Alchemical Solutions [Worm/Exalted] Thread 23: We Wonder Where Who Wanders When Watchers Wane

[Twei]

Also, I really want more adults in the cast. If Accord has decent chance of win, I probably will tactically vote for him even though I dislike him, because realistically, there is no glorious indomitable Chevalier or token sane teammate MM on the cards.

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I personally want MM, but Aisha and Accord bandwagons too stronk.

A few issues. First, we don't have IAT (and Loom-Server Migration). So Lisa can't really be in the room with us without experiencing horrible agony from the headache.

Second, not sure what notebook was about? If its us giving all our personal notes to Lisa, then I doubt many would support that idea (nor would it work, since Lisa would just believe it censored).

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Mmm. Fair point. The idea was that her power would draw less terrifying conclusions from more complete information, but... eh.

So how the fuck are we gonna get Brian to approve of this?

 

[uju32]

Geez leaving out Nancy Drew? (and Kevin McCallister because Aisha could totally pull off some wacky Home Alone stuff).

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60 words doesn't leave much room, I'm afraid.
Feel free to write an omake.

A few issues. First, we don't have IAT (and Loom-Server Migration). So Lisa can't really be in the room with us without experiencing horrible agony.

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This isn't actually true.
Behemoth fight.
Siberian fight.

 

[Datakim]

So how the fuck are we gonna get Brian to approve of this?

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I doubt Brian has major objections unless she has been completely brainwashed by Lisa. Especially if Saki is with us (we could have her go App5 if necessary for this conversation). And we can point out that our power conflicts with Lisas and that she has no real proof beyond her power. Then bring out how absurd her beliefs seem when we don't even hold the fact she convinced our own father to kill us against her. Then point out all the ways Aishas life would be improved by an off-switch. Etc.

 

[Datakim]

60 words doesn't leave much room, I'm afraid.
Feel free to write an omake.
This isn't actually true.
Behemoth fight.
Siberian fight.

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Really? I thought she experienced severe shard-caused headache without LSM?

 

[Twei]

I doubt Brian has major objections unless she has been completely brainwashed by Lisa. Especially if Saki is with us (we could have her go App5 if necessary for this conversation). And we can point out that our power conflicts with Lisas and that she has no real proof beyond her power. Then bring out how absurd her beliefs seem when we don't even hold the fact she convinced our own father to kill us against her. Then point out all the ways Aishas life would be improved by an off-switch. Etc.

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Fair enough. I stand convinced, at least for the moment. Prooobably changing my stunt to @uju32 's then. Probably. I'm just kind of worried that without a stunt, we'll drive that team to destruction or at least drive Lisa crazy. Blah.

 

[uju32]

I personally want MM, but Aisha and Accord bandwagons too stronk.

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Better off arguing her for Ori, then.
That slot is still pretty open, and all the current candidates are adults.

So how the fuck are we gonna get Brian to approve of this?

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Your sister almost died the last time someone hit her because her friends didn't know she was injured; you watched it happen on TV.
Exaltation allows her to turn her power off.
Pretty easy sale, actually.

Really? I thought she experienced severe shard-caused headache without LSM?

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Only when she is trying to investigate her/tease out facts.
Just looking at Taylor does not cause issues, nor does just being in her presence.
Else when Taylor showed up at their base with Aisha, or in the command tent at the Behemoth fight, she would have collapsed.

 

[Twei]

Better off arguing her for Ori, then.

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yeah, I think Aisha has moonsilver on lockdown. Jury's still out on Missy for Jade- we don't know whether she'd accept, although I assume she would, and there's still time to make arguments against it. Child soldier, etc.

I'm just wondering how we're going to get an Ori that isn't accord, because... he's Accord. It's basically the Accord caste. We could argue about how Shard-charms benefit Autochthon... if we knew about it. Which we do not. WE could argue about team cohesion.. which admittedly isn't such a bad idea. Hrm.

 

[Datakim]

Might actually be that she does not experience as BAD headaches anymore, since apparently Amy (or I guess Amelia) has been altering her brain:

Which is kinda ironic actually. Lisa is going PODPEOPLE, while having her mind altered (and with no souls? No lisa, you are the podperson).

Wyld has regularly been fiddling with Lisa's brain to alleviate her Thinker headaches. Sure, it's not major changes - just reducing capillary inflammation - but just doing that put the lie to her previous claims that she couldn't do it, and is a baby-step away from performing full tweaks.

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The one above is newer. This was a post about headaches:

Lisa's power, from my reading of canon and Wildbow's clarifications, doesn't know everything, but rather is doing Universal Equation-level calculations based on the data and questions/input provided by its user. To augment this, the Shard "talks" with other Shards to help fill in gaps or boost its databanks of pre-calculated data, which is where the (mis)information about Alchemicals/Autochthon is coming from. Similarly, Lisa's Thinker-headaches are caused by the Shard going into a bit of a recursive loop trying to calculate feats that simply aren't possible within the Nowhereverse's Universal Equation math; this is ameliorated by Loom-Server Migration, as that sub-module works through doing kooky reality-augmenting Bullshit Magic to effectively fool anything/anyone looking at the user that they're playing by the Rules (and possibly even providing "legitimate" explanations as well).

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And an even older one:

Without IAT+LSM, bug swarms still give her headaches - check our classroom convo again to see how that played out.

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[Lord Ultimus]

[X]Aisha Laborn(Who) for Moonsilver Caste.
-[x]Inquisition stares at the ornate brass notebook in Taylor's hands like it's a loaded gun. Brian and Aisha look on, having sidestepped the confrontation entirely. "Look, either get some reasonable context for your Thinker power or just tell me why you're so fucking terrified. We don't have time for this."

EDIT: Changed my stunt.

 

[uju32]

Might actually be that she does not experience as BAD headaches anymore, since apparently Amy (or I guess Amelia) has been altering her brain:

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What Amy does is relieve pain by stopping the pericapillary meningeal inflammation that causes the headaches..
She doesn't actually alter her brain.
Note that Lisa will adapt with time, as her shard gets a better baseline for what Alchemicals do.

 

[1986ctcel]

Better off arguing her for Ori, then.
That slot is still pretty open, and all the current candidates are adults.

Your sister almost died the last time someone hit her because her friends didn't know she was injured; you watched it happen on TV.
Exaltation allows her to turn her power off.
Pretty easy sale, actually.

Only when she is trying to investigate her/tease out facts.
Just looking at Taylor does not cause issues, nor does just being in her presence.
Else when Taylor showed up at their base with Aisha, or in the command tent at the Behemoth fight, she would have collapsed.

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Really? Because we still gave her headaches when working together in the CIC during the S9 arc and she had horrible migraines back when she first appeared in our class in Clarendon.

 

[Jouaint]

[X] Accord

 

[Thief of Words]

[X] Aisha Laborn (Who)

 

[uju32]

Really? Because we still gave her headaches when working together in the CIC during the S9 arc and she had horrible migraines back when she first appeared in our class in Clarendon.

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Because she was poking at the mystery of Alchemical!Taylor.
When she doesn't, she is fine, even with Taylor right in front of her in Soulsteel form.
Note the distinct lack of crippling headaches even after Taylor went full totemic to confront Siberian.

-[x]Inquisition stares at the ornate brass notebook in Taylor's hands like it's a loaded gun. Brian and Aisha look on, having sidestepped the confrontation entirely. "Look, either get some reasonable context for your Thinker power or just tell me why you're so fucking terrified. We don't have time for this."

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I'm really not sure what this stunt is supposed to achieve.
We're supposed to be trying to influence Aisha's Caste, not to do anything with Lisa.
Lisa has zero authority on whether Who is allowed to Exalt or not, so why is Taylor even talking to her?

Furthermore, Taylor has absolutely zero trust in Lisa, and even less like; why would she give her anything like privileged access to information?
She is not Aisha Laborn's legal guardian, and she has made it exceedingly clear that she is not Taylor Hebert's friend.

Besides, if Taylor wanted to get something from Lisa, given the negative view both have of each other("Backstabbing witch!" "Death cultist!") she'd just ask Saki.

 

[Thief of Words]

Robert Erwin (Chevalier)

Won't win but whatever.

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He's one of the ones I'd not mind for Ori.

 

[1986ctcel]

Because she was poking at the mystery of Alchemical!Taylor.
When she doesn't, she is fine, even with Taylor right in front of her in Soulsteel form.
Note the distinct lack of crippling headaches even after Taylor went full totemic to confront Siberian.


I'm really not sure what this stunt is supposed to achieve.
We're supposed to be trying to influence Aisha's Caste, not to do anything with Lisa.
Lisa has zero authority on whether Who is allowed to Exalt or not, so why is Taylor even talking to her?

Furthermore, Taylor has absolutely zero trust in Lisa, and even less like; why would she give her anything like privileged access to information?
She is not Aisha Laborn's legal guardian, and she has made it exceedingly clear that she is not Taylor Hebert's friend.

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From what was said by @Twei? To get her to shut up and stop poisoning everyone against us (also stopping her convincing Brian we're murdering his sister and replacing her with a DOOM(!)bot)

 

[Datakim]

What Amy does is relieve pain by stopping the pericapillary meningeal inflammation that causes the headaches..
She doesn't actually alter her brain.

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Yeah, it was mostly a joke about the podpeople. Though Amy is headed for the tweaking territory slowly.

Note that Lisa will adapt with time, as her shard gets a better baseline for what Alchemicals do.

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Quite possibly, but don't forget that Taylor just threw the shard a lot of new and also conflicting data by going to a very visible and unstable E4 upgrade, which altered the functions of SoPA greatly. She also went through a charm reconfiguration while in Iris, and even some of the old charms work differently now (due to increased essence and new submodules). And all are in arrays if that matters in any way (probably not). So I would actually expect Lisas headaches to be worse than they were the last time, since the shard is not only going to get a lot of new data that makes no sense, but suddenly the old data which it thought it had figured out and now made sense does not make as much sense as it did before either. Yes, the shard will probably figure out the E4 upgrade, but odds are the first encounter is going to be abnormally headache inducing.

Furthermore, Lisa and her shard will almost certainly wonder wtf happened, so headaches to some degree are likely to be inevitable. Still, perhaps @Gromweld, would be willing to chime in on this? Would be interesting to know what shards think of Essence 4.

 

[Twei]

From what was said by @Twei? To get her to shut up and stop poisoning everyone against us (also stopping her convincing Brian we're murdering his sister and replacing her with a DOOM(!)bot)

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Yep, that was the idea. The problem is essentially that Lisa is going to keep poisoning the well with people we actually care about (Brian by extension of Aisha; Amelia) until we get her better info. Also, I may have wanted to inflict more headaches on her.

Then I was convinced that we could handle it with SOCIAL KOMBAT.

To be fair, I'm not sure what @uju32 's stunt really does either. Focus her charms? We pretty much know she's gonna be a Moonsilver regardless... Hrm.

 

[Thief of Words]

I'm

Better off arguing her for Ori, then.
That slot is still pretty open, and all the current candidates are adults.

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My problem there is that canon MM is definitely a Jade Caste (she is extremely dutiful, works by the rules, tends to push the systemic agenda rather than modify it in any meaningful way because the system worked for her), and I want Jade Missy.

I mean, that's sort of part of the whole problem. You put someone up for an unfitting Caste and it just fails to catalyze the body. Which is to say that you wasted a body and the candidate.

 

[VNodosaurus]

Stunt: Across from the Alchemicals, Aisha leaned forward, almost vibrating with anticipation."So what you're saying, yeah, is that you want me for James Bond? Or Electra?" Saki covers her mouth as Taylor winces. "Maybe less explosions? More like Veronica Mars...." "Sold! I'll be the best secret agent who ever agented! One question though." She points "I get Saki's disguise power, right?"(60 words)

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Are we sure we want less explosions?

More seriously - I understood Aisha's planned role as not just 'get into places and tell us what's there', because Taylor's already pretty good at that, but mostly 'get into places and mislead the people/disrupt the projects there'.

Better off arguing her for Ori, then.
That slot is still pretty open, and all the current candidates are adults.

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How on Earth does Miss Militia fit Ori?!

On the vote: Aisha is the obvious vote, Accord needs the XP less. Armsmaster is still my first choice for Ori, but I'd be fine with Accord if that doesn't work out... but for now:

[X] Aisha Laborn (Who)
-[X]Stunt: Across from the Alchemicals, Aisha leaned forward, almost vibrating with anticipation."So what you're saying, yeah, is that you want me for James Bond? Or Electra?" Saki covers her mouth as Taylor winces. "Maybe less explosions? More like Veronica Mars...." "Sold! I'll be the best secret agent who ever agented! One question though." She points "I get Saki's disguise power, right?"

 

[1986ctcel]

I'm

My problem there is that canon MM is definitely a Jade Caste (she is extremely dutiful, works by the rules, tends to push the systemic agenda rather than modify it in any meaningful way because the system worked for her), and I want Jade Missy.

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Plus the colours of Jade mean we could have Missy with the colour scheme of WINDOWS Vista

 

[1986ctcel]

Yep, that was the idea. The problem is essentially that Lisa is going to keep poisoning the well with people we actually care about (Brian by extension of Aisha; Amelia) until we get her better info. Also, I may have wanted to inflict more headaches on her.

Then I was convinced that we could handle it with SOCIAL KOMBAT.

To be fair, I'm not sure what @uju32 's stunt really does either. Focus her charms? We pretty much know she's gonna be a Moonsilver regardless... Hrm.

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Selecting a Role in the assembly so Autochton (@Gromweld) will fit her out with a Charm loadout specialized for it, Taylor is So-says-the-Leader/support, MarMar is Punchbot McPunchyface, Saki/Sakura are the Moebots and Aisha would be the infiltration/wetworks specialist aka Partially-Solid Snek.

 

[landcollector]

Aisha would be the infiltration/wetworks specialist aka Solid Snek.

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Cardboard Box trick is a-go?

 

[1986ctcel]

Cardboard Box trick is a-go?

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And taking down a Warstrider by herself on foot

 

[Thief of Words]

Plus the colours of Jade mean we could have Missy with the colour scheme of WINDOWS Vista

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Honestly? It's more that Missy basically informally adopted Taylor as her big sister, and should she not become Exalted, then we're looking at a very long and possibly very lonely immortality. Prayer and Saki just feel too reverent, too much at arms' length. It's part of why I want Aisha for Moonsilver: we need her irreverence and acceptable levels of disrespect to keep us grounded. With Missy...well, we need something more like family than Taylor has right now. Missy is as close as we have right now, with Danny off Infernaling for Cauldron.