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A Finely Honed Blade [Worm/Kara no Kyoukai | Garden of Sinners]

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5colouredwalker said:
Also, Bonesaw is a walking Plauge. You can't kill her. The list of things that can more than mildly inconvinience Crawler is exceptionally small, and he figures out how to kill Glory Girl mid-combat with little effort, despite TT being the first and only other person to have pulled it off.

They are a walking S-Class. They just do less damage than they could.
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Contessa's PtV would counter all that. They have plot armour, and shitty plot armour at that. Having them in a story pretty much locks Cauldron and part of the Scion plot down in a certain way.
 
Starfox5 said:
Contessa's PtV would counter all that. They have plot armour, and shitty plot armour at that. Having them in a story pretty much locks Cauldron and part of the Scion plot down in a certain way.
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Contessa's PtV could counter it (Probably just be organising a sufficiently high/low temperature Legend blasting session), but Contessa is busy providing the shitty plot armor.

I mean, they know he's going to cause the apocolypse, but Contessa's response is to poke Bonesaw instead of having some sufficiently powerful people enter their bolthole during their sleep or a sufficiently large amount of explosives waiting for them to leave.

Once again, Worm is good. Until you apply any thought to it... That said, such can be said about a lot of things.
 
5colouredwalker said:
Contessa's PtV could counter it (Probably just be organising a sufficiently high/low temperature Legend blasting session), but Contessa is busy providing the shitty plot armor.

I mean, they know he's going to cause the apocolypse, but Contessa's response is to poke Bonesaw instead of having some sufficiently powerful people enter their bolthole during their sleep or a sufficiently large amount of explosives waiting for them to leave.

Once again, Worm is good. Until you apply any thought to it... That said, such can be said about a lot of things.
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To be fair Contessa wanted jack to cause the apocalypse. Otherwise Endbringer attrition would weaken Earth Bet too much to hope to win against Sion.
 
Hexxart said:
To be fair Contessa wanted jack to cause the apocalypse. Otherwise Endbringer attrition would weaken Earth Bet too much to hope to win against Sion.
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Not that it did them any good in the end. They ended up bullying the space whale until it just let them kill it.

They didn't win, Scion just decided he didn't want to play anymore.

Actually, in retrospect I don't think Cauldron ever actually succeeded in ANY of their major plans. Parahuman army? Turned on them as soon as it had the chance before devolving in to infighting. PRT? Hobbled by special interest groups and gang infiltration until it was next to useless. Parahuman integration? Protectorate PR builds up the mythos of parabumans being a breed apart, dressing them in bright costumes and the whole celebrity treatment, and so on and so forth.
 
UltimateGrr said:
Not that it did them any good in the end. They ended up bullying the space whale until it just let them kill it.

They didn't win, Scion just decided he didn't want to play anymore.

Actually, in retrospect I don't think Cauldron ever actually succeeded in ANY of their major plans. Parahuman army? Turned on them as soon as it had the chance before devolving in to infighting. PRT? Hobbled by special interest groups and gang infiltration until it was next to useless. Parahuman integration? Protectorate PR builds up the mythos of parabumans being a breed apart, dressing them in bright costumes and the whole celebrity treatment, and so on and so forth.
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If you believe word of god, then without Cauldron the protectorate, the guild, the king's men, and several other major groups wouldn't exist. As well as all governments being disbanded by parahuman warlords. So most of Cauldron's plans to change thing for the better fell flat but they succeeded at preventing things from gettiing worse. The parahuman army thing only went south because Eidlon was an idot.
 
Hexxart said:
If you believe word of god, then without Cauldron the protectorate, the guild, the king's men, and several other major groups wouldn't exist. As well as all governments being disbanded by parahuman warlords. So most of Cauldron's plans to change thing for the better fell flat but they succeeded at preventing things from gettiing worse. The parahuman army thing only went south because Eidlon was an idot.
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Call me a cynic, but I just can't buy that if Cauldron hadn't come along, nobody else would have come up with the idea for something like the PRT or the Protectorate. I mean, effing hell, all it'd take is for someone to take a five minute look at the Earth Aleph comic book industry and say to themselves "hey, that Justice League thing seems like a nice idea, maybe we should try it out here in real life".
 
Laurelin said:
Call me a cynic, but I just can't buy that if Cauldron hadn't come along, nobody else would have come up with the idea for something like the PRT or the Protectorate. I mean, effing hell, all it'd take is for someone to take a five minute look at the Earth Aleph comic book industry and say to themselves "hey, that Justice League thing seems like a nice idea, maybe we should try it out here in real life".
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Pretty sure the Justice League predates the divergence point of Work vs OTL.
 
It wasn't the idea that was lacking, it was that the whole thing would fall apart without Cauldron there to prop it up (mainly with Alexandria as Chief Director and Cauldron capes to provide balance to the more damaged, less stable natural triggers). Or so Wildbow says.
 
Laurelin said:
Call me a cynic, but I just can't buy that if Cauldron hadn't come along, nobody else would have come up with the idea for something like the PRT or the Protectorate. I mean, effing hell, all it'd take is for someone to take a five minute look at the Earth Aleph comic book industry and say to themselves "hey, that Justice League thing seems like a nice idea, maybe we should try it out here in real life".
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The thing is Cauldron discreetly silenced government officials who were anti-parahuman, promoted those who were pro-parahuman. More importantly without cauldron capes everyone with powers is a natural trigger, which means they have at least one major trauma and a subconcious desire for conflict. One of the reasons the Protectorate is a thing is because of what was at the time the four strongest capes all joining together and actively recruiting. And all of this is before we go into the Numberman managing the world economy and discreetly funding every group Cauldron approves of. Its not that no one else would have the idea its that without cauldron capes the protectorate would devolve to infighting, have a distinct lack of funding, no endbringers to force any sort of truce, politically powerful people who want to get rid of parahumans and a lack of assassins for massive destablizing s-class parahumans who want their own fiefdom. (note this assumes contessa killed eden then fell off a cliff or something. If Eden's around then the cycles different)

Edit: And Imp'd
 
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James D. Fawkes said:
It wasn't the idea that was lacking, it was that the whole thing would fall apart without Cauldron there to prop it up (mainly with Alexandria as Chief Director and Cauldron capes to provide balance to the more damaged, less stable natural triggers). Or so Wildbow says.
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Still not convinced why only the people canonically in Cauldron, and only them in a human population of 7 billion, could do what Cauldron did. I don't buy it, not for a moment. Yeah, having Contessa and the Number Man may have made things easier, but I staunchly refuse to believe that in the 30+ years since Scion's appearance not a single competent and smart person with a plan could come along to provide alternate an alternate approach to matters than what we saw, or hell, make their own Cauldron-esque conspiracy. Smells more like Wildblow coming up with ways to ensure that his world stays as crapsack as possible.

I mean, without the Endbringers you have no Endbringer Truce, true, but that goes both ways: no Endbringers also means no need for an Endbringer Truce and means the heroes (for there will always be heroes, Wildbow may insist humanity is crapsack as much as he wants but for all my black cynicism I'm not quite that far gone just yet) can crack down on villains much harder.

Yeah, Scion would probably blow up the world then somewhere around 2030 or so without Cauldron, but thanks to no Endbringers human society should be in a much better state at the time we go boom. Didn't Accord have a plan that'd solve world hunger, anyway? Hell, no Simurgh means no Mannequin, so by that point Sphere's research might have born fruit and mankind has left for the stars, ensuring that at least some of us survive Scion's temper tantrum.

(Note that I'm not saying that what Cauldron did wasn't necesary, I'm just saying that I don't believe they were 'the Chosen Ones' and the only ones capable in all of humanity ever to be able to pull it off.)
 
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Not to mention one of the main reason for parahumans to go villain in my opinion, which is greed, can easily be solved by the US government doing what it does best. Spending massive amounts of money.

"Hi there mister parahuman would you like an easy job that pays at least 500K a year with benefits?"
 
Laurelin said:
means the heroes (for there will always be heroes, Wildbow may insist humanity is crapsack as much as he wants but for all my black cynicism I'm not quite that far gone just yet) can crack down on villains much harder.
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Except for every hero there is about 3 to four more villains so all them coming down harder would do is force them to band together and be much more ruthless than normal, targeting the capes family or just ganging up on said cape when they don't expect it.
 
nextive said:
Except for every hero there is about 3 to four more villains so all them coming down harder would do is force them to band together and be much more ruthless than normal, targeting the capes family or just ganging up on said cape when they don't expect it.
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That's basically like saying "let's just ditch all this laws and stuff and just give criminals free reign because otherwise they might get the kid gloves off", which is just silly. It's not like normal police officers or army men in Worm have any unwritten rules to hide behind, but they still do their job regardless. Either way, combatting villains entails much more than simply a super-powered brawl of heroes vs bad guys. There's a whole aspect of taking away feeding grounds for villainy, by improving social security, combatting poverty, etc. There's also a great need to invest in psychiatry and psychology to treat freshly triggered Parahumans, and just parahumans in general. Given that powers are gained through trauma, you'd think mandatory therapy would be the first thing the PRT took care of for its capes, but I guess that was a bit too logical.

Granted, this is all within a context of no Endbringers and thus no societal collapse. Even so, one will never be able to eradicate all villainy or evil in the world, that's simply a reality we have to face even in real life. However, steps can be undertaken to drastically reduce the ratio and to ensure the cases of villainy and crime that do happen are outliers, not the norm. That'd take considerable time and effort and a lot of blood, sweat and tears, most certainly, and even more so in Earth-Bet with superpowers in the mix, but with no Endbringers it is something Cauldron, or whatever group of people with the smarts and the means to make a plan, should be capable of achieving now that they have the time and the resources to devote themselves to it.
 
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Emmfh.

Worm canon will always have a very special place in my heart.

The way I treat it is that it is really really good up until Arc 8. After arc 8 starts it builds up small compounding issues that make it good, but not truly great.

The whole Cauldron argument is kind of a tired argument for me.

My general conclusion is that they fell prey to what I call the Skidmark Phenomenon, which goes thusly:

"There are some parahumans who find one use and one use only for their powers. See Skidmark, and his lack of railguns and other easy exploits of his acceleration fields."

The Path to Victory gives you the best path to your goal. It does not give you the best path.

Why an army? Why not world peace?

Eidolon is probably an even bigger offender than Skiddie. Do his thinker powers not work on himself? I don't believe they do but they had thirty years to use common sense experiments and try things out. It doesn't seem like they did, they just relied on Thinker powers and forgot common sense.
The second big mistake with Eidolon is giving that vial to David. It would have done better with almost anyone else. Imagine Legend with Eidolon's powers.

Blegh I hate these kinds of discussions because holy shit the plot holes it shows.


 
nextive said:
Except for every hero there is about 3 to four more villains so all them coming down harder would do is force them to band together and be much more ruthless than normal, targeting the capes family or just ganging up on said cape when they don't expect it.
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Villainous capes will not band together. Simple reason is that they are inclined toward conflict and irrational decision making. Those two traits are inherently going to make for poor group work. Also the power tripping and psychological issues make for a good environment for chronic backstabbing.

Secondly, dropping the anvil is exactly the response taken in the face of increasing brutality by real world criminal organizations. No amount of escalation of force by criminal elements ends in their favor, because they fundamentally lack the resources and manpower to keep up with larger organizations. There are not many organizations that would qualify as larger than the US Federal government. See, just as the heroes need to sleep, so to do the villains. And it turns out that there are enough police officers running around that they can always have lots of them awake. And those police officers can look like anyone.

Ultimately, without the Endbringer threat, villains have no shield against escalation. Resisting arrest can be grounds for use of lethal force depending on the situation, and being a cape known for lethal escalation would certainly qualify you for getting killed in the field because nonlethal force was insufficient for the safety of the officers involved.

The other weakness that capes face is that most of them are still just as squishy as they were prior to triggering. And even the ones that aren't tend to have some obvious or easily exploitable weakness.
 
Tallamee said:
Villainous capes will not band together. Simple reason is that they are inclined toward conflict and irrational decision making. Those two traits are inherently going to make for poor group work. Also the power tripping and psychological issues make for a good environment for chronic backstabbing.

Secondly, dropping the anvil is exactly the response taken in the face of increasing brutality by real world criminal organizations. No amount of escalation of force by criminal elements ends in their favor, because they fundamentally lack the resources and manpower to keep up with larger organizations. There are not many organizations that would qualify as larger than the US Federal government. See, just as the heroes need to sleep, so to do the villains. And it turns out that there are enough police officers running around that they can always have lots of them awake. And those police officers can look like anyone.

Ultimately, without the Endbringer threat, villains have no shield against escalation. Resisting arrest can be grounds for use of lethal force depending on the situation, and being a cape known for lethal escalation would certainly qualify you for getting killed in the field because nonlethal force was insufficient for the safety of the officers involved.

The other weakness that capes face is that most of them are still just as squishy as they were prior to triggering. And even the ones that aren't tend to have some obvious or easily exploitable weakness.
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This works for probably 80-95% of capes. But then you get your Nilbogs and Ash Beasts. Capes that can take over a city and say "this is mine now" and beat all challengers. If the villians that keep getting killed and see this a couple of the smarter/ambitous ones will group up and pull an undersiders and grab their own fiefdom. Each time the Federal Government is forced to either give up or resort to measures that cause wide spread destruction, their legitimacy falters. As legitimacy decreases more groups are gonna pull the same shit and sooner or later we end up with parahuman feudalism.
 
Hexxart said:
This works for probably 80-95% of capes. But then you get your Nilbogs and Ash Beasts. Capes that can take over a city and say "this is mine now" and beat all challengers. If the villians that keep getting killed and see this a couple of the smarter/ambitous ones will group up and pull an undersiders and grab their own fiefdom. Each time the Federal Government is forced to either give up or resort to measures that cause wide spread destruction, their legitimacy falters. As legitimacy decreases more groups are gonna pull the same shit and sooner or later we end up with parahuman feudalism.
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Actually there's a rather simple solution to the Legitimacy drop problem from history. It's kind of vile but tends to work rather well.

You throw down the spiel that for everyone's safety extreme measures are needed, role out a true or false series of examples 'elsewhere' on what terrible things happen otherwise. And then you can enact even quite severe measures for the 'public safety'.


Usually in our history the above claims would be rather dubious, but as you say yourself, some of the capes will provide all the evidence the government needs themselves. A few really bad cases and the government can justify even destroying entire blocks as needed to save the city. And a lot of people will accept it.


Add in using 'heroic' or the more well paid not quite quite heroic capes working with the government, and you could counter out probably pretty much any threat. Albeit at times with some substantial collateral damage. But as wars show, society can keep on going even in the face of rather extensive costs so long as the public thinks they're effectively at war...
 
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Quickshot0 said:
Actually there's a rather simple solution to the Legitimacy drop problem from history. It's kind of vile but tends to work rather well.

You throw down the spiel that for everyone's safety extreme measures are needed, role out a true or false series of examples 'elsewhere' on what terrible things happen otherwise. And then you can enact even quite severe measures for the 'public safety'.


Usually in our history the above claims would be rather dubious, but as you say yourself, some of the capes will provide all the evidence the government needs themselves. A few really bad cases and the government can just pave even destroying entire blocks as needed to save the city. And a lot of people will accept it.


Add in using 'heroic' or the more well paid not quite quite heroic capes working with the government, and you could counter out probably pretty much any threat. Albeit at times some substantial collateral damage. But as wars show, society can keep on going even in the face of rather extensive costs and so long as the public things they're effectively at war...
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I was formulating a reply, when i realized that this is not in fact the general discussion thread for worm. (I really though it was) And we are horribly off topic. We should probably just agree to disagree about the importance of Cauldron in Earth Bet.
 
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