scrape_r_rational/data/cache2/4n6zf4.md

## [RT] You are born with superspeed and crippled legs. A short story. (x-post /r/WritingPrompts)

* Author: u/Faust91x  *Iteration X**
* URL: https://www.reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts/comments/4n2u8e/wp_everyone_is_born_with_a_disability_and_an/d40jipo
* Score: 6

* Created: 2016-06-08T19:52:31

### Post:

[Link to content](https://www.reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts/comments/4n2u8e/wp_everyone_is_born_with_a_disability_and_an/d40jipo)

### Comments:

> **u/Faust91x** [+2]  *Iteration X* (57 seconds later)
> 
> It was a rather simple but logical exploration on superspeed. I found it really fun to read even if it was so short.
> 
> Its what I think would make a rational Flash or Quicksilver dangerous more than their ability to move fast. Thoughts?

>> **u/redrach** [+14]  (an hour later)
>> 
>> I found some of it hard to believe. Just because you have super speed doesn't mean you're any better at memorizing, let alone capable of memorizing every possible chess game. Also actually having to spend all those eons doing nothing but computing chess games would take its toll on anyone's sanity, and the story doesn't try to address it.

>>> **u/Faust91x** [+3]  *Iteration X* (an hour later)
>>> 
>>> True, I think there should be a cap on the amount of memory a person has. After all one of the reasons scientists believe we sleep is to reorganize our memories and clean up our "RAM" so that we can keep processing information.

>> **u/buckykat** [+7]  (3 hours later)
>> 
>> Have you read [The Fall of Doc Future](http://docfuture.tumblr.com/post/82363551272/fall-of-doc-future-contents)? I was already thinking of Flicker just reading the prompt, because she's what happens when a writer who understands physics at all writes a speedster.

>> **u/vakusdrake** [+3]  (3 hours later)
>> 
>> I agree that having massive amounts of time isolated in your own mind wouldn't be quite as useful as depicted.    
>> You would only ever see the exact same image frozen before you because your eyes movement (like everything else outside your mind) is frozen from your perspective. Except that's not even true, _your eyes and indeed nearly all your senses stop responding to unchanging stimuli_, so basically what you have is as long as you desire inside a _sensory deprivation tank._     
>> In conditions like that a normal mind wouldn't be able to do that much, your memory is limited and you can't write anything down. Not having any external stimuli to spur your thinking would it hard to do anything that wasn't rote.   
>> 
>> However the biggest problem is that you would probably go insane after less than a few subjective days. Even just relatively tame sensory deprivation that involves muffled dark rooms can have quite intense affects, unfortunately I can't find any links on sensory deprivation tanks being used for long periods of time but I can't imagine it's great.

>>> **u/eaglejarl** [+3]  (17 hours later)
>>> 
>>> > eyes can't move / sensory deprivation 
>>> 
>>> I don't think it's that bad. I would assume that your powers let you move your eyes as fast as you want, just as they let you move your legs as fast as you want when you run. (Assuming you aren't crippled like this character.)
>>> 
>>> Smell could be a problem, since only so many scent particles reach your nose in any given second, but you can move to them. Light still moves at c, so you'll have no problem seeing. I'm not sure what happens with hearing -- Doppler effects would be enormous. Taste and touch aren't issues. Overall, I think that at least four of your senses aren't affected by superspeed, assuming you have the required secondary powers. 
>>> 
>>> /u/DocFuture: when Flicker is speeding, what does the world sound like to her?

>>>> **u/vakusdrake** [+2]  (a day later)
>>>> 
>>>> I was thinking more about if you were only dealing with the super thought speed, however given the _absurd speed_ the character is thinking in the story..     
>>>> it would be impossible to move his eyes fast enough to avoid the sensory deprivation effects unless you can move FTL, you could try and thus kill your opponent via gamma rays though...
>>>> 
>>>> Basically the character is thinking so fast, that the lightspeed barrier would make it impossible to avoid his body being immovable and stationary from his perspective.

>>>>> **u/eaglejarl** [+2]  (a day later)
>>>>> 
>>>>> Thinking requires movement (of neurotransmitters, if nothing else).  Electrochemical signals in the human body travel about 200 mph, IIRC. If we're allowing him to think at those speeds, his powers clearly include "move neurotransmitters at N times normal speed". Why shouldn't they also include "move eyes at N times normal speed"?

>>>>>> **u/khafra** [+2]  (a day later)
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> His powers would also have to include "see low-intensity radio waves," since that's the visual spectrum would be unless he can super-speed the reactions inside the Sun, that emit the light, that bounces off the object he's looking at.

>>>>>> **u/vakusdrake** [+1]  (a day later)
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> Because you can easily imagine his brain being replaced by some magic black box.     
>>>>>> However one's eye's must necessarily interact with the world through physical interaction by moving.    
>>>>>> Unless he has pitch black 180 degree eyes he _has to move his eyes_ to see.
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> The reason he can't move his eyes at that speed is same reason you can't move FTL, and even if you got close to c your eyes movement would release enough gamma rays to kill everyone nearby. Unless you invoke speed force BS but at that point you are basically saying "_because magic"_

>>>>>>> **u/eaglejarl** [+1]  (a day later)
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> I think you're arguing from Procrustes bed. Thinking that fast isn't possible for a human, because of physical limitations. Moving your eyes that fast isn't possible for a human, because of physical limitations. If you're going to allow one of these to surpass their physical limits, it's a bit arbitrary not to allow the other as well.

>>>>>>>> **u/vakusdrake** [+1]  (a day later)
>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>> I _just addressed that though_, perceiving anything at that kind of speed is impossible you think way too fast to see the world.   
>>>>>>>> The problem with saying physical limitations, is that _your eye's have to move to function_ that can't be hand waved away without making the character have obviously inhuman black eyes that don't have to move.
>>>>>>>> It's not comparable to thinking because he could easily have his brain altered by time dilation, or some other handwave, it's easy to come up with a way for him to think super fast. But one's eyes can't operate in the same black box way.
>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>> Also even with black eyes that don't move, (and thus don't necessitate FTL eye movement) everything is so slowed from your perspective that you can't see anything anyway, like how the faster a high speed camera is the dimmer it makes things.
>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>> _No remotely human character can get around this problem_ if you think sufficiently fast you just can't also perceive the world in any meaningful way.

>>>> **u/DocFuture** [+1]  (8 days later)
>>>> 
>>>> Nothing like ours.  The transition across the boundary of her inertial damping field hashes most sounds, and if she is supersonic (read: moving) the shockwave does the same thing.  There are a few tricks she can use if she wants to, say, listen for how many bullets were fired from a machine gun just before she showed up, but mostly she uses sight and listens to her headphones.  Any information she could get by sound, she can generally get more quickly some other way.  If not, she stops to listen.

>>>>> **u/eaglejarl** [+1]  (9 days later)
>>>>> 
>>>>> Ah, that makes sense. Now that you remind me I think I remember that being covered in the text. Thanks for clarifying.

> **u/chaosmosis** [+2]  *and with strange aeons, even death may die* (9 hours later)
> 
> Seems OP and like it would be difficult to write in an interesting way. The author can't give us ten thousand years of subjective experience, which means they'll be forced to pull solutions ex machina in unpredictable and unsatisfying ways.

> **u/Razputin7** [+2]  (11 days later)
> 
> I have no idea what any of you guys are saying, but I *think* you like it? If so, thank you.

>> **u/Faust91x** [+1]  *Iteration X* (11 days later)
>> 
>> This community discusses rational literature which is based around eliminating plot holes, exploring the logical limitations or conclusions of certain conditions in stories and creating protagonists that are realistic while avoiding PIS and CIS.
>> 
>> I chose your story because I liked the exploration on a speedster's analysis abilities and we discussed the limitations of such an ability, mainly that the human brain is only able to process a limited amount of data at a time before it gets overtaxed and the energy we would require to operate at such speeds.
>> 
>> I like your story and I think it was very well written.

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