[COLOR="SeaGreen"]Urza never had a spark. he was, for all purposes, the first Artificial Planeswalker
"The blast had slain him, and the Thran powerstones had brought him back to life because he was-had always been- a planeswalker, like Meshuvel herself."
Page 3 of Planeswalker. Urza had his own spark that flared, the power from the powerstones was incorporated into his being, just as many powers were incorporated into Karn when the Legacy ignited. Wizards never specifically stated that Urza's spark was Glacian's. The Thran was written a year after Planeswalker and the Brothers War, so at the time of writing, there was no spark in Urza's eyes. The fact is they either forgot it existed, decided to let people make of it what they will, or plan to develope it further, as it is still being carried around by a living character.
And to stick to the topic of the OP, You should take notice that the Mirrans say Karn is coming, even though Venser is the only person on Mirrodin who knows his name, and the Phyrexian say The Father of Machines is coming. If you read the field reports wizards puts out on the minisite, there is a growing number of phyrexian higher ups that are beginning to acquiesce to Sheoldred's claim that Karn is not the true Father of Machines, so the phyrexians can very well be talking about someone completely different. Either way this turns out I'm happy to see an old world character besides Bolas coming back to the storyline
Not quite, because Tezzeret experienced the alteration that Renn made. Future Renn then had a conversation with past Tezzeret from a possible future that Tezzeret lost, which would have been impossible if it was merely probability alteration.
Essentially, Renn had already won. There was no reason other than to gloat for him to clockwork, and even if he was only going to gloat, his action altered the outcome beyond what he could control. And here's the thing. If it was alteration of probability, then Renn needn't have done it at all, because instead of gloating, he'd just alter the reality around him to have the answers spilling out of Tezzeret's mouth for all the torture he visited upon him.
Instead, he ended up with Tezzeret lopping off his head and using him like a backpack. Now what idiot would alter probability to change the fact he WON to one where he lost so badly?
Well it could be that Renn saw the potential future where he already had Tezzeret captured and clockworked there, not to the one where he had actually not died. While it is an extremely powerful skill, and it takes a caster of significant intelligence to even begin to master, it is still subject to human error and interference. Imagine if you could clockwork yourself to a potential reality where you controlled the world, and have your every wish granted. would you have the foresight to check to see what happened beyond that period of time, such as it eventually results in a nuclear holocaust, or you get assassinated shortly after clockworking there, or would you leap into action? Because even though you can control the outcome of certain events, your brain is still keyed to think temporaly, and that makes you impatient and rash.
The primary problem is... we already know that it IS time manipulation.
Tezzeret is forcefully pushed back in time when Renn wants to talk to him in an alternate timeline. Renn then speaks to him from fifteen minutes inm the future (or was it hours... it's been a while and Test of Metal had parts that were painful to read)
So, it's not a matter of probability control. It's actually the manipulation of the fabrics of the universe to allign it to the preferred outcomes. Even going back in time and choosing other outcomes thereby ERASING YOUR OWN TIMELINE.
So what you have said here collapses in on itself. Manipulating the fabric of the universe to align it to the preferred outcome is calling into being what could have potentially happened, Renn didn't go back and change anything, he willed himself into his potential victory, or at least he thought. Consider it to be both the most powerful arcane and existential act. You will the future into what it could be and it becomes it. If it was as simple as erasing a timeline, once Bolas had learned to clockwork, even if he could only do it post Mending, he would have already put himself into the position where everything he wanted to accomplish had happened.
This might be why Crucius became what he became. If you were eventually able to clockwork to all possible outcomes of all potential timelines, your physical state would probably resemble the Blind Eternities itself...chaotic yet omnipresent. It was written that when Crucius created etherium, he vanished when he realized what he had done. Perhaps the realization is what caused the creation of the Metal Island, that place outside of and connected to all of time.
Interestingly, in Gathering Forces pt. III, Venser speaks as though he had never seen Mirrodin before at all, stating "I had always wanted to see it, but on my own terms"
Test of Metal discussion thread
there are enough information.
If you count complaints about it ruining stories then yes, the Test of Metal thread has a lot of information.
What I'm looking for is a discussion about how a new concept could be said to work in the Magic universe to better relate to ours.. not the words "hate clockworking" every three posts
In all honesty I have read a lot of complaints about how people don't like it or understand it, or how they convoluted the story with it, so I am trying to understand it better, rather than complain
So as creatives newest edition of "potential unraveling the universe" magic, I feel that clockworking does warrant some of our attention. I realize a great many of the people reading this will urge to go on and on about how it is one more retcon tool to bring back old characters, or one more Deus ex Machina to toss into a story when the heroes need saving. I am not interested in this and I ask you to keep to a minimum. What I would like to see are some rational explanations as to how clockworking actually affects the multiverse, or how you think it functions to bring about the results that it does. we were left with a vague description of exactly what it is from Test of Metal, so i have been trying to wrap my brain around it and this is what i have so far:
Clockworking in Magic first and foremost has nothing to do with time-travel. I have seen many people in this forum talk about "alternate timeline" characters, and I feel that this is not an apt description. As I understand it clockworking deals in potential timelines, not alternative ones. I am sure most of you have heard of or read about Schroedinger's cat, and if you haven't then you should follow the link before continuing.
Much like the cat in the experiment can be said to exist as both dead and not dead, actions in magic can be said to have both happened and not happened in all potential universes. The ability of the clockworker functions as the measurement of these events, and with sufficient power the clockworker can outright force the potential into reality.
It is not that they are digging into a timestream that had already happened, as Urza did, in fact it hasn't happened, or it could happen. Perhaps the braided potential realities explanation was a bit to linear for what was actually taking place.
However again this is merely my conjecture, feel free to offer your own ideas or thoughts, just please do not do so in a negative manner
The Heartstones weren't supposed to be that important to generate pocket planes within them (and I don't believe that ANY powerstone has pocket planes inside). They weren't supposed to leave the room they were stored within... and again, that puts creation and activation of that Oil too much to the past imo. There were so freaking many phyrexians on Dominaria throughout those thousands of years, that it should have fell to the oil way before Invasion, however slow it might grow on a world that is not purely made of metal.
Yet, your explanation seems to be best I have heard.
Every powerstone contains a pocket plane, it is proven by Glacian in the Thran to be an infallible occurrence every time you compress mana like a mana rig does
There's also the nonsensical and quite frankly semi-insulting appearance of Liliana in Test of Metal, who may very well be from a freaking alternate reality, to complicate matters. God, I hope they unwrite (not a word, but I don't care. The atrocities done to canon in that book are awful) a fair amount of that book. The Tezzeret parts were okay, but everyone else seemed to have failed fourth grade and never grown up after that.
Gods i could not have put that better myself, I'm glad I'm not the only one who noticed the phrase "Pimp slap" in a Magic novel
Good one. Didn't think of that.
It sounds plausible.
Unless... Phyrexians somehow adapt. That's what they usually do.
They already got some darksteel. If you let them to work with etherium for a little while...
Well, decision is on the Creative's side.
Remember the part where etherium is a piece of the Blind Eternities itself, phyrexians learn how to manipulate that, it's game over man
300 years elapsed between the time rift crisis and the apocalypse. The Mirari was made during the first 100 years.
What kind of kills me about the entire affair of Karn's heartstone leaking was... he lost a physical body. Just like every other planeswalker, his body became nothing but an extension of his mind and he actually completely remade his body out of a quicksilver like substance, one that was more human and lithe than his original silver body. So... the hearstone completely ceased physically existing when Karn was a bloody walker!
Same thing came to my mind as well, they even describe in detail at the end of Apocalypse
You either have the spark or you don't, you are either a planeswalker or you aren't.
Karn lost his spark sealing the Tolarian rift, then used the weatherlight's planeswalking engine to go to Mirrodin.
These are facts, we know this is what happened.
Where is exactly is it stated as fact that he used the Weatherlight? The only text reference it as either his "last act as a planeswalker", or "as his power to planeswalk left him", for give me for not having the links on hand, but they have been thrown around many times these last few weeks
Fair point about the heartstone though, perhaps it could be repaired or replaced
Even removing the heartstone would destroy Karn's personality. It would reset Karn to the being who woke up in the Tolarian lab, not having any experience at all. You'd have a completely new being.
That is very true, but it would make a very interesting twist to have Karn suddenly at Tezzeret's will if he was rebuilt
How percisely do you split a person in half? Especially when what makes that person a person is the thing thats infected?
One more thing came to mind, in ToM wasn't Tezzeret able to manipulate a portion of Bolas's subconcious into another Doctor Jest, perhaps the same could be done to the Father side of Karn, suppressing it in much the same way that Doc suppressed Bolas's ability to clockwork
I realize that there are weak spot to this idea, however with the Tezzeret we saw at the end of Test of Metal in play there could be alot of outcomes
TRIPLE post merged and warned. Use Edit button, please.
Karn can planeswalk still, he had the weatherlight's planeswalking engine in him. (In fact that's how he got to Mirrodin after he lost his spark)
There's no way to seperate Karn's tained half from his "pure" half.
To my understanding He used the last of his spark to throw himself into the Blind Eternities, and as for not being able to salvage any of him, that remains to be seen
So this is just my personal musing, because frankly I'm tired of reading threads about Karn having or not having a spark at the moment, so let's all assume that when Wizards says he is no longer a planeswalker in various writings, or that he has no spark, they mean it.
That being said, after reading Test of Metal a second time I have begun to see the possibilty of Karn regaining the ability to planeswalk..or at least 'crawl.
In a bit of dialogue in ToM, Tezzeret attempts to explain the nature of etherium to Jace, in which he describes it not only as a source of mana, much like a powerstone, but also as having an "inanimate version of a Planeswalker's Spark". While the novel goes on to suggest out that Tezzeret is the sole being capable of making etherium, it is also stated that planeswalkers are the only beings with ability to manipulate it fully.
Given that Venser is already trying to build a planeswalking machine it is viable that were they to at least rescue the part of Karn not corrupted a new body could be manufactured for Karn from etherium.
Alternatively we know that while Tezzeret was sent to Mirrodin on Bolas's orders, he is ever ready to throw a wrench in the dragon's plans. Tezzeret himself could reconstruct Karn.
And there is the fact that Karn has the skill of the multiverse's greatest artificer to ever exist, if he regained his faculties imagine what he could do if he got ahold of etherium
Again, just a theory based on how I have interpreted the function of etherium, let me know what you think, and when the time comes...... vote Yes to Propostition:Karn, Etherium Golem
"The blast had slain him, and the Thran powerstones had brought him back to life because he was-had always been- a planeswalker, like Meshuvel herself."
Page 3 of Planeswalker. Urza had his own spark that flared, the power from the powerstones was incorporated into his being, just as many powers were incorporated into Karn when the Legacy ignited. Wizards never specifically stated that Urza's spark was Glacian's. The Thran was written a year after Planeswalker and the Brothers War, so at the time of writing, there was no spark in Urza's eyes. The fact is they either forgot it existed, decided to let people make of it what they will, or plan to develope it further, as it is still being carried around by a living character.
And to stick to the topic of the OP, You should take notice that the Mirrans say Karn is coming, even though Venser is the only person on Mirrodin who knows his name, and the Phyrexian say The Father of Machines is coming. If you read the field reports wizards puts out on the minisite, there is a growing number of phyrexian higher ups that are beginning to acquiesce to Sheoldred's claim that Karn is not the true Father of Machines, so the phyrexians can very well be talking about someone completely different. Either way this turns out I'm happy to see an old world character besides Bolas coming back to the storyline
Well it could be that Renn saw the potential future where he already had Tezzeret captured and clockworked there, not to the one where he had actually not died. While it is an extremely powerful skill, and it takes a caster of significant intelligence to even begin to master, it is still subject to human error and interference. Imagine if you could clockwork yourself to a potential reality where you controlled the world, and have your every wish granted. would you have the foresight to check to see what happened beyond that period of time, such as it eventually results in a nuclear holocaust, or you get assassinated shortly after clockworking there, or would you leap into action? Because even though you can control the outcome of certain events, your brain is still keyed to think temporaly, and that makes you impatient and rash.
So what you have said here collapses in on itself. Manipulating the fabric of the universe to align it to the preferred outcome is calling into being what could have potentially happened, Renn didn't go back and change anything, he willed himself into his potential victory, or at least he thought. Consider it to be both the most powerful arcane and existential act. You will the future into what it could be and it becomes it. If it was as simple as erasing a timeline, once Bolas had learned to clockwork, even if he could only do it post Mending, he would have already put himself into the position where everything he wanted to accomplish had happened.
This might be why Crucius became what he became. If you were eventually able to clockwork to all possible outcomes of all potential timelines, your physical state would probably resemble the Blind Eternities itself...chaotic yet omnipresent. It was written that when Crucius created etherium, he vanished when he realized what he had done. Perhaps the realization is what caused the creation of the Metal Island, that place outside of and connected to all of time.
If you count complaints about it ruining stories then yes, the Test of Metal thread has a lot of information.
What I'm looking for is a discussion about how a new concept could be said to work in the Magic universe to better relate to ours.. not the words "hate clockworking" every three posts
Clockworking in Magic first and foremost has nothing to do with time-travel. I have seen many people in this forum talk about "alternate timeline" characters, and I feel that this is not an apt description. As I understand it clockworking deals in potential timelines, not alternative ones. I am sure most of you have heard of or read about Schroedinger's cat, and if you haven't then you should follow the link before continuing.
Much like the cat in the experiment can be said to exist as both dead and not dead, actions in magic can be said to have both happened and not happened in all potential universes. The ability of the clockworker functions as the measurement of these events, and with sufficient power the clockworker can outright force the potential into reality.
It is not that they are digging into a timestream that had already happened, as Urza did, in fact it hasn't happened, or it could happen. Perhaps the braided potential realities explanation was a bit to linear for what was actually taking place.
However again this is merely my conjecture, feel free to offer your own ideas or thoughts, just please do not do so in a negative manner
Every powerstone contains a pocket plane, it is proven by Glacian in the Thran to be an infallible occurrence every time you compress mana like a mana rig does
Gods i could not have put that better myself, I'm glad I'm not the only one who noticed the phrase "Pimp slap" in a Magic novel
Remember the part where etherium is a piece of the Blind Eternities itself, phyrexians learn how to manipulate that, it's game over man
Same thing came to my mind as well, they even describe in detail at the end of Apocalypse
Where is exactly is it stated as fact that he used the Weatherlight? The only text reference it as either his "last act as a planeswalker", or "as his power to planeswalk left him", for give me for not having the links on hand, but they have been thrown around many times these last few weeks
Fair point about the heartstone though, perhaps it could be repaired or replaced
That is very true, but it would make a very interesting twist to have Karn suddenly at Tezzeret's will if he was rebuilt
One more thing came to mind, in ToM wasn't Tezzeret able to manipulate a portion of Bolas's subconcious into another Doctor Jest, perhaps the same could be done to the Father side of Karn, suppressing it in much the same way that Doc suppressed Bolas's ability to clockwork
I realize that there are weak spot to this idea, however with the Tezzeret we saw at the end of Test of Metal in play there could be alot of outcomes
TRIPLE post merged and warned. Use Edit button, please.
-Car.
To my understanding He used the last of his spark to throw himself into the Blind Eternities, and as for not being able to salvage any of him, that remains to be seen
That being said, after reading Test of Metal a second time I have begun to see the possibilty of Karn regaining the ability to planeswalk..or at least 'crawl.
In a bit of dialogue in ToM, Tezzeret attempts to explain the nature of etherium to Jace, in which he describes it not only as a source of mana, much like a powerstone, but also as having an "inanimate version of a Planeswalker's Spark". While the novel goes on to suggest out that Tezzeret is the sole being capable of making etherium, it is also stated that planeswalkers are the only beings with ability to manipulate it fully.
Given that Venser is already trying to build a planeswalking machine it is viable that were they to at least rescue the part of Karn not corrupted a new body could be manufactured for Karn from etherium.
Alternatively we know that while Tezzeret was sent to Mirrodin on Bolas's orders, he is ever ready to throw a wrench in the dragon's plans. Tezzeret himself could reconstruct Karn.
And there is the fact that Karn has the skill of the multiverse's greatest artificer to ever exist, if he regained his faculties imagine what he could do if he got ahold of etherium
Again, just a theory based on how I have interpreted the function of etherium, let me know what you think, and when the time comes...... vote Yes to Propostition:Karn, Etherium Golem
My mistake, i did not check your post against when the comic hit the mothership