Distance Learning for fun and profit...

[kelgar04]

But they do! They also have Alexandria, Eidolon, Legend (but not really since they keep him out of the loop), Numbers Man, and... uhm... Doctor Mother? Other then that they have the 2 non-responsive parahumans they use as transportation and Custodian, who they use as a disembodied janitor. Oh, and all the experiment victims considered too unstable to mind wipe and dump on Earth Bet. But they aren't considered members of cauldron, so much as failed experiments that need to be kept locked up until they get thrown at Zion in the inevitable battle.

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So three of the most unsubtle people out there, an escaped extra from America Psycho, a glorified substitute for easy je and friendt, a ghost janitor and the barber surgeon artist as well as the poor bastards they use as lab rats. Oh an the I win plot device.

Essentially what we have is a bare handful of people whom if one goes down loose a great deal of capability.

 

[BF110C4]

I doubt Eidolon has the power needed to do that anymore. By this point he's drained his shard so badly that he's lost access to all his strongest abilities. Besides which, nuking BB when there's an open portal leading to the room you are sitting in? That's more suicidal then Cauldron usually are.

EDIT: Besides which, this is a genie that can't be stuffed back in the bottle. Even if you destroy Gravtech and kill everyone currently in the Bay, the SCIENCE is already out there. It's just a matter of time before someone else develops the same tech. What will they do then, nuke every city containing a university with a physics department and every military research facility in America? Sure, great idea! Protect their secrets by wiping out the very parahumans "needed" to kill Zion and pissing off everyone left alive.

Remember, most parahumans are no more durable then a regular human. And Cauldron is well aware of that fact. It's why one of Contessa's tasks has been to prevent anyone from successfully sniping a parahuman with a rifle. Start attacking the US military and destroying cities left, right, and center though... And you can damn well be sure the US Armed Forces are going to start shooting.

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I wasn't talking about the tech, I was talking about the comment of Taylor opening a portal to a Cauldron meeting. And on that specific contingency Cauldron only need to kill a few hundred non-parahuman scientists, military and former dockworkers, something more doable for Eidolon since he must have plenty of powers useless against Endbringers but fairly lethal against non-brutes such as AoE lethal radiation.

 

[FaerieKnight79]

They also have access to someone that can puppet Alexandria's body, as shown by what happened in canon after Taylor killed her.

I wasn't talking about the tech, I was talking about the comment of Taylor opening a portal to a Cauldron meeting. And on that specific contingency Cauldron only need to kill a few hundred non-parahuman scientists, military and former dockworkers, something more doable for Eidolon since he must have plenty of powers useless against Endbringers but fairly lethal against non-brutes such as AoE lethal radiation.

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He'd also have to assault other DARPA facilities too, cause you know Brockton Bay isn't the only place working on this stuff. Taylor might be "prime asset", but she's not "only asset". As soon as he attacks Brockton Bay, the gig would be up.

 

[kelgar04]

He'd also have to assault other DARPA facilities too, cause you know Brockton Bay isn't the only place working on this stuff. Taylor might be "prime asset", but she's not "only asset". As soon as he attacks Brockton Bay, the gig would be up.

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That's going to be a lot of bodies and way to much heat if cauldron go that route standard policy for most Defence ministries and militaries is if the research is vital enough you disperse it across multiple locations with various forms of overt and covert security to watch the assets.

If Cauldron go that route they may start a war.

 

[FaerieKnight79]

That's going to be a lot of bodies and way to much heat if cauldron go that route standard policy for most Defence ministries and militaries is if the research is vital enough you disperse it across multiple locations with various forms of overt and covert security to watch the assets.

If Cauldron go that route they may start a war.

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No 'might' about it. They would start a war. Funny enough, it's even possible that the initial strike would fail due to Taylor already having made something that inadvertantly disrupts Eidolon's connection to the Endbringers and thus his pool of available powers.

 

[kelgar04]

No 'might' about it. They would start a war. Funny enough, it's even possible that the initial strike would fail due to Taylor already having made something that inadvertantly disrupts Eidolon's connection to the Endbringers and thus his pool of available powers.

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Yep and they would have a lot of angry people with guns and a lot of very pissed parahumans after them. Well unless of course they could pin it on the CIU or Russia.

 

[gthesob]

...see, this whole conversation on how Taylor would get a hold of Tinker Tech since my last comment is rather annoying since it all seems to hinge on her getting access to it legally.

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All she'd have to do is call procurement and they'd hop to it. I have no doubt they have multiple collections and they'd be eager to share with her.

 

[tedr]

Based on her observations of parahuman subspace link, Taylor comes up with a subspace dimensional jammer and builds a prototype with a city size range. She does not turn it on but explains her theory and show it to the DARPA/military representative in her lab An Endbringer conveniently drops in. DWU public announcement speaker blares warning to all capes to shelter on ground with a countdown 10 seceond. At the end she turns on the Jammer and the endbringer just fall inactive, and all the assembled cape report their power has been nullified. Many tinkertech fails. too OP?

 

[kelgar04]

Wouldn't be surprised if the US Military and DARPA have aquire in the past some off the books Tinker tech without the PRT catching wind of it. Especially in the early days before they figured out Tinker Tech couldn't be reverse engineered easily.

 

[FaerieKnight79]

Hell, she got the last bit by asking her dad. Taylor doesn't need to go around mugging Wards to get tinker tech. Hell, based on the last chapter... If Dragon and Armsmaster knew that Gravtech had a normal human who can potentially study tinker tech and figure out how it should work they might be willing to give Gravtech examples of their work.

 

[Pai]

Guys guys, don't poke Culdrun too much. Or someone might notice the super-secret organization spanning many worlds.

Is staffed by six to seven people.. You'll upset that one poster from pages ago if anyone notices they might have a staffing issue.

I mean you would think they would have at lest.. 10! 10 people to deal with the millions and millions of issues across the various worlds they handle.

 

[kelgar04]

Hell, she got the last bit by asking her dad. Taylor doesn't need to go around mugging Wards to get tinker tech. Hell, based on the last chapter... If Dragon and Armsmaster knew that Gravtech had a normal human who can potentially study tinker tech and figure out how it should work they might be willing to give Gravtech examples of their work.

Click to shrink...

Aww

But yeah in all seriousness they would probably shower her in Tinker tech. Heck think how much tinker tech leet of all people must have cast off over the years there are probably garbage dumps of his stuff just sitting there.

 

[FaerieKnight79]

Guys guys, don't poke Culdrun too much. Or someone might notice the super-secret organization spanning many worlds.

Is staffed by six to seven people.. You'll upset that one poster from pages ago if anyone notices they might have a staffing issue.

I mean you would think they would have at lest.. 10! 10 people to deal with the millions and millions of issues across the various worlds they handle.

Click to shrink...

No, it use to be staffed by seven people. I don't count Legend since they lie to him about what's going on and exclude him from any actual decisions. Then Dr Manton went crazy and killed Hero, so now it's down to 5 people. Custodian, Doormaker, and Clairvoyant don't really count as members since they are treated as slave labor at best. Legend doesn't count either, as I mentioned, because they actively exclude him from most of Cauldron's activities.

According to Wildbow Contessa was quite busy. Her duties included the following:

• Keep the existence of Cauldron secret by killing anyone that learned the truth (weirdly they also wanted people to know about Cauldron so they could sell power granting vials)
• Prevent anyone from sniping a parahuman
• Prop up legitimate governments world wide to prevent the collapse of society
• Prop up criminal organizations world wide in case they are the key to preventing the collapse of society
• Protect the Slaughterhouse 9 because Manton's power might be useful against Zion, as might Crawler

Of the above duties (in addition to her making the power granting vials, as shown in the flashback interlude) the only one in canon she stopped doing before Golden Morning was killing anyone that learned of Cauldron's existence. They had her abandon that path after their existence came to light because it was taking too much of her time and STILL couldn't cover up their existence after Noelle cloned Alexandria and the clone spilled the bean live on national television. There's probably more things she was suppose to be doing behind the scenes too that I don't know about. Numbers Man had the main job of manipulating the markets to keep them from imploding due to the ongoing collapse of society and destruction of critical infrastructure. No clue what Doctor Mother was suppose to be doing beyond giving mixed power vials to customers. It's amazing any of them find time to have their little meetings to begin with.

 

[Epic Reader]

Wow.

Every time Legend laughed I got angrier on Piggot's behalf. She tells him Nazis are killing people, she needs more resources, more people, she just gets a laugh from the head of the Protectorate - the very person who can in fact assign more capes to Armsmaster.

And who never once takes her up on her very blatant request.

Who never once so much as offers to try to help stop the local gangs. Not a single offer to consider sending more capes. Not a single offer to take out some of the gangs himself while he's in town.

Just a variety of brick-to-the-face-subtle attempts to get Piggot to put her own head in the national security meat-grinder - your boss wants you to, aren't you curious, what if a ganger pisses them off?

If he's so damn concerned about Lung taking an anti-tank rocket, then go arrest Lung, put him safely in jail, and keep him there!

I note there's no hint of written orders or requests - just 100% deniable verbal requests which my finely tuned political senses say are just right for the higher ups to weasel out of any consequences if Piggot's dumb enough to do what the heads of both the PRT and Protectorate clearly want her to... which is to commit espionage... which Legend himself chose not to try himself, despite pushing Piggot to.

At this point I honestly hope her office is bugged and she ends up getting a job offer from another agency when she's fired for a more pliable patsy to get the job.

Sorry - it made me genuinely angry - I've seen that kind of crap except for the national security issues before. It does raise a huge question about Legend in this fic, though...

 

[kelgar04]

Keep the existence of Cauldron secret by killing anyone that learned the truth (weirdly they also wanted people to know about Cauldron so they could sell power granting vials)

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That's a bit silly when you think about it we need to make more Cape but we will kill anyone who finds out about us kind of defeats the purpose of trying to sell Space worm gunk to give them powers.

Kind of defeats their purpose.

Prevent anyone from sniping a parahuman

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That must be a full time job ,plus burn out levels of overtime before her other duties if you think about the average gun ownership in places like North America and other corners of the world.

Heck think about the amount of ambushes she would have to stop from people trying to kill groups like S9. Or maybe plant a car bomb to take out say Max Anders aka Kasier.

• Prop up legitimate governments world wide to prevent the collapse of society
• Prop up criminal organizations world wide in case they are the key to preventing the collapse of society

Click to shrink...

Well given they are only six people that's a stupidly hard job given how complex both of these are. Does Wildbow think it's simple to run or set up ethier?

 

[FaerieKnight79]

That's kind of the point I was making. According to Wildbow, Contessa is so busy that she's doing something "important" 72 hours a day... And yes, I mean spending more hours per day on her Paths then exist in a single day. And her goals seem to be mutually exclusive. "get word out you can buy powers from Cauldron" and "kill anyone that learns about Cauldron" are exclusive goals. "Keep government lead society functional" and "keep criminals functional" are also mutually exclusive. Criminal organizations by their very nature disrupt the legitimate government. And since she can only be in a single place at a time, how the HELL does she prevent anyone from getting a rifle and sniping capes?

 

[kelgar04]

That's kind of the point I was making. According to Wildbow, Contessa is so busy that she's doing something "important" 72 hours a day... And yes, I mean spending more hours per day on her Paths then exist in a single day. And her goals seem to be mutually exclusive. "get word out you can buy powers from Cauldron" and "kill anyone that learns about Cauldron" are exclusive goals. "Keep government lead society functional" and "keep criminals functional" are also mutually exclusive. Criminal organizations by their very nature disrupt the legitimate government. And since she can only be in a single place at a time, how the HELL does she prevent anyone from getting a rifle and sniping capes?

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Sorry eh was trying to reinforce your point didn't mean to sound like I was trying to argue with you.

 

[FaerieKnight79]

And don't forget, Legend was kept out of everything except the fact Zion is actually a homicidal space whale. So really, Cauldron only consisted of five people. That's Doctor Mother, Contessa, Alexandria, Eidolon, and Numbers Man. Of them, Doctor Mother spends all her time in their base built around Eden's corpse doing... something. No clue what, but she's NOT the one making the power vials according to an interlude. Contessa is so overworked that she probably is only functional because her body is being puppeted by PTV. Alexandria spends most of her time either as the PRT director or her cape identity since the PRT is her brainchild. And Eidolon spends all his time doing... Well, actually, we don't know what he spends all his time doing. I guess he leads a Protectorate team, but other then that no clue. Oh, and Numbers Man is trying to keep the economy functional despite society collapsing and Cauldron helping the criminal organizations that disrupt the economy to begin with.

 

[kelgar04]

And don't forget, Legend was kept out of everything except the fact Zion is actually a homicidal space whale. So really, Cauldron only consisted of five people. That's Doctor Mother, Contessa, Alexandria, Eidolon, and Numbers Man. Of them, Doctor Mother spends all her time in their base built around Eden's corpse doing... something. No clue what, but she's NOT the one making the power vials according to an interlude. Contessa is so overworked that she probably is only functional because her body is being puppeted by PTV. Alexandria spends most of her time either as the PRT director or her cape identity since the PRT is her brainchild. And Eidolon spends all his time doing... Well, actually, we don't know what he spends all his time doing. I guess he leads a Protectorate team, but other then that no clue. Oh, and Numbers Man is trying to keep the economy functional despite society collapsing and Cauldron helping the criminal organizations that disrupt the economy to begin with.

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As you said the whole organisation is a walking talking contradiction. TBH I would be surprised if there are a major number of other factors and they are just deluding themselves as to they are the sole reason that society hasn't completely collapsed.

 

[MTB]

That's the major problem with the setting if you make the non-Parahumans (aka 'normals') just lobotomized instead of brain-dead. Because then the whole setting crumbles. And analyzing Cauldron critically?
...

Edit: Spelling

 

[Trufla]

I'm sure there's a box in the DWU storerooms with some Leet tech in it...

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DWU are all packrats of the first water. If they come across any bit of discarded gear, I'm sure it goes into their own version of the government warehouse from the Indiana Jones movies. It's almost a foregone conclusion that DARPA actually has a similar facility somewhere. When Taylor finally gets to the point of being willing to show that she can grok Tinker-tech and derive actual working devices that use those principles but are ready for construction by normal mass-production methods, she's going to be flooded with exemplars from all sides.

 

[Firestorm_100]

Taylor Anne Hebert, supergenius

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And MUD spelled backwards is dumb.

Just watch out for the rabbit. (Bugs Bunny)

 

[Czlyydwr Llrngwl]

The rabbit is usually not such a problem unless you're being a jerk yourself. It's that damn trolling bird that you have to watch out for while going about your supergenius business.

image source
meep meep

 

[FaerieKnight79]

DWU are all packrats of the first water. If they come across any bit of discarded gear, I'm sure it goes into their own version of the government warehouse from the Indiana Jones movies. It's almost a foregone conclusion that DARPA actually has a similar facility somewhere. When Taylor finally gets to the point of being willing to show that she can grok Tinker-tech and derive actual working devices that use those principles but are ready for construction by normal mass-production methods, she's going to be flooded with exemplars from all sides.

Click to shrink...

So, what you're saying is that the DWU have the Ark of the Covenant somewhere in one of their warehouses? And that Warehouse 13 is ran by DARPA?

 

[NHO]

Well, some people noticed that Taylor can build parahuman jammer.
I dunno if it was in the thread or not, but there were words "Destructive Resonance" associated with subspace technology.

If Taylor was more... SB/SV, she could have made an app that pops parahuman heads. Selectively in radius. Or jams them, yes. Or inflicts horrible headaches. But mainly pops. As in, explodes.