"No!"

[Alschroeder]

The Smiling Man will be dealt with in a non-murderous way over in Crossoverlord. ^_~

Oh, didn't we tell you, Lewis? The rest of us took a vote and we decided to....

JUST KIDDING!!!

--Al

[Linkara]

The Smiling Man will be dealt with in a non-murderous way over in Crossoverlord. ^_~

Oh, didn't we tell you, Lewis? The rest of us took a vote and we decided to....

JUST KIDDING!!!

--Al

I once more plug our crossover and all you can do is crack jokes.

[Alschroeder]

Okay, I'm confused---how do Lightbringer's powers help her to play piano? ---Al

[Linkara]

Okay, I'm confused---how do Lightbringer's powers help her to play piano? ---Al

The human body is essentially a machine. Nerve connections, muscular motions, and the like are all just basically concepts of physics and chemistry at work. Now, Lightbringer is capable of creating constructs out of light, though he usually doesn't do anything more complicated than a baseball bat or something because it takes a lot of focus to keep it intact. In this case, all he needed was a diagram of how human hands worked, then create a light facsimile with all versions of muscles, tendons, bone, and etc. Legato Sin's hands had been cut off previously and replaced with robotic ones that tied directly into her nervous system for her to control, but they're cold and obviously aren't designed to play the piano. By creating human hands for her with all the same bits (even if they're made out of light), he could then plug it into the system and let her use them like she would her regular hands, only this time with them connected as they are, she can actually feel something out of it.

[Wandering Observer]

So Lightbringer can create fully formed human hands out of light for brief periods of time now, eh? You do realize you can't use physics to justify gravitational manipulation of photons to operate in the exact same way as very complex and specialized matter without an enormous suspension of belief, right?

[Linkara]

So Lightbringer can create fully formed human hands out of light for brief periods of time now, eh? You do realize you can't use physics to justify gravitational manipulation of photons to operate in the exact same way as very complex and specialized matter without an enormous suspension of belief, right?

Yes. Legato Sin didn't seem to have a problem with it. ^_~

[Alschroeder]

The human body is essentially a machine. Nerve connections, muscular motions, and the like are all just basically concepts of physics and chemistry at work. Now, Lightbringer is capable of creating constructs out of light, though he usually doesn't do anything more complicated than a baseball bat or something because it takes a lot of focus to keep it intact. In this case, all he needed was a diagram of how human hands worked, then create a light facsimile with all versions of muscles, tendons, bone, and etc. Legato Sin's hands had been cut off previously and replaced with robotic ones that tied directly into her nervous system for her to control, but they're cold and obviously aren't designed to play the piano. By creating human hands for her with all the same bits (even if they're made out of light), he could then plug it into the system and let her use them like she would her regular hands, only this time with them connected as they are, she can actually feel something out of it.

So he's like GREEN LANTERN??? He can create solid constructs out of his light?
You've lifted him to a whole different league by that.---Al

[Linkara]

The human body is essentially a machine. Nerve connections, muscular motions, and the like are all just basically concepts of physics and chemistry at work. Now, Lightbringer is capable of creating constructs out of light, though he usually doesn't do anything more complicated than a baseball bat or something because it takes a lot of focus to keep it intact. In this case, all he needed was a diagram of how human hands worked, then create a light facsimile with all versions of muscles, tendons, bone, and etc. Legato Sin's hands had been cut off previously and replaced with robotic ones that tied directly into her nervous system for her to control, but they're cold and obviously aren't designed to play the piano. By creating human hands for her with all the same bits (even if they're made out of light), he could then plug it into the system and let her use them like she would her regular hands, only this time with them connected as they are, she can actually feel something out of it.

So he's like GREEN LANTERN??? He can create solid constructs out of his light?
You've lifted him to a whole different league by that.---Al

What, you didn't know that?

He can do it, but it's a hell of a lot harder for him to do than a Green Lantern. He'll do the occasional object like a hammer or a bat, but a lot of internal functions combined together and keeping them stable under Legato Sin's direction? There was a reason he was stressing his arms and sweating in that panel.

[Sun tzu]

So Lightbringer can create fully formed human hands out of light for brief periods of time now, eh? You do realize you can't use physics to justify gravitational manipulation of photons to operate in the exact same way as very complex and specialized matter without an enormous suspension of belief, right?

Frankly, the whole "gravitational manipulation" aspect always seemed to me like it had only downsides. It doesn't explain how his powers work ("being able to manipulate gravity" isn't really less complicated than just "being able to manipulate light"), and in fact requires even more suspension of disbelief than if no explanation for his powers was given at all ("wait, he can manipulate gravity in order to manipulate light, but he can't do any of the other 354642 applications of gravity control?"). In all seriousness, I'd recommend dropping it as soon as possible (was it ever stated in canon?)

That said, Monday's strip was beautiful.

[Linkara]

It's the scientific explanation of how his powers work. But then again I never said he got his powers from science. ^_~

MYSTERY!

And thanks for the compliment. ^^

[Sun tzu]

It's the scientific explanation of how his powers work.

Problem is, it's not much of an explanation.
Look at it this way:
If you say, "He can control light", then the reader wonders, "How can he control light?".
If you say, "He can control light by controlling gravity", the reader wonders, "How can he control gravity?".
It adds nothing, and only adds more awkward questions.

[Linkara]

It's the scientific explanation of how his powers work.

Problem is, it's not much of an explanation.
Look at it this way:
If you say, "He can control light", then the reader wonders, "How can he control light?".
If you say, "He can control light by controlling gravity", the reader wonders, "How can he control gravity?".
It adds nothing, and only adds more awkward questions.

It's in the sense that "what is actually making the light move around?"

There is a point where the suspension of disbelief kicks in. And it's not that he can control ALL gravity. Just the gravitational pull of light.

[VinnieD]

Have you by chance either heard of quantum entanglement? Essentially photons (light expressed as a particle form) tend to travel in entangled pairs, and sort of form chains of photons. now here's where it gets interesting. Recently scientists discovered that information (in the very basic sense) can travel up these chains. So that the first photon in the chain to arrive at the destination could convey information from the very last in the chain. This is why quantum computing has so much potential, since in theory, unlike with electrons, which convey information as each particle arrives, a quantum entangled chain could actually have information arrive before the particle carrying said information arrives. In other words computations could be completed before they actually began.

Now this isn't about computing. This is about how this applies to LB. LB doesn't need to put out the macrocosmic levels of energy required to bend any visible amount of light. He could be unconsciously controlling just a single master photon or group of photons which are entangling with photons in the environment. This explains why LB has to concentrate so much to control light as well since he's in a way manipulating a long chain, from only the base link, and managing countless quadrillions of particles with his subconscious.

[Sun tzu]

It's the scientific explanation of how his powers work.

Problem is, it's not much of an explanation.
Look at it this way:
If you say, "He can control light", then the reader wonders, "How can he control light?".
If you say, "He can control light by controlling gravity", the reader wonders, "How can he control gravity?".
It adds nothing, and only adds more awkward questions.

It's in the sense that "what is actually making the light move around?"

There is a point where the suspension of disbelief kicks in. And it's not that he can control ALL gravity. Just the gravitational pull of light.

But what I'm saying is that controlling the gravitational pull of light doesn't require any less suspension of disbelief than just plain controlling light. It's just replacing one power with another one that indirectly leads to the first one. It's an unnecessary complication that only makes the whole thing less credible, for nothing gained in return.

[Wandering Observer]

I'd have to agree. Theres no way Lightbringer could do the more intricate things he does with light if it's dependent on gravity anyway (especially without having an expert-level understanding of human biology, chemistry, and nerve endings in particular.)

Not that I mind it all that much, it's just that if you're trying to justify Lightbringer's powers in real-world science, you'd better be prepared to acknowledge/explain the real world boundaries entailed with science. If Lighbringer's powers stem solely from gravity manipulation, then his powers are suddenly very constricted by what gravity actually does.

Now if you say his powers are spiritual or parapsychological in origin (i.e. photokinetics, psyonics, chakra, ect.) then you have a little more room to justify things.