some coffee and a cookie.)

 

And its simply because no ones ever thought to say that a wind elemental is limited to a few gaseous elements. For all we know, all gasses are at the wind elementals fingertips.

Perhaps you couldn't keep the vacuum at the same size, however you could increase the size of the vacuum by continuously moving air away from that single point until the person died. Assuming your control is only limited to making air move, rather than halting it, you can still just continue to move air away from a point and keep up the vacuum, if you couldn't keep this up for the required time to kill a person, you could release the vacuum, knock them out. Then just walk over and kill them.

Either way, wind elementalists aren't as limited as water and fire elementalists. (Earth elementalists have all soil and such at their disposal, also made of a range of elements and compounds).

(Good debate btw)

 

I sense that the forums may know us as "Those Guys That Debate", considering I tend to throw myself into them. Anyways, nice 'meeting' you, had fun.

 

Recognize now that the water user could just breath underwater by forcing all the oxygen out of the water nearby into the water in his lungs. If you don't buy that, then he could simply create a bubble around himself. The only way the wind user could break the bubble would be if his control was stronger.

Also, if you can control impurities in the air and not just the most common element or molecule, then I should be able to do the same with water. For example, sea water contains salt, but the salt isn't considered separate from the sea water, it is a mixture. You're just twisting the argument into your favor my extending the amount of stuff you can control. Hell, you could say you can control fire by focusing the flammable nitrogen in the air, then increasing the pressure until it ignites.

Seriously, the only direction this argument can go is having both sides dial up the power levels of their element over nine thousand, to the point where the air user is covering the whole planet in vacuum just to kill one water user, and the water user is making lightning and covering everything in water vapor to simulate wind powers. I mean, seriously, it's just not something that can be argued about rationally-- It's like those stupid arguments people have over Superman vs Goku. The only option we really have is to leave it at personal preference.

Anyway, my original point was that water is more ninja-like, not necessarily more powerful. Water and ice can be used to alter the terrain to your advantage and create traps, common tactics for ninjas. Mirrors can be created with water or ice to create illusions. Mist can obscure vision and aid you in ambushes and retreat. Shurikens can be made of ice which will melt and leave no evidence because the detective would think it was a regular metal weapon that was simply taken from the scene. Perhaps you can suffocate people with wind, but it would still leave tell-tale signs of suffocation (bloodshot eyes), so you can't really frame anyone else for the murder because everyone would know it was a wind user. That's really the only ninja-like ability unique to wind.

So let's just drop it and get back on topic: What is missing from the race suggestions in Starbound?

 

A wind user could do the same. Creating a bubble of air.

You are the one claiming to be a water elementalist, thus you control water. Not all liquids contain water, some liquids do, and I never said you can't control mixtures. However you're implying you can somehow separate the water from the poison without doing so to the blood. How?

I recognize that you personally prefer water, and I'm pointing out why it isn't as good. I could say that I prefer stars to black holes, that wont change that a black hole would essentially destroy a star.

And it requires a lot of water. You'd need to keep a supply on you or keep looking for one. Another common tactic for ninjas is silence. Much easier to achieve if you can halt sound waves dead in their tracks and kill people with vacuums.

This is a weird thing to say. If I suffocate a person, how do you determine it was done by wind and they weren't strangled or had a pillow put over their face? Death by suffocation leaves less mess than death by a shuriken. Furthermore you would need to have good aim with a shuriken to kill a person and not have them scream. Even if the detective can't find a weapon, he can determine what was used to kill a person. Nobody looks at a person who's suffocated and thinks "Yep, wind magic." You're acting under the assumption that the detective KNOWS a ninja was responsible. Which I argue would mean he could look at a person whos been killed with an "ice shuriken", determine a shuriken was used, and notice a lot of water at the crime scene. Thus leading him to say "Yep, water magic."

(I don't think that would happen, but I'm applying your reasoning.)

In the end, water has its uses, but wind allows for greater precision, less mess and more silence. Sure you can create illusions and what have you, but a ninja isn't a magician. They rely in stealth, and silent killing, both of which are far easier to do with wind manipulation over water manipulation.

 

I just quoted the most important part of the previous post.

Anyway, this is the main problem you are having, and the only reason we are even talking about this:

The thing is, black holes and stars actually do exist in real life. Magical powers over the elements do not. Because magical powers are not actually real, the only evidence we have to back our arguments is fictional. Just like Superman and Goku. You can make factual statements about how air works IRL, but you can't make factual statements about magical wind powers because they don't really exist.

I mean, technically, the wind user and water user are on equal footing because they'd really just be standing there, bugging their eyes out, screaming at the top of their lungs, while absolutely nothing happens for either of them. You know, like this guy:

In the end it's basically like my fictional world versus your fictional world, and the only way the argument would end is with someone getting tired of it. Seriously, just stop. There is no fact-of-the-matter when it comes to wind or water being stronger.

 

No not at all because we're arguing a hypothetical situation in which they DO have powers.

We've been arguing a hypothetical situation, in which you can control either water or wind. I've been discussing this situation assuming that most laws concerning the Universe are intact, the only inconsistency being that these individuals can control wind and water.
In this case there most certainly is a matter of fact when it comes to wind or water being stronger and I have demonstrated that to you. You began to assume properties of wind/water magic we have no reason to believe they would have, I assumed that we had manipulation of just these elements.

Theres no reason to believe a wind mages control of wind wouldn't be subject to the same laws of pressure as normal wind, nor is there a reason to believe a WATER mage has universal control of all liquids rather than just water as the name suggests.

 

Exactly, we are in an entirely hypothetical realm. I can simply say that controlling wind is hypothetically millions of times more difficult than controlling water because hypothetically that could be how magic powers just so happen to work. There is no logical reason to believe they'd be equal, since we have no evidence to suggest anything at all about magical powers because they don't exist.

It's like, if there actually WAS a fight between Superman and Goku, you could actually discuss why or how which one was victorious. You'd have actual evidence. Someone could actually be correct. However, until science actually happens and you are stuck in the realm of hypothesis, there never is a conclusion because data can't be collected from a hypothetical world.

If you really think it is a fact that wind magic is stronger than water magic, you simply don't understand what the word 'fact' means.

 

But why would you do that? We've already established that we have total manipulation of water/wind for this hypothetical discussion. I haven't changed any parameters, neither should you. The grounds of this discussion was wind vs water and we've already established that we have total control of either and no more.

I don't know why you keep bringing up the fight between Superman and Goku, they're just as non-existant as the wind and water magic and exist in two separate hypothetical realities to top it off.

Also, are you claiming the situation that Goku and Superman fighting each other isn't hypothetical? Thats what I gather from this.

No I know what fact means, and I've pointed out quite rightly, in a world where the laws of the Universe are the same, and the only difference is an individual can control one of the so called "four elements", wind is the most efficient. Notice that the degree of control over wind is exactly the same as the degree of control of water. In actual fact, you're the one that keeps giving more powers to the water elementalist, claiming they can control all liquids, distinguish between mixtures of liquids, heal themselves using water (somehow), etc. Notice the wind user doesn't distinguish the atoms in the air, he controls all of them. He isn't an 'oxygen' elementalist, nor is he a 'nitrogen' elementalist, or 'argon' or any number of other gasses found in our atmosphere. He is a wind elementalist, he controls the air in general. Apart from claiming they can manipulate a certain "element", I've stuck to science just fine, and I've demonstrated to you by alluding to pressure gradients and such how a wind elementalist could swiftly and easily incapacitate any other elementalist, not to mention the sheer availability of air, seeing as it is everywhere.

You can most certainly come to a conclusion in a hypothetical discussion and it amuses me that you think you can't. The same evidence applies, we can actually manipulate wind an water (granted using instruments, not magic or our minds) and we know the effects they can have. Applying that to a person who can manipulate them is no great feat.

 

Antarctica is missing
WE NEED A PENGUIN RACE, PRONTO