Ivan the Not-so-Terrible
AH MEW CHEEKI BREEKI I V DAMKE
- Location
- Mikonyan’s USSR
Achilles, his god-killing cyborg buddies, and at least one space battleship dunk on the Lords of the Night?
Panopticon: A Game of Posthumans, Perniciousness, Paranoia, Politics, and Plasmaguns
Piero is a hyper-advanced murdercyborg built from a demigod with a ton of true Primium protection and a ridiculous level of Blatancy (I'm Motherfuckin' Achilles, Y'all). He's not the sort of unaugmented baseline or near-baseline that the Anathema's field tells to fuck off and die.
The Anathema is a dedicated combat construct designed for mass production and fighting reasonable enemies at reasonable cost, which is why you can kill it with enough rocket launchers and space marines. It's also, well, effectively an avatar of Autochthonia's god-mind. Piero is a dedicated combat construct who can't be mass produced designed for fighting unreasonable enemies at unreasonable costs, with a scalable capability so that you can deploy him against things that aren't world-ending like "a massive pack of dozens of veteran werewolves" without worrying too much about deployment costs. Whereas deploying the Apocalypse Canceller to stomp a bunch of werewolves is... rather inefficient.
Nevertheless, the Anathema is effectively a dedicated combat avatar of Control.
Wasn't it speculated the reason the ones went nuts was because they were reincarnating people that weren't actually dead like Reina but turned into Threat Null's control?
- Location
- The sixth circle of Hell (second on weekends)
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Okay, despite undead psychic vampire superbiocomputers being undeniably awesome, I'm going to double down on...
[X] Write-in - Spring the Trap
As I see it, this is the most... merciful option we can really take here. ES's write-in has us slaughter all of the goons no matter what they're thinking, and while I'm not opposed to a clever focus-backed Mind rote to scan them and see what their motives are, I'm inclined to instead have Rose defang their bait by up-front telling them she knows it's a Serafina beta-fork. She can then adapt her response to whatever they do. They may keep threatening Serabeta or try to suicide-attack, in which case yeah, she can probably murder them and see what Serabeta does. They may go "fuck" and try to surrender, in which case Rose can shoot them all with knockout darts or something while keeping a careful eye on Serabeta. It allows for mercy (well, "handing over to the authorities without killing them all") if they really are just scared and panicking while leaving the option open to counter any attack they try, and it hopefully keeps Serabeta alive if Rose pretends very hard that she feels less terrible about a beta-fork of her mother being threatened or hurt than she does, to make them put less value on her as a bargaining chip or hostage.
Or to put it another way, if it's a trap then Rose stating she knows it's a trap rather defangs and disorients them, and if they're serious then if they think Serabeta is valuable to the Technocracy as a witness to what Gregor's been doing but that she isn't a good enough bargaining chip to buy passage out, they are probably less likely to hurt or kill her.
[X] Write-in - Spring the Trap
As I see it, this is the most... merciful option we can really take here. ES's write-in has us slaughter all of the goons no matter what they're thinking, and while I'm not opposed to a clever focus-backed Mind rote to scan them and see what their motives are, I'm inclined to instead have Rose defang their bait by up-front telling them she knows it's a Serafina beta-fork. She can then adapt her response to whatever they do. They may keep threatening Serabeta or try to suicide-attack, in which case yeah, she can probably murder them and see what Serabeta does. They may go "fuck" and try to surrender, in which case Rose can shoot them all with knockout darts or something while keeping a careful eye on Serabeta. It allows for mercy (well, "handing over to the authorities without killing them all") if they really are just scared and panicking while leaving the option open to counter any attack they try, and it hopefully keeps Serabeta alive if Rose pretends very hard that she feels less terrible about a beta-fork of her mother being threatened or hurt than she does, to make them put less value on her as a bargaining chip or hostage.
Or to put it another way, if it's a trap then Rose stating she knows it's a trap rather defangs and disorients them, and if they're serious then if they think Serabeta is valuable to the Technocracy as a witness to what Gregor's been doing but that she isn't a good enough bargaining chip to buy passage out, they are probably less likely to hurt or kill her.
- Location
- Outside the Box
- Pronouns
- She/Her
The EXEMPLAR projects are fascinating story material. EXEMPLAR-II created people out of long-dead legends. EXEMPLAR-III was meant to completely revive the (not so) dead and lost members of the Invisible College. And EXEMPLAR-IV is meant to embody Control.
There are a few pretty rad ideas you could do with an EXEMPLAR project. If I was one to try to run a Mage: The Ascension campaign, (or in other words, completely crazy,) EXEMPLAR-V: Grab-Bag Edition would be a cool way to build the PCs. Rather than try and decant fully-functional people, EXEMPLAR-V would aim to rebuild and reconfigure those who were enemies of the Technocratic Union into allies and assets. They could be made from (dead) great Traditions mages, or powerful spirits, or legendary werewolves/vampires/ghost stories, or famous Union traitors, or something else weird. And since they can't have their former live's memories and need to be indoctrinated and conditioned, they start out as low-level and incompletely-augmented teenagers. It worked out for Rose Ashford, eventually, so it should be replicable, right?
Ok, maybe amnesiac superpowered teenagers being fed Technocratic propaganda all the time isn't actually a good idea, but I think it would be a fun one. (Plot twist, the secret people inciting teenage rebellion are Nephandics and the evil mad scientists who made our PCs are actually the good guys this time.)
I uh, would't recommend anyone actually try and do that, of course. Fun enough of an idea to write this post, but actually making it would be adding even more work into running a MtA campaign and those look overcomplicated enough already.
Quantumboost
Now with 50% more dots in Dimensional Science
- Location
- Ensemble Space
The thing you need to keep in mind is that the Technodigm doesn't recognize the distinction between "supernatural" martial arts and "mundane" martial arts - that sort of hard wall between the 'magical' and the 'non-magical' is a Traditions thing. Or rather, they consider it a continuum of effectiveness rather than a basic transformation; rather than the Mud, the Root, the Bulb, and the Blossom of the Perfected Lotus, it's all the same plant. For a Technocrat, they "fit in" by simply being martial arts styles that are really effective at what they do and hard to learn to peak effectiveness.
...I am amused that Piero knows Solar Hero Style, aka Magic Pankration. It's exactly the sort of fighting style you'd expect him to have, in hindsight.
Alien biology and implants is basically the Progenitor Psychic Paradigm, so Cross and Rose have those too. But yes.
He also knows Augmented Combat Marksmanship.
Because regular Combat Marksmanship, as overpowered as @ManusDomine knows it is, is still not enough for Piero.
The technodigm also means things at least have to nominally pay lip service to the laws of physics and biology, Rose could probably beat up a room full of kung fu monks who can dodge and deflect bullets at people; but she couldn't do that herself despite being much stronger; because deflecting bullets back at people like Jedi is just wack RD nonsense, so there is still a difference, because paradrimcilly the technoparadrim doesn't let you do stuff jump 50 feet in the air straight up just because you know that much kung fu.
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Quantumboost
Now with 50% more dots in Dimensional Science
- Location
- Ensemble Space
...you uh
you do realize that Rose has a bunch of implants from vampires and edes and whatnot and thus could actually accomplish those things due to Celerity/Fortitude/Potence/Auspex being things that exist right
so yeah she could totally train and hone her exotic xenobiological augmentations to like do literally all the things you just said she couldn't
Ridicule aside, Martial Arts are about using what you have effectively for fite. This includes psychic powers and augmentations, as per the specifically augmentation-and/or-psychic-focused styles listed in the very article we're discussing this in response to.
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FunkyEntropy
Occasionally insightful, possibly grumpy
- Location
- Los Angeles
A hot bath and full-body massage by a hot masseuse doesn't count?
At least, I assume that's Piero's normal post-operation routine?
Would the masseuse need super-strength augments so he can feel anything from it?
I dont have vampire books handy but since when vampires can deflect laser beams and shoot them back at people like askasics can since distance and speed in their paradrim are mental ones to be overcome rather then phsycial ones where technodigm says speed of light is speed of causality.
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- Location
- NY
Dude, this is the Technocracy. The masseuse is a Mary who's been taught
- Location
- in the trash
The massage oils contain NANOMACHINES and are derived from genetically engineered plants.
Quantumboost
Now with 50% more dots in Dimensional Science
- Location
- Ensemble Space
Nice goalposts, but could you keep them in one place? You said Rose couldn't deflect bullets with fite, not lasers, and the "deflect lasers" thing is beyond the level of Do that Technocrats have even worked out.
High-end Celerity powers exist that can be used to deflect bullets, high-end Fortitude can bounce and shatter weapons in general, and high-end Auspex has precognitive abilities.
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Deflecting lasers is easy, anyway. Even mortals can do it.
You just use a mirror.
Sure, you're right that something like unless you're a superhuman cyborg in the Technocracy or a psychic asshole or a genetically engineered killing machine you're going to have some limitations on what you can do, but:
1. Piero is in fact a horrifying murder machine whose every gram of biology is weaponized in some way, shape, or form.
2. Piero is in fact a horrifying murder machine with literal superhuman combat Abilities combined with even more ludicrously superhuman physical Attributes.
3. Just because you can't jump 50 feet into the air doesn't mean you don't have Enlightened Martial Sciences. But the difference between someone like Jaron Belltower and his mastery of small arms handgun combat, represented by his merit dots in the NWO Gunslinger Program, and some House Quaesitor lady packing two handguns underneath her wizard robes and her mastery of small arms handgun combat, represented by her merit dots in Righteous Devil Style, are not actually that great. Do is the odd man out here because it is a terrifying, alien fighting style that is basically in and of itself ludicrous enough to turn you into an ass-kicker who can get into punchups with multiple werewolves without secondary improvements.
- Location
- Cyberpunk capital of the world
And here I was under the impression Do was overrated and overpriced. So I'm half right.
Just overpriced.
Just overpriced.
He actually stays in altered-time VR wherein he spends all his time fucking, fighting, or occasionally learning odd skills he feels like learning.
But alas, the only things which will placate him are war and revenge and his own lusts, blood and otherwise. Of course, the fact that he is a superlative warrior who feeds on an ancient and powerful mythic thread that shifts his behavior and enslaves him to a pattern which means that he can only find meaning in his life by embracing the white-hot rage and savagery that powers him is as much advantage as disadvantage. Feature, not bug, do not fix.
No seriously, it's where his immense innate paradox mitigation comes from and why he doesn't strictly need a full support team unless he's going all-out for extended periods in a non-sterile environment. If you want to use a mythic thread to mitigate paradox, you need to heavily, heavily embrace it and take the costs of doing so. And having Blatancy (I'm Motherfucking Achilles) and Legend (I'm Motherfucking Achilles) and Blessing (I'm Motherfucking Achilles and can do Motherfucking Achilles things without Paradox [Prime 5]) tends to make you a loooot more closely tied into the original legend than merely having some Legendary theme merits and a few blatancy dots.
- Location
- Cyberpunk capital of the world
Sounds like a massive pain and a maintenance hog. Maybe they should have tried resurrecting one of the more sane Greek heroes. Like Ajax or Hector or Odysseus. Or hell, skip those wacky greeks altogether.
Though one can't help but wonder about Hercules...
Though one can't help but wonder about Hercules...
The fact that his story is tied so closely into being a superlative warrior and demigod, who exists only to make war, is probably the reason why he was viable for the project in the first place.
The OOC reason of course is that he is basically Achilles from Infinity meets Achilles from Dan Simmons' Ilium.
*Proceeds to get more lost than Kessler in Space*
Achilles is AMAZING for a killbot, the whole legend says unkillable, unbeatable, unstoppable, looks good in a dress and his weakness is in a clear, manner which is relatively simple to compensate for.
- Location
- Massholistan
So when is UnionSaberfaceJoan of Arc showing up
They probably assigned her to Japan
She is very popular there but people assume she was actually cloned from King Arthur for some reason?
UrsaTempest
Don't Panic!
...we're in Japan, though. Hmm.