Alicornutopia

If it works at all then unreasonably large earrings will do.

…get stabbed, fork, pull out the weapon, fight back with it (how flexible is positioning when a fork comes into existence?), merge before you half-die from blood loss.

Moriwen wrote:So ... can you then duplicate small valuable objects by swallowing them, forking, removing them, and merging? (Because now I am picturing some really messed-up sweatshops...)

...Yes, technically, that is a thing that you could do.

I'm considering removing the restriction on duplicating clothing and held items, because it would make for a more interesting world without the need to add much more magic. So the sweatshops' task would be made a bit easier.

...If I wanted to really break things, I'd let it work like daeva indestructibility, and say that you can fork/merge anything that you can convince yourself is part of your body, as long as there's unbroken physical contact between all the parts you're forking/merging.

Unbitwise wrote:…get stabbed, fork, pull out the weapon, fight back with it (how flexible is positioning when a fork comes into existence?), merge before you half-die from blood loss.

Positioning is pretty easy with practice, but your new locations have to be near to where you started. The standard is for one of the forks to be standing where the merged person was or vice versa.

Merging wouldn't fix a stab wound that both forks had, because there isn't a "currently not stabbed" version to pull that trait from.

I meant it would avoid the additional bleeding resulting from pulling out the weapon, not that one wouldn't still be stabbed.

(The scenario actually came from thinking about duplication: “two copies of a sword because someone was stabbed with it once”, and then I wondered about combat advantages.)

Some more thoughts I've had on this world:

I don't really think it needs magic as well as forking, especially now I've decided to remove the restriction on forking objects. The new version now works a little like daeva indestructibility: anything you can convince yourself forms a contiguous whole with your body can be forked, usually restricted to things you're wearing or holding. The exception is living beings, which can only be forked by an external force while they are unborn, so you can fork your own foetus or an egg, but not your newborn baby or a kitten.

Technology level is the rough equivalent of modern-day, although the new improved forking means that the Industrial Revolution was basically substituted for by the global realisation that you could pay people to sit around all day and duplicate stuff for you. Obviously some people have to be employed to make the things in the first place, but once you've made something it can be copied infinitely regardless of complexity or material cost. (Feel free to push this until it breaks, it'll be fun.)

What if you swallow a live kitten?

What if you swallow yogurt? What if you have a tapeworm?

Can you fork to “the other side of that wall”, assuming that the wall is thin enough? Does it only work if you are touching the wall or something?

If forking requires physical contact like merging does, can you create a fork through a hole you can reach through but not one you can climb through (small window, Earth jail cell bars, etc.)? What about somewhere it would be difficult to go for some other reason, such as because it’s on top of a high ledge and you can only barely stick your finger up there or something?

How long does forking/merging take?

Moriwen wrote:What if you swallow a live kitten?

...I have a feeling that kitten would no longer be alive, and could therefore be forked. If it somehow survived the trip through your esophagus, it would be unforkable and would also probably kill you.

Alicorn wrote:What if you swallow yogurt? What if you have a tapeworm?

Yogurt and other bacteria can get through because they're too small and simple to count. I don't know exactly where the limit on "living creatures" is, but I think it's probably around the same place as the daeva limit on minds or lower. Tapeworms might be borderline, and I don't know why you'd want to fork one anyway. Actually, fork-and-merge would be a good way to get rid of them if they're not forkable.

DanielH wrote:Can you fork to “the other side of that wall”, assuming that the wall is thin enough? Does it only work if you are touching the wall or something?

No.

If forking requires physical contact like merging does, can you create a fork through a hole you can reach through but not one you can climb through (small window, Earth jail cell bars, etc.)? What about somewhere it would be difficult to go for some other reason, such as because it’s on top of a high ledge and you can only barely stick your finger up there or something?

Yes, this would work, and yes, forking requires either physical contact or that some part of your new body overlaps with some part of your old position, like Loki's bird transformation.

How long does forking/merging take?

Less than a minute? It's probably subject to the practice effect at least somewhat, and it also probably depends on how fancy you're trying to get with traits, and the amount of difference between the two forks. How long it's been since you forked is going to affect merging time, because there's more divergence and more memories to integrate.

Some random thoughts on how my characters might fit into this world:

Cat, given his existing tendency to fracture into multiple instances, forks at some point and is then unable to merge for a long time, resulting in the forks becoming a Leo and a Michael. (These are the names of the Cat template's two primary clusters.) They both view the two forks as independent people, eventually, but have an existential crisis to get there. In time-honoured glowfic tradition, they both choose new names.

Raven exploits forking to learn twice as much in half the time, and accordingly spends most of her time forked, but merges regularly to consolidate information and prevent excessive differentiation. She sends one to school while the other sits at home reading, etc. This is the original use case which prompted the idea for this system. Raven, in this case as so often, is me.

Z, as he does when presented with any magic system ever, attempts to exploit forking in the cause of immortality or at least life extension. He conducts extensive research into the ability to merge traits which you used to possess but no longer do so, or the possibility of merging with someone else's fork, theorised (mostly by philosophers) but currently impossible.

Wolf mostly uses fork-and-merge to give himself the advantage of numbers in fights and to patch himself up afterwards. Fox wins the "most likely to have had sex with her fork" award. Drake has registered the intent to fork, have one fork get sex reassignment surgery, and then customise the result in a merge. Spider may or may not be forks in this world.