This is a thread for discussing my luminous!Twilight fic, Luminosity (inferior mirror here), its sequel Radiance (inferior mirror), and related topics.
PDFs, to be updated as the fic updates, are available of Luminosity (other version) and Radiance. (PDFs courtesy of anyareine). Zack M Davis has created a mobi file of Radiance.
Initial discussion of the fic under a Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality thread is here. The first dedicated threads: Part 1, Part 2. See also the luminosity sequence which contains some of the concepts that the Luminosity fic is intended to illustrate. (Disclaimer: in the fic, the needs of the story take precedence over the needs for didactic value where the two are in tension.)
Spoilers are OK to post without ROT-13 for canon, all of Book 1, and Radiance up to the current chapter. Note which chapter (let's all use the numbering on my own webspace, rather than fanfiction.net, for consistency) you're about to spoil in your comment if it's big. People who know extra stuff (my betas and people who have requested specific spoilers) should keep mum about unpublished information they have. If you wish to join the ranks of the betas or the spoiled, contact me individually.
Miscellaneous links: TV Tropes page (I really really like it when new stuff appears there) and thread. Automatic Livejournal feed.
I think she would have to have a comparable situation in her memory--I don't think memory of a story would fit, but that's speculation--and she has to be communicating with someone who already knows.
It's stated very early on that her power sometimes changes what she says when she's telling the truth to phrase it so that the listener would understand. That's already admitting that her power can reveal facts about the people she's communicating with, more specifically what they find to be true.
They have to speculate because they don't have anyone there who knows. Now, if they kidnapped someone who was in the know, and had Elspeth try to run through scenarios to see which analogies fit, then they could get information out of that person. Really, she's more of a sort of mind reader, in an incredibly roundabout manner, than any kind of oracle.
Assuming that my understanding is sound, did that clarify anything with you?
Already gave a number of possible workarounds to demonstrate that any ad hoc rule will leak. This reminds me of computer security - someone puts forward an ad hoc system, someone else immediately breaks it, the first patches the exploit, and so on ad infinitum until eventually the patches start introducing as many security flaws as they fix and they just give up.
I went back and re-r... (read more)