dpara
slightly confused ascendant
Well put. You are convincing me.
The last problem is that Prayer is unlikely to like Alexandria
Enemies of Case 53s (We Have Suffered Enough) [Emotion|Fury] ●●●
Alchemical Solutions [Worm/Exalted] Thread 23: We Wonder Where Who Wanders When Watchers Wane
- Thread starter Gromweld
- Start date
The last problem is that Prayer is unlikely to like Alexandria
Enemies of Case 53s (We Have Suffered Enough) [Emotion|Fury] ●●●
- Location
- NM
That appears to be more generic than targeted towards Cauldron.
Can definitely foresee some friction, but I expect it would be less personal and more with regards to the handling of C53s in the future (and whoever they're still holding on to).
Well, that, and the fact that exalting Marrow caused the Eden avatar to start screaming in agony (dunno if its stopped? @Gromweld, is Eden still screaming? Has Cauldron had to install soundproofing?
) when Auto hoovered up a big part of her body.Exalting another C53 might well awaken Eden, or atleast allow her to contact Scion. So on one hand, Prayer would have no problem with Cauldron since they would be wiped out. The downside is that we would have potentially two entities, or atleast an additional zombie entity on the loose.
This came up when I campaigned for the idea of giving Aisha two shard charms by throwing in a vial with her to make up for our reduced XP when compared to Saki.
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- NM
Eden is dead. The whole Eden-coming-back-to-life bit stemmed from a "What if Cauldron didn't exist?" scenario, and it wasn't a guarantee even then. It's not a concern for the quest unless Grom has changed things.
I believe she is not FULLY dead in this quest. Just mostly-dead or lobotomized or in coma or somesuch. Not at home so can't give you a WoG on it, but its a real risk that messing with Edens corpse might cause trouble.
The whole "Edens avatar started screaming in agony" when we exalted Marrow came straight from Gromweld. At minimum, there is a risk of activating some emergency signal designed to draw Scion to Eden to protect her.
- Location
- Right in front of you
Is this the Butcher confirmed to be Cauldron power? Can you source?
No, no no! We can't have people liking the Orichalcum candidates! Quick someone make some good anti Cauldron arguments!
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- Location
- NM
Yeah, I remember it happening, I figured it was just some post-mortem reaction (emphasis on what just happened to the shard, basically).
Even if Grom has confirmed that she can be brought back, though, I don't think it really changes anything. It has nothing to do with the qualifications of whoever we choose to exalt. It's just another plot element, and Grom has done well enough so far, I see no reason not to trust him (and his betas) to handle it well. Also, I very much doubt it would summon Scion—although they'd likely reunite fairly quickly—since he spent so long searching for her without ever finding her. He basically had to stumble upon her by accident in canon.
Biggest concern with regards to exalting Alexandria (to me) is her power. It's exact nature is unclear, and some of the possibilities would be very difficult for Autobot to reconstruct (time stop in particular). On the other hand, her powers manifest as an amalgamation—Super Strength, Durability, Enhanced Senses, Enhanced Processing, Memory, etc. The effects should be relatively easy for Autochthon to emulate, regardless of what the exact nature Grom decides on is.
Edit: Especially his betas. Counting on you guys.
Its been stated that Zion shards produce entirely new and unique effects, whereas Eden shards are basically enhanced or modified versions of existing alchemical charms. So look at the current charms, figure out how you could tweak the numbers and stay in the "theme" to better match Alexandria and you will probably come close.
Most likely Alexandria would have charms that boost soak or such, but far more than standard. Or possibly very very cheap perfect defense. And IEU and other mental augments.
Dude, Alexandria is a Thinker.
Maybe not in the same class as Tattletale, but pretty respectable.
The PRT, the Protectorate, much of the interconnecting web of parahuman defenders around the world are her invention.
It's not ego when you really are that good.
I don't believe you're making me defend Rebecca Costa-Brown, but she isn't an evil person, or even a particularly self-aggrandizing one.
She's a woman who was recruited into a conspiracy to save multiple Earths when she was sixteen, and has bent her every effort in both civilian and parahuman guise to do so.
Sometimes doing foul things, but she has always put herself on the line.
Is she flawed? Yes; most people are.
Is she right for our Assembly? I don't currently think so.
But that is not the same thing as thinking her stupid, or assuming that a single mistake based on one fact she didn't know invalidates decades of single-minded service.
OK, the issue I have with this:
We might share the same end goal, but we're quite unlikely to agree how to go about it. I mean, do you really think that there's anyone in canon who actually disagreed with Cauldron's goals? Heck, even getting Auto here, we could have disagreement there (either on how to go about it, or possibly even if we should (at least with Cauldron)). There's a reason that we haven't bought up Backing (Cauldron) 5, and it's not that we disagree with there goals or anything.
I'd think something like a 'pseudo-perfect' (i.e. infinite soak, but still ignored by soak bypassing, or cannot be used against attacks that cannot be soaked ala some perfect dodges that can't be used against un-dodgeable attacks), which Transitory Invulnerability Engine seems close to (and it actually works thematically, transforming the Exalt entirely into their MM) - so possibly a 'semi-permanent' version that can't be activated under certain situations? I think the only actual soak boosters are sub/exo armour plating, and Essence Shield Projector (which doesn't really work I don't think). The other survival Charms don't really fit with Alexandria's whole 'invulnerable until she's not' thing. Possibly also have some of the non-combat Survival Charms as well.
Offensively...she'd look a lot like Prayer. Damage would be a PDMH variant (and probably some others, but that'd basically the only 'enhance punching' Combat Charm - possibly a 'passive' 5th Aug or something, or a lot of 4th Augs?), HMR for lifting, DRE/IEU would likely handle Thinker and flight would be PTA (and possibly some of the other movement Charms). In other words, she'd basically be Prayer MK2, except working more from her 'Alchemical Charms as Shard Charms' than just flat Alchemical Charms.
- Location
- Right in front of you
You quoted my post but didn't answer it. A mistake?
Ah, yep, sorry - it's not confirmed, but implied by something DM says. I don't believe there's any WoG or anything else, but it's definitely the bit I've seen in conjunction with Butcher as a Cauldron cape.
Which sounds familiar.29.7 said:
Or, all things considered, that the literally textbook counter to Thinkers is to spread misinformation to catch them out on a power enhanced misstep.
It's not that she doesn't want to consider that she might be wrong, but secondguessing her enhanced cognition on the basis of someone else is rarely a good career decision for any Thinker, by invalidating their power's advantages.
Kinruush
Who?
- Location
- USA
Neither of those are minor. In the first, she deliberately antagonized someone who was known to escalate to defend herself and, more importantly, her friends for at best minor gains. If she was at all diplomatic in that scene, she wouldn't have died. In the second, it was the Nine, there were any number of traps Crawler could have been hiding. Moreover, again, her charging in was not the only option. That's why Thief of Words called it hubris: she chose the option that got her killed because she trusted herself so much more than anyone else that she took unnecessary risks and died in canon and nearly died here.
That's a false dichotomy. She could have thrown a car at Crawler to buy time; it might not have hurt Crawler, but buying the extra time for EOA to finish her scan would have saved her from having her spine torn out by the Siberian, and all she would have had to do is actually trust EOA. And that's what it comes down to: we can't trust her because we have no reason to believe that she's changed, that she'd be willing to listen to, and more importantly trust, anyone in the Assembly.
She definitely had reason to believe that Taylor was significantly more dangerous than she appeared, since Taylor had demonstrated such at literally every engagement, and pretty much every member of the Protectorate who had experience with Taylor could have told Alexandria that. She definitely had reason to believe that Taylor was also capable of using abilities in unexpected ways since Alexandria was there for the Noelle fight. She definitely had reason to believe that Taylor could defy predictions as she demonstrated when she escaped Dragon and Defiant after being revealed at the school.
Alexandria had every reason to believe that her ability to predict Taylor's response was insufficient and that Taylor, when pushed, could be incredibly dangerous, but she went ahead with a plan that was unnecessarily confrontational to eke out rewards that were, frankly, not worth the risk that any reasonable assessment of the situation would have seen. That is an issue of ego, and it's a severe and, in my opinion, disqualifying one.
At that point in Worm, the Undersiders had outright taken control over multiple parts of Brockton Bay and set themselves up as its rulers. Alexandria was confronting Taylor because Taylor had turned herself in to the PRT for the sole reason of threatening them into legitimizing the Undersiders' reign. Using a false show of force to try and put a halt on this insane plan is well worth the risk of escalation. The alternative is to let everyone know that the US government is willing to give up territory and citizenry to violent criminals.
Thief of Words
Trans lesbian librarian
- Location
- Best book girl
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Again, I didn't claim she was evil or particularly self-aggrandizing. Just that she was arrogant. It's still arrogance, even if you are or were that good. There's always a bigger fish.
This. Precisely this. It should be reiterated here that Skitter was rated as a 2 in every category precisely because her unpredictability was a known quantity to such an extent that it was deemed safer to cover all of the bases beforehand.
It's a survival skill for a Thinker. Tattletale has to do it on almost every single job, because she knows her power can get off target. Alexandria leaned too heavily into her supposed invulnerability and the presumption that no one was paying close enough attention to know her actual weakness, and she died for that assumption. So it was the opposite of a good career decision not to be cautious in that respect.
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That doesn't negate the charge of Hubris you know. Canon Alexandria implemented her plan rather stupidly and died a scrub's death for it.
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Thief of Words
Trans lesbian librarian
- Location
- Best book girl
- Pronouns
- She/Her
"You know this cape that we have on the books as rated in several categories we're certain she doesn't have, just to be safe? Let's do something no one has managed yet. Let's make her mad. Surely we won't see something new or unexpected that way."
Sounds like something Vault-Tec from the Fallout setting would do just for the hell of it.
Thief of Words
Trans lesbian librarian
- Location
- Best book girl
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Cauldron did a fair lot of that. See also the "parahuman fedualism experiment." AKA: the Warlords of Brockton Bay. AKA: Coil and the Undersiders.
In short: it's like a Vault-Tec executive hosting one of their more volatile experiments in a Vault they show up to.
And if I remember my timeline right, this isn't the first time showing up to that particular experiment in person has burned not only her, but all of Cauldron and the PRT/Protectorate.
Manic Dogma
This, I can't deny.
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- The far side of tired
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- Whatever
Fuck me running.
As someone with a grasp of Exalted's mechanics, but who hasn't read beyond the Core Rulebook and some of the splatbooks, how does that translate on Exalted's scale of power? 'Cause that sounds stupid huge.
To hold on the Alexandria bashing, if her information was accurate she would have basically shrugged it off. If the room wasn't helpfully cleared of all insects first, she would have seen the signs and adjusted.
She was intentionally goading a reaction out of her, but while she got the right reaction, the timing was wrong.
Millennia old Exalted who never stopped getting more swole have a maximum base Strength of 10, and the ability to maybe triple it for certain rolls.
10 dots in strength and 10 dots in athletics allow an Exalt to kick down metal reinforced gates.
Strength Attributes on their own are pretty lacking all things considered.
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Manic Dogma
This, I can't deny.
- Location
- The far side of tired
- Pronouns
- Whatever
So Alexandria's a little more than three times as swole as the buffest Solaroid ever. And rolls at least a hundred damage dice when punching something.
Sure it's not really anything to Exalted hax, but that's really fucking scary base stats.
Sure it's not really anything to Exalted hax, but that's really fucking scary base stats.