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Post by starskyhutch76 on Oct 5, 2021 10:38:57 GMT
Could its origins somehow be tied to the New Gods? Maybe a handy scholastic version of the Mother Box or a teaching device using Mother Box technology? While I do like the connection to the New Gods, I think given its apparent ancient and magical nature, could the Book of Answers be a surviving artifact from the Old Gods? Kind of a magical predecessor to the Mother Boxes from an earlier age, sort of like Lonar's horse. The connection to the Old Gods is one I thought of as well! It could also have also once belonged to Thoth, the Egyptian god of knowledge. Or since Kirby's old Gods, I think. were the Norse gods pre-Ragnarok, Mimir.
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Post by dans on Oct 5, 2021 11:00:24 GMT
I like the idea of the book having an unknown, and perhaps unknowable, origin. It has comprehensive information about any subject you ask about... except its own origin. And maybe some of the historical knowledge is inaccurate, which may indicated it originated in another universe... The Anti-Monitor has been destroying universes for a long time, so maybe it came from one of those - and it is indestructible, so when that universe was destroyed, the book survived...
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Post by dans on Oct 12, 2021 23:49:01 GMT
Are there any heroes who approximate Doc Yale whose stories I could read for some ideas? Is there any hero who specifically has a magic book which gives him (cryptic...) information? Or maybe a hero who has some other source of information that s/he consults? Doesn't have to be comics, magazines or even penny dreadfuls would be OK as well...
I don't know what other powers or skills he might have. He's now an ex-medic, he has some skill with compounding medicines, he's a smooth and convincing talker, and he went through (at least) Army basic training before he got sent to the battlefield in World War I.
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Post by redsycorax on Oct 13, 2021 2:19:12 GMT
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Post by DocQuantum on Oct 13, 2021 3:44:48 GMT
Are there any heroes who approximate Doc Yale whose stories I could read for some ideas? Is there any hero who specifically has a magic book which gives him (cryptic...) information? Or maybe a hero who has some other source of information that s/he consults? Doesn't have to be comics, magazines or even penny dreadfuls would be OK as well...
I don't know what other powers or skills he might have. He's now an ex-medic, he has some skill with compounding medicines, he's a smooth and convincing talker, and he went through (at least) Army basic training before he got sent to the battlefield in World War I.
How about Golden Age/Silver Age Batman? He always pulled out some obscure fact that was useful at the right moment. The Batman TV show parodied this well. Knowing personal information about anyone he wants to look up in the Book of Answers might be more useful than any conventional super-power under the right circumstances. You might also take inspiration from a bunch of Golden and Silver Age Superman stories in which Superman almost acts like a genie by helping out someone down on his luck. Doc Yale has no super-powers but the kind of nigh-unlimited knowledge he has could help out a lot of people on a one-on-one basis. It would be like being the only person in the world to have access to the world's Facebook accounts written by them without their knowledge. Perhaps Doc Yale used his Book of Answers to look up people he could help? You could come up with a good backstory as to why he's become a helpful fellow. Maybe, like Peter Parker, he had the opportunity to help someone at one time but passed it up by being selfish instead, and this led directly into the death of someone he loves, perhaps an old girlfriend for whom he'd been carrying a torch since childhood. Ever since then, he has taken every opportunity to help at least one person every day with his Book of Answers.
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Post by DocQuantum on Oct 13, 2021 3:46:25 GMT
Oh, and the closest approximation I can think of, other than the character from the Allied Supermen of America I mentioned earlier, is Genius Jones, the Answer Man.
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Post by johnreiter902 on Oct 13, 2021 7:41:56 GMT
Oh, and the closest approximation I can think of, other than the character from the Allied Supermen of America I mentioned earlier, is Genius Jones, the Answer Man. I was just about to mention Genius Jones. You beat me to it. He is another perfect example.
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Post by DocQuantum on Oct 13, 2021 17:17:45 GMT
Something similar to the Storybook Smith character is Jimminy and the Magic Book, a children’s feature from the last issues of More Fun Comics. Though it’s probably more similar to Kid Eternity than Doc Yale.
Do we know the full powers of the Book of Answers? Could it be used to summon anyone from the past like Kid E? I should reread how CSyphrett used it. I suspect it’s low on details.
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Post by DocQuantum on Oct 14, 2021 20:26:02 GMT
Limitations: Just like the Internet, the entire breadth of human knowledge is rendered fairly useless by the fact that there’s no built in index. I’d imagine the Book has no index, and thus it takes many years to master since you wouldn’t know where to look for the answers you need at the moment.
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Post by dans on Oct 14, 2021 20:37:13 GMT
I definitely had that in mind. Plus, the book doesn't think or do calculations. So you can't ask it for the square root of 175342 and get an answer (unless at one time someone actually knew that). It will tell you how to take square roots, and it may know things like the square root of 100. It won't know the chemical formula for the stuff in the beaker on the table in front of you - unless the guy who filled the beaker knew that formula.
And if you wanted to find out something specific about a person, you'd have to wade through a lot of stuff to find a particular fact....
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Post by dans on Feb 20, 2024 23:54:25 GMT
I don't like the pseudo-scientific/alien origins at all, personally, for such an object that is obviously magical in nature. I'd rather it come from a mystical source, such as an actual book created eons ago by gods or angels during the Age of Legends... or possibly its origin cannot ever be known and can only be theorized or just guessed at. I'm going to add another chapter to my Doc Yale story, showing how he went from being the main attraction at a traveling medicine show to being a hero. Clearly the Book of Answers will be a big part of this story. So I went back and reread all the posts on 5EP that have the phrase 'Book of Answers' in them. There are not a lot of answers regarding the Book of Answers; it is rather mysterious and I plan to keep it that way. I'm not sure that The Book of Answers is obviously magical, although likely it is. But in the Sentinels of Magic story, Doc Yale is referred to as one of two Sentinels with scientific expertise: "It’s definitely strange enough to warrant investigation,” Harry Hutchinson remarked. “But why call upon us? Only Doc and M.C. here have any expertise in scientific matters.” Though he never uses the Book to look up anything specifically scientific, but later in the story he does use it to find an appropriate magical spell. It may be agnostic with respect to the different kinds of answers (magical-based or science-based) or it may respond differently to different users... In any case, I don't plan to write the origin of the Book of Answers. I like the idea that Doc Yale uses the Book of Answers to research the origin of the Book of Answers and it is the one subject about which he can't find any information. I think maybe he will also use the Book of Answers to find out how Hubert, the last guy with the Book, got hold of it.
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Post by dans on Feb 20, 2024 23:57:42 GMT
Maybe, like Peter Parker, he had the opportunity to help someone at one time but passed it up by being selfish instead, and this led directly into the death of someone he loves, perhaps an old girlfriend for whom he'd been carrying a torch since childhood. Ever since then, he has taken every opportunity to help at least one person every day with his Book of Answers. I think that's the way to go in the story I am considering now.
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Post by DocQuantum on Feb 21, 2024 1:07:18 GMT
Gallowglass currently owns the Book. In the Founders story, a 15 year old Gsllowglass says he looked up Abby Cable in it and she was at the end, which is because she didn’t yet exist in that time. She has time travelled via the Clock Room portals in fact.
So the book is not static but changes over time.
Hope that helps.
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Post by DocQuantum on Feb 21, 2024 1:41:39 GMT
I think when CSyphrett created the idea, he could have been inspired by two things:
1. Destiny's book. Destiny is one of the horror comic-book hosts and once encountered Superman. He is the personification of Fate itself. In the Post-Crisis era he was revealed to be one of the Endless, which are all personifications of concepts. Of course, the Book of Answers could not be Destiny's book, because he still wields it, but it could be a similar book.
2. The Magic Book created originally by Hermes, god of language, and left to be found on the Earth throughout the centuries, eventually used by Storybook Smith, a character similar to Johnny Thunder. The Book could reveal answers to anything, but more than that, Storybook Smith could summon characters from fiction with the book. This was a concept created by Alan Moore for Rob Liefeld's Image/Extreme series Supreme, and expounded upon in the mini-series Judgement Day. The artwork is typical '90s Image stuff, but the writing is very good.
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Post by dans on Feb 21, 2024 1:49:45 GMT
Yeah, I am going to be very cautious with the Book of Answers. I'm thinking it may be kind of like an internet search engine - you have to be very specific about what you ask it, and even then you have to be very discerning about what you draw from it.
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