Alicornutopia

Basically when he started concentrating he got a result, as opposed to taking a while to fall into the correct level of focus. Spontaneous daeva know how to use their magic more or less like they know how to use their bodies: pretty well considering.

Could an angel... transform more than they wanted by accident? like "melting" a pair of handcuffs and catching the arms of the person wearing them?

Basically no.

I’ll probably ask a lot more questions here while writing Andrew. This one is based on something he hasn’t thought of yet but is likely to in the future, but it lead me to wonder more broadly than that:

Given a file format for describing physical objects and a physical object that can be described with this file format, can a demon produce a file that describes the object, similar to how they can produce a PDF of a book? For example, suppose I have invented a plastic thingamabob, and then I find out about the Plastic Thingamabob File Format expressly designed for precisely describing the exact shape and composition of such things. Can a demon who is told about my thingamabob (in enough detail to locate it and conjure something just like it) give me a USB stick with a PTFF file describing the thingamabob? Would it make a difference if there were 3d printers capable of reading PTFF files? Would it make a difference if it were a more general file format for describing physical objects and their materials, or if the file format wasn’t precise (like PDFs lose information about the binding, paper thickness, etc.)?

Also, if you want to summon a demon and give them a media list (or other information) in exchange, is there any way to safely start writing the list before they are done with their task without them being able to say “I’m not going to finish” and conjuring your list anyway?

Goooooood question. I tentatively rule that if you have e.g. a 3D printed object a demon familiar with the object can render a file that will spit out that object from the appropriate printer. The actual existence per se of correct 3D printers is not essential but the demon being appropriately familiar with the software/hardware involved is, so practically speaking the existence of the printer somewhere is hard to get around. Someone could maybe invent a generic file format for describing objects-in-general but I am less confident that demons could reduce physical things to information when there is no straightforward way to transform from the one to the other. (Going from a file to a physical object would be practically trivial, though.)

Nope.

So a demon might also be able to do it if a nonmagical 3d scanner existed that could do the same thing, not just a printer? Does it work better for turning books into an electronic format because what’s preserved is primarily information anyway? Would mean that what’s lost in a demon’s PDF, like the exact characteristics of the paper or the original binding materials, are the parts it’s difficult to get into information?

Would the answer be less tentative in either direction if we used some sort of 3-d writing system, the object was equivalent to a book, and the file format were basically the equivalent of a text file which could work for writing but not all objects? What about if the original object was the output of a 3-d Polaroid camera, with the only important information being its shape and color, and it were being turned into a hologram file?

A scanner might also be able to enable something like this. I'm not sure what to tell you about the PDF conversion and have no idea what to make of your second paragraph.

My second paragraph was asking about hypothetical situations where the 3-d objects were more similar than usual to things demons can digitize. I attempted to flesh the scenarios out more in order to make my questions clearer, but in so doing realized that there’s no way that the situations could come up without an actual 3-d scanner and/or 3-d printer lying around capable of handling those specific circumstances (even if there’s no general 3-d printing or scanning capability).

When paying demons with media lists, is it customary to give title and author/playwright/producer/artist/whatever, even though they can conjure somebody’s complete works so the summoner could provide just the person? If so, why? If not, why does Cam usually ask for books by title and author when conjuring them for people, as though that particular combination were a common pattern?

If you only want one book, title and author is the best way. If someone wants The Taming Of The Shrew, producing the complete works of Shakespeare is an inefficient way to go about it. Also, if more than one person by the same name has produced works, it can disambiguate.