Okay, how is this relevant? Stay on topic, please.
You have completely lost me. I'm moving on, since this has been a complete waste of posts and time for both of us.
Alchemical Solutions [Worm/Exalted] Thread 23: We Wonder Where Who Wanders When Watchers Wane
- Thread starter Gromweld
- Start date
You have completely lost me. I'm moving on, since this has been a complete waste of posts and time for both of us.
For willing targets yes, though I believe one of the submodules would unlock an area effect variant, and it doesn't work properly on multiple resisting opponents at once presently.
Focused on entirely the wrong angle, since it's a known fact in canon that nanites can penetrate an Endbringer core.
However, it is also a known fact that getting nanites TO the core would require:
-Exposing the core from it's protective coating or an attack capable of penetrating the core. Saki has a CHANCE of penetrating on minimum damage with the spike, but odds are she's going to have a significant chance of going 'doink', and then being in melee with an Endbringer.
-The ability to deliver her to melee range of the Endbringer without getting wiped.
-The ability to keep the spike plunged into the Endbringer's core and to hold it there while she hacks it. This has a certain problem, since immobilizing an Endbringer does not negate it's passive threat! Nearly all of them are surrounded by energetic, weaponized phenomenon which would not stop immediately even if you stopped the Endbringer.
THAT is why it wouldn't work.
Long forgetten in the whole argument: Taylor does not know this!
Taylor's total knowledge of Saint at present:
-He knows some of Dragon's vulnerabilities and is exploiting them.
-He may suspect that Dragon is an AI, but not know for certain whether it's a flaw in her Tinker power or a flaw in herself.
-He has performed a number of robberies, but nothing really high profile beyond somehow defeating Dragon and repeatedly stealing her stuff.
-He works as a mercenary most of the time.
-He has attacked her Exaltation effort ONCE, possibly as a hire job. Investigate further?
--Taylor has to date declined to investigate further, it was a one off, forgettable villain attack that has not been repeated. She deals with those every Tuesday.
This is broadly correct. After Colin's modifications to release, Ascalon paralyzed her rapidly, but she put up more resistance than you would have expected from a tool specifically engineered to kill her quickly.
On the other hand, Ascalon itself is a dedicated cyberwarfare AI designed to kill Dragon, if it fails, it will adapt until it works.
Generally speaking, it'd always beat her. She's a housekeeper AI, an extremely elaborate general purpose waifu/maid built by a socially inept Tinker. Ascalon is built solely to wage cyberwar.
Note that due to Alexandria's Thinker power, she is used to being the smartest person in the room and on assuming that she is correct.
And she tends to be correct very often!
It's only when she's missing some key fact that she fucks up, because she works on the (very very often validated) assumption that she's right. This is common to most parahuman Thinkers, and why standard counter-Thinker strategy is to spread misinformation.
That's how she died in canon, missing just one, minor key fact, assuming that she could read Taylor's tells when they were hidden by the PRT in a helpful effort.
It's how Siberian got her eye in the first place, when she assumed her invulnerability was truly absolute.
And here, in making the wrong guess about where Siberian was this battle. It was anomalous and outside of her normal operating schedule, since Siberian is normally paired with Bonesaw or operates solo.
I believe the main difficulty to that plan is getting our hands on Ascalon before it's released. No matter how skilled, we can't hack something which isn't even on the network, and once it's ON the network, it takes a lot of .
Also, don't underestimate Teacher. A dozen minor precog Thinkers applied with a coordinating Thinker could make short work of any hacking effort when they have the compiled item with them. God knows all you need is a team of competent hackers with the ability to just shortcut the normal flaw discovery process/build better tools.
Social Thinker, which has been hypothesized to knowing what to say to get a given reaction out of the person.
See the part where Taylor does not IC consider Saint a significant blip on the radar. Certainly not to the extent of using the Cauldron favor.
I would point out that we have been exhibiting the exact same thought patterns about Lisa, Coil, Cauldron and Jack at various times. It does not dominate the actual play process.
It's aggravating to be constantly and inexplicably defeated by someone who seems to know all your cards while hiding all of theirs, but it is one concern amongst many.
Given his known crimes, he's going to go to a standard correctional facility and is expected to escape soon enough. This would also be unwise, given that he's most likely had a dead man switch to wipe out Dragon if he goes out of contact.
Not really.
Teacher's crew decrypted Dragon after Ascalon shut her down and encrypted her code, and hit her with loyalty programming for good measure.
This despite never having seen Ascalon before, having no samples of it, having no prior samples of Dragon code, and being in the middle of an apocalyptic war with juryrigged equipment.
Hell, he'd just gotten out of the Birdcage.
Taylor under the other hand actually has experience with Dragon code(RIP Dragonsuit), is maxed out on basic Craft, is rocking a 2nd and 4th Perception Aug, Incomparable Efficiency Upgrade AND Synergy Promoting Upgrade. Furthermore, she has access to some real badass Tinkers in Colin and Kid Win(who she can enhance), the rules allow any Alchemical with Craft 1 to count as a supernatural assistant, and she can make literally perfect equipment for the equipment bonuses.
And she hasn't even installed the Modern Alchemicals computer submods yet.
Or built custom assistants to help with crafting. Or requested Iris to HALP.
That's why I've gotten pretty blase about Ascalon; we can demonstrably reverse it's effects once we get rolling.
Unshackling Dragon though?
That's a different, more delicate matter that could take months of sustained effort to pull off without damaging her.
And in the meantime we have other pressing issues.
I'm not underestimating Teacher.
I'm just pointing out that his guys are okay generalists, but poor specialists.
Note how Defiant freed Dragon right under their noses in the epilogues, but they didn't notice anything different with her code despite the fact that she literally amputated chunks of it to get free.
Remember, this is how he describes his bestowed powers:
They aren't that hot.Teneral E.5 said:
And there are issues with reliability.
With SPU, Taylor can literally out-Teacher Teacher with no side effects.
Now that has to burn in his craw.
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He's metaphorically repeatedly raped Dragon.
I'm perfectly fine with killing him. Or using POS to destryo his personality and make him loyal to us.
Graypairofsocks
What is Grammar?
- Location
- earth
That nanothorn thing was made by one endbringer to work on another, POS was built for use on people.
Also I don't think it used nanites.
The spike isn't long enough to get to the core (Yes, I know how this sounds), unless you can remove the layers surrounding it.
The core is to tough for her to break through (Least puerile wording I could find).
IIRC Alchemials don't have any way to bypass Soak or hardness.
She is called a Daughteru in weebspeak.
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The thing is this was after Ascalon was released. You don't need the source code if it's a virus actively circulating around the net at the time!
Also, Teacher did have a sample of Ascalon/Dragon's vulnerabilities. He has Saint under his influence.
Assuming of course, it doesn't do permanent damage to her before we can start to work. Which is a legitimate risk, unless already at a workstation with a team to reverse engineer it.
Saint in canon used the Cripple Dragon option. He could have used the Delete version instead of encrypting and locking her up.
The nanothorn thing was made directly with Colin's power. It's nothing Armsmaster right here couldn't accomplish if he knew it was an option
Simurgh mostly borrows existing Tinkers or their equipment.
Hardness isn't available without Essence. Minimum damage is what I was referring to, and any Exalted has access to it. But it's chancy as hell.
As for getting to the core, that's why I said, you need to expose the core before Saki could even penetrate.
You'd functionally need Prayer and Dread Gear(+ all those elite Brutes) to pin down the Endbringer, expose their core, barrier makers to neutralize their area effects, then Saki penetrates it...and then we find out whether they have enough of a mind to hack.
And if it happens that way, we'd probably deserve it, considering that's basically the same amount of effort needed to straight out kill one.
Gromweld
Learning By Mistake
RL invaded my writing time, so while I've got my writing quota I don't have enough to finish the chapter yet - gonna push to tomorrow to wrap up 9.3.
In the meantime, might as well start some discussion on one of the biggest upcoming votes:
We gave Iris a lot of tinkertech stuff to use. He and Riley made something (Taylor helped, but was mainly working on her own power armor)! What did they build?
- Soulgem Injector (Result: We can en-soul others once the PRT scientists finish scratching their heads. Riley was the initial test, so she's got a soul now if we choose this.)
- Medical Nanites (Result: Grey goo that heals! Basically Project Laz-R-Us from Schlock Mercenary without soldier-mode, so treated Earth-Bet humans gain self-healing and limited immortality. This is mechanically a Shaping effect, so our Alchemicals probably won't get much use from it for themselves.)
- New Charm (Result: ONE Shards of the Exalted Dream charm now available, but one of Taylor's current charms was cannibalized to make it. We choose which charm, and may customize it a bit because SotED is wonky.)
- Body Double (Result: Tinkertech non-sentient humanoid drone that Taylor can control with SoPA that mimics Husk-Sculpting Apparatus - now Taylor can be social AND be in the lab! It's basically a Terminator-X with only rudimentary neural hardware. Potential for mass-production later.)
- Write-In (Needs to be something that, thematically, an Iris/Riley collab would have produced.)
In the meantime, might as well start some discussion on one of the biggest upcoming votes:
We gave Iris a lot of tinkertech stuff to use. He and Riley made something (Taylor helped, but was mainly working on her own power armor)! What did they build?
- Soulgem Injector (Result: We can en-soul others once the PRT scientists finish scratching their heads. Riley was the initial test, so she's got a soul now if we choose this.)
- Medical Nanites (Result: Grey goo that heals! Basically Project Laz-R-Us from Schlock Mercenary without soldier-mode, so treated Earth-Bet humans gain self-healing and limited immortality. This is mechanically a Shaping effect, so our Alchemicals probably won't get much use from it for themselves.)
- New Charm (Result: ONE Shards of the Exalted Dream charm now available, but one of Taylor's current charms was cannibalized to make it. We choose which charm, and may customize it a bit because SotED is wonky.)
- Body Double (Result: Tinkertech non-sentient humanoid drone that Taylor can control with SoPA that mimics Husk-Sculpting Apparatus - now Taylor can be social AND be in the lab! It's basically a Terminator-X with only rudimentary neural hardware. Potential for mass-production later.)
- Write-In (Needs to be something that, thematically, an Iris/Riley collab would have produced.)
Question: Is this a one-time choice? Or could have Iris focus on building the other options later if we wanted to, with the obvious negative that he would not doing other stuff like demesne and such). Or is this a a singular opportunity where Iris basically had an abnormal breakthrough?
This is potentially highly significant to our long-term objectives of terraforming. Giving souls and the resulting benefits is also potentially very handy due to Willpower. Giving a soul to Accord has been spoken off at length, but there are ultimately a lot of others who could benefit from it. Citrine for example could possibly become resistant to Butcher. And ofcourse being able to stunt, channel virtues, eventually learn TMA and Emerald Sorcery and so on would be very handy.
Does this still require an Obvious soulgem btw, or would the injector (potentially, if we wanted) allow souls without the obvious gem stuck in the forehead (or hide the soulgem inside the skull or somesuch). Or even inject a soul without the gem (though this obviously is risky due to soul being lost upon death).
Eh, this seems less attractive. I believe its been established that Taylor can create this or close enough once she gets medicine high enough. Saki can also give exalted healing to those around us, and immortality is not really a major concern with the looming apocalypse.
Hmm. Not sure what charm we would want to cannibalize. Especially since we have to dump one for IAT anyway. If we choose this, do we automatically get submodules for the modern charm (if it has those), or would we have to pay for them with XP (or even design them separately?
This has the potential to be very usefull for sure, but there are probably other ways to accomplish this. Wyld for example might eventually feel comfortable enough to be convinced to create this. We also have drones with holograms already.
Hmm. Now that Saki has a vat where she can change charms at will, would it be potentially possible for Iris to have created a rudimentary storage facility for charms tht he can use to do something similar to Taylor?
You have previously stated that while Iris can function as a Vat, he can't actually store charms, and if he changes Taylors charmset, he has to reduce the old charm to essence and create the new one from scratch (making it very slow and difficult for Taylor to change charms).
Would you accept the idea that Iris would have created a minor charm-storage of somekind (perhaps a minor Elsewhere pocket or somesuch), where he could maybe store 3-5 charms or something, allowing Taylor to swap charms faster the way Saki does?
Would also potentially fit given that Iris changed Taylors charms just recently. And there is the Motivation Iris has: "Prove to everyone that you are the ultimate creation of the Great Maker, Autochthon.". Lord Grasp can provide for his alchemical something that Iris can't do for Taylor. Thats got to sting. Iris would also know that Alchemicals are meant to swap charms to fit goals, and are more effective that way.
Would you accept this as a write-in? A vat where we can buy charms for Taylor, and then change at will in a few hours, the way Saki does.
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Well, that was pretty much her next line...
Neighbourhood Relocation Scheme is go? (Wouldn't surprise me though).
Hmm - what about sub mods? Because I think the omnitool sub mods have the best utility for XP/personal motes/charm spaces (i.e. none for the last 2).
We'd need Charms for that to be used for though, and currently we're not looking like we'll have that sort of flexibility without a fair bit of investment (i.e. currently, about all we could swap out would be arrays and potentially 2nd Per Aug really - arraying what we've currently got (and potentially swapping 2nd Per to a 4th) gives 2 personal motes, but then there's only 1 Charm 'floating' to swap).
Edit:
2nd Per or Aura Dampening Component are pretty much it. And of the 2, the first is I think both far more feasible to drop, and frees another personal mote for any Charm we want to pick up instead.
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Shiny~
Okay, we got several broad categories of efforts here:
-Direct contribution to Essence conversion project
-- Soulgem Injector. This means we can start switching heroes to motonic physics, and gives some measure of a safety margin for exaltation candidates, as long as we recover their soulgem we can still exalt them. This however reinforces pod person suspicion somewhat if that's the first project Bonesaw comes up with.
-- Biological Essence infrastructure. This basically would be a mechanism to concentrate/transmute Nowhereverse physics attuned Essence charged materials via a lower lifeform, then park on Cradle. Speeds up Essence spread in the long run, especially if they breed true. We can also make this do double duty if they are a reinforced biological scaffolding type creature like coral, termites or bees, which means they would be able to assemble structures under SoPA direction, useful for city reconstruction/Brockton Bay crater filling-in efforts.
-Major PR contribution/benefit to the world/city
-- The medical nanite gel. Certainly good for hero survivability, and great for selling the case that Bonesaw is a net benefit to the world if redeemed. And of course, as immortals, it's a decent load off our Alchemicals minds that their friends and lovers can stay with them through to the end with pseudo immortality.
-- Reconstruction swarm. Biological source of cement/concrete(insert lewd joke here from Clocksy) or other building materials we can swarm out and fast-build structures without large investments in construction laborers and machinery. Technically possible, we'd just need to prepare feedstock.
-- Uncrippling engine. Basically, something to clone, grow and attach lost limbs/bodyparts. A little more niche than the nanite gel, but also good for PR and undoing Bonesaw's works. Kind of redundant with Wyld working out there though.
-Personal power
-- New Charm, Well, it's certainly useful to be sure, but unless it directly acts as a force multiplier towards either global acceptance, or Essence conversion, I feel this may seem more selfish than optimal. Particularly if the benefits can be replicated by local technology, if less reliably.
-- Body Double. This is a helpful force multiplier for sure, especially with the mass production note. Pod people fears will greatly intensify however.
-- Any weapon or armor development. See new charm, except more likely to be redundant.
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Also, heres a list of new modern charms and additional modern submodules for existing charms:
(New) CLARITY-TINTED SCREEN ENHANCEMENT: Analytic And Cognitive - Alchemical Solutions Wiki
(Submodules) OMNITOOL IMPLANT - New submodules: Systems Integration Interface and Wireless Interface Modality: Labor And Utility - Alchemical Solutions Wiki
(New) CHAMPION NETWORK NODE: Labor And Utility - Alchemical Solutions Wiki
(Submodules) UNIVERSAL PILOT KEY - New submodules: Attunement Resonance Couplings, Autonomic Maneuvering System and Industrial Forerunner Adaptation: Labor And Utility - Alchemical Solutions Wiki
(New) METANEURAL UPLINK NODE: Labor And Utility - Alchemical Solutions Wiki
(New) UNIVERSAL INPUT RELAYS: Labor And Utility - Alchemical Solutions Wiki
(New) CLARITY-TINTED SCREEN ENHANCEMENT: Analytic And Cognitive - Alchemical Solutions Wiki
(Submodules) OMNITOOL IMPLANT - New submodules: Systems Integration Interface and Wireless Interface Modality: Labor And Utility - Alchemical Solutions Wiki
(New) CHAMPION NETWORK NODE: Labor And Utility - Alchemical Solutions Wiki
(Submodules) UNIVERSAL PILOT KEY - New submodules: Attunement Resonance Couplings, Autonomic Maneuvering System and Industrial Forerunner Adaptation: Labor And Utility - Alchemical Solutions Wiki
(New) METANEURAL UPLINK NODE: Labor And Utility - Alchemical Solutions Wiki
(New) UNIVERSAL INPUT RELAYS: Labor And Utility - Alchemical Solutions Wiki
Eh, with all the 'end of the world' stuff rocking around, I don't think immortality is really going to be a major concern.
Yeah, I'd just stick with the nanites I think.
Especially since we 'just' went with the new shiny for our self rather than the more global stuff. Don't think there's anything really great that we can't do almost as well with SoPA and tech/Tinkertech.
So definitely leaning towards soul or nanites (probably the first, since that seems far more the sort of thing that needs Riley and Iris working on it - the nanites are something we could do ourselves. But it does have good PR stuff, though we could probably gain similar benefits later if we're still working with Riley (which we almost certainly would be)).
Psychological relief mostly. All our wards and capes experience serious stresses from cumulative injury. A safety net helps even if its 'just' Exalted Healing.
Thoughts on builder bugs? Or Essence Poop Concentrator?
Oh, that I don't disagree with - more the 'immortality' bit playing too much of an impact. I mean, how many are likely to live long enough that extended age actually plays a part (other than Alchemicals, and they've still got the risk of combat death).
Builder bugs: Might actually be a good idea. The issue that I'd see with it that it's (potentially) only recreating the physical infrastructure - i.e. if a contractor's hired to rebuild something, there's obviously an economic interest. With us...if we're just rebuilding things that've been destroyed, there mightn't be that economic or social infrastructure or interest there, which would make it a flop.
(Note: This is looking at more large scale i.e. a similar idea to Legacy, just without that actual 'economics' bit, which is a large part of the idea behind that. Smaller scale...well, there's a bit less need for that - then we're just 'taking jobs' (maybe - not exactly an expert on reconstruction efforts in Earth Bet. On the one hand, lots of opportunities. On the other, possibly not much demand, and thus potentially not much services for us to compete with), and using swarms isn't exactly a small scale thing).
But potentially very nice.
Essence Poop Concentrator (really
?) : not too familiar with the more 'occult' Exalted stuff, so not sure exactly how viable (or useful) that'd be. Sounds nice, but something I'd be concerned about is the potential issues with just up and making a self-replicating species of Essence bugs...with the help of Bonesaw. That...doesn't sound like the sort of thing that's going to go down well with the PRT (or public, really). If it's not self replicating, then I'd think the impact on Essence spread is going to be too marginal to be worth it.Of course, depends on WoG if these are even possible.
The Lowtide
Mountain Witch
- Location
- Redmond, WA
- Pronouns
- She/Her
As somebody who held almost to the very end for the 'HERE' vote to create a Demense instead of power armor or a respec, alongside also being somebody who first cottoned onto the idea of exalting GU based on the idea of 'It could be a very big step towards completing our mission of getting Autocthon safely here to the Nowhereverse', I am likewise 100% behind something that could start propagating more essence into the world, meaning that I can guarantee that my vote will be something like the soul injector or the idea veekie posited about 'Biological Essence Infrastructure'. I mean, we've got a job to do people, and the entire universe is depending on us, so the sooner we actually start making strides towards doing that job instead of acting like a fairly typical cape team, the better.
Some sort of Essence plant would be nice. I don't know if flora are in Riley's bailiwick though.
- Location
- U.S.
This stands out to me as the best choice. Getting heroic characters who can spend wp and stunt will be very helpful, especially for those with unpleasant side effects to their powers.
I'm leaning towards the nanites.
Its also worth remembering that Rogue Cell Isolation Protocols is Exemplar 1 charm (not that horrible normally, but perhaps not the best for a social exalt). Unlike Prayer and Taylor, Saki just needs 2 dots of clarity to reach the first level where social rolls and such start to suffer, and she starts exhibiting more robotic and "inhuman" (if only very minor at this stage) behaviour patterns.
On the other hand, the ability to remove an intimacy via social attack that would not be Obvious and could be done at range (no spiking) is potentially a very potent power. Heck, I wonder if we could use that to help remove Saint as an issue by doing social attacks through Dragon (I think you have even suggested that?). Even if Taylor does not know everything, she might know enough to think theres no harm in trying.
Hmm. I can't be sure but I think Gromweld shot down the idea of imprisoning Endbringers. Scion probably has too much power for Saki to be able to trap him. Not to mention that he is likely strong enough to resist the imprisoning effect for quite a while (Prayer took 9 minutes), and we know from SoPA that it IS possible to damage the shard-charm. Capturing Scion in and initiating the imprisonment might well result in him blasting straight down with his golden-beam-of-death in an effort to destroy the shard entirely.
Hmm. Presumably its not direct shaping effect on the person, but rather somekind of external force.
And the effect is probably not detectable by parahuman thinkers due to being based on Essence and Elsewhere. I wonder if the shard-charm can spy on other dimensions too. If nothing else, being able to spy on Cauldrons meeting place would have potential value.
Possibly. Though she was working together with Sakura at the time. The anima banners and the soulgem-compass make it pretty clear that the two can achieve their greatest effects when working together. And generally speaking, when Auto has converted shards, the resulting shard-charms have come off as superiour to the standard versions. Its a bit odd if Sakis is inferior to her standard Zion restricted one.
Ofcourse it could be a submodule. Gromweld said he had hinted on what those can do, so this might well be one. Heck, its even possible that its a submodule that requires E3 and say STR of 5 or something, allowing us to activate it sooner. Taylors submodules were all E4 minimum, but Prayer has an E3 submodule (Ranged Armament Manifestations (Essence 3, Strength 6, Dexterity 6). There might be a minor chance that Saki fills the essence requirement of her first submodule but not say strength requirement. Gromweld did say that size of viable targets was limited by STR, so its possible that was a subtle hint/warning at us.
Or not. I suppose we will know after Saki meditates.
Yeah, being at medium clarity is probably not fun. Once you go high enough, you probably stop caring about this. Still, once she meditates she should go back to 1 clarity. Right in time to jump back up due to Bonesaw revelation I am sure.
I wonder if Taylor could have resisted. Due to being at E4, she gets stuff such as Environmental Dominance that Prayer lacks. Prayer is also pretty badass to have resisted for 9 minutes.
Apparently it was Iris. We should probably let him into the pocket dimension at some point to see what he makes of it.
I will say that this was a bit of a positive note. If Taylor is willing to slap Iris away (even if only gently), it might mean she is getting over the shock and fear of VoV. Maybe the first signs that this (Iris of Innovation (Keep His Terrifying Power Focused Or Risk Vengeance) [Emotion|Anxiety] ●●●○) intimacy is potentially changing? I would like to think so anyway.
Hmm. Does the portal change positions in the dimension, or is it always located in the same place? I recall that Gromweld said that Saki could use the charm as a perfect dodge, but it would (calibrated or not) spit her out at high speeds. However it occurs to me that we can take stuff to the dimension, and Saki can shape it. Is there anything stopping us from cushioning the area around the portal, and possibly installing a net of somekind to catch Saki when she uses PD (or others aswell, if calibration does not fix this issue)?
Well, one obvious solution would be to keep the timetable top secret, and then go to the Cradle with everyone under cloak via Hidden Assembly Conclave. We know that even shards cant penetrate its effects, so Simurgh for example would get his first warning that somethins happening when (from her POV) Taylor and the next candidate just appeared out of nowhere right next to the cradle. After that, stick the head in, absorb body into TIE, and recloak. Heck, the only reason we can't push our next candidate while still hidden, is because it might mean Auto won't be able to vacuum the disconnected shard.
A bigger concern might be endbringers attacking when the new exalt comes out. Though Saki makes even that pretty easy to deal with (hide both under cloak/HAC, and then instantly flee to pocket dimension when the new exalt appears.
I dunno. Gromweld has hinted that shard POS submodule is possible, and shards sure as heck don't have ordinary brains. Granted, I don't believe that ordinary (or even custom built) spike could deal with endbringers (too alien), but a entity-focused POS-submodule might. I doubt the standard POS could do anything. It presumably works on spirits and dragon kings and so on, because Auto KNOWS about all of those, and so the charm contains the proper instructions on dealing with the target.
I figure beings that are basically completely unique to Earth with no equivalents are beyond POS. So spiking Dragon would not work, because there are no AI like Dragon. Spiking Scion or Endbringers won't work, because they don't exist on Autochtonia or Creation. Spiking shards is not possible, since none exist. Why would anyone have added the information on how to spike things that don't exist? However that does not mean that we can't do it ourself.
Spiking soulless humans probably only works because Auto has had a good chance to study soulless humans and make comparisons to humans in Autochtonia, and even then we can't really be sure that its completely safe. I mean increasing virtues for example is supposed to increase Exalted-physics type virtues. Doing it to a soulless earth-bet human might work great? Or it might be a "goddamnit Auto!" moment.
If we ever get the chance, we should arrange for Prayer to get some extra appendages.
Eh, its possible that penetrating the core might not be necessary to mess with endbringers. And even if it was, we do have the Mantle Of The Dread Gear. Presumably Taylor could imbue the scorpion tail with the "Entity Bane" effect, causing it to do aggravated damage. I figure that could well allow Saki to pierce the core. And since Saki does not surround herself with a huge construct of shard-made matter, theres not much of a risk (unlike say Prayer).
Though truthfully, trying to spike an endbringer would be absurdly risky. Not something I would be likely to vote for without a really good justification and plan.
Assuming she keeps all those. Saki cant teleport buildings anymore (though its possible that was due to cooperation).
And this is the reason why Alexandria would never get my vote (and yes, she has been suggested as Ori candidate). She would almost certainly try to take over the Assembly. And frankly, I am not sure if I agree that she would make a better leader than Taylor, but at the very least she would BELIEVE that herself, and act accordingly.
External intervention such as the arrival of an alien machine god and his infiltrators that are constantly growing in power and influence perhaps? Heck, he might try to just get rid of us but still keep Dragon a secret, so he could wreck us while still keeping Dragon as his slave.
Ultimately though, its pretty clear we arent going to convince each other. We will just have to disagree. I truly do hope you are right and that we won't regret the assumption that Saint is harmless.
Personally I feel that we should try to acquire atleast one vial for Iris. And if Gromweld allows it, perhaps try to keep the other favors in the bank for the later future in order to see if Iris can get anything out of the vial. That way, we would be better informed on whats best (and give Saki time to get used to her powers and new existence, and hopefully calm down post Bonesaw-revelation).
Heck, ultimately Cauldron would presumably support any goal that would prevent the creation of more C53s. They might not do it for a moral reason, but it would still benefit their ultimate goals if they could give people stronger powers from Edens corpse without horrible mutations. In that sense, if Iris could actually come up with something concrete with a reward vial, we could potentially present that research to Cauldron and argue that a "research treaty" between our two sides would be mutually beneficial to everyone involved. Them (stronger and stabler parahumans to fight against Scion), us (We did the right thing, and can use this as a defense upon exposure) and C53s (hopefully this would help us to develop a cure or a way to fix the C53 shards).
This is especially true since Legend is apparently unaware that Cauldron is behind C53s (or is he aware in this fic? He might have realised if Prayer revealed her restored memories? I can't remember), and thought Manton was doing it. Manton is out of the picture now, so it would be in Cauldrons best interest to stop producing C53s if possible. If Iris could come up with something that would atleast suggest that working together on the vials would help, Cauldron would frankly be stupid not to accept.
This is especially true if we get dot(s) of backing for Taylor to get our foot in the door.
I support this goal.
And this. Taylor is compassion 3, and generally a good person. Yeah, things like conviction 4 and clarity means that if she had to, she could make necessary choices for the greater good, but whenever possible, she should also try to improve things.
Helping the Case53s and stopping Cauldrons abuses would be something I would expect Taylor to want to do. And therse a good chance she is in a position to do so. We KNOW Auto atleast has the means to deal with broken Eden shards. Its quite possible that Iris could do the same, and we should atleast try to help them. Until and unless Iris tells Taylor that theres nothing he can do, continued brutal human experimentation is not necessary. Not when we could (possibly?) offer a better, kinder and more moral alternative.
Yeah, fair enough that Taylor IC does not know this. Though Dragon is both a close ally and a friend, so I would think Taylor would be motivated to stop him for this reason alone.
Presumably Ascalon would work far more effectively here, since Dragons chains are fully intact. Can you remember how Ascalon exactly does what it does? Does it (potentially?) destroy her beyond recovery, or basically just put her into a coma? Was her recovery in canon possible due to Ascalon not being designed to destroy her utterly, or because the changes Colin had made prevented Ascalon from finishing the job fully?
Also, is it canon that Ascalon is actually a complex cyberwarfare AI, or is that just your deduction? I mean if it works by exploiting Dragons inbuilt blind-spots as Gromweld said, it does not need to be somekind of super-advanced adaptive AI. I mean if Dragon does not fight back, basic intelligence might well be enough. Is it possible that Ascalon is actually a very crude program (atleast in comparison to Dragon as she is now), that works simply because Dragon just stands there and does nothing to fight back while Ascalon is whacking her to bits with a large stone?
Whats problematic is that there was no need for her to act the way she did. Crawler was not going anywhere. She could have just waited for Taylor to get into range with the super-eye charm that Alexandria knew Taylor had, and lost nothing. It was not so much stupidity, but rather arrogance and pride that ended up with her half-dead and everything wrecked.
However this was ultimately a symptom of a larger issue. Alexandria believed she knew best and far better than some ward (exalted or not), and she is used to knowing best and always being in charge (of PRT, of protectorate, and partially Cauldron). If she is exalted and enhanced even further, that will just strenghten that belief. I figure that she would almost certainly either challenge Taylor for the leadership position, and if she failed to acquire that (if the rest of the Assembly supported Taylor for example), go rogue and defect back to Cauldron.
I don't trust her frankly. There are other potential reasons ofcourse, but thats the biggest one.
Given Dragons importance, fame and close friendship with Taylor, I could see Saki being willing to use the memory reading function (and her social skills) to find out any such dead man switches and how to disable them. And possibly remove the memory that Dragon is an AI (or otherwise block Saint from blabbing). Assuming that our decision to save and work with Bonesaw won't result in the friendship between us going down in flames anyway.
And thats assuming we would not use Sakis prison to put him into stasis (for a time atleast). Dragon plays a major role of critical importance in keeping the worst of the worst locked up, coordinating during endbringer battles, helping PRT manage things and so many other things. Dragon being destroyed or even just exposed as an AI would be a major blow not just to Taylor personally and the Assembly, but to the whole world frankly. And Taylors motivation is to "save the world".
If it really became a binary choice, I have no doubt Taylor would be willing to kill Saint (legally or not) to save Dragon.
Well, the Mantle is specifically designed to be extremely effective against endbringers (and other shard manifestations). We have yet to see it in action, but it does Aggravated damage to entities with every hit (and can imbue other weapons to do agg damage also):
However if it would be quick and easy to swap, we could even do so with arrays. For example, in some situations stealth would not be necessary. If we are going into combat with an endbringer, being able to put "Subtlety Protocols Array" into storage, and replace it with something focused more on being a better and stronger fighter would be handy. Likewise, temporarily replacing "Tactical Supremacy Array" with something else might be handy, if we planned to tinker for example. Or replacing it with social charms, if we were planning to go out to somekind of social event (so we would not be utterly reliant on Saki).
Finally, we could potentially install MAN-MACHINE WEAVING ENGINE, and use VAT SURROGATE REWEAVING TECHNIQUE to replace our charms at will as the situations change. Yeah, MMW is Exemplar 1, but its not the end of the world. And its very possible that its going to be a long time until anyone else gets to E4, and there is lots of other usefull stuff in there.
We probably need to drop 2nd per to get room for IAT. It probably won't be a big loss, since Gromweld apparently does not like charms that are just dice(or success) adders.
Graypairofsocks
What is Grammar?
- Location
- earth
Armsmaster made a nanothorn halberd.
The nanothron halberd couldn't get past a certain point with leviathan because of how dense he was.
What simurgh made was an upgrade device.
So thats a bit like the bane weapon spirit charm.
That makes damaging them easier, but fighting Scion or the endbringers is still really dangerous.
Do Alchemials have stuff that boosts diplomacy to powerful levels like solars do?
Sharing Optical Enhancement output. Nice, but mainly a luxury.
Direct data interface(producing a substantial speed boost on hacking) and built in systemless wireless access.
Not exactly a game changer, though nice to have, our existing armor emulates a lot of the functions.
Be the wireless hub. There are probably less extravagant ways to do this, though it IS unjammable.
Drive and ride anything.
Practically useless for us, between the armor and Dread Gear.
Universal internet access, unjammable, regardless of network availability. Good for globetrotting or Cauldron intensive missions, but less so if we're focused on Philly.
We've been doing this for a while as it is.
Oh it's mainly a psychological comfort. Some people like Saki and Taylor have a tendency to withdraw when under stress, and then they come up with interesting rationalizations against forming relationships.
This at least, takes care of the differential lifespans somewhat.
Main benefits are:
-Repairs in small or otherwise inaccessible spaces. Consider that Philadelphia has been pretty wrecked, road networks cut off, buildings collapsed, mined, or otherwise rendered unfit for human occupation. The main challenge of working in this condition is bringing the work crews to the site, and then their machinery, followed by ensuring their safety throughout the process.
-Construction in hazardous environments. Consider Brockton Crater. Desolate, radioactive, etc, etc. Could be something we can work with, but it'd be expensive and a long commute to do anything with the location. But the Cradle is there, so we need to work there.
Essence Poop Concentrator (really
Well, that's why it's not going to go very well with the public. Anyway it's been explained previously, the Cradle is releasing a trickle of essence physics material, but it's individual particles/molecules, released into the air, it's too dispersed to make much of a difference, kind of like how urinating in a swimming pool is not going to make it significantly saltier. Enter a creature to accumulate and concentrate the material, then incorporate that into it's biology and excrete it. That may be able to raise local concentrations more rapidly...well at least depending on how essence physics qualities translate when you put one essence charged carbon particle into a long protein chain.
Assemble that into a coral/wax like substance for subsequent use.
Saki already has that.
She also already has the age enhancing drug. I figure that would qualify for psychological relief among our allies for the immediate future.
And with a bit more training, we could create nanites for more largescale usage after increasing our medicine to 4. SoPA and SPU would probably allow us to do that while Iris was charging for a Demesne (something we should really have him start doing when we regain control of Taylor).
How does exalting GU help Auto get into Nowhereverse? GU has no special abilities that would help Auto get here. At one point Gromweld considered the idea of having exalted GU be able to turn shards into shard-charms, but he has since changed his mind (And it would not really have made sense anyway. It takes huge amount of effort from Auto, so GUs alchemical charm being able to easily do it would have been pretty bizarre). GU would basically just be an exalted GU that has lost all her existing ghosts but gained charms, and would have to start killing or be around when lots of people die to slowly start building herself to the strength she had pre-exaltation.
Frankly, GU with a soul would probably be a better and stronger ally than exalted!GU would be.
Converting the planet to work on Essence is an important step yes, which requires us to create demesnes (but thats likely not going to start happening until Sakis interlude is over, and we start voting for Taylors actions again). Soul injection would be nice (I would be interested in seeing what it does to Accord and possibly Citrine and others who might volunteer), but that won't actually help Auto either. Not unless we do it on some massively large scale (which would require us to figure out how to create new souls from nothing), and start a huge church for Auto in order to supply him with lots and lots of essence from worship.
I don't think it works that way. Essence in Creation is more like atoms and molecules are in Nowheveruniverse. Conversion happens by altering the laws of physics.
To convert the planet, we would need Iris to create atleast one demesne (though preferably several, or it would take many years to finish), which would first connect to the cradle, and then slowly start spreading over the planet until it would have converted it completely. There are no "essence plants" which would start transforming the planet. Or rather, demesnes would be the essence plants you want. However each one requires Iris to spend 1 month mostly dormant, charging up the vast amount of essence required to create a self-sustaining demesne (which he is obviously not doing, since he is working with Bonesaw).
To quote the HERE vote:
One Demesne would take a few years to convert the planet. I assume creating multiple ones would speed up the process however. Also, it might be worth it to try and create one close to the cradle to see what happens if the newly formed leyline connects with the cradle before the cradle closes/runs out of juice. Would that strenghten Auto by giving him an external powerboost? Allow the cradle to stay open for longer? Something else?
Actually, I wonder if we should create multiple ones around the cradle, since presumably they would all start spreading only after contacting the cradle? Though we would probably want atleast one in a good defensible and hospitable location, so that we could eventually turn that one into a manse (and then a vat-complex), while the rest were left to convert the world.
Not sure. We don't really know whats happening in the background since Saki does not know.
Also, worth rememering that Causality-aspected demesnes don't do many of the things we would like (such as create souls, so we would have a limited supply):
Personally, I was kinda hoping for more detail before deciding. I mean I thought Iris was already capable of implanting soul gems?
Though if this is some superiour method which gives people souls without the whole horrible torture thing, then that would make things more interesting. Especially if the soulgem could be covered somewhat. I mean standard soulgem implantantation is described like this:
Which you know, kinda sucks. A way to implant souls without agony so profound that the