[1182] The Three Wishes
└ posted on Monday, 1 June 2020, by Novil
- Genie: Ho ho ho! For setting me free, I’ll grant you three wishes!
- Genie: But I can’t make someone fall in love–
- Sandra the Explorer: Eternal health until I decide to die out of my own free will.
- Genie: –with you. And you can’t wish for–
- Sandra the Explorer: The ability to shapeshift into any possible stable arrangement of elementary particles.
- Genie: –more… wishes……
- Sandra the Explorer: The ability to freely choose the position of my body in all existing reference frames.
- Genie: Mommy!!
- Sandra the Explorer: I’m waiting…
- ???: Abort! Abort!
- ???: Oh #@&$! She’s here!
![[1182] The Three Wishes](/comics/2020-06-01-1182-the-three-wishes.png "[1182] The Three Wishes")
That last one is cruel…
Three adventurers and she gets all the wishes? Cloud and Woo don’t seem to get much out of this deal…
Not clear on this one, did she basically wish for the ability to be anyone and anywhere she wishes to be forever?
@ Dave:
If I am reading that last one correctly, all existing reference frames could include any point in not just space but time and dimensions. Heck, if those frames include parallel universes and/or fictional universes you could have Sandra walking on the set of Selkie.@ Dave:
Dave wrote:
She wants to have the abilities of a Tardis and its primary occupant.
So, an immortal shapeshifter with the ability to be anywhere and anywhen. Not bad, not bad.
3 wishes is a luxury!
I once formulated this one in case I had a single wish:
I want to be able to perceive all forms of existence like matter, energy and other possible forms of existence within 50m around me and be able to manipulate them by thought meaning I can create, annihilate, move and change all forms of existence with the knowledge of what to do to achieve any goal I set myself.
Though, that was before I read about Contessa in the Worm universe. I think having her ability would be a pretty elegant solution to almost any problem too.
@ Senjiu:
You should read the webcomic called “A better place”, but don’t look at the latest pages or you will be spoiled!
Link to the first page: https://tapas.io/episode/87972
who the heck drew this ??
Breja wrote:
How do you know it’s not three wishes each?
Anyone understand what’s going on in the last panel? Those mysterious voices seem out of place.
Senjiu wrote:
Ooooof, Contessa’s ability is totally OP.
I tried to replicate that with m20 spheres, but couldn’t do it without it bordering on omniscience (and a ridiculous amount of successes).
Wishing for eternal health but not eternal youth. That’s not going to end well
She forgot to specify sapience.
She is an eternal cloud of quarks, leptons, and bosons that can defy the uncertainty principle.
However, she is no longer intelligent or humanoid, or even particularly capable of comprehending what either of those means to formulate a desire to be either, possessing the self-awareness of an amoeba, if that much, despite the superior control of her component particles.
At best she is Azathoth.
That hat looks great on Woo.
@ Sam:
lol some wishes you just gotta twist/money paw.
Wish #1: Eternal health until you wish to die? Granted. You’ll still age like a normal human, though; you may be the most physically fit 90-year-old, but you’ll look 90. Ah, but I see you’re anticipating that twist with…
Wish #2: The ability to shapeshift into any stable arrangement of elemental particles? Granted. Of course, I won’t grant you the knowledge of what those arrangements look like on a level compatible with this power — you’re going to have to trial and error it. Now, knowledge of how the elemental particles interact and how to form any desired stable arrangement of them would be a great third wish, but…
Wish #3: The ability to freely choose the position of your body in all existing reference frames? Granted. Congratulations, you’ve now become aware of every extant reality. Note, this may be a bit more knowledge than you’re used to, since “all existing reference frames” would naturally include the perceptions of everyone who exists! Congratulations on learning exactly what everyone is thinking about you at all times… because you can’t turn it off.
@ GREEM:
That’s not what a reference frame is.
@ John: Technically it depands on how one view health. Not to mention, if she can just manipute her arrangement of elemental partial, she can effectively just shape shift herself back to a younger version any time. She can be the perfect jail bait. “I swear officer, she was over 18!!!” Cries Cloud, while Sandra smiles innocently transformed to Appear 12 year old.
@ John:
I think the shapeshifting would take care of that problem.
Technically, her first wish is invalid, because he can’t kill anyone – and granting her the explicit power to do herself in, for certain, means he is effectively scheduling her death at an unspecified time.
I’m assuming that’s the reason he didn’t get to that clause.
She shoulda just wished for “nigh-omnipotence by all possible means except in direct contradiction of his restrictions”. If the task being wished for doesn’t have to be carried out by the genie, and can be managed with this much through essentially mundane avenues, she’s then free to use whatever approach she nigh-omnipotently can be assured will work, without relying on the genie’s own powers.
This also comes with no risk attached, because to be this close to omnipotence grants perfect knowledge, infinite time, and total control of the self and its boundaries- essentially, all the things a twisted fulfilment of a wish would otherwise risk stripping away or corrupting.
Who actually needs three wishes? No one.
I wish for X to mentally feel like s/he is in love with me without it being actual love. Alternatively, for X to lust after me more than anyone else.
I wish for X to age to 1 minute before the end of their natural life span.
I wish for you to create a clone of X with all the memories, skills and emotions of the moment before their death.
@ Senjiu:
The moment you say “and be able” you turn it into another wish.
@ John:
She can reshape her own body into looking any age.
Immortality, immobility and insomnia for her enemies?
Sandra you failed to ask for mental processing power to handle information needed to achieve what you want.
@ Breja:
Well apparently she’s known by other wish-granting entities based on the last panel, so perhaps she wished up the rest of them earlier.
Like I always say, figuring what you’d ask for if a billionaire offered you a favor is an infinitely more practical way to spend your time.
Now if Cloud also gets 3 wishes, he could get all her wishes in 1 wish:
I wish to gain the same things that you granted Sandra a moment ago
Then he can add 2 more wishes 😛
Possible the wish for being the age you desire to be, and the wish for her to be the age she desires to be?
I assume Woo gets no wishes, same as how the monkey in the movie did not get any wishes
@ Senjiu:
The second you say “and” it is a second wish – also you would need the brain power to not go mad from the sensory impressions.
First wish is rather redundant when you consider the second one.
So – first I would ask for mental and sensoric faculties to sucesfully execute wishes 2 and 3…
and rephrasing second one
“The ability to freely manipulate any existing arrangement of elementary particles into any other arangement of my chosing including adding new ones and removing existing ones withing this universe.”
that actually takes care of the third one.
so the third one – “Ability to manipulate curvature of space time itself at will without need to add in any extra mass or antimass into the universe.”
Can somebody explain voices at the last panel right?
@ Andrew Kippenhan:
She wants to pursue the Pankera.
Adult Sandra and Cloud look really great!
My go-to first wish is for an afterlife system I would approve of to be implemented for every sentient being in the multiverse, retroactively, unless and until they choose to opt out.
That way, even if I screw up tremendously with the next wishes, I’m still better off than when I started.
@ Senjiu:
“and” signifies a second wish though…
@ TachyonCode:
By that logic, you can’t wish for a knife, because you might use it to kill someone. And Aladdin couldn’t wish to be a prince, because he might woo a princess into falling in love with him via the access that grants him.
Your not quite as clever as you think.
With “eternal health” eternal life is implied, but not actually guaranteed. You could still die or be killed so long as it occurs quickly.
The second wish also opens up the possibility to negate the first with under the guise of “this is just the natural form.”
Breja wrote:
You know she can pass on the lamp to Cloud after she’s gotten three wishes and then he gets three wishes himself, right?
@ Marscaleb:
“Eternal health until I decide to die of my own free will” aging occurs when cells cease dividing meaning youre becoming less healthy therefore she has eternal youth with that wish as well. Therefore she cannot be harmed or else her wounds will heal instantaneously. She cannot be unhealthy in any way unless she decides to die of her own free will. The wish is actually pretty foolproof.
I’ve had this conversation multiple times over the years. Based on the Genie’s restrictions from Disney’s Aladdin, what would you do with your three wishes.
My wish was a way to get around the restriction of wishing for more wishes. Jafar wished to be turned into a genie, which was granted. Meaning that wishing to be able to GRANT wishes, was valid.
My one and only wish was, “I wish for the ability to grant wishes without limit, restriction, obligation, or consequence, with limit being defined as the number of wishes I can grant, restriction being defined as restrictions on what type of wishes I can grant, and how many I can grant to anyone, obligation being defined as being obliged to grant a wish to anyone who asks or demands, and how I choose to interpret wishes, and consequence defined as a cost or consequence for granting a wish, like shortening your life span or someone you love dies, each time you grant a wish.
Granted, making a wish like that is pretty much God mode, and life would very quickly lose all challenge, or excitement. But if you were intelligent enough, and you could always wish to be intelligent enough, you could fix a lot of problems in this world. The challenge with that would be not making humanity dependant on you for everything.
Immortality, shapeshifting and teleportation. Nice~
@ porthos9438:
And, I’d try and make a deal with the Genie, that if he plays that wish straight with me, and grants it as I intended, with no manipulation of my phrasing, I’d use one of my remaining wishes to set him free, if he wished.
The final wish should always be for another Genie.
Wish 1: I wish for the power to summon a lamp with a genie trapped inside.
Wish 2: I wish the genie trapped inside has to grant me 3 wishes if I rub the lamp and free them.
Wish 3: I wish that the genie is returned to the lamp once all 3 wishes are granted.
Nothing says you can’t wish for another genie
1: Ability to redo any wish at any time… if it results in death time will stop just before death to allow a redo.
2: Genie powers and the power to use them minus being bound or being forced to grant wishes.
3: All wish fulfilling Genies
1(next gene): Ability to cast spells on myself if that’s not possible.
I’d then proceed to ask the genies their wishes with the end goal of making sure no gene’s exists who may stop me – if they didn’t ask for powerless freedom or no longer being able to give wishes I’d make sure their wishes/powers were limited to ones that couldn’t harm me or overly f’up the world. Any remaining bound genies would go into a bag of holding. ^_^
@ Segev:
Actually, no. She failed to specify an exact means of being able to kill herself, which means that technically her dying is part of the wish, so the genie has to do it himself.
His rules only specify that he can’t kill anyone, not that he can’t give you a means by which to do it yourself.
Beats the one who’s going to kill the person who rubs the lamp for not coming a thousand years sooner.
@ TachyonCode:
Plus, he never mentioned any rule about no killing in, in this comic. So, technically, good either way.
@ porthos9438:
While you’re not wrong, I’m operating under the fairly reasonable assumption that this is a reference to the genie from Disney’s Aladdin, and therefore, his rules in particular.
It wouldn’t be a very interesting situation if Sandra weren’t at least trying to circumvent the exact rules (and therefore, the exact difficulty) of the reference in question.
And the phrasing is similarly referential, so that’s actually a very reasonable assumption, from where I’m sitting.
But suppose we ignore the rule of cool.
If we use Occam’s Razor on this particular strip, we have two choices: use it with or without the context of that reference. Since the strip’s humor and appearance are both parodying it, we have some precedent to assume that the logic is also.
While the Razor says we can’t make assumptions outside of what’s evident, the context of the reference is very much evident.
If we ignore that, because of it being external to the strip then it’s a comparably inferior parody for it (not just in my opinion, but mathematically via the sum of its parts).
Therefore, I think I’m going with acknowledging the reference in its totality.