Oh of course. Not to mention you'd need a sizeable and very sharp sword to do it. Nevertheless, it still would be very possible.It's probably safe to assume that the average joe isn't going to be quicker than a guillotine or strong enough with swinging a sword to decapitate someone despite what movies and TV shows want to show you.
I suppose for the CS, it's best to mention the most likely case scenario, which is that nobody would be able to decapitate her with a sword. Plus, I doubt swords are going to be used in most modern-future combat scenarios anyways. At least, in Baltimore.
*Hastily plans new character*
The J
: Maybe
Gus
can weigh in here, but as far as I know no one's swing of a sword is faster than a bullet. I'm not positive on this but that is what I suspect given the velocity of a bullet. Perhaps in the super universe it it possible for a super to swing it fast enough, but a normal person I strongly suspect can not. Even then I'm purposefully keeping it vague because I suspect it will come down to stats if a super makes the attempt.
welian
can weigh in here, that the only supers that can be completely immortal (and thus not able to be killed by any means) are characters with health 9. At health 8 Imogen needs to have ways that she can be killed, just like characters with lower health/defense scores. Because regeneration is her main power, and because she has 8 in the stat, the ways she can die are substantially less than other characters. It's a sacrifice I made stat-wise, CCP-wise, and power-wise to have so I'm attempting to make the most of it as the CC before it was dissolved had suggested.
D. Rex
), the bullet is faster. This means only a super strong super has the chance to swing a sword faster than the velocity of a bullet and potentially outpace the regeneration.
LSS: Leandra could kill Imogen if she ever went to the dark side.
Teh Frixz
's Penny, we reasoned that because Imogen's health score was higher than Penny's energy score (for the radiation she pumps out), that's why Imogen can survive Penny's presence and powers. With a character that has an 8 or 9 in energy, or someone rich enough to drop a bomb directly on Imogen, she can die!
I was playing off the fire talk. Leandra is going to be a B rank with fire manipulation as her power.I think most characters with a super high energy score could probably figure out a way to kill Imogen, I'm just reluctant to spell it out. Since her ONLY power is essentially being able to survive, and there are character that are almost as unkillable as Imogen, I'm hesitant to commit myself to exactly who could kill her with what in case I want/need to walk it back later!
I think with
Ah, I see what Gus was on about with the guillotine being wider than the neck. Still, doesn't a sword separate the neck from the head? Unless her healing factor somehow reaches for the head and sort of pulls it back?I just checked velocities.
Let's say your dude has a huge-ass sword he is able to swing at 12 m/s. Bullets travel several times that speed. For the sake of argument, let's say my example of Imogen's healing factor uses a bullet traveling at 120 m/s.
She is healing the entry wound of that bullet that is ten times faster than the sword swing before it exits her body. Both the bullet and sword are meeting resistance in the form of her body, but no matter how you cut it (haha, dad joke there for
It's like cutting a watermelon. There is a section behind your knife where the watermelon has been cut, but the halves are touching because your knife is not yet fully through the fruit. It's only after you complete the severing of the rind that the halves of the watermelon are no longer touching, and fall to the sides. In this analogy, if Imogen's neck were the watermelon, she would be healing behind the knife, and the halves would never be separated long enough for her to not heal.
I think I get what you're on about. My point is, though, that the sword is moving pretty damn fast, and I'd have thought that that would separate the two halves by a meaningful distance. Let's say the sword is a 0.25in/6.35mm thick. The head is going to be pushed at least that far away, and then also given a bit of momentum, so it would probably go further. For this trick of Imogen's to work, her flesh would have to reach for the head itself and yank it back on, before it is tossed away by the force of the sword stroke.Imagine you are cutting through a thick wooden pole instead of the human body. Here is the log:
(_____)
(_____)
(_____)
Here is your sword:
|||
Notice your sword is not wider than the log! You begin to cut through the log.
(______)
----|||___)
(______)
For the sake of argument let's say you swung left to right. The ___ indicates where the log is still intact and --- indicates where the tree has been severed. Gravity is in play here. If you've ever watched lumberjacks on TV or YouTube, you know that the tree is not going to suddenly bend to the right because that would be lifting the top left side of the tree against gravity. Instead, gravity will pull down the top right half of the severed tree down.
Google this if you are confused.
Anyway, my diagram is insufficient but imagine the top left side of the severed tree is pushing down because of gravity. Your blade is no longer there to physically push apart the severed pieces. And now let's imagine the tree regenerates!
(______)
(_ ----|||_)
(______)
Look at that! You haven't finished your cut yet and the left side is already healing! It's no longer completely severed!
(______)
(____--|||
(______)
WHOOPS! No timber for this lumberjack! He can never completely sever the tree because he's working both against gravity and the regeneration of his tree. And really, if the tree can regenerate, it can also hocus pocus a little bit. If it was the actual drawn image above, it could "fill in" that triangular cut with regeneration too. That's what happens when characters regrow limbs- they are growing something where there was nothing (due to removal).
Make sense?
Gus
suggested. She heals within a split second.
welian
suggested, the top doesn't go flying upwards. It might slide to the side a little, but that's one when you are completely done cutting. Try it. Get something to cut, try to swipe your knife halfway through, and notice if the upper half of your item bolts into the air.
Ok. So her regeneration can make her flesh "reach" around a quarter of an inch, then?12 m/s is still not even close to as fast as my example bullet, which is moving 10x faster. I get what you are saying- a sword swing can be incredibly fast- but her regeneration in this instance is faster than a second as
Also, the momentum of the sword is cutting through. If it's sharp enough to go through in one slice, it's displacing what it's cutting through upwards but not necessarily with a huge amount of momentum. If you went home and were cutting a watermelon like
Let's look at this gif:
See how it only separates AFTER the cut is through?
Yes, the momentum of the sword would displace her head if it COMPLETELY severed it from her neck/shoulders, but in this case it's not getting far enough to do that. I imagine you're thinking of it the same way you're thinking about movie physics for bullets. The bullet's momentum does not actually blow you backwards like it does in Westerns; it does through you, sure, but MOST don't have the power to push you backwards.
Swords likewise do not have explosive momentum that is going to, halfway through a cut, jettison the two halves apart enough that it would prevent the impossibly fast regeneration Imogen has.
This gives context to all sorts of other stuff too, like getting any other body chopped off by anything thinner than them. Plus the idea that the flesh can reach during the healing process seems important.
Because I think it's worth knowing for the character. This has nothing to do with Hadrian. And my last point has not been addressed at all.
Right, ok, so it can reach. That's all I wanted to clear. I don't understand why everyone's getting so angry at me for this.
Because in text over the internet, we genuinely cannot tell if you truly don't understand the explanation, or if you were against some detail of the power.
