Question Shifter test

How does testers evaluate shiftrs? have them stand in a scanning booth and ask them to shift forms?

Various objective measurements:
- Can they change their volume or just shift it around? If so, by how much? Does changing into incrementally larger/smaller forms (like Mokele') helps?
- Can they change mass or just compress/expand it? If so, by how much? Does changing into incrementally larger/smaller forms (like Mokele') helps?
- Are they limited to human shapes? To roughly humanoid shapes? Can they do a form with extra limbs?
- Can they do original forms, or only reproduce some existing forms?
- How complex and detailed are the changes? For instance, if they switch sex, are they fertile? If they take the form of a fish, can they breathe underwater? If a snake, can they produce venom? Or are the changes just in outwards appearance?
- Are they able to take arbitrary shapes a la Plastic Man? If so, how malleable are they? How ductile? Do they have leverage issues like Reach has in his male form?
- If they take the shape of a magical creature, do they get the creature's magical attributes, like Mokele'?

Do the dead or non-living parts of their body shift too? Hair is an extrusion; it's not alive. If it can directly shift, then that implies... something.

If the non-living parts of the body can't be directly shifted, can they be absorbed, broken down, and recreated? (For example, rather than their hair changing color, it would first be slurped back into their scalp and then re-extruded in the new color.)

To what degree can they transform or transmute the matter they're made of? Can skin cells become non-skin cells? Can carbon atoms become calcium?

Can they absorb nearby materials to supplement their body's resources?

Are stretchers (like Reach) considered shifters?

Anne wrote: Are stretchers (like Reach) considered shifters?

Depends on how they do it, they can also be Warpers,

For specific examples Reach is a shifter-stretcher, with the shifter BIT being an important fact in their story, while Flex/Devaki (Seraphim's roommate) is a warper-stretcher.

Hebblejebble wrote: For specific examples Reach is a shifter-stretcher, with the shifter BIT being an important fact in their story, while Flex/Devaki (Seraphim's roommate) is a warper-stretcher.

Flex is a true warper though, her stretching doesn't work the same way in that she isn't actually stretching her body like Reach does. So she isn't actually a shifter as she isn't shifting her body or her powers in any way- it just appears to be that way.

And there is no such thing as a "shifter-stretcher", Reach is simply a double-shifter: s/he shifts her body form to qualify in that area and stretch their body as their primary power. Both are still shifter traits.

Kettlekorn wrote: Do the dead or non-living parts of their body shift too? Hair is an extrusion; it's not alive. If it can directly shift, then that implies... something.

If the non-living parts of the body can't be directly shifted, can they be absorbed, broken down, and recreated? (For example, rather than their hair changing color, it would first be slurped back into their scalp and then re-extruded in the new color.)

To what degree can they transform or transmute the matter they're made of? Can skin cells become non-skin cells? Can carbon atoms become calcium?

Can they absorb nearby materials to supplement their body's resources?

It depends on the shifter him/herself. We've seen Jello, Jimmy T, and Bogus change their forms to match people so they have changed their hairstyle and coloring. Jimmy might be the exception to the rule on his own as it's not clear if his hair even exists as hair or if it's part of his abilities due to being able to fully change his form. Others can't shift their hair, that was mentioned in at least one story by one of the shifters.

I wasn't asking if those things are possible. I was stating a list of questions that a tester might ask when examining a given shifter to determine the extent of their abilities.

JG wrote: Shifter ratings are more based upon flexibility, speed, scope and whether or not your shifting is limited to physical laws.

Speed might also be a potential way to rule out a shifter trait. I can picture a warper that toggles between a fixed set of wildly different forms presented in this perceptual plane. However, the classic examples are supernatural: vampire (bat, wolf, man, mist), archangels (how else to manage that many sets of wings?), Hela (half-dead / half-alive, or perhaps both at the same time)

Going by the classification we've received so far let's take an OC:

How stable is each shift: [t] toggles between "normal" (120 lbs in fully-clothed and wet), "bone-crushing dog" (200-300 lbs), and "water horse" (1,200 lbs)

How much finesse: [f] all-or-nothing

Beauty is skin-deep: [c] but ugly is to the bone

Triggery: [w] at-will

Rejection of reality: [e] and I substitute my own. (no source found for weight differences)

Codes: (tfcwe)


Level:

[4]: i,r, OR (l, e, or g) CHECK
[5]: e OR c OR both i and r CHECK
[6]: g OR (I, r, AND c) NOPE.



I would have rated Reinforce as SHFT-5(ifnse) because the weight changes didn't seem to be externally-compensated. If the codes are really (infsl), I should pay more attention some time. (If Adam's routinely massing 1,200 pounds or so, just at higher density in his human form, that could have some interesting effects for his love life)

It could be that the classification as-is accounts for edge cases, because once the shifts start ignoring conservation of mass there has to be Something Going On. Magic and Warping can be that extra something and thus the rating jump is a warning to others to be ready for nasty surprises. "c" is almost a guarantee of wierd psionic senses, magic, and/or other dangers.

Efindumb wrote: there is no such thing as a "shifter-stretcher"

That may have a poor choice of terminology on my part. Reach is a stretcher, it is a reasonable description of what they do. Their power, as labelled on their MID, is a shifter. Two different, but contextually correct, labels for them.

Would "shifter/stretcher" have conveyed that better, or did I need a more verbose description?

Kristin Darken wrote: most Shifter testing is done 'after' the knowledge that the mutant has manifested as a Shifter. It is very difficult to test for Shifting in the 'abstract' where you don't know what a mutant can or cannot do and you just want to try to find out of they are a Shifter.

A few ways to do that? Push the individual through a series of tests to identify triggering states? Put them in situations where being a little taller, having slightly longer arms, or being able to assume an alternate form would be a live saving condition (whether to fight or hide/camouflage/etc).

Once a Shifter is 'known' to be one, tests mainly focus on scope, adaptability, control, finesse, and mass. ie do you have alternate forms, or abstract forms, do you will the change or is the trigger more of an abstract aspect, are the changes just surface appearance or working parts or complete 'to the metaphysical level' changes, are you working with just your existing mass or can you acquire more or displace some of your existing mass (and does that happen locally or across dimensional boundaries)?

How do you test those things? Well... testing for mass requires the typical mass-volume displacement tests. Those can be handled with submersion tests easily enough. The 'depth of change' tests can be done with blood tests, though they may have to be 'in place' blood tests... depending on whether the blood reverts on extraction or at the moment of change whether in the body or not or just stays permanently changed. But that too is a test, for whether states are stable forms or not.

How would being a Shifter manifest itself in Pattern Theory?

Mister D wrote: How would being a Shifter manifest itself in Pattern Theory?

Like anything else: a summation over a series of values for each of 10+ dimensions, some variables of which are themselves expressed as equations in terms applicable to one or more of those or other dimensions.

null0trooper wrote:

Mister D wrote: How would being a Shifter manifest itself in Pattern Theory?

Like anything else: a summation over a series of values for each of 10+ dimensions, some variables of which are themselves expressed as equations in terms applicable to one or more of those or other dimensions.

Is it crazy that I actually accept that as a valid reasoning or does that make me insane like the people who worked on the theory itself?