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[MK][RT] The Two Year Emperor, Ch74 - Escape from a Black Hole

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u/failed_novelty [+10] (an hour later)

Suze uses AWESOME!!! It's super effective!

Death is confused...

Death used bide! It's not very effective...

Death is unable to battle!

u/eaglejarl [+4] (an hour later)

I stared at this for several long seconds, trying to figure out what you were talking about.

Then I completely cracked up; my eyes are watering from laughing so hard. Thank you.

u/failed_novelty [+3] (an hour later)

No, no, no, thank YOU. Your story is awesome.

u/eaglejarl [+3] (an hour later)

I just caught myself re-reading this [the original post] out loud in a WWE / Battle of the Monster Trucks announcer voice ("It's the battle of the Monster Trucks, trucks, trucks!!!!") and snickering.

u/eaglejarl [+5] (16 minutes later)

Short chapter today.

u/Drazelic [+5] Dai-Gurren Brigade (7 hours later)

Great chapter, but somehow I feel like it would have flowed better as an epilogue to book 1, rather than being stuck in the midst of book 2.

u/Gurkenglas [+2] (an hour later)

We should get someone from /r/science or /r/physics or something to ask them how this would actually play out.

u/AmyWarlock [+1] (13 hours later)

I don't know about the ending saying there would be nothing after such a long time. Energy isn't conserved in dnd so it seems unlikely

u/Gurkenglas [+1] (17 hours later)

Nah, I mean what it would look like to stand invulnerably (but under the effects of time dilation etc.) next to a black hole for its duration of existence.

u/AmyWarlock [+1] (19 hours later)

Well they are a god so that's probably not too out there

u/OffColorCommentary [+1] (a day later)

As time approaches infinity, the probability that somebody will have discovered a way to (possibly accidentally) destroy the Prime Material plane approaches 1.

The method that pops into mind requires a couple epic levels, but I recall finding a way to throw the Elemental Plane of Earth, and a Hulking Hurler does 1d6 damage per 200 pounds of thrown object, so that'd probably do it.

u/None [+2] (a day later)

Not necessarily. Lets take an 'event' to mean the evolution of one state of the universe to another state by way of the laws of physics.

The number of possible states of an infinite universe is at most countably infinite. This is because space is discrete, any finite region of space can only have a finite number of states, and any sum of discrete items is at most countable.

Also, it is possible (albeit /incredibly unlikely/) for the entire universe to spontaneously tunnel into another state.

Thus, the number of possible events in the universe can be viewed as the number of functions mapping one element of {N} to another element of {N}. This is an uncountable set, and so the number of possible events in the universe is also uncountable.

This means that even given an infinite amount of time, you cannot say that any arbitrary event will occur with probability approaching 1, or else EVERY event would have to occur with probability 1, and there simply just isn't enough time for that to happen.

Edit: Unless you assume a universe with finite volume. Then there are only a finite number of states, and then /every possible event/ would occur /infinitely many/ times. That's just weird to think about.

u/OffColorCommentary [+1] (a day later)

Well, that's impressive.

I was specifically thinking about laws of physics as buggy as D&D, with sentient beings around to fiddle with them, though. I suppose I should say "the chances the universe ends up in a state that nobody can do anything about (for instance, because the universe is empty) approaches 1."

Though with the quantum tunneling there's always a chance it'll revert to some other state, so I guess it doesn't actually approach 1.

u/philip1201 [+1] (19 hours later)

I don't think we can answer that with presently known physics. Any case where the Schwarzschild radius expands faster than the speed of light - where particles can go from "outside a black hole" to "should already be inside a black hole" instantaneously at least doesn't conform to normal behavior around a black hole, so I'm not sure if simultaneity is well-defined in this case, rather than producing the answer "Neklos is in the infinitely far future".

Because of that, I'm also unsure how much subjective time passes for Neklos before the decay of the black hole, if it ever would: normally, objects never seem to pass the horizon from the outside, so the black hole decays before they appear to fall in, and since everyone has to agree on observations, the black hole decays before you fall in, but with Neklos he just discontinuously ends up inside a black hole.

u/actually_just_idiot [+2] (3 hours later)

What's the gravitational time dilation factor?

Let's assume he sat around inside the black hole for a few minutes (from his perspective). Let's assume he was around ten meters away. We know that it's ten billion solar masses.

The equation I found on the internet breaks down inside of the Swartzchild radius (i.e. the event horizon). The logic is that if you measure the amount of time it appears to take for somebody to fall into a black hole, it take an infinite amount of time, because the photons heading in your direction are going slower and slower as they get closer to the black hole.

I wonder if any of Death's followers tried to teleport into the room to save him. Where is this room, anyhow? Not on the Material Plane, I hope.

u/eaglejarl [+7] (5 hours later)

[time dilation]

I am treating the area inside the event horizon as also having infinite time dilation. From the outside universe reference frame, Neklos is stuck inside a Temporal Stasis (except not magical). From his own perspective he was only in there for one round -- 6 seconds. When the black hole finished evaporating the time dilation fell apart and he returned to find a universe where all the protons had decayed into nothing.

Where is this room, anyhow? Not on the Material Plane, I hope.

Nope. Extradimensional space (aka demiplane) that Afi had created.

u/Zephyr1011 [+2] Potentially Unfriendly Aspiring Divinity (5 hours later)

In a universe with magic, that can break the conservation of energy laws with ease, would the all protons in the universe necessarily ever decay into nothing?

u/Nepene [+3] (5 hours later)

Given how many things can go wrong someone would likely destroy civilization eventually.

u/Zephyr1011 [+2] Potentially Unfriendly Aspiring Divinity (5 hours later)

In a universe where millions of random commoners are being given obscenely high class levels? Killing all of them sounds extremely implausible. They all have the capability to create their own demiplanes for one.

u/LordSwedish [+3] Q Continuum (6 hours later)

Someone will figure out a way to cast "Polymorph Any Object: proton to tons of antimatter." on a universal scale eventually.

u/awesomeideas [+5] Dai stiho, cousin. (6 hours later)

Polymorph Any Object: Multivertse to nothing

u/Chronophilia [+1] sci-fi ≠ futurology (7 hours later)

PAO can only affect nonmagical inanimate objects of up to 100 cubic feet per level - or one creature. By eaglejarl's reading of the rules, this is a limit on the size of the object's original form, not what it turns into.

And PAO is temporary, too. It is permanent if the transformation is relatively simple (there's a definition of this in the SRD), and apparently casting it twice makes it permanent (temporarily polymorph A into B, then permanently polymorph B into B). But again, this only works if B is small enough to be a target of PAO.

u/awesomeideas [+2] Dai stiho, cousin. (7 hours later)

Interesting! Okay, polymorph any object: rock to equivalent volume of spacetime in a true vacuum state.

u/Chronophilia [+2] sci-fi ≠ futurology (7 hours later)

That would work, assuming the universe is currently in a false vacuum state.

u/Nepene [+1] (7 hours later)

If they did flee to a demiplane I don't think that their worship would go to him.

u/Sceptically [+1] (15 hours later)

How about another prime material plane? Last I looked there was the potential for more than one of those to exist in the D&D cosmology.

u/Nepene [+1] (20 hours later)

That would also, I suspect, bar their worship from flowing to him otherwise a god would be powered by every realm in the multiverse.

u/Sceptically [+1] (a day later)

Indeed, and I should have left my comment one level higher ;-)

u/Chronophilia [+2] sci-fi ≠ futurology (7 hours later)

I recall it being a fairly major plot point that Neklos' Portfolio Sense would give him some warning before he died. Shouldn't it get a mention here?

u/eaglejarl [+5] (7 hours later)

His portfolio sense only applies for up to 20 weeks into the future. His death was a lot farther out than that. (I chose to have the '20 weeks' be in the reference frame of the Earth, not of Neklos himself.)

u/Chronophilia [+2] sci-fi ≠ futurology (8 hours later)

Absolutely. But once he exits the time dilation field, should he notice his impending death?

u/ulyssessword [+5] (8 hours later)

Once he exits the field, he has no godly powers anymore.

u/rtkwe [+1] (2 days later)

He no longer has any worshipers,meaning his deity level would have dropped to zero, or the portfolio, since the portfolio was given to Suze soon after she trapped Death in the black hole. Either way he doesn't have the sense of his impending death.