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Jensal has a lot of work to do. Her house is going to collapse; nobody had better be inside when it does. She is briskly bundling adult miracles into groups who have at least one decent job between them, she is writing to agencies that handle adoption for the ultimate disposition of kids who don't get picked up because she's reasonably sure that they will not all get picked up, and when parents do drop by to collect their little ones she is signing papers for every set of them with slightly gritted teeth. Lots to do. Her hand is cramping from paperwork and she doesn't care.
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shrennaki
"Well, still defaulting to 'no', I think, but I haven't given it more thought particularly," he says. "Would it be a good idea to have some third-siahrs turn out to be uniques? I think, if I did make them turn out to be uniques, I'd want the unique status to be late-onset for everyone like unusual is for the red and white groups. I definitely don't want everyone to be uniques because, uh," he shrugs apologetically, "green-groups."
"I mean, my mom is still alive, she can put down safeties like her predecessor did, but everyone would be too much," nods Korulen.
"There's serious thought about unique white-groups eventually being," Kimmet waves up at the sky, "long distance explorers, sometime after we run out of room on the bottom and the moon and stuff."
"There's serious thought about unique white-groups eventually being," Kimmet waves up at the sky, "long distance explorers, sometime after we run out of room on the bottom and the moon and stuff."
shrennaki
"Okay," says Mial. "Plausible way to deal with potential problems, plausible reason it would be a good idea, I'm sold. So the next question is, if we're including uniques, how often should they come up? 'Somewhere in between nobody and everybody' isn't very specific."
"Did you," says Kaylo to Lazarus, "not already go turn some preponderous fraction of baby dragons into uniques? Were you asking me about that for personal curiosity?"
nonbird
"Every baby dragon who was otherwise going to die of not enough magic and who didn't need to be an unusual instead for green-group reasons or nearest-parent-asked-me-to reasons," he says. "That is a lot of baby dragons, yes. I'm afraid I didn't keep exact statistics."
"I don't know how many of those are going to want to migrate to the homemade version," says Kaylo, "but they'll probably want to keep their powers."
shrennaki
"I think I heard something about unusuals and uniques having limited form slots," says Mial, "and I'm sure you can all guess my opinion on that but for the record third-siahr uniques are not going to have any fewer form slots than the rest of them. That still doesn't answer how frequently they should naturally occur, though. One-fifth of the time? One-twenty-fifth of the time? I'm picking numbers out of the air at random here."
"I mean, how many people even want unique powers particularly?" wonders the blue opal, and she raises her hand.
So do Kimmet and the white miracle and the emerald man and the amethyst miracle.
"I already am," says the violet representative mildly, "and quite content to be so. So is Peshe, I believe."
So do Kimmet and the white miracle and the emerald man and the amethyst miracle.
"I already am," says the violet representative mildly, "and quite content to be so. So is Peshe, I believe."
shrennaki
"...I think part of the problem here is that unique powers are pretty awesome, but green-group unique powers in particular are really really dangerous," says Mial. "Making green-groups just turn out fewer uniques seems like it might be the wrong solution, though, I don't know. I guess anybody who really really wants to be a unique can just convince a miracle worker to take care of that for them anyway..."
"Really?" says Kimmet.
"How much convincing do you take?" wonders the emerald man, looking assessingly at Mial and Lazarus.
"How much convincing do you take?" wonders the emerald man, looking assessingly at Mial and Lazarus.
shrennaki
"I'm not going to make a green-group unique out of anyone I don't personally know and trust," says Mial. "Other groups, though, sure, why not, I already did Dad and Grandfather."
nonbird
"And I'm not going to make a green-group unique out of anyone who can't get Keo to tell me it would be a good idea," says Lazarus. "I have met Keo. She seems extremely reasonable."
Korulen giggles.
The emerald man peers at Korulen.
The emerald man peers at Korulen.
shrennaki
"Anyway," says Mial, "sure, I will briefly diverge from the actual business of the meeting for this, why not: non-green-groups who actually want me to make them uniques right now, hands up?"
Hands that were up again go up except for the emerald man's.
shrennaki
"One, two, three, four," he says, looking in turn at Kimmet and the blue opal and the white miracle and the amethyst miracle, "all done, congratulations. If you feel intensely deprived by your restricted form slots I can probably handle that too somehow but I might want to wait until after the meeting because that seems like it would be complicated and fiddly."
"I don't have restricted form slots," snickers the blue opal, and she turns into a sparkly fourteen foot python coiled around and on her chair.
"I'll take you up on that," says Kimmet, and the amethyst miracle nods too.
"I'll take you up on that," says Kimmet, and the amethyst miracle nods too.
Peshe comes back with an elderly blue-skinned halfling. "Thank you, Grandmama," the halfling says to her. "So what's this about making those blasted eggs smaller or something?"
shrennaki
"Hello," says Mial.
He puts a Uniques naturally occur in 1/5 of babies? (Form slots not restricted) list item on the board to remember that for him while he goes back to dealing with this thing.
"I'm trying to invent a new species that is like dragons but without all of the problems of dragons, and apparently one of the problems of dragons is that having parunias is sometimes uncomfortable or fatal for non-dragon mothers, and that's especially a problem because the new kind of dragons is always going to have kids who are also the new kind of dragons. So I want to fix it. I have magic that can do nearly arbitrary things as long as they are sufficiently well-specified, and I want to know enough about this problem to design a solution that will work. If I can do that, I'm sure it will be possible to apply it to dragons as well while we're at it. Can you help me?"
He puts a Uniques naturally occur in 1/5 of babies? (Form slots not restricted) list item on the board to remember that for him while he goes back to dealing with this thing.
"I'm trying to invent a new species that is like dragons but without all of the problems of dragons, and apparently one of the problems of dragons is that having parunias is sometimes uncomfortable or fatal for non-dragon mothers, and that's especially a problem because the new kind of dragons is always going to have kids who are also the new kind of dragons. So I want to fix it. I have magic that can do nearly arbitrary things as long as they are sufficiently well-specified, and I want to know enough about this problem to design a solution that will work. If I can do that, I'm sure it will be possible to apply it to dragons as well while we're at it. Can you help me?"
"Make the blasted eggs smaller," says the halfling.
"They'd have to be the size of the head of a pin to fit in with a clutch of fairy eggs," points out Sashpark, "even if that'd work for halflings."
(Korulen leans in Kaylo's direction and gets a translation.)
"Well, then ditch the standard egg size business entirely," says the halfling. "Appear them fully formed in their cribs if you have to, the celebrated gift of pregnancy is overrated."
"They'd have to be the size of the head of a pin to fit in with a clutch of fairy eggs," points out Sashpark, "even if that'd work for halflings."
(Korulen leans in Kaylo's direction and gets a translation.)
"Well, then ditch the standard egg size business entirely," says the halfling. "Appear them fully formed in their cribs if you have to, the celebrated gift of pregnancy is overrated."
shrennaki
"Ditch the standard egg size..." he muses. "Is there any reason it wouldn't work to just make the eggs be the ordinary size of an egg or infant of the mother's species, and then have them grow the rest of the way to standard egg size if necessary once they - emerge?"
"Well, you could wind up with people misjudging where the eggs need to be in order to accommodate the growth," says the copper miracle.
"Also, fairies have hundreds of eggs at a time," says Sashpark, "would that just carry on as normal, or...?"
"And merfolk," says the amethyst miracle, "albeit not to the same degree."
"Currently controlled by the rarity of parunias," nods the violet representative.
"Also, fairies have hundreds of eggs at a time," says Sashpark, "would that just carry on as normal, or...?"
"And merfolk," says the amethyst miracle, "albeit not to the same degree."
"Currently controlled by the rarity of parunias," nods the violet representative.
shrennaki
"Right, and with third-siahrs it's nothing but equivalent-of-parunias. Um. Having hundreds of children at once does seem... like a bad idea somehow. If nothing else you'd have to build an entire housing facility just to incubate them all. But the way it works now seems like a much worse problem. I suppose 'third-siahrs just happen to only conceive one or two eggs at a time with no matter what species' is a possible solution..."
"What about people who want to have children that are the other parent species?" wonders the white miracle. "For whatever reason. Vampires who want to raise their children in their religion or something."