[OOC] The Bureau of Supernatural Affairs

[KatherinWinter]

@LightningMaidenShe's approved. You can move her. Maybe have her report to the sewers or the office. It's evening.

[Blueflame]

@LightningMaidensame

[Searat]

Evening? Damn, Mason is going to be really dangerous very soon...

[Blueflame]

Beware to much strain and he will answer to another name

[Phantomlink959]

I've got a couple questions.
1: Is a visual reference required?
2: Do I have to use existing lore for a mythical creature, or is a custom version acceptable?
3: What level of detail is required in backstory and description?

[KatherinWinter]

@Phantomlink959

1: Is a visual reference required?
No. As long as you can de0scribe the character well enough that I can visialize it I don't require a picture. I just prefer them.

2: Do I have to use existing lore for a mythical creature, or is a custom version acceptable?

Depends on the creature and how much your lore differs from what I know. If your creating a new creature you'll need to have alot of lore.

3: What level of detail is required in backstory and description?

I need enough of a backstory to understand why their joining the BOSA.

[Phantomlink959]

@KatherinWinter
The race in question is a twist on Djinn/genies,

Basically rather than them being traditional mystical creatures with the near god-like ability to grant wishes, they possess a unique form of memory manipulation magic and feed on the memories of others to sustain their powers.

By using the wide-spread belief (one which was started centuries ago by their first king as a way to unite his people) that they can grant wishes as a cover they absorb real memories of the past few days, replace them with fake memories in which their lamp was discovered and the wishes were granted, use the infamous ironic twist of fate at the end of the wishes as an excuse for why the wishes are no longer reality, then walk away scot-free and well-fed.

If that version of Djinn lore is acceptable or you want to know more before deciding, please let me know ASAP.

[KatherinWinter]

@Phantomlink959I'm sorry that is too controlling of other characters.

[Phantomlink959]

I don't really see it that way, because believe me, controlling other characters by force is one of my biggest pet peeves.

It's not so different from the post-hypnotic suggestion used by the MIBs to convince people that what they think they saw they did not see. Erase however much time from their memories, while they're dazed convince them something else happened during that span. Just more precise, and the memories are deleted entirely rather than being reversibly overwritten.

All that said, if it's still a no, I understand. I can also elaborate further on the specific mechanics of it if there's a chance it would change your mind.

[KatherinWinter]

@Phantomlink959I understand that it is similar to the flashy things. But the flashy things can only erase a limited amount of time. And the memories aren't really gone. If your character used that power on a npc character it would radically change that character. I hesitate to approve an ability like that what are the limits?

[Phantomlink959]

@KatherinWinter
It's hard to explain the mechanics of it, but for one thing erasing or altering a single memory doesn't actually impact a character's personality to any noticeable degree.

To truly change a person, you would need to remove an entire lifetime's worth of memories; every single key moment in their life which is connected to a removed memory would also have to be extracted to break the sequence and cause a change.

Example: As a kid, you're afraid of the dark. Maybe one of your parents puts a fancy looking night light in your room and tells you it's a magic light that will chase the monsters away. That nightlight remains in your bedroom for, say, five years. Even if the memory of the light being put in were to be removed, the memories of not being afraid because the light was there will remain.

Like a bracelet made of colorful beads on a string, even if you take one of the beads out the string that holds the thing together is still there, you've simply created a gap in the decorations on the bracelet. To destroy the bracelet, you'd have to cut the string and remove ALL of the beads; not just remove one or two of them.

On the subject of creating fake memories: The false memoriesi mplanted by Djinn are what they call hollows; devoid of any emotional energy and unable to replace a real memory within the overall sequence; he can glue it on to hide the gap between two memories, but the underlying connections between memories is impossible to alter.
To return to the bracelet metaphor: If you remove, say, a bright red bead with gold glitter in the plastic, he wouldn't be able to replace it with another red glittery bead. The replacement would be plain, clear plastic; and more importantly, the string that ties it all together still remains unbroken.

[KatherinWinter]

@Phantomlink959you're examples is true and it's not. Some memories would have little to no impact on the person. But that's not true of all memories. For example if you were terrified of dogs because one attacked you as a toddler but I take that memory from you one of two things will happen. Either you will not be afraid of dogs or you would be afraid but not know why. Both would change the character.

[Phantomlink959]

@KatherinWinter
That matches up with what I said. The latter would be true; you'd be afraid of dogs, but not remember why, and any memories of being afraid of dogs (even if you don't remember the cause) would be unaffected by removing the first memory in the chain.

Unless the event that caused the fear of dogs was VERY recent, removing it would have no effect on the overall fear because it has been reinforced over time by other memories in which you experienced the fear of dogs.

It's the not know why that's important in this case. Your personality would remain in tact, you won't remember the original source of personality traits but because the majority of your memory in which those traits were relevant remain in-tact loss of the source memory doesn't impact the trait. It's been reinforced over time by subsequent memories.

There's actually a semi-famous example of that which I can use. There was a man who had the temporal lobes in his brain removed because of severe epilepsy. He lost the ability to learn new things and form new memories, but his personality remained unchanged. In fact, he gave the exact same answer to any question no matter how many times he was asked.

On a more personal (and painful) example. A few years ago, my great grandfather died of Alzheimers disease. Over the course of nearly a decade his mind began to deteriorate and his memories slowly dissapeared. Throughout that time, though, even when he could barely remember his own name, his personality never changed. Not even a little bit. he was still the same stubborn old man that raised me.

EDIT: I keep forgetting to put a mention in. I'll work on that if you decide to let me join.

[KatherinWinter]

@Phantomlink959my point is that events effect people. If you take the event away it will change the person. If someone who has been terrified of dogs there while life but doesn't remember why they might stop being afraid because there is nothing to reinforce the fear. This isn't always the case but I've studied enough psychology to know it will change the person in some way. My question is what would the limits be?

[Phantomlink959]

@KatherinWinter
It takes prolonged physical contact to locate and extract the specific memory, longer for formulating replacements. The older and more important a memory is the longer it takes and the more difficult it is to extract. Core memories, the ones that like you said cause a life-long fear, can take hours to extract as a Djinn would need to search through their memory to find it, sever EVERY connection it has to other memories, and then reconnect the links between memories that removing it created.

During the period where a memory extraction and replacement is being performed, they must maintain their natural Djinn form (at least one full limb) which is highly conspicuous at best, especially since any clothes they are wearing in their human form are part of the shell and will dissapear along with the human limb while they are using their natural reptilian arm for the process.

To perform a proper memory extraction (which causes temporary paralysis) they must place their hand on a person's face, direct skin to skin contact. While they can extract memories with any direct contact, shaking hands would not cause the paralytic effect and they'd only have a couple seconds to work before the other person realizes they're shaking hands with a lizard wearing a human suit, meaning at best they could skim off the memories of the last few minutes.

If the process is interrupted before they fully extract a memory (even if they're only take a few more seconds), it will 'bounce back' into the owner, effectively reversing any changes made, so they'd have to start over to try and extract the same memory.

It is harder to extract the memories of more intelligent or strong willed people, or those with psychic powers, as they are naturally resistant to mental magic.

[KatherinWinter]

@Phantomlink959 how would you use that power in the rp?

[Phantomlink959]

@KatherinWinter
To quote Will Smith:

Nah nah nah.
The good guys dress in black, remember that
Just in case we ever face to face and make contact
The title held by me, MIB
Means what you think you saw, you did not see
So don't blink be what was there is now gone
The black suits with the black Ray Bans on
(skip a few verses)
With the quickness, talk with the witnesses
Hypnotizer, neuralizer
Vivid memories turn to fantasies
----
Basically, witness containment specialist. Like a living neuralyzer but more effective, more precise, and better control over what falsified memories they are given to cover up the missing time. Also no risk of brain damage if the same unlucky bastard ends up having to be dealt with multiple times. Trim off the last, say, hour worth of memories. Set them up with memories of a blind date that didn't go so well, and you're in the clear. Or a blind date that did go well if you've got enough people to work with.

It'd be slower than just neuralyzing them, but the end result would be a lot cleaner.

They've also got the ability to heal rapidly (in the original Islamic mythology, Djinn are made from 'smokeless flame'), so I basically made it so they can repair their bodies by consuming combustible materials to replenish their internal flame; plus the ability to switch between their Djinn and Human forms but that doesn't impact their abilities besides the human shell not being able to use their memory magic. If you REALLY want to prevent him from altering memories when not on the job, have him wear something that locks him into his human form when he isn't in the field dealing with witnesses.

I didn't figure the rapid healing would be an issue (or even a big deal) since that's a common feature of a lot of fantasy races.

EDIT: After I typed this up, I had a thought. If you allow me to use this version of Djinn, it'd provide a good way of decommissioning characters in-RP if their player decides to leave without having to just pretend they didn't exist. Just have him spend a couple hours with them, talk to them, formulate a good cover story for why they've been away from their old life for so long, then trim out the real memories and replace them with hollows; none of that 30 year coma nonsense they did with Agent K in MIB II

[KatherinWinter]

@Phantomlink959hmmm that's true. But it could limit your interaction with the group.

[Phantomlink959]

Although my character will be a specialist in containment, he will still be a fully trained agent and thus be fit for general mission deployment. I'd wager that someone with his skills would probably see a LOT of field assignments becauese of his skills being effective for ongoing information suppression rather than being limited to cleanup after the fact. Just take a couple seconds to wipe a person's short-term memory and drop in a prefabricated hollow of going to the grocery store and getting lost or something.

[KatherinWinter]

@Phantomlink959only of the character had skills useful in investigating. Otherwise he's strictly clean up. I'm willing to look at a character.