Molly's cellphone ...

[g33k]

... is it?

Is it a cellphone, that is?

Or is it some "sufficiently advanced" magic (lookin' atchu, svartalves!), indistinguishable from technology?  Molly is still mortal, even with the Winter Mantle (at least, so far...) so she still has a mortal-wizard impact on tech (albeit much less than Harry's).  The "fact" that she has a cellphone is anomalous, but even before becoming the Winter Lady she was working deals at a VERY high supernatural levels.

The svartalves could easily create a little enchanted communication-and-information device that looks and acts much like a cellphone.  They could probably even create an interface into the mortal cell-net, a "server-room" they control, where their own devices communicate with Svartalven-hardened cellular infrastructure (and thence, once it's all safely-mundane signals, with the un-hardened mortal-built cellular infrastructure)...  "SvartalNet(tm)"

[morriswalters]

It's a call out to Proven Guilty.

[Conspiracy Theorist]

Bob could do it with Butters help.

[seanham]

Could it be a "sufficiently advanced" machine, sure. Or it could be a mortal cellphone that was used as a plot device to show that Molly is becoming less mortal. Either could be true but I think the second is what was intended/does more to progress the story.

[Ed0517]

Could it be a "sufficiently advanced" machine, sure. Or it could be a mortal cellphone that was used as a plot device to show that Molly is becoming less mortal. Either could be true but I think the second is what was intended/does more to progress the story.

I think Harry sees it as her becoming less human. Less Murphyonic field. i don't think Bob and Butters could do anything about it. The field is there or it is not. Hers is dying.  Also, the Ordo Lebes seemed able to use modern things. Less power, less interference. If Elaine was as strong as Harry, would she have come up with plugging in her chain? Doubtful, she'd be in a cold water flat somewhere without electric

Here's a question - if Molly is pulling power from the Mantle to do her work, the same way non-magic Fix does some stuff - is her natural ability withering from non-use?

For Harry? Carry thorn manacles and a phone in a shielded bag. Put on manacles to make a call. To be safer, keep phone powered down when not in use. No incoming calls unless manacled and waiting. 

[g33k]

... Or it could be a mortal cellphone that was used as a plot device to show that Molly is becoming less mortal. Either could be true but I think the second is what was intended/does more to progress the story.

I think Harry sees it as her becoming less human. Less Murphyonic field...

Oh, yeah!  Clearly, Harry is worried about Molly "becoming less human."

The question I was raising was:  do we think he's right?  Or is this another bit of unreliable-narrator-Harry & Jim's misdirection?

Is Molly carrying & using an actual cellphone... and therefore using her mortalborn magic vastly less (and favoring her Winter/Mantle powers even when her own magic could have sufficed)... and thus becoming less human?

Or is she using something that looks like a cellphone, operates like one, but is in fact a magical doodad that plays very nicely indeed with her mortal magic?

I note that the pseudo-Harry illusion she provided (that Harry used on the docks, agains Ebenezer) could have been a Molly item without any Winter Lady power at all; or it could have been pure faerie glamour, without any of Molly's mortal magic involved; or it could have been any ratio or blending of the two.

I honestly don't see that we have enough info to make any firm conclusions... hence, I present a WAG and solicit comments from the Paranet(online) hivemind...
:-)

... The field is there or it is not. Hers is dying.  Also, the Ordo Lebes seemed able to use modern things. Less power, less interference ...

I think the "murphyonic field" is highly-variable between wizards.  As noted, the Ordo Lebes could all mostly / more-or-less use mortal tech, with only minor glitches & failures (n.b. not none).

Harry reduces his own murphyonic field by staying calm & relaxed.  I presume actively meditating would reduce it further.  IIRC, he was doing something special (sustaining a spell?) to be "less murphyonic" on the Larry Fowler show.

Thus, one presumes that older and more-disciplined wizards have less troubles.

Also, we know Harry's own magical talents & inherent strengths include big, flashy, extravagant "boom" sorts of things, and that kind of magic is (we don't know with certainty, but surmise; if only for Jim's own torment-Harry reasons) probably more-murphyonic than subtle things like veils and mind-magic.  Jim has said that Molly is in many ways "just as strong" as Harry is, but her subtler magic is probably less-murphyonic.

[Arjan]

Before Molly became the winter lady she had to the same effect on technology as Harry. It is mentioned a few times. For example in the warrior short story:

“Molly sat on a blanket underneath a tree maybe ten yards away, with earbuds trailing wires down into her shirt's front pocket, as if she was listening to a digital music player. It was an effort to blend into the background, I supposed, since she couldn't have been listening to one of those gizmos any more than I could have.”

The cellphone was just a cry out to Harry that Molly was not completely human anymore.

[Mira]

Before Molly became the winter lady she had to the same effect on technology as Harry. It is mentioned a few times. For example in the warrior short story:

“Molly sat on a blanket underneath a tree maybe ten yards away, with earbuds trailing wires down into her shirt's front pocket, as if she was listening to a digital music player. It was an effort to blend into the background, I supposed, since she couldn't have been listening to one of those gizmos any more than I could have.”

The cellphone was just a cry out to Harry that Molly was not completely human anymore.

Exactly, and if I remember correctly, that fact troubled Harry greatly.

[morriswalters]

That drew a quick, merry laugh from her. She bumped my fist with hers, and turned away—and as she walked away from me, I saw her pull a cell phone out of her pocket and turn it on.

That stopped me in my tracks.

Cell phones were some of the technology that was absolutely the most sensitive to the unbalanced fields of energy around a mortal wizard. When one of us got near a powered-up cell phone, it was likely to kick the bucket right there. Inhuman practitioners, on the other hand, had no problem with that effect whatsoever. And I suddenly felt very afraid for Molly.

Butcher, Jim. Skin Game: A Novel of the Dresden Files (p. 447). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

It's there to draw attention to the fact that she is no longer completely human. It is also a clue bat for Proven guilty if you assume Sandra Marling was Maeve. It's getting you ready for something later.

[g33k]

That drew a quick, merry laugh from her. She bumped my fist with hers, and turned away—and as she walked away from me, I saw her pull a cell phone out of her pocket and turn it on.

I'm pretty sure this was Molly  wanting Harry to see  this thing.

I don't know if it was a cry for help ("Harry!  I'm slipping!") or a warning ("My rules are no longer what they were, so tread carefully!") or a hint ("there are ways to handle tech") or exactly what Molly was saying to Harry here.
 

[morriswalters]

It's fairly simple. Butcher wanted you to know that the Queens can use cellphones.

[g33k]

It's fairly simple. Butcher wanted you to know that the Queens can use cellphones.

Maybe they can, maybe they can't; PROBABLY they can, because the fae don't have mortal murphyonics.  Mostly they cannot use iron/steel (which rules out much mortal tech), but they don't have to actually touch anything ferrous to use a cellphone, just glass & aluminum.

I doubt they WOULD use a cellphone... except for Lady Molly, if her murphyonics don't prevent.  Maybe Sarissa -- maybe -- since she seems to have valued her mortal side and wanted to fit in.

I don't think the "limousine" Lea picked up Harry & Susan with was an actual car.  It was some sort of faerie magic, likely a carriage or somesuch; with a car-like glamour for Harry & Susan and a "make way, but don't notice me" veil for everyone else.  My point is -- when it looks like tech and it's faerie... it isn't tech.

In this thread, I'm positing that Molly's cellphone isn't tech.
That it was a(nother) red-herring, or false-flag, or whatever; by Jim (and by Molly).

[morriswalters]

I know the idea that your advancing.  But Mab does indeed have cars, Harry is driving one.  There is no real plot purpose behind it, or it there is it plumb missed me. On my more cynical days I tell myself that it's Butcher, pulling his blue hair out because no one twigged to the "maybe" fact that Sandra Marling was really Maeve behind a glamour. She was always waving her phone around going "I'm human, see I have a phone".

[Ulfgeir]

If I remember correctly there is also a woman in one of the short stories in Side-Jobs, who is a fae and uses a credit card. With a microhip in it if I recall correctly (and as far as I understand it, the US is way behind Europe for that).  Don't have the book, so I cannot verify, but I recall Dresden realising that she could use it meant that she was supernatural and not a wizard/sorcerer.

[g33k]

I know the idea that your advancing.  But Mab does indeed have cars, Harry is driving one ...

I'm pretty sure Mab simply gave orders that a car be provided to Harry.  Up to others to make that happen (and happen in a way that satisfied Mab (should the matter ever again come to her attention)).  It's not that Mab, personally, owned any cars.

Molly demonstrated very effectively than any reasonably-powerful supernatural (who wants to) can quickly become very, very rich indeed; Sarissa (for example) most-likely had the resources to provide Harry with a car.  I'm sure she's not the only one.