You become the Fastest Thing Alive (RAR!)

[Zor]

In this scenario you receive a package in the mail. When you open it it contains a pair of red and white sneakers in your size and a golden ring about 30cm in diameter. When you touch the ring it sends a jolt of energy through you which does several things. First of all it gives you a head full of long blue quill like hair and second it gives you the ability to run fast. Really fast. You can easily reach 400km/h overland and maintain that speed constantly for hours. You can also run up walls. Your body becomes durable enough to withstand the stresses of moving at said speed, but the same could not be said about regular footware. Fortunately the sneakers that came with the package are.

What do you?

Zor

[bilateralrope]

Your body becomes durable enough to withstand the stresses of moving at said speed, but the same could not be said about regular footware. Fortunately the sneakers that came with the package are.

What about the rest of our clothing ?

[Tribble]

Do we also have an attitude, develop cravings for chilli dogs and must rescue animals from being trapped inside evil robots?

[FaxModem1]

Avoid commutes to work by just running past them, I guess. Maybe buy a Flash costume and save lives? Maybe buy a Reverse Flash costume and rob banks?

As bilaterope noted, does clothing survive our travels? Otherwise, we're the Fastest Flasher alive.

[Zor]

Avoid commutes to work by just running past them, I guess. Maybe buy a Flash costume and save lives? Maybe buy a Reverse Flash costume and rob banks?

As bilaterope noted, does clothing survive our travels? Otherwise, we're the Fastest Flasher alive.

Your other clothes are not being rammed repeatedly into the pavement dozens of times a second.

Zor

[Civil War Man]

Your other clothes are not being rammed repeatedly into the pavement dozens of times a second.

No, but they are subject to friction from moving through the air at those speeds while wrapped around a body that is not particularly aerodynamic.

[Simon_Jester]

Yeah.

You know how after 9/11 a lot of people hung up flags on their cars and trucks? And those flags tended to get... eroded away? The windstream alone of running around in hurricane-force winds (the effect of being at superspeed) is enough to cause this, and gradually destroy cloth.

[Civil War Man]

It's even beyond hurricane-force. 400 km/h is almost double what's considered Category 5 hurricane-force winds. It doesn't get into the weirdness that happens when you hit supersonic speeds or significant fractions of c, but your clothes would probably be ripped to shreds in pretty short order.

It's almost too bad we aren't dealing with the crazy speeds. It would have been fun to have a RAR! posted where the scientific answer is "your t-shirt undergoes nuclear fusion."

[Elheru Aran]

At least he's not turning us into Wally West at his peak. There is such a thing as TOO absurd when it comes to super-speed, and Wally is wayyyyy up there.

[Solauren]

I'd play with the powers a bit. Like, am I fast enough I can now run on water?


Beyond that, it's pretty much "Do I become a superhero/villian speedster, or find a better way to use it to make money?"

[The Romulan Republic]

Superhero is tempting, especially since I do feel that having such a unique ability would give one a moral obligation to try to use it to help others, but on second thought, this is not Flash-level speed where I can move so fast I'm invisible and dodge weapons fire. Still, I might be of use in some disaster/search and rescue type scenarios, given how fast I can cover ground and respond to a crisis. But I'd need additional training, rather than just falling back on my powers.

I also have my political and moral objections to vigilantism, so my superheroics would be somewhat limited unless I joined the cops or the military, and I don't really want to do either with my life.

I could use it for entertainment, I suppose. I'm a theatre actor in real life, so that fits well enough I suppose.

There's also the big question of weather to go public or not. On the one hand, their is the potential for fame and fortune, and more nobly, for allowing science to gain new knowledge by studying me (the fact that the ring almost has to be either magic or alien is a huge deal in and of itself). On the other hand, do I really want that much scrutiny? What about the risk of someone wanting to experiment on or detain me against my will, or confiscate the ring as a hazard and use it to create super soldiers or something?

Okay, maybe that's a bit fanciful.

I'm a little leery of using the ring at all, to be honest, but also of giving it up. I don't know who sent it, what their motives were, or what its side effects might be. And I'm enough of a fantasy fan to know to be wary of mysterious rings that grant fantastic powers.

[Marko Dash]

Win the Olympics by always being 'just' faster than the 2nd place guy.

[Enigma]

So I can only run fast? If I had to defend myself, can I punch at super speeds too? If I had to assemble some furniture from IKEA can I build it at super speed?

[Zor]

So I can only run fast? If I had to defend myself, can I punch at super speeds too? If I had to assemble some furniture from IKEA can I build it at super speed?

You got a nifty little trick where you can roll yourself into the fetal position when at full speed and spin along.

Zor

[LaCroix]

So I can only run fast? If I had to defend myself, can I punch at super speeds too? If I had to assemble some furniture from IKEA can I build it at super speed?

Just grab a stick/stone/beer can/whatever, run past them at super speed, and let go of it a few feet in front of their face.

400km/h is about 110 m/s (~400 ft/s). A 44-40 has triple that speed, but a brick has a LOT more mass.

Less likely to break your hand, and much more effective.

Use something pointier than a brick if you really dislike the bastard.

[Tribble]

If 400 km/h+ is our sustained jogging speed, what would be our max sprint speed? IIRC the uhhh, inspiration for this scenario can travel at Mach 2.

And will someone else be given a big IQ boost and penchant for building robots, just to balance things out?

[Jub]

Isn't looking for more rings (and eventually a certain set of Emeralds) the obvious thing to do? Also, do we get his other abilities aside from his spin dash?

[Sky Captain]

Your running shoes better also come with super traction. I think at 400 km/h air drag would be enough to make it like trying to run in chest deep water. Even if you have the strength to overcome drag your foot will loose traction and slip backwards.

It would be fun to calculate power requirements to run that fast, my guess is somewhere around 200 k/w like a high end motorbike that can approach similar speed.