drcuriosity

I've had a number of discussions recently in which the relative power levels of different entities relative to their number has been argued. So I wrote some notes last night. To whit:

Monkeys:
Monkeys definitely increase in power according to their numbers. One monkey is often pretty harmless, but ten or a hundred monkeys become a formidable force (especially if you're deputy mayor of Delhi). However, the amount of power a group of monkeys has will eventually tail off; even an infinite number of monkeys will still only be equivalent in creative power to one English playwright, for example.

Pirates:
Pirates are more formidable in numbers, but past a certain critical mass they become increasingly unstable and will fight amongst themselves, arguing and backstabbing for a greater share of the plunder. If pirates ever manage to develop some form of social teflon to prevent their internal friction, then they may become an even more formidable cohesive force.

Cowboys:
Cowboys follow some kind of mysterious quantum laws. Two cowboys of different charm (black and white hats, respectively) in close proximity will likely cause the annihilation of one cowboy or the other, depending on their relative speeds (i.e. "the quick and the dead"). The collision of charm-aligned cowboys will react differently, however: resulting in one Hero, one Sidekick, and a burst of gamma radiation (or hilarity, if the reaction takes place within a comedy field). See also: mad scientists and Conservation of Strangeness.

Clowns:
Creepiness increases with the clowns-per-car density ratio. Contortionist mimes especially, due to their lack of visible car.

Robots:
They're a tricky one, alright. Robots tend to increase in numbers, but also have recombinant properties such that five smaller robots are less powerful than those same five robots joined into one larger robot. On the other hand, swarms of very small robots could easily infiltrate and bring down a larger enemy without much threat to themselves. There may be some elusive high-order polynomial relationship that depends on mass, number and overall surface area of robots involved. Which would be just like them, really.

Ninjas:
Last but not least, Ninjas have a very curious property: they are more powerful when there are fewer of them. For example, a group of 100 or more ninjas is likely to find itself decimated by a foe in relatively short order. A group of three ninjas can defeat a squad of men without even blinking. One lone ninja can flip out and defeat an entire household of guards, including elite cadres and bodyguards and maybe even a samurai champion or two. This leads us to believe that the most powerful force in the universe would be no ninjas whatsoever. Certainly, most of the known planets in the universe are completely uninhabited, and also contain absolutely no ninjas. It would be foolish in extreme for us to consider these two facts to be completely unrelated.