Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-26397825-20170730020549/@comment-25936766-20170730051630

Alright, here's hoping Wikia doesn't eat this.............a bit late, but YOLO.

Gravity is a consequence of the curvature in spacetime caused by the uneven distribution in mass. Everything that has mass, causes Gravity, and anything that has mass, will be attracted to another body due to their gravity. Due to Mass/Energy Equivalency, Energy in all it's forms will also create and be affected by Gravity.

This means literally everything is constantly attracted to everything else. Planets, star systems, galaxies, etc., they all are affected by Gravity, and most if not all of them were caused by Gravity one way or another. The most extreme known example of Gravity, of course, is a black hole.

Also of course, how much X is attracted towards Y depends on their mass and distance. It is basically proportional to the product of their mass (Mass 1 x Mass 2, that is), and inversely proportional to (the square of) their distance.

As a result, down on Earth, you'll never see a human attract every body in it's vicinity like a living black hole. Also as a result, you'll likely never see the Milky Way and Andromeda giving each other a hug.

.................However, for most terrestrial applications, it is best to stick to Newtonian Physics, where Gravity is not a curvature of spacetime, it is just a force that weights us down. And while not everyone knows about Einstein's side of Physics, most people know of Newton's.

-

Introduction of Gravity aside, there's 1 thing I'd like to point out: Only the examples of Weiss making Nadir and Bolin float in the air, and the Anti-Grav Biome, are good examples of your point.

In that 1st example I'm mentioning, it's true, if Gravity Dust was purely a Kinetic Push then making Nadir and Bolin float like that would be, if not impossible then very difficult, at least for a 1st-Year student, and IIRC Shane wasn't the one who animated that scene so giving Weiss a power buff "Because AWESOME" would not be the case.

And in the 2nd example, true, while using it to simulate attraction towards "the ceiling" wouldn't be difficult, actually inverting Gravity wouldn't be possible if it was purely a Kinetic Push, it would take actual Gravitational manipulation to truly run on the ceiling.

.........However, the Schnee Glyphs already have the ability to manipulate motion, to push and pull things, even without Gravity Dust. Gravity Dust would, at most, only amplify that ability. This ends up making any examples involving Weiss's Glyphs more....questionable, regarding the idea of "Gravity Dust = Actual Gravity Control".

For example, when she prevented Ironwood from opening the door, one could say she was just pushing it back. Try to open a door while someone is pushing it in the other direction. If that someone is applying more force than you, that door won't open. Gravity's not needed, just a contrary force.

Of course, the one example about the Biome would still stand since her Glyphs are not involved there.

Now, let's think about another example: Ruby. Everytime Ruby has used Gravity Dust, it hasn't taken the form of anything resembling Gravity, but fully resembling a powerful kinetic blast with enough force to send her flying a very long distance. It's been like that since the Red Trailer, and it has been consistent in that regard ever since then.

"Momentarily changing the direction of gravity and/or it's force" or something like that, sounds far too complex for someone like Ruby, who has never actually used Dust as anything more than special bullets.

However, here's one thing to note as well, precisely involving that: Ruby does not manipulate Dust like Magic, in the way Cinder or Weiss or Glynda do. She literally fires shots, she fires Dust bullets, in this case Gravity Bullets, like Chish pointed out. So, it'd be reasonable to say that the effect can be different (and much simpler) when not used as "Magic". At the very least, it'd be like a burst, as has been said.

It's like comparing Roman blowing up a Fire Dust crystal, to Weiss's Fire Slash in V1 and the Fire Blade Beam in her CS, or Amber's little cone of fire during her fight. The former just caused an explosion, nothing similar in effect or appearance to the other mentioned things Weiss and Amber did.

Overall, my conclusion about Gravity Dust isn't too different from yours, Spirit; almost the same actually. It can involve Gravity Manipulation. But it also can involve simple Kinetic Pushes, and not (necesarily) the kind that would be simulated with some momentaneous "gravity flick".

About Reese's Hoverboard, however.......she actually could just use Gravity Dust just fine. She's using Wind Dust to push herself up and thus float, similar to what happens when you submerge an object in water.

When the objective is to push yourself up enough to remain semi-static in the air instead of falling to the ground, anything that could push you up well enough would be enough to do the job. And since Gravity Dust can be used for Pushing, she could use it instead of Wind.

.........Of course, like what you said regarding Amity using Wind Dust to float, since Wind would be, as a "Basic Dust", cheaper and easier to find, it'd be more cost-effective to use it instead of Gravity. Though it wouldn't surprise me if Reese's board had a bit of Gravity Dust, if only to make it harder for her to fall off.

About the "using heat from Dust for thermal lift" part, I don't recall Reese, say, pulling out the Wind Dust in her board and replacing it with the other Dust. She just inserted the latter in IIRC. So, I thought she was still using the Wind Dust for movement, not (just) the other Dust.