Storing Luck?

[A Joe in the Bush]

Luck is usually seen as a Spectrum, ranging from Good luck, to Bad luck. With Good luck, you draw a Royal Flush, With bad luck, You Trip down an elevator Shaft. Either way though, Bad luck is not the Absence of Luck, it's just on the opposite side of the Spectrum from Good Luck.

 

So How does Storing Luck Work? We've never seen it used (Outside of MAG), But I don't think it's used in the Way people think it is. as in, storing give you bad luck, tapping gives you good luck. Realistically, (Yes, I'm using the Word Realistically while discussing Magic) Storing Luck should put in the Middle of the Spectrum. Pure chance, and Luck no longer affects you.  When you're tapping Luck, you get both Extremes, You always either get Royal flush, or Uno cards.

 

Then there are people who are 'Born' Lucky Or unlucky. If these people store Luck, Do they store Bad luck or Good luck? or just Luck in general? Would they multiply their base luck, or The Absolute Value of their Base luck? Personally, I think they Store their Base luck, so a normally unlucky person would be better off by Constantly Storing than by Tapping.

 

 

[SmurfAquamarineBodies he/him]

Perhaps luck in the Cosmere is similar to Electrum shadows, in that when storing Luck it's not the luck itself they store but the possible futures that have more positive endings. Understand? So when Tapping Luck it works the other way, they remove the more negative outcomes. All it does is increases the probability of you being happy.

Don't worry if you don't understand very little do. Tell me and I'll try and translate.

[Numb]

Perhaps luck in the Cosmere is similar to Electrum shadows, in that when storing Luck it's not the luck itself they store but the possible futures that have more positive endings. Understand? So when Tapping Luck it works the other way, they remove the more negative outcomes. All it does is increases the probability of you being happy.

Don't worry if you don't understand very little do. Tell me and I'll try and translate.

 

The problem I have with this is that the magic system is meant to be net neutral at the end of the day. That would mean with your theory you don't get more negative or positive outcomes you merely shift when those outcomes occur. Another issue is where are you storing them from? If you are doing nothing at the time does that mean you can't store your luck?

 

Luck seems like an outlier in the magic system honestly. 

[Lightsworn Panda he/him]

 

 

Storing Luck should put in the Middle of the Spectrum. Pure chance, and Luck no longer affects you.  When you're tapping Luck, you get both Extremes, You always either get Royal flush, or Uno cards.

(Looks at OnlyJoe's account picture and raises eyebrows)

 

I don't think luck would exist, or even work, in the Cosmere magic system.

 

Besides, there is no such thing as luck. If you look at life in a very scientific and scrutinizing way, luck is really a series of coincidences leading to a certain point. Ever heard of the Butterfly Effect? It's a bit like this. 

[SmurfAquamarineBodies he/him]

The problem I have with this is that the magic system is meant to be net neutral at the end of the day. That would mean with your theory you don't get more negative or positive outcomes you merely shift when those outcomes occur. Another issue is where are you storing them from? If you are doing nothing at the time does that mean you can't store your luck?

 

Luck seems like an outlier in the magic system honestly.

 

Fatal error: Allowed memory size of 387973120 bytes exhausted (tried to allocate 414992688 bytes) in Unknown on line 0

Yeah I that it is very weak, but to be honest I can't think of a system that works. Though now that I say that it occurs to me that it could be based on a type of karma. But yeah it does seem like a weird thing to Store.

[Bloodfalcon he/him]

(Looks at OnlyJoe's account picture and raises eyebrows)

 

I don't think luck would exist, or even work, in the Cosmere magic system.

 

Besides, there is no such thing as luck. If you look at life in a very scientific and scrutinizing way, luck is really a series of coincidences leading to a certain point. Ever heard of the Butterfly Effect? It's a bit like this. 

Maybe I'm not understanding the context of this statement, but the idea of storing luck isn't something that was made up in this thread - it's a power of feruchemy that is already confirmed. 

 

http://stormlightarchive.com/images/wallpapers/feruchemical_table_1920x1080.jpg

 

It's on the left hand side of the table, the "spiritual" box

Edited May 9, 2014 by Bloodfalcon

[Kasimir he/him]

The Only Joe, on 09 May 2014 - 11:35 AM, said:

Luck is usually seen as a Spectrum, ranging from Good luck, to Bad luck. With Good luck, you draw a Royal Flush, With bad luck, You Trip down an elevator Shaft. Either way though, Bad luck is not the Absence of Luck, it's just on the opposite side of the Spectrum from Good Luck.

So How does Storing Luck Work? We've never seen it used (Outside of MAG), But I don't think it's used in the Way people think it is. as in, storing give you bad luck, tapping gives you good luck. Realistically, (Yes, I'm using the Word Realistically while discussing Magic) Storing Luck should put in the Middle of the Spectrum. Pure chance, and Luck no longer affects you. When you're tapping Luck, you get both Extremes, You always either get Royal flush, or Uno cards.

Then there are people who are 'Born' Lucky Or unlucky. If these people store Luck, Do they store Bad luck or Good luck? or just Luck in general? Would they multiply their base luck, or The Absolute Value of their Base luck? Personally, I think they Store their Base luck, so a normally unlucky person would be better off by Constantly Storing than by Tapping.

Why are you drawing a distinction between chance and luck? :S

[A Joe in the Bush]

Why are you drawing a distinction between chance and luck? :S

Ok, Imagine Chance as Statistics. If luck isn't affecting a Cointoss, than about 50% of the Time, the Coin will land on Heads. But if Luck is affecting the Cointoss, than The Coin will land on Whatever the Lucky person called more often that it Statistically should, or Less than it should.

 

Here, let's Say Peter has a Base luck of -5. He calls Heads one hundred Times. Due to his Bad luck, The coin lands on Tails 70% of the Time. But then he stores luck, and has a Luck value of 0. Heads will come up around 50% of the Time. Then when he taps his Bad luck, increasing it to 10, tails will come up 90% of the Time.

 

Chance and Luck a\can be seen as the Same thing, but to me, chance is simply a Luck Value of 0.

[Swimmingly he/him]

Could you commit suicide by storing too much luck?

"Goodbye cruel world!"

*touches piece of Chromium*

*Anvil lands on head*

[A Joe in the Bush]

Could you commit Suicide by storing too much Age? Just die of Old Age?

[Observer]

I honestly think that what they're calling "fortune" is actually something different, but is the same for all intents and purposes. Also, keep in mind that Feruchemy is internal, and cannot have a direct effect on anybody but the Feruchemist. Luck isn't going to make anvils drop, it's going to let you position them perfectly later. It's not going to make the enemy miss wildly, it's going to help you dodge perfectly.

 

EDIT: Brandon has mentioned that Storing has a boundary. You can't store more than ~75% of your speed, for example, helping cap the rate at which you shove things into a metalmind.

Edited May 10, 2014 by Observer

[Kasimir he/him]

The Only Joe, on 10 May 2014 - 04:41 AM, said:

Ok, Imagine Chance as Statistics. If luck isn't affecting a Cointoss, than about 50% of the Time, the Coin will land on Heads. But if Luck is affecting the Cointoss, than The Coin will land on Whatever the Lucky person called more often that it Statistically should, or Less than it should.

Here, let's Say Peter has a Base luck of -5. He calls Heads one hundred Times. Due to his Bad luck, The coin lands on Tails 70% of the Time. But then he stores luck, and has a Luck value of 0. Heads will come up around 50% of the Time. Then when he taps his Bad luck, increasing it to 10, tails will come up 90% of the Time.

Chance and Luck a\can be seen as the Same thing, but to me, chance is simply a Luck Value of 0.

Given that definition, fair enough. I was initially thinking you were referring to chance as indeterminacy which is why I didn't understand why you drew the distinction. Thanks, I get it now!

[Observer]

Anybody wonder if Feruchemical storing abilities would change along with the cognitive ideas of those traits? Say luck works the way Joe says it should, but over time the entire population starts viewing a lack of luck as identical to back luck. What happens now? Does the trait itself being stored in Shadesmar begin to change? Does nothing happen?

[Cstryon he/him]

I always saw luck as, well just luck, fortune, and 'bad luck' as just the lack of luck. Assuming luck in the cosmere only affects you, than storing luck would make it so when you make a guess, choose a direction, some kind of choice, it will more likely be a bad choice or wrong guess. I toss a coin and choose heads, I have a 50 percent chance of being right. If I'm storing luck, than the chances will be less in my favor. But that wouldn't stop me from being able to learn something and do it right. If I'm an expert sniper, and never miss, than even if I'm storing luck, I wouldn't loose that skill and miss.

[Swimmingly he/him]

You feel a twinge in your elbow as you shoot, though, or have a drop of swear fall in your eye at exactly the wrong time.

[Cstryon he/him]

Good point Swim, I could be riddled with personal inconvenience.

[A Joe in the Bush]

You feel a twinge in your elbow as you shoot, though, or have a drop of swear fall in your eye at exactly the wrong time.

 

 

Indeed, those drops of Swears can be so Annoying.

[PorridgeBrick he/him]

I always saw luck as, well just luck, fortune, and 'bad luck' as just the lack of luck. Assuming luck in the cosmere only affects you, than storing luck would make it so when you make a guess, choose a direction, some kind of choice, it will more likely be a bad choice or wrong guess. I toss a coin and choose heads, I have a 50 percent chance of being right. If I'm storing luck, than the chances will be less in my favor. But that wouldn't stop me from being able to learn something and do it right. If I'm an expert sniper, and never miss, than even if I'm storing luck, I wouldn't loose that skill and miss.

 

So then "Luck" would essentially be your ability to take the right action, make the right choice? That's makes for a considerably more appealing power than I've been thinking of Feruchemical chromium as. If it was just "Everything turns out perfect for you. Hurrah" then it would be pretty awful for storytelling. And at least it means that storing Luck is a little safer: just lock yourself up in a steel cage or something while you store so any decisions you make can have absolutely no bearing on your future.

[A Joe in the Bush]

So luck would be more like Clairvoyance?

[TenSoon he/him]

I think there is a huge difference between a lack of luck and bad luck. A lack of luck is when nothing particularly 'lucky' happens, such as not winning the lottery. However, bad luck is when something particularly horrible happens, such as breaking your arm. If you store up luck, then you increase your chance of something bad happening, and decrease the chance of something good happening, and the opposite would happen when using luck. So, using PorridgeBrick's example of locking yourself in a cage when storing luck, you would have an increased chance of dropping the key where you couldn't reach it. However, if you were to start spending luck instead, then someone would probably come and let you out of the cage. That is my interpretation.

Edited May 19, 2014 by TenSoon