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Chronocidal said:
I can't remember where it was, but I'm sure I saw something that explained that the Thermal Clips used a material that underwent a phase-change or endothermic chemical reaction when heated to absorb the heat and store in within the molecular bonds. The thermal clips are still hot when they eject, but they have a maximum heat — like how water will only reach 100°C at standard pressure, no matter how much heat you pump in (any extra energy/heat is removed by the steam) — so they will cool down, but won't be re-usable after that; you'd have to "un-bake the cake", as it were.
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Two problems with that explanation:
  1. If it's an endothermic reaction, it either has to have high activation energy, which brings its own problems, or a lot of internal mechanical bits (high precision, and wasted space) to prevent it from becoming a supercooled chunk of metal. [EDIT: or both]
  2. If it's a phase-change material, then it is relatively easy to reverse the reaction, as long as you get things cold enough; if space couldn't do the job (~3 Kelvin), then I'd definitely consider it an endothermic reaction instead.
#1 is likely too expensive to go into widespread production, and #2 removes most of the problems with re-use of thermal clips (though it may require specific circumstances and/or equipment to do so, depending on the material characteristics, i.e. it may not be automatic in a human-friendly environment).
 
Rather then discuss ME Game Mechanics that Taylor could improve out of existence, let us consider a point a bit more relevant to the stories.

I just finished a re-read. I have to wonder, how long until Rebeca tries to use Rannoc Industries to get at Gravtec, under the justification that they are indeed employing a known parahuman as a matter of record, and how badly will she get told off when she tries?
 
Jacen1 said:
Rather then discuss ME Game Mechanics that Taylor could improve out of existence, let us consider a point a bit more relevant to the stories.

I just finished a re-read. I have to wonder, how long until Rebeca tries to use Rannoc Industries to get at Gravtec, under the justification that they are indeed employing a known parahuman as a matter of record, and how badly will she get told off when she tries?
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More so, how big will the cranial explosion be when she realizes it's not a parahuman, but a non-terestrial sentient from another universe?
 
FaerieKnight79 said:
More so, how big will the cranial explosion be when she realizes it's not a parahuman, but a non-terestrial sentient from another universe?
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The one catch is that this might get Cauldron involved. After all, Tali looks like a Case 53, but isn't one of theirs...

Chronocidal said:
Tali, sure. However, they also subcontracted Panacea, who is a parahuman.
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Panacea has so much political good will with the PRT and Protectorate that even RCB wouldn't mess with her, or question her being called in by other agencies. After all, she's already being about as helpful to Cauldron as anyone could ask, and having her available to deal with post-high-risk-operation injuries just plain makes sense to someone like RCB.

After all, it's not like she's anything but a Healer...
 
Would this be the same Costa-Brown who's doing her best to burn whatever influance she has in an attempt to discover Gravtech's secrets and gain control over the "tinker" involved?
 
And isn't Cauldron irrevelent due to
A) Taylor and Queenie swiping the shard network away from Zion
B) Taylor and Queenie are working on a way to deal with Zion already
and
C) They were irrevelent anyway due to none of their actual plans ever having a snowball's chance in a lava pool of working due to the Grass Man's need for worthy foes unleashing the Endbringers and them relying on a plan created by someone who's definition of an army is "thousands of individuals who have never trained together and probably don't even like each other that just happen to be in the same general area"? Oh, and them relying on the enemy's simi-sentient tools to accomplish the goal. Tools which they KNEW had been compromised by the enemy.
 
FaerieKnight79 said:
Would this be the same Costa-Brown who's doing her best to burn whatever influance she has in an attempt to discover Gravtech's secrets and gain control over the "tinker" involved?
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Let me put it another way; is Gravtech worth losing Panacea being willing to heal Eidolon or Legend, when there's another Parahuman they might be able to use instead?

Panacea's not an asset she's be quite that willing to burn if there are alternatives.
 
PossiblyEnos said:
Depends. Is it RCB doing or someone here flanderizing her?
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She's kind of a control freak, and very used to getting her way by being a famous and super strong hero, and huge political power as the head of a prominent three letter agency, and one of the leaders of a big ass conspiracy with bullshit I win powers.

How exactly she'd react to being told to butt out might be up for debate, but the answer is definitely some flavor of "Not well".
 
TypoNinja said:
She's kind of a control freak, and very used to getting her way by being a famous and super strong hero, and huge political power as the head of a prominent three letter agency, and one of the leaders of a big ass conspiracy with bullshit I win powers.

How exactly she'd react to being told to butt out might be up for debate, but the answer is definitely some flavor of "Not well".
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The flanderization does not concern her control issues. The flanderization concerns the insistence of some people in portraying her as a brainless automaton stuck on a single program and without the ability to learn anything ever.
 
PossiblyEnos said:
The flanderization does not concern her control issues. The flanderization concerns the insistence of some people in portraying her as a brainless automaton stuck on a single program and without the ability to learn anything ever.
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Just from what is shown in canon RBC really does believe that anything Cauldron does regardless of how morally or ethically dubious is justified because they are working to save "all of humanity, everywhere". She run on the twin ideas of "hard people making hard decisions because they are hard" and "The ends justify the means". Moral, ethical, and even legal boundaries don't matter to her.
 
TypoNinja said:
I was under the impression a black hole would evaporate long before it got that small.

In fact, I don't believe it could be called a black hole anymore, as it would no longer have an event horizon. It's smaller than the photons it might capture, and a proton has a larger radius than it does.
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This was the same conversation in which I started to actually understand why CP Violation was such a big deal, what more do you people want from me? :V:V:V

Also in the same conversation we both acknowledged the suspension of disbelief on ridiculously small singularities of matter (because apparently calling something a blackhole isn't allowed if it's too small to absorb photons.) - particularly the disbelief at such a small thing not immediately dissappearing. Into nothing but hawking radiation.
 
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She did, after all, think that making a highly dangerous, and very prone to going through anyone who got in the way, Parahuman believe that her friends were being killed one after another by Alexandria was a swimmingly good idea. This is canon. It got her very dead indeed in a rather unpleasant manner.

That's not the actions of someone who really has their head entirely screwed on properly, I have to say. Putting anyone's back against the wall like that is likely to have repercussions you might not desire, doing it to a Parahuman who has already shown that if you fuck around with her too much you're going to end up regretting it is idiotic. But it was very RCB. She clearly believed that she would always come out on top and whatever she did to that end was justified and right.

This one hasn't gone quite that pants-on-head stupid, but she's certainly having significant problems with how the situation has changed, mostly because people are telling her "No."

Contessa's Magic 8 Ball isn't helping of course, but then Contessa knows this :D
 
mp3.1415player said:
She did, after all, think that making a highly dangerous, and very prone to going through anyone who got in the way, Parahuman believe that her friends were being killed one after another by Alexandria was a swimmingly good idea. This is canon. It got her very dead indeed in a rather unpleasant manner.
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My assumption is that Cauldron always felt that they had a Contessa safety belt in most scenarios and therefore lost all sense of caution. Like how sky diving fatality rates don't reduce as much as you'd expect when additional safety gear is added, because people start taking more risks - the perception of safety negatively impacts risk assessment.

Becky just didn't take into account the fact that the Path might value something else higher than her life.
 
What made Costa-Brown and Tagg's ploy even stupider was that Skitter had turned herself in. Yet both of them thought it was a Good Idea to push this horrifically dangerous cape until they felt they had no other options but to retaliate. Presumably Costa-Brown was trying to discredit Taylor by making her appear psychotically unstable. But that doesn't make it any better. Costa-Brown was more focused on making the PRT appear to be effective then actually reforming things so it would be effective. In her defense, there might not have been time since Zion got set off by Jack Slash only a few months to a couple years later. Funny thing, that could have been avoided if Cauldron had let Jack Slash and his band of murder hobos get taken out at any point before that point. But no, Manton might be useful so they got protected.
 
Didn't Wildbow say, repeatedly, that he was basically trying to write himself into corners intentionally to force himself to figure out ways to get Taylor out of them?

We can make up all kinds of rationales for why Alexandria pulled her Epic Stupid Maneuver in Worm.. but frankly it always smacked of just terrible writing to enforce conflict to me.
 
Problem is Countessa is both an amazing assert to Cauldron but she is also their greatest weakness as well say she disappeared one fine day for instance you effectively cripple them on top of this having the I win button for most situations makes then make insane plans and take even stupider risks.

Heck if they did proper leg work instead of blindly following the path then a lot of the problems could have been avoided for them.
 
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