## [BST][MK] If you were totally indestructible, how would you get the most of your superpower?

* Author: u/Subrosian_Smithy  *Nudist Beach**
* URL: https://www.reddit.com/r/rational/comments/3e8d76/bstmk_if_you_were_totally_indestructible_how/
* Score: 15

* Created: 2015-07-22T19:11:19

### Post:

Inspired by [this](https://forums.sufficientvelocity.com/threads/unbreakable-worm-au-altpower-taylor.20433/) Worm fanfic.

The main character is capable of shrugging off all forms of damage, and seemingly has no metabolism - she only breathes and eats out of habit, and she's immune to diseases and sicknesses. Her body is "locked" as it was when she first got her power - she'll never lose weight or develop more muscle, and she'll never age either (which is less than optimal as she's still a teenager). Finally, her resilience means she's never uncomfortable, and thus she can zone out so effectively she might as well be hibernating.

No super-strength to accompany the durability, or anything like that. What would you do with this power?

### Comments:

> **u/TimeLoopedPowerGamer** [+19]  *Utopian Smut Peddler* (an hour later)
> 
> Reddit has long been a hot spot for conversation on the internet. About 57 million people visit the site every day to chat about topics as varied as makeup, video games and pointers for power washing driveways.
> 
> In recent years, Reddit’s array of chats also have been a free teaching aid for companies like Google, OpenAI and Microsoft. Those companies are using Reddit’s conversations in the development of giant artificial intelligence systems that many in Silicon Valley think are on their way to becoming the tech industry’s next big thing.
> 
> Now Reddit wants to be paid for it. The company said on Tuesday that it planned to begin charging companies for access to its application programming interface, or A.P.I., the method through which outside entities can download and process the social network’s vast selection of person-to-person conversations.
> 
> “The Reddit corpus of data is really valuable,” Steve Huffman, founder and chief executive of Reddit, said in an interview. “But we don’t need to give all of that value to some of the largest companies in the world for free.”
> 
> The move is one of the first significant examples of a social network’s charging for access to the conversations it hosts for the purpose of developing A.I. systems like ChatGPT, OpenAI’s popular program. Those new A.I. systems could one day lead to big businesses, but they aren’t likely to help companies like Reddit very much. In fact, they could be used to create competitors — automated duplicates to Reddit’s conversations.
> 
> Reddit is also acting as it prepares for a possible initial public offering on Wall Street this year. The company, which was founded in 2005, makes most of its money through advertising and e-commerce transactions on its platform. Reddit said it was still ironing out the details of what it would charge for A.P.I. access and would announce prices in the coming weeks.
> 
> Reddit’s conversation forums have become valuable commodities as large language models, or L.L.M.s, have become an essential part of creating new A.I. technology.
> 
> L.L.M.s are essentially sophisticated algorithms developed by companies like Google and OpenAI, which is a close partner of Microsoft. To the algorithms, the Reddit conversations are data, and they are among the vast pool of material being fed into the L.L.M.s. to develop them.

>> **u/derefr** [+2]  (2 days later)
>> 
>> To me, it really sounds like this setup requires that the mind be no longer an electrochemical process of an organic brain, but rather to be recreated as some sort of em, perhaps running on whatever substrate now encompasses your body, or perhaps running outside our *metric universe*† altogether, with the results injected in. The body is now effectively something like a "game avatar" for the mind, being piloted by wire.
>> 
>> As such, I'd expect that none of the things about brain chemicals apply any more, since the brain is no longer chemical. But *equivalent processes* might have been created as part of the "hypervisor drivers" of whatever's simulating the mind—algorithmic processes that obey rules that determine that certain stimuli over extended periods will make you bored, etc.
>> 
>> Basically, I would imagine that whatever features a cybernetics engineer would need to hack into the hypervisor software to make an uploaded brain remain human over time, would be there; and anything *not* meeting that criterion (like, say, stomach cramps) would be simply left unimplemented.
>> 
>> † Not the same thing as the *causal universe*, note.

> **u/illz569** [+12]  (37 minutes later)
> 
> Thinking along more sinister lines, you'd be a great asset to any military/terrorist organization. You could defuse bombs without a problem, or set them off...
> 
> Furthermore, if she's impervious to all damage, does that mean that she never leaves biological material behind? Murder/assassination would be a breeze, because there would never be any DNA evidence.
> 
> Edit: The character in the fanfic should team up with Bakuda. Poisonous gas, flashbangs, napalm, time-dilation, they'd make a good duo.

>> **u/Dykster** [+6]  (2 hours later)
>> 
>> In the spirit of [this xkcd comic](https://xkcd.com/1105/):
>> 
>> If suddenly many important people around the world are being assassinated without DNA evidence, someone might get the idea that the guy who's invincible and leaves no DNA behind might be the killer of some of these murders.

>>> **u/illz569** [+9]  (2 hours later)
>>> 
>>> Well, yeah, if the murders were happening in a vacuum. But most crime scenes have DNA besides the killer's present, and plenty of killers don't leave enough usable DNA behind out of pure luck. Finding a crime scene with no DNA evidence wouldn't be evidence enough of our protagonist's involvement, and that's assuming that their abilities are well-known in the first place, which, if they were going to become an international assassin, I'm guessing they'd keep private. ;)

>>> **u/xkcd_transcriber** [+4]  (2 hours later)
>>> 
>>> [Image](http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/license_plate.png)
>>> 
>>> **Title:** License Plate
>>> 
>>> **Title-text:** The next day: 'What? Six bank robberies!? But I just vandalized the library!' 'Nice try. They saw your plate with all the 1's and I's.' 'That's impossible! I've been with my car the whole ti-- ... wait. Ok, wow, that was clever of her.'
>>> 
>>> [Comic Explanation](http://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/1105#Explanation)
>>> 
>>> **Stats:** This comic has been referenced 223 times, representing 0.3037% of referenced xkcds.
>>> 
>>> ---
>>> ^[xkcd.com](http://www.xkcd.com) ^| ^[xkcd sub](http://www.reddit.com/r/xkcd/) ^| ^[Problems/Bugs?](http://www.reddit.com/r/xkcd_transcriber/) ^| ^[Statistics](http://xkcdref.info/statistics/) ^| ^[Stop Replying](http://reddit.com/message/compose/?to=xkcd_transcriber&subject=ignore%20me&message=ignore%20me) ^| ^[Delete](http://reddit.com/message/compose/?to=xkcd_transcriber&subject=delete&message=delete%20t1_ctcnbms)

> **u/QWieke** [+9]  (2 hours later)
> 
> "Hey scientists I've found something that utterly breaks our understanding of human biology (and probably chemistry and physics as well), how about we try to figure this thing out?"
> 
> Aka, my default "what if you have superpowers" answer, it ought to result in significant progress in science (resulting in benefits for all) and afford me some measure of protection through publicity/fame.

>> **u/None** [+4]  (a day later)
>> 
>> I used to think this: but I get really paranoid regardless. 
>> 
>> The problem is though that we're talking about unprecedented levels of power here, not physically but in how you rewrite our understanding of the world. We're not talking about someone with a cool antibody. This has never happened before, in history. (No matter how much religious people want to coopt it into one narrative or the other)
>> 
>> Who the fuck knows how safe you are? Sure, the government *might* protect you if they know about someone coming after you, but the politics of the whole thing are complex enough that you can't count on everyone else just backing off and you going back to being a nice little pet in a government lab. 
>> 
>> EDIT: Well, being a pet is the most secure outcome. Better to say that living a normal life with no consequences (beyond the ones common to fame) because CNN and Gawker know who you are is just unrealistic. I mean, imagine what happens if the government tests you with nukes and you're still walking? Gilded cage is what you're getting, at best.

> **u/Izeinwinter** [+7]  (21 minutes later)
> 
> Stunt-person is the obvious pay-day here. More socially useful.. Become a fire fighter/rescue worker. Don't need protective gear, and no matter what goes wrong, can always be dug out of the rubble after. Law enforcement is also an option, but really, invulnerability won't be applicable nearly as often there as it would be in emergency work.

>> **u/None** [+1]  (3 days later)
>> 
>> Assuming you're not accidentally buried really far down, then left there once an average human would have died for sure.
>> 
>> Also, being a stunt-person is just *asking* for you to be in a potentially fatal accident in front of a camera, at which point your secret is out.

> **u/DCarrier** [+7]  (2 hours later)
> 
> I hire an agent. That's generally a good idea of you have superpowers, and they don't include having the power to get the most out of your power. Even Contessa had Doctor Mother helping her figure out how to best use her power.
> 
> I also start a trust fund to find me should I go missing, and carry a GPS and transmitter and a distress beacon with me at all times. I do *not* want to get buried alive. Zoning out helps, but I don't want to have to zone out until someone mines out the entire Earth for raw materials for a [Matrioshka brain](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matrioshka_brain).
> 
> Long term, I need to prevent the heat death of the universe. I am a perpetual motion machine, so in theory I could just turn a crank to power everything or something. The problem is that I'd need to be very careful never to lose matter. It takes nearly 90 petajoules to produce one gram of matter. 180 if you count the antimatter I'll also produce and need to get rid of. The good news is I have a *very* long time to figure out how to make something that needs that little maintenance. If I don't find anything, I figure I'll jump into a black hole. Unless my powers allow me to travel through time, that will kill me.

> **u/alexanderwales** [+4]  *Time flies like an arrow* (21 minutes later)
> 
> I'd do something that would (for someone else):
> 
> * Be really dangerous
> * Require special equipment
> 
> Repairing broken undersea cables, doing naked spacewalks, working as a firefighter ... those sorts of things. Probably not mining though, given that I could still be trapped forever by a collapse. Probably not nuclear work, given that I wouldn't want to be radioactive. Depending on how many other people with superpowers are out there, I could probably get a show on television, or a Youtube channel, which would give me an income, assuming that people wanted to watch me repeatedly surviving bigger and more extreme stunts.
> 
> Obviously I would also collect the Randi Prize. I'd also get some scientists together to poke and prod me in hopes of being able to reverse-engineer my power.
> 
> (Edit: My pitch to NASA would be that I don't need food or water, I wouldn't suffer muscle atrophy, I wouldn't suffer from cosmic ray bombardment, I can work on the exterior of the space station without a space suit, and I don't need a return vehicle.)

>> **u/illz569** [+4]  (32 minutes later)
>> 
>> >Probably not nuclear work, given that I wouldn't want to be radioactive.
>> 
>> If you're indestructible, does that mean that you're also impervious to external stimuli? Like, does heat still transfer into and out of your body? Can you actually become irradiated?

>>> **u/alexanderwales** [+2]  *Time flies like an arrow* (59 minutes later)
>>> 
>>> I don't know that you'd actually be able to become *irradiated*, but I do think you could be *contaminated*. Probably not irreparable, though still not something I'd want to deal with.
>>> 
>>> As to what radiation does to the perfectly preserved body ... that's a big question. I would assume that you'd be either perfectly reflective or perfectly absorptive, but I don't really know. Clearly if you *look* normal you're only reflecting a certain amount of light, right? And what about all the natural oils that you secrete? Do those not just replenish? Do they not get absorbed by the environment or washed away? Inquiring minds want to know.

>> **u/ArisKatsaris** [+1]  *Sidebar Contender* (21 hours later)
>> 
>> Spacewalks looks like something that would actually be more dangerous to this person than to normal humans, since the worst normal humans have to fear is death -- but if you drift into space, you'll have endless boredom of drifting through space unable to die, or will be trapped for endless eons in the center of sun....
>> 
>> Fate worse than death, if you don't have a way of deactivating the suffering called 'boredom'...
>> 
>> EDIT: Saw you talk about that, in a different comment. Never mind then.

>>> **u/Transfuturist** [+1]  *Carthago delenda est.* (2 days later)
>>> 
>>> If you lose contact while spinning (see Objects in Space), you're going to have a very unpleasant view.

>> **u/TimeLoopedPowerGamer** [+1]  *Utopian Smut Peddler* (an hour later)
>> 
>> Reddit has long been a hot spot for conversation on the internet. About 57 million people visit the site every day to chat about topics as varied as makeup, video games and pointers for power washing driveways.
>> 
>> In recent years, Reddit’s array of chats also have been a free teaching aid for companies like Google, OpenAI and Microsoft. Those companies are using Reddit’s conversations in the development of giant artificial intelligence systems that many in Silicon Valley think are on their way to becoming the tech industry’s next big thing.
>> 
>> Now Reddit wants to be paid for it. The company said on Tuesday that it planned to begin charging companies for access to its application programming interface, or A.P.I., the method through which outside entities can download and process the social network’s vast selection of person-to-person conversations.
>> 
>> “The Reddit corpus of data is really valuable,” Steve Huffman, founder and chief executive of Reddit, said in an interview. “But we don’t need to give all of that value to some of the largest companies in the world for free.”
>> 
>> The move is one of the first significant examples of a social network’s charging for access to the conversations it hosts for the purpose of developing A.I. systems like ChatGPT, OpenAI’s popular program. Those new A.I. systems could one day lead to big businesses, but they aren’t likely to help companies like Reddit very much. In fact, they could be used to create competitors — automated duplicates to Reddit’s conversations.
>> 
>> Reddit is also acting as it prepares for a possible initial public offering on Wall Street this year. The company, which was founded in 2005, makes most of its money through advertising and e-commerce transactions on its platform. Reddit said it was still ironing out the details of what it would charge for A.P.I. access and would announce prices in the coming weeks.
>> 
>> Reddit’s conversation forums have become valuable commodities as large language models, or L.L.M.s, have become an essential part of creating new A.I. technology.
>> 
>> L.L.M.s are essentially sophisticated algorithms developed by companies like Google and OpenAI, which is a close partner of Microsoft. To the algorithms, the Reddit conversations are data, and they are among the vast pool of material being fed into the L.L.M.s. to develop them.

>>> **u/alexanderwales** [+15]  *Time flies like an arrow* (an hour later)
>>> 
>>> No, I thought it through. All human spaceflight thus far (save for the Apollo missions) has been in low earth orbit, where orbital decay is a significant limitation in how long you can be left drifting. Per [this calculator](http://www.lizard-tail.com/isana/lab/orbital_decay/) I probably wouldn't be spending much more than a month drifting, even assuming that I had no means of slowing my orbit (I would likely insist on having an emergency electrodynamic tether wrapped around my waist that I could unfurl to increase drag in case some catastrophe).

>>>> **u/TimeLoopedPowerGamer** [-4]  *Utopian Smut Peddler* (2 hours later)
>>>> 
>>>> Reddit has long been a hot spot for conversation on the internet. About 57 million people visit the site every day to chat about topics as varied as makeup, video games and pointers for power washing driveways.
>>>> 
>>>> In recent years, Reddit’s array of chats also have been a free teaching aid for companies like Google, OpenAI and Microsoft. Those companies are using Reddit’s conversations in the development of giant artificial intelligence systems that many in Silicon Valley think are on their way to becoming the tech industry’s next big thing.
>>>> 
>>>> Now Reddit wants to be paid for it. The company said on Tuesday that it planned to begin charging companies for access to its application programming interface, or A.P.I., the method through which outside entities can download and process the social network’s vast selection of person-to-person conversations.
>>>> 
>>>> “The Reddit corpus of data is really valuable,” Steve Huffman, founder and chief executive of Reddit, said in an interview. “But we don’t need to give all of that value to some of the largest companies in the world for free.”
>>>> 
>>>> The move is one of the first significant examples of a social network’s charging for access to the conversations it hosts for the purpose of developing A.I. systems like ChatGPT, OpenAI’s popular program. Those new A.I. systems could one day lead to big businesses, but they aren’t likely to help companies like Reddit very much. In fact, they could be used to create competitors — automated duplicates to Reddit’s conversations.
>>>> 
>>>> Reddit is also acting as it prepares for a possible initial public offering on Wall Street this year. The company, which was founded in 2005, makes most of its money through advertising and e-commerce transactions on its platform. Reddit said it was still ironing out the details of what it would charge for A.P.I. access and would announce prices in the coming weeks.
>>>> 
>>>> Reddit’s conversation forums have become valuable commodities as large language models, or L.L.M.s, have become an essential part of creating new A.I. technology.
>>>> 
>>>> L.L.M.s are essentially sophisticated algorithms developed by companies like Google and OpenAI, which is a close partner of Microsoft. To the algorithms, the Reddit conversations are data, and they are among the vast pool of material being fed into the L.L.M.s. to develop them.

>>>>> **u/None** [+8]  (4 hours later)
>>>>> 
>>>>> Holy shit that post was fucking painful to read.

>>>>>> **u/Tirran** [+4]  (6 hours later)
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> If you read it while imagining the author's a precocious seven-year-old it becomes really cute and endearing

>>>>>>> **u/Transfuturist** [+2]  *Carthago delenda est.* (2 days later)
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> I don't find precocious children endearing. I want to punch my child self in the face.

>>>>>>> **u/TimeLoopedPowerGamer** [+0]  *Utopian Smut Peddler* (6 hours later)
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> Reddit has long been a hot spot for conversation on the internet. About 57 million people visit the site every day to chat about topics as varied as makeup, video games and pointers for power washing driveways.
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> In recent years, Reddit’s array of chats also have been a free teaching aid for companies like Google, OpenAI and Microsoft. Those companies are using Reddit’s conversations in the development of giant artificial intelligence systems that many in Silicon Valley think are on their way to becoming the tech industry’s next big thing.
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> Now Reddit wants to be paid for it. The company said on Tuesday that it planned to begin charging companies for access to its application programming interface, or A.P.I., the method through which outside entities can download and process the social network’s vast selection of person-to-person conversations.
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> “The Reddit corpus of data is really valuable,” Steve Huffman, founder and chief executive of Reddit, said in an interview. “But we don’t need to give all of that value to some of the largest companies in the world for free.”
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> The move is one of the first significant examples of a social network’s charging for access to the conversations it hosts for the purpose of developing A.I. systems like ChatGPT, OpenAI’s popular program. Those new A.I. systems could one day lead to big businesses, but they aren’t likely to help companies like Reddit very much. In fact, they could be used to create competitors — automated duplicates to Reddit’s conversations.
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> Reddit is also acting as it prepares for a possible initial public offering on Wall Street this year. The company, which was founded in 2005, makes most of its money through advertising and e-commerce transactions on its platform. Reddit said it was still ironing out the details of what it would charge for A.P.I. access and would announce prices in the coming weeks.
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> Reddit’s conversation forums have become valuable commodities as large language models, or L.L.M.s, have become an essential part of creating new A.I. technology.
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> L.L.M.s are essentially sophisticated algorithms developed by companies like Google and OpenAI, which is a close partner of Microsoft. To the algorithms, the Reddit conversations are data, and they are among the vast pool of material being fed into the L.L.M.s. to develop them.

> **u/HereticalRants** [+6]  (an hour later)
> 
> Everyone's talking about doing dangerous work, but infinite durability is physics-breaking stuff -- surely there's some way to generate energy from that?

>> **u/alexanderwales** [+7]  *Time flies like an arrow* (an hour later)
>> 
>> This is something I've wondered about for a long time. My favorite magic item in D&D is the immovable rod, but I could never figure out a way to make even a buffed (indestructible, truly immovable) version of it generate energy.
>> 
>> The problem is that the indestructible girl is *stopping energy*, or just not being affected by it, which seems energy neutral at best. (I guess she doesn't need to eat, so is technically capable of producing 2000 calories worth of energy every day, or more if she can just work at peak efficiency all the time, but ... that doesn't seem like it's worth much to anyone.)

>>> **u/HereticalRants** [+7]  (4 hours later)
>>> 
>>> The mention of metabolism brought to my attention that her body temperature is constant regardless of heat transfer in either direction. This could be useful.

>>>> **u/None** [+6]  (5 hours later)
>>>> 
>>>> [deleted]

>>>>> **u/illz569** [+2]  (6 hours later)
>>>>> 
>>>>> Why use her ambient heat when she can just crank a generator?

>>>>>> **u/None** [+4]  (7 hours later)
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> [deleted]

>>>>>>> **u/Rouninscholar** [+2]  (20 hours later)
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> How would you plug it in? Or upload her?

>>> **u/ishaan123** [+6]  *Sidebar Contestant* (8 hours later)
>>> 
>>> >My favorite magic item in D&D is the immovable rod, but I could never figure out a way to make even a buffed (indestructible, truly immovable) version of it generate energy.
>>> 
>>> Hmm... can you not treat an immovable object as identical to an object which is inexorably moving in circles, simply by changing your frame of reference? 
>>> 
>>> (For example, if it's immobile relative to *earth*, from the perspective of the sun it's always spinning in circles...)
>>> 
>>> I think either you *can* get free energy out of this, or you can't and by corollary we *also* proved that you can't get free energy out of unstoppable objects at constant velocity (assuming Newtonian and disregarding gravity for now), which is interesting in and of itself. 
>>> 
>>> My intuition is says it's probably the latter (so if you change your frame of reference to the sun, you can use the circularly-moving rod to make other objects spin in the exact same type of circle - but that's not free energy because *eventually* the whole universe will be spinning in that exact circle, as if someone were stirring it. In effect, it's non-renewable kinetic energy - you can only harness the motion of objects that are moving relative to the rod. Which is not exciting, since we can harness kinetic energy between objects moving relative to each other anyways, but if we have Earth as reference frame then i think we at least delay heat death by a fair amount as we anchor the stars and other massive objects one by one to keep the turbine powered by our spinning rod in place?)
>>> 
>>> Edit: Relevant: https://xkcd.com/162/ and I just realized that I've accidentally derived "conservation of (angular and linear) momentum",  which is apparently a thing... so yeah, I feel silly. The immovable rod gives us energy we would not otherwise have had access to, by allowing us to violate conservation of momentum each time it interacts with a moving object (and extracting more than would otherwise be possible from harvesting kinetic energy alone), but not easy infinite energy.
>>> 
>>> Edit 2: But see this: https://www.reddit.com/r/rational/comments/3e8d76/bstmk_if_you_were_totally_indestructible_how/ctdk97j
>>> 
>>> angular velocity may be different from linear velocity

>>>> **u/varselpalm** [+1]  (12 hours later)
>>>> 
>>>> Oh, right, of course, I guess you must be allowed rotating reference frames. Can't you just set two spinning in opposite directions then?

>>>>> **u/ishaan123** [+1]  *Sidebar Contestant* (20 hours later)
>>>>> 
>>>>> Yes, if you have *two* rods with differing (linear or angular) velocity, you get infinite energy. 
>>>>> 
>>>>> But if you only have one, or if you have multiple but they all have identical linear/angular velocities at all times, then you can't. The only thing you *can* do is bring the rest of the universe closer to the same velocity as your rods, and harness non-renewable energy out of that.
>>>>> 
>>>>>  (And in the D&D case, I assume even if there is more than one, they'd all be anchored to the earth and therefore be identical, so no dice. But if you, say, got an Earthen rod and a Martian rod, then....)
>>>>> 
>>>>> Edit: but see this caveat - I suspect there's something I've misunderstood about rotating reference frames.
>>>>> 
>>>>> https://www.reddit.com/r/rational/comments/3e8d76/bstmk_if_you_were_totally_indestructible_how/ctdk97j

>>> **u/STL** [+3]  (10 hours later)
>>> 
>>> Generating energy with an immovable rod is trivial. Activate it in a room that happens to be spinning, such that the rod is spinning end-over-end. (The D&D rules allow such rods to work on planets, so rotating reference frames obviously aren't forbidden.) The rod has a changing quadrupole moment and will [therefore](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravitational_wave#Sources_of_gravitational_waves) radiate gravitational waves, which carry energy - [thanks, Feynman](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sticky_bead_argument).
>>> 
>>> Could conservation of energy prevent this? I don't think so. Consider what happens if your rotating room is at the exact center of a rotating sphere of matter. Such a sphere would not radiate gravitational waves, so it'll rotate forever. If the immovable (with respect to the room/cavern) rod attempted to slow down to conserve energy, it would no longer be rotating with the sphere.
>>> 
>>> (I don't know enough GR to say what happens to a rotating rod of ordinary matter. It has to radiate, and I think the back-reaction is what will slow its rotation in free space.)

>>>> **u/Geminii27** [+1]  (16 hours later)
>>>> 
>>>> Consider that perhaps it four-dimensionally locks to the nearest mass of sufficient size. In effect, it becomes part of the mass-sphere (or the planet). It remains immovable with respect to the locked mass, but if you apply a force from outside the lock system, it will affect all of the mass normally.
>>>> 
>>>> Given that it presumably locks to the planet most of the time, this doesn't come up much. However, if you locked it to (say) a sphere of suitable mass, you could use a crane to pick up the rod - and the sphere would come with it. No energy output needed.

>>> **u/varselpalm** [+2]  (9 hours later)
>>> 
>>> That's an interesting puzzle. I think it's quite likely impossible, but I have one I have one plausible looking setup which I haven't properly disproved so I guess I'll post it anyway.
>>> 
>>> Given objects with masses 1, 2 and 3 (these masses in particular might not be right, but that's the ordering, and the hypothesis is that there's some values that would):
>>> 
>>> 1. Start in the state:
>>> 1------32
>>> 2. Launch object 2 away from 1, and lock 2 once you're in the state:
>>> 1-----3---2
>>> 3. Gravity will eventually turn this into (you can extract some energy here as well):
>>> 1--------32
>>> 4. Then unlock 2, and extract the energy from it falling to
>>> 132
>>> which looks like it should be less than the energy to reset it to
>>> 1------32
>>> plus the delta between what you use in the launch and what you can recover in step 3.
>>> 
>>> It should be relatively easy to prove whether that works and whether it's possible at all with gravity by actually doing the math, which I might do eventually but don't feel like right now.

>>>> **u/STL** [+2]  (10 hours later)
>>>> 
>>>> Where are you abusing the unphysical immovable/incompressible/indestructible property? What you're talking about sounds like it could be accomplished with masses on a frictionless ordinary rod, with pins to lock masses in place. This obviously conserves energy.
>>>> 
>>>> If you want a magical effect (violating conservation of energy) you need to actually exploit a magical property. Similarly, it takes about five seconds to look at hoax nonsense like the "EMDrive" and conclude that nothing about bouncing photons around in a box (thoroughly mundane) can lead to the magical effect of violating conservation of momentum.

>>>>> **u/varselpalm** [+2]  (12 hours later)
>>>>> 
>>>>> The difference vs. weights on a rod was supposed to be in the energy extraction steps (so that you don't just impart momentum to the rod - it would be equivalent with weights and pins on an immovable rod), but yeah, actually I don't think that helps.

>>> **u/notmy2ndopinion** [+1]  *Concent of Saunt Edhar* (21 hours later)
>>> 
>>> Having just read Seveneves, you could do some pretty funky bolo/whip-chain tricks in space using an immovable rod as a programmable static fulcrum.

>>> **u/ishaan123** [+1]  *Sidebar Contestant* (21 hours later)
>>> 
>>> That said, an object with a magically fixed velocity which is not anchored to the earth cannot follow the Earth perfectly, because the *earth* does not have fixed velocity. So I think you could write a physics-consistent story about a society which harnessed the kinetic energy out of the movement of the Earth itself - with possible plot twists involving risks of throwing the earth off course and into the sun...
>>> 
>>> Of course, if it's truly "anchored" to the earth, infinite energy is available once we can move the planet. Or failing that, if the Rod only follows the *celestially predicted* orbit given no human interference, there may or may not be room for interesting stuff involving the forces which adjust the course, since those would involve *non*-constant magical acceleration.

>>> **u/ishaan123** [+1]  *Sidebar Contestant* (22 hours later)
>>> 
>>> One point that I'm a little confused on is whether or not an unalterable angular velocity will give you an infinite supply of linear acceleration in any arbitrary direction. Might you not get infinite energy that way? My intuition keeps flipping between yes and no... a constant *acceleration* means infinite energy, after all, but I'm having difficulty reconciling that with the notion of arbitrary reference frames. 
>>> 
>>> So yeah, this might all be totally wrong and maybe it's an energy free for all afterall. That's what I get for not taking physics classes past high school :( although we're still strictly Newtonian so I *should* be able to resolve this with only what I know now. It seems I've been nerd sniped and have other work to do, so I'll leave this up for now and let's see if anyone can clear it up before I think about it more... and if we can't, we can always recruit /r/physics

>> **u/Chronophilia** [+3]  *sci-fi ≠ futurology* (3 hours later)
>> 
>> Stable things are stable because they have low energy - to destroy or deform a solid object, you need to put more energy into it until it can overcome the bonds keeping its atoms in place. An unstable object - like a radioactive material - is unstable because it can lose its extra energy and become something more stable.
>> 
>> Indestructible things are as stable as it's possible to be (maybe a little more than that). You get energy by *creating* indestructible things, not by destroying them.

>> **u/gabbalis** [+2]  (an hour later)
>> 
>> You could pump huge amounts of hydrogen into your indestructible stomach, using it to contain a small star.

>>> **u/Subrosian_Smithy** [+3]  *Nudist Beach* (2 hours later)
>>> 
>>> That wouldn't work, it would just explode out of your mouth.

>>>> **u/TimTravel** [+5]  (2 hours later)
>>>> 
>>>> > That wouldn't work, it would just explode out of your mouth.
>>>> 
>>>> I find this hilarious for some reason.

>>>> **u/gabbalis** [+2]  (2 hours later)
>>>> 
>>>> Hmm... presumably this power lets you reposition your body in any "normal" way. You can move your muscles etc. but it wouldn't let you dislocate your shoulder or allow your muscles to rip. So If I were to clench my arm to my chest at full strength, and someone were to pull it away with great strength, my power would allow that to happen, it simply would not allow the muscles to tear or the arm to come off etc.
>>>> 
>>>> So, given that alongside my further understanding of the mechanics of the lower esophageal sphincter, I believe you are correct. We would need some other, perhaps technological means to contain the micro-sun at the two available exit points, but it may still be more efficient that an entirely mundane containment method.

>> **u/ajuc** [+1]  (11 hours later)
>> 
>> I think it allows for faster-than-light sygnalling for example, but it depends on how exactly the indestructibility works.

> **u/bubblezoid** [+4]  (an hour later)
> 
> Along the same lines as the rest of the responses I'd look towards something dangerous as well, but rather than simple emergency response (admittedly I'd probably be involved in that on and off as well) I would help in hostage situations, warzones, and other high-pressure situations.  Bomb threats and whatnot would be good as well.  The size issue in being a teenage girl would stifle some of the possibilities, but I could rescue children from situations and use my indestructable body as a human shield without putting myself at risk.  
> For an explosive situation I would see if it's possible for me to bodily produce a seal around the given explosive.  It's easy to consider protecting people from explosions with my body but if there's not a solid seal it could still produce an unsafe situation for those around me.  Regardless of the physical capability of doing so, it would still be easy enough to walk the bomb away to a safer situation.  
> 
> Considering the overwhelming number of landmines still placed in wartime countries it would also make sense for me to run around and try to set them off.  Protecting a dog, kid, or woman from potentially blowing themselves up while they attempt to survive in a ravaged area would be a positive use of the power.  Considering my status as a teenaged girl in the situation I believe I would find it fun as well getting thrown around by explosions without any possibility of bodily harm.
> 
> And, if at some point I have gained enough reputation to get my way onto a space voyage I would set records for space walking time without space suit (rather easy considering).  I could also use my status to get into showdowns with famous MMA fighters and boxers and whatnot where they could attempt to beat me up in front of thousands of screaming fans.  That would likely get old in a bit but I'm sure I could get enough money from that and the advertising deals that would come with it to finance my ability to get involved in more of the activities mentioned earlier.
> 
> I'm not sure how rational this all sounds, but I think it sounds like a pretty good use of my capabilities in the situation.

> **u/elevul** [+4]  *Cyoria Observer* (3 hours later)
> 
> This is not fun without Siberian's infinite strength (or, to be precise, her existence as a fixed point in space).

> **u/ArgentStonecutter** [+3]  *Emergency Mustelid Hologram* (18 minutes later)
> 
> [FIGHT THE MYSTERONS!](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Captain_Scarlet_and_the_Mysterons)

> **u/gabbalis** [+3]  (an hour later)
> 
> Your stomach is a nigh-indestructible container, so you can use it as a strongbox, or containment for deadly materials. Your lungs are also available storage space if you don't need to speak, as are your... other bodily cavities.
> 
> You could of course use any of these cavities to turn omnidirectional explosive blasts into shaped charges.
> 
> Swallow a couple dozen kilograms of enriched uranium, hold an iron sphere in your mouth, and fire projectiles at [66 kilometers per second](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Plumbbob#Propulsion_of_steel_plate_cap). Or faster probably...

> **u/None** [+3]  (an hour later)
> 
> Live a long time. Clean up on long-term investments.
> 
> You're impervious to damage. Does this also mean no pain? You don't need to breathe. Does this mean you are *comfortable* not breathing? You don't need to eat. Does this mean you don't get hungry?

> **u/TimTravel** [+3]  (3 hours later)
> 
> Depending on how it works it might let you break through things. Your body is entirely impervious to damage, so what happens when you try to jam your pinky into a brick wall with all your strength? Your pinky certainly won't break, so if you anchor yourself sufficiently well that you can't get pushed back then you should break through. 
> 
> I have a nagging doubt my physics is off.

>> **u/clawclawbite** [+3]  (3 hours later)
>> 
>> Without strength, you need an energy source. You would make a great wreaking ball or human projectile.

> **u/chaosmosis** [+3]  *and with strange aeons, even death may die* (5 hours later)
> 
> I would try to avoid getting captured or thrown into the sun, etc.

> **u/notmy2ndopinion** [+3]  *Concent of Saunt Edhar* (21 hours later)
> 
> This idea is also reminiscent of "Fine Structure" by sam.
> 
> [Two killed in "transporter accident"](http://qntm.org/transporter)
> >Yesterday's experiment was a precise duplicate of the infamous teleportation test in August 2005, which was originally intended to exchange the positions of two tiny spheres of boron placed just a few feet apart.
> >That experiment instead resulted in physicist Dr Anne Poole being teleported into a local coal seam. She was stumbled upon by a mining crew 18 months later, having inexplicably survived her ordeal, for reasons which have left both doctors and scientists baffled.
> >Dr Poole no longer requires food, water or air to survive, but is being treated for severe psychological damage resulting from her long-term sensory deprivation.

> **u/literal-hitler** [+2]  (4 hours later)
> 
> >Disclaimer: Not based on the Bruce Willis movie of the same name.
> 
> I skipped it when I saw the title because I assumed otherwise, I may have to read this.

>> **u/chaosmosis** [+1]  *and with strange aeons, even death may die* (6 hours later)
>> 
>> Just read a couple chapters, IMO it's awful.

> **u/None** [+1]  (22 hours later)
> 
> How does my hair work?
> 
> What is the speed of sound through my bones?
> 
> Does my temperature increase when exposed to radiant energy?

> **u/Colonel_Fedora** [+1]  *Ravenclaw* (6 hours later)
> 
> I'd be pretty upset by this situation honestly, seeing as I'm a trans person and not particularly happy with my body. Ignoring that issue, I think I'd just live my normal life without fear. I'd be immune to the elements so homelessness would be an inconvenience at worst. So my focus would be on finding some measure of long-term happiness. And who knows, with all the time in the world, maybe I could become an omnidisciplinary scientist, among other things.

---