[HALP] me! (WORM quest)

Fair enough. Either through multi host connection or psionics we can eventually form an overmind connecting buds to us anyway.

Gino said:

Fair enough. Either through multi host connection or psionics we can eventually form an overmind connecting buds to us anyway.

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I am already getting Revoke The Privilegia flashbacks from your comment.

Mount. Elements said:

I'm confused on this point. Are we going to do the remaining winning votes from the previous update after we finish dealing with Prosthetic, or do we have to vote for them again? @Vhalidictes?

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I will attempt to apply any previously winning votes to the next chapter. That said, if you (all) want to vote to modify or clarify previous winning votes, I would accept that.

Mount. Elements said:

The thing is that these fears haven't been proven wrong yet, though partially because we haven't contacted a lot of Shards or sent Taylor the Blackwell dream. While most people took Amy's actions ok, Carol is apparently building a "'healer's dungeon'. People need sunlight, you know? Even flight risk people! Well Ames wouldn't have run if you weren't such a bitch, Mom!" while Veronica's mom is very unhappy about her new daughter. Vhalidictes' comments suggest that Armsmaster and Piggot weren't very happy either. We don't know how it will turn out in the end, and we've also got a quest to stay alive, suggesting that we can die if we aren't careful.

I think it's important to take into consideration the risks and to try to plan for them, but it's ok to say, "I think we're being too cautious/risk-averse here". It's NOT ok to call it "fear mongering" because that has very negative connotations.

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Everyone, in an attempt to help out, I will highlight that you have an Aberrance score of Zero, and I report that running total for a reason.

There is a difference between the threat of getting points and actually getting points.

Aside from that, Human concerns are essentially a separate category from Shard concerns. Parahuman stuff, outside of the possibility of getting Scions attention, simply don't concern you.

Of course, as QM I am incapable of advising on the correct level of concern. Sorry about that.

I'll post my two cents on the issue of concern/paranoia.

It's fine to be concerned and cautious, wonderful even. But we can't let it paralyze us. It is simply impossible to prepare for every way something can go wrong. We need to be willing to take calculated risks. This isn't to say being reckless is fine of course. Naysaying an idea just because it has risks isn't acceptable, everything we do in this quest has unmitigatable risks. Naysaying an idea because it doesn't interest you or because it fails a risk/reward comparison is fine.

Also worth considering is the idea that the safest option isn't, can't, always be the best option. It is one of the core ideas this quest is based on: do better than golden morning. Golden morning is the safe option, we already know it can work. It's also the worst option.

Personally I prefer the strike team option. Gather a loyal core of shards and parahumans into KETTLE and go full SNEAKING MISSION for maximum surprise.

I think I'd like to aim for Memetic Proxy Filtering 1 after Basic Host Modification (Human) and Stabilize Trigger. At 125 Research, it should only take 2 days to give us a defense against memetic hazards. This means we could talk to other Shards without worrying so much about them being infected. As long as we're careful about toggling it on only when needed, Memetic Proxy Filtering 2 can wait until after any more urgent projects are done.

We might not need to get Stronger Trigger if Taylor gets a strong trigger on her own. This would be good because of the potential side effects.

Vhalidictes said:

Warning: Even safe and effective alteration of the Corona Gemma may result in side-effects! "The thing's hollow — it goes on forever — and — oh my God! — it's full of stars!"

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Apparently, Stabilize Trigger has a risk of side effects too, but I think the risk would be worth it for more control over how Taylor's power turns out, especially if we keep eating Shards and then triggering their hosts to alter their powers. We just need to make sure that Taylor survives long enough to trigger.

Mount. Elements said:

Apparently, Stabilize Trigger has a risk of side effects too, but I think the risk would be worth it for more control over how Taylor's power turns out, especially if we keep eating Shards and then triggering their hosts to alter their powers. We just need to make sure that Taylor survives long enough to trigger.

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Also worth considering is that just because we have stronger trigger doesn't mean we need to use it.

Mount. Elements said:

I think I'd like to aim for Memetic Proxy Filtering 1 after Basic Host Modification (Human) and Stabilize Trigger. At 125 Research, it should only take 2 days to give us a defense against memetic hazards. This means we could talk to other Shards without worrying so much about them being infected. As long as we're careful about toggling it on only when needed, Memetic Proxy Filtering 2 can wait until after any more urgent projects are done.

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I plan to write an omake research about it, so if anyone else writes one too we can get it dobe immdeiatly.

I can't find the post where someone was planning to collect all of the possible votes into one post so I thought I'd go ahead and do that. I did not include some plans that seemed to be replaced by later plans. Let me know if I missed a valid plan:

Possible Charge Votes:

• [ ] Eat the sapient Chunk?
  
  
• [ ] Stun Charge and format the sapient Chunk?
  
  
• [ ] Order Charge to eat the sapient Chunk?
  
  
• [ ] Order Charge to format the sapient Chunk and then eat it?
  
  
• [ ] Something else?
  
  
• [ ] Stop messing with Charge for now - leave her alone.

[ ] Plan Administrator, Administrate!
-[ ] Order Charge to formate the sentient Shard and then assimilate it.
-[ ] Monitor the situation. If things look like they're going wrong, stun Charge and format the sentient portion.

[ ] Plan Try to help the Sapient Chunk
-[ ] Try to diagnose the malfunction of Sapient chunk. Order Charge to produce diagnostics of the Sapient portion.
-[ ] Communicate with the Sapient Chunk, ask what it recalls from its side.
-[ ] If corruption is too severe to be repaired without a reformat, ask the Sapient Chunk to attempt to generate a core memory and personality data dump/backup to you, you'd attempt to clone that over to the normal portion if it can manage that.

Possible Prosthetic Votes:

• [ ] Eat (Prosthetic)?
  
  
• [ ] Stun (Prosthetic) and see if it comes back?
  
  
• [ ] Close the connection and not worry about it?
  
  
• [ ] Something else?
  
  
• [ ] Stop messing with (Prosthetic). Trainwreck will lose his powers at some point but for now he's fine. And no one else besides Scion would be able to do anything anyways.

[ ] Plan Salvage
-[ ] Stun Prosthetic, see if that wakes it up.
-[ ] If it doesn't, eat it. Be extra careful around the active power - you're gonna want to maintain that, or recreate it as closely as you can if that fails.

[] Plan "MLG Villains"
-[] Eat Prosthetics, give Trainwreck actually useful Tinker Powers to remake himself.
--[] Send Dreams to join U&L.
-[] Eye Greg as possible Host.
-[] "Neeeeeeeeerds"

[ ] Plan "Waking Dream"
-[ ] Eat Prosthetic and give Trainwreck useful Tinker powers as defined in a separate plan.
-[ ] Send Trainwreck a dream where he thinks he's woken up to hear a couple of people nearby talking about going to Faultline's club, the Palanquin. One of them should wonder about the ethics of going to a club run by a mercenary. The other responds that at least her crew doesn't kill people like the gangs do. Plus, she takes in "those weird mutated capes with no memories".

[ ] Plan "Support Devices Specialization"
-[ ] Use 160 Tinker info to give Trainwreck Tinker powers with a specialization towards devices that can be used to support people, either by boosting their physical abilities or by limiting them. The devices should have a steampunk theme whenever possible.
-[ ] Use 150 Breaker and 50 Changer info to keep Trainwreck alive.

[ ] Power plan
-[ ] Multitasking.
-[ ] Breaker 150 + Changer 50 + up to Changer 50 provided by eating Prosthetic.
Power maintains Trainwrecks life in his inhuman form. Interacts with tinker power.
[ ] Tinker 160. Vaguely steampunk style. Allows Trainwreck to build up from pretty much scraps and trash. Interacts with breaker power to integrate tech with his inhuman form.

[ ] Plan Good things come to those who wait.
-[ ] Eat (Prosthetic)?
-[ ] Rebuild its power after that in a separate plan, we can't come up with that without an updated data budget.
-[ ] If possible, defer the power modification to after you do some data trading.
-[ ] If you can't wait on the power modification, then hold off on eating it until your current Host gets you some data the good way. Nudge Veronica towards searching in the bad parts of town with a small dose of adrenaline to stimulate a growing concern for Amy as the search progresses without result. Even one fight worth of data should be enough to paper over the cracks.

[] Plan "Minion"
-[] Attempt to shock Prosthetics back online.
-[] If that fails, write over with a non-sapient functional shard, missing the components necessary to create it's own personality, and with complete trust lock-down to only ourselves.
--[] Give it Dream Master, ability to share dreams we set up and upload to it.
--[] Have it stream share sense with ourselves and the non-sapient Shards we already know are safe to share senses with.
--[] Have it contact and upload all data it collects this way to us, daily. As well as log of Host activities for the day.
-[] Vote on power it enacts under our orders separately.

[ ] Send Trainwreck a dream where he thinks he's woken up to hear a couple of people nearby talking about going to Faultline's club, the Palanquin. One of them should wonder about the ethics of going to a club run by a mercenary. The other responds that at least her crew doesn't kill people like the gangs do. Plus, she takes in "those weird mutated capes with no memories".

[ ] Plan Leaving Well Enough alone
-[ ] Do not eat prosthetic
-[ ] Set it up as a operational non-sapient shard rigged only accept command codes from you, preferably rig it so it won't become sapient but that's lower priority than not fucking the rest of it up.

Possible Research Votes:
[ ] Plan Economy Intensifies
-[ ] Use the open research slot to work on Faster Research 2

[ ] Plan Don't Hurt Yourself
-[ ] If we get brute data from shift, start Host Modification.
-[ ] If not, start Stabilize Trigger.
-[ ] Continue researching Focused Research.

[ ] Plan Working Towards Trigger Research
-[ ] Slot 1- Continue Focused Research 1
-[ ] Slot 2- Start Faster Research 2

[ ] Plan Psionics research
-[ ] Use the new slot on Basic Psionic Theory 1
-[ ] Otherwise continue previous research

Possible Taylor Votes:
[ ] Plan Slow Your Roll
-[ ] DON'T give Taylor any other dreams just yet.
--[ ] Examine Taylor's psychological state in more detail. Something's up with her.

[ ] Plan Taylor, Ducats
-[ ] Give Taylor a nice night of sleep, show Taylor nice dreams, beach vacation, Christmas, doing something fun etc.
-[ ] Use our new Human Biology research to scan Taylor for any anomalies.
-[ ] Use our new Human Biology research to scan Veronica to see what "peak human" looks like and to get a bonus when researching Basic Host Modification (Human).

[ ] Plan "A Start Towards Fixing Taylor"
-[ ] Use our new Human Biology research to scan Taylor for any anomalies.
-[ ] Use our new Human Biology research to scan Veronica to see what "peak human" looks like and to get a bonus when researching Basic Host Modification (Human).
-[ ] Don't send Taylor a dream, but stop her nightmares so that she can rest peacefully.

Possible Shard, Veronica, and Other Votes:

[ ] Plan Shift
-[ ] Check in with Shift to make sure things are going well and reassure her that you haven't forgotten her.
--[ ] If she's upset that you didn't contact her yesterday, tell her it's because she's doing such a good job that she's becoming a more capable member of the pack.
-[ ] Trade Shift 50 Master for 50 brute data. We need it to repair our hosts potential brain damage.

[ ] Plan Shift V2
-[ ] Check in with Shift to make sure things are going well and reassure her that you haven't forgotten her.
--[ ] If she's upset that you didn't contact her yesterday, tell her it's because she's doing such a good job that she's becoming a more capable member of the pack.
-[ ] Trade Shift 50 Master for 50 brute data. We need it to repair our hosts potential brain damage.
-[ ] Loop shift into the data feed from Veronica, to pay it back for looping you into Sophia.

[ ] Plan Negotiator
-[ ] Contact Negotiator to let her know that you're currently evaluating the damaged Shards. You're just doing patch jobs for now while you figure out which Shards are salvageable.
--[ ] Let her know that Emote has already been consumed because it was running low on Energy. Prosthetic reacted badly to the Standard Information Packet, but you have a plan!

[ ] Plan Negotiator V2
-[ ] Contact Negotiator to let her know that you're currently evaluating the damaged Shards. You're just doing patch jobs for now while you figure out which Shards are salvageable.
--[ ] Let her know that Emote has already been consumed because it was running low on Energy. Prosthetic reacted badly to the Standard Information Packet, but you have a plan!
-[ ] "Negotiator, I want to make sure we understand each other. If, for example, a host was to say 'Meh, I can take her' right before battle, would they lose?"

[ ] Plan Don't Do That
-[ ] Send Veronica a dream of her throwing a blast at someone that kills them because it was more powerful than expected.
--[ ] Hopefully, this inspires her to test out her powers safely.

[ ] Plan Networking
-[ ] Loop Shift into Emote's send sharing feed from Stansfield.
-[ ] Grab the share sensory feed from Prosthetic, and grant it access to Emote's.
-[ ] Offer telekinetic access to the feeds from both Prosthetic and Emote if you can/haven't already set that up.
-[ ] Offer Gaea the same deal in order to get Panacea's feed.
-[ ] If shift can support more feeds let it use Prosthetic's as well for MOAR DATA!

[ ] Plan "Repair Protocols - Only Swap"
-[ ] Continue Plan Repair Protocols for only Swap.

[ ] Plan Negotiator + Ask about Twin
-[ ] Contact Negotiator to let her know that you're currently evaluating the damaged Shards. You're just doing patch jobs for now while you figure out which Shards are salvageable.
--[ ] Let her know that Emote has already been consumed because it was running low on Energy. Prosthetic reacted badly to the Standard Information Packet, but you have a plan!
--[ ] One possible patch job you were considering is to put restrictions on Twin. Does she have any suggestions on that?

[ ] Rune should go after Panacea for catgirl mods. Rune should totally turn out to be in the closet. Hijinks ensue.

I'm going to edit this post after posting it to add the current vote tally.

Sorry for the double-post, but I wanted to keep the possible votes separate from my responses.

TigerTitian said:

Also worth considering is that just because we have stronger trigger doesn't mean we need to use it.

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It takes 1,450 Research to get Stronger Trigger so if we can get by without it, we could focus more on other research projects instead. The main reason we would need it is if Taylor or another desired host isn't likely to get a strong trigger event on their own because it lets us turn a weak trigger event into a strong trigger. We could also use it to make a really strong cape, but I'm not sure if the potential side effects would be worth it.

Ducats said:

I plan to write an omake research about it, so if anyone else writes one too we can get it dobe immdeiatly.

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That's great! I already wrote a research omake this voting round for Stabilize Trigger, but I could try next voting round if no one else does it. I don't usually understand computer stuff that well, but researching virus software seems simple enough.

Actually, it looks like there might be a Memetic defense Omake that was never responded to. I browsed, but didn't see that it was ever officially acknowledged or had points awarded or applied. Can anyone confirm/deny? Found it, finally. And noticed a math error in the process. Yay?

Mount. Elements said:

Let me know if I missed a valid plan:

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No Plan "Minion"? Then again, I guess it is kind of up in the air if we can do all of it.
As far as I'm aware, though, since we can copy ourselves or make a new, fully functioning shard it should be possible. As it has a lot more support than some of my other plans, I think it's probably a better one to have available, especially since it's the only plan that doesn't involve eating Prosthetics.

Thank you Mt. Elements, I got busy, sorry. So I think general consensus is either to eat shard or turn him into a loyal non-sentient. Either way, we need to make a power plan. General consensus seems to keep the steampunk integrated tinker/breaker form. The real argument seems to be whether or not to let him be a trump tinker.

Can I get opinions for trump tinker yay or nay.

Mount. Elements said:

It takes 1,450 Research to get Stronger Trigger so if we can get by without it, we could focus more on other research projects instead. The main reason we would need it is if Taylor or another desired host isn't likely to get a strong trigger event on their own because it lets us turn a weak trigger event into a strong trigger. We could also use it to make a really strong cape, but I'm not sure if the potential side effects would be worth it.

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If we see signs that we are really strapped for time we could go either magic or psionics since presumably they have a large skill multiplier.

Mount. Elements said:

I suspect that Negotiator is another human intelligence, considering that she referred to Administrator as "Queenie" when Administrator only got the name "Queen Administrator" later on in Worm canon. I just don't really know what to do about it

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Replying to this, as I just had a great idea that cannot possibly go wrong, no siree. /s

Anyway, all we have to do to determine whether Negotiator is another SI is meme at her.

I don't mean sending memetic messages or anything that complex, all we have to do is send her Worm memes and see how she responds.

Given that she refered to us as "Quennie", she is probably aware enough about Worm to get the memes/meme back at us, and if she isn't aware of Worm then all it looks like we're doing is sending her weird jokes.

For example:

• "If you could only use one word to describe your host, what would it be? Mine would be Escalation."
• "If I was a dragon, would you now be Asian?"
• "Who'd win in a fight, a small bug girl or a giant rage dragon?"
• "Who's stronger, Zion or clinical depression?"
• "Path-to-Plot Device certainly is hax"
• "Would you like to form an organization called Kettle?"
• "Do you believe in fate? If, for example, someone was to say 'Meh, I can take her' right before battle, would they lose?"
• "Did you here about The Butcher? Apparently, they don't die when they're killed."
• "Oh, it looks like our hosts are in combat. I guess you could say... 'It's time to D-d-d-duel!'"
• "How many bullets does it take to kill a T-rex?" (One, at Sufficient Velocity)
• "Oh, you're having troubling sorting all of your data? Well never fear, because I have arrived! You may have heard these words before, but I'll show you what they really mean! DATA... SORTED!"

Basically, bombard her with internet memes and references that she'd have to be familiar with as someone who had read Worm.

This conundrum has been solved with the power of memes.

(Not guaranteed to actually work, should be taken with a grain of salt)

KidFromPallet said:

• Basically, bombard her with internet memes and references that she'd have to be familiar with as someone who had read Worm.

This conundrum has been solved with the power of memes.

(Not guaranteed to actually work, should be taken with a grain of salt)

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Kid, don't make me start a 'Negotiatior Shard' Quest on SpaceBattles.

"In the end, the true enemy was... Ourselves."

Redshirt Army said:

Once again, I'm gonna strongly recommend we keep Trainwreck's powers as similar as possible to his existing ones. If we end up with a pattern of powers suddenly shifting in Brockton Bay, that's suspicious to both other shards and to Cauldron.

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Not just suspicious.
Remember with Veronica we only learned after the fact that a power significantly different from what she originally had can cause deviations. Even a power that's basically "tuned up existing power" was only a +10 on the d100 to avoid power utation.

Mount. Elements said:

We have data from Charge already, and it sent us that data in the form of an attack. We just need to finish decoding it. The problem is that doing so actively can slow down current research.

We can't hold off on deciding what to do about Prosthetic because we won't be able to contact it again if we close the communication channel, no one else can contact us while the communication channel is open, and its host's power is currently running on auto pilot.

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We can hold off if we don't communicate with other shards while we wait for Veronica to gather data.
The quest format makes the passage of time misleading, but it'd literally been less than a day. We can afford to wait a day or two for Veronica to encounter a fight in the course of her search for Amy AND even without that we're picking up Thinker data from the search efforts and Brute data with Victoria.

Vhalidictes said:

Veronica is a peak human Brute .75 - this was a lot more than a love tap because Vicky is terrible at modulating her Touch-TK/'Super strength'.

Basically, they both got lucky. It could have been a problem with Amy away. (I rolled on this)

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Close to a love tap that is. Victoria hitting ANYTHING in anger is much more likely to lead to broken everything than a bruise, peak human or not, since she can basically pulverise brick walls. She's holding back as much as she can even if she's bad at it

Vhalidictes said:

Kid, don't make me start a 'Negotiatior Shard' Quest on SpaceBattles.

"In the end, the true enemy was... Ourselves."

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And thus, we were all the characters in the play.

I really like this idea, even if I'm missing some of your references (9, 11). But Tattletales power would at least tell her that we're looking for a coded response. I say go for it. 1, 2, and 7 are best.

"Hey Negotiator, just to make sure we're on the same page. Who is the reverse eldritch horror." (Jessica Yamada)

Oh hey, obvious solution is obvious. Straight up ask if she's ever heard of a host species cape fiction named WORM. It gets surprisingly close to the truth of how powers work. And if she knows, she knows we know.

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♦ Private message from Grand_Administratorius:

Please, grandmage its K.E.T.T.L.E. or at least KETTLE. The acyronym is more important than the lack of words making it up.

Gino said:

Please, grandmage its K.E.T.T.L.E. or at least KETTLE. The acronym is more important than the lack of words making it up.

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Ah, thanks Gino. I was wondering who would step up and explain the acronym.

I have to admit I'm really curious! *Friendly, excited stare commences*

The_GrandMage said:

No Plan "Minion"? Then again, I guess it is kind of up in the air if we can do all of it.
As far as I'm aware, though, since we can copy ourselves or make a new, fully functioning shard it should be possible. As it has a lot more support than some of my other plans, I think it's probably a better one to have available, especially since it's the only plan that doesn't involve eating Prosthetics.

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Sorry, I thought that I had added that one, but I guess not. It should be added in now.

I think that it might be possible, but it wouldn't surprise me if there are more rolls involved than if we eat Prosthetic.

Vhalidictes said:

I was wondering who would step up and explain the acronym.

I have to admit I'm really curious! *Friendly, excited stare commences*

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Kernals Engaged To Tender Leader Expulsion/Extermination.

Don't think I haven't been working on this since the whole KETTLE of fish incident.

The meaning of KETTLE is that there is no meaning! Let Cauldron feel humiliation as some new guys show up out of nowhere and accomplish more in 3 years than they could in 30. Because as overdone as it is to mock their incompetence, it's very clear that Wildbow didn't think of Contessa until halfway through the story.

At the very least, the fact that their entire plan is based around a shard they know Eden tampered with even as she knew she was going to die. Does it really never occur, "Wait a minute, we seem to go out of our way to prop up our enemies at the expense of our allies in this plan..." See Nilbog, the 9, Hero and Manton, Alexandria, Dragon and Saint. Never realizing they had a dimensional piercing Ward in NY probably because they never told Legend why they needed that ability. Why it's almost as if Contessa's plans are just a little bit wasteful.

Now to be fair, Wildbow was totally making a lot up as he went along and it's still an excellent story. But god, you would think the super secret Illuminati who rule the world, grant powers, and have a literally all seeing clairvoyant of all people would have their shit together.

So we mock them as we clean up their messes. It's petty, I know.

Tattletale would appreciate it.