NOVEL FROG ANNOUNCEMENT + STAT DETAILS with INT Focus
STAT DETAILS with INT FOCUS
Anyway, I've noticed some people have asked in the past how Greg's intelligence works and calling him stupid because he should think better because of his high INT.
I've answered that it's not thinking ability so much as processing power, more storage space and basically an defragmented mental hard drive allowing for more efficient and faster recall with less chance of corruption (aka brain meat work better). Just because you have a supercomputer in front of a nine-year old, it doesn't mean that nine-year old will do anything with it other than play bigger games of Minecraft, but that might be hard to grasp for some cause it's not really a good explanation.
So, when I was setting up this story, I wanted certain things to be logical, effectively, from my own perspective.
In this way, Greg's physical stats and perks induce immediate physical alterations to his physiology. I originally considered splitting the stats three by two, with the physical stats being (STR, SPD and VIT) and the non-physical being (INT, WIS and CHA) but then I realized that doesn't exactly work, so to speak. So, I thought of another way, four by two with the physical stats being (STR, SPD, VIT, and INT) and the non-physical being (WIS and CHA). However, I also realized that didn't really work the way I wanted it to. It also didn't feel even enough and I have issues with that.
Anyway, what I ultimately settled on was a two by two by two method for Stats.
I began with the strictly physical AKA STR/SPD.
Direct changes to Greg's muscle, hormones, bones, blood, fatty tissues, nerves. To be specific, it's even down to the cells and ATP.
The half-physical/intangible(?) being VIT/INT as VIT both influence physical/neurological processes but also affect him intangibly with energy.
VIT also affects him on a cellular level, controlling his rate of cell division, etc. In addition, it changes his blood chemistry, slowly increasing his resistance to pain by affecting his leuenkephalin as well as rerouting how his blood vessels work and are routed in addition to their makeup.
INT literally rewires his brain and nerves, amygdala, visual cortex, retinal reflectivity, cross-wiring, expanded corpus callosum, cortical folding, glial cell density, etc. You fucking name it,INT does it.
I ended with the strictly intangible being WIS/CHA because you fucking get why.
Anyway, physical-based STAT perks also affect him on the same level.
Anyway, back to how INT actually affects how Greg thinks and processes.
I don't know if any of you have read a book called Blindsight by Canadian author Peter Watts. It's a very interesting novel and it influenced how I understood Worm and helped me grow as a writer. It also left me with a new understanding of the concept of intelligence as it's rather hard science-fiction focused on the concept of intelligence, sapience, consciousness and the mind and based in cutting-edge scientific theory (at least for 2006).
Really, the entire point of Blindsight, or at least part of it, is that awareness, sapience, conscious thought is not really needed for intelligence. You don't need to be aware of yourself or the fact that your brain meat works better for it to simply work better. In fact, Watts would argue that awareness gets in the way of intelligence and how the brain actually works, wasting energy on all that shit like feelings and introspection that could be used to make the brain actually work better. The best way to get into the way of your own brain, your own natural intelligence, is to think about what you're doing. A pianist or a dancer or a fucking writer overthinking what they're doing will freeze up, fuck up, and fail.
Probably a good reason as to why Scion's species became what they were. They didn't waste brain meat on anything else.
To elaborate, if a 9 year old can do complex mathematics in his head in five seconds that most adults would struggle to get the answer for with a calculator and five extra minutes but he doesn't know how to talk about his feelings with the right vocabulary, do you really think those adults are smarter than that kid, huh?
Getting to my point, Watt's book helped me understand that most of what we understand as intelligence is unconscious. INT in Greg Vs has nothing to do with advanced reasoning, introspection, feelings and creative thinking and all that. That's a very human element, the field of WIS, and if you haven't caught on by now, I've been purposefully molding Greg into a very inhuman protagonist. Really, the only thing making that not entirely obvious is his personality layered over it. It's like a delicious cake with sprinkles and frosting on top but with cyanide baked within.
Anyway, yeah, so in Blindsight, Vampires are also a thing, basically a genetic throwback that used to prey on humans in early times before written history but who happened to die out. Anyway, scientists recovered the genes for vampirism in humans after trying to cure autism and instead creating a vampire child. If you haven't seen the thread here, yeah, I've based Greg off of what the book considers "obligate cannibals with psychopathy built into them on a genetic level", or something.
I dunno, it's along those lines, basically, Im fucking paraphrasing. It's been a decade since I started the book and gave up because I was busy. I don't really remember it all that well. Really, I only restarted and finished it two years halfway through this story.
Back to the point YET AGAIN, Aspects of INTELLIGENCE/INTELLECT that we have no control over that I have implemented in this story
Omnisavantic pattern-matching and analytical ability
Inhuman calculation skills (that's been there since like arc 2?)
Faster firing neurons
Enhanced ability to process large numbers of things and be aware of how many there are. Much the same way a normal person can see three marbles and immediately know there are three without counting, Greg can do that for thirty marbles.
Enhanced unconscious reflexes.
Etcetera and etcetera
Effectively, I'm going with the true nature of intelligence, the brain being a survival engine not an awareness engine. Okay?
For instance, gorillas have brains almost one-and-half again the size of orangutans and with more neurons while chimpanzees brains are also larger than the orangutans. Guess which great ape has more self-awareness and is more "conscious" and aware than the others? That's right, the goddamn orangutan.
Long story short, Greg's not "stupid". Intelligence is just not as simple as a lot of people think it is.
Greg as a character was not neuro-normative in the first place. I'm just having fun with a different idea of it.
I've put a LOT of thought into this. A LOT.