Can you prove that? I mean, she clearly has some sort of telekinetic ability to fly, just like Superman. She's clearly meant to act as a Superman expy. Do you have any concrete evidence her strength doesn't work along similar principles?
Alchemical Solutions [Worm/Exalted] Thread 23: We Wonder Where Who Wanders When Watchers Wane
- Thread starter Gromweld
- Start date
That's the thing here actually.
The perfect example.
A Warstrider is Armor. Its extremely fancy armor, but it's armor. It has a distinct self identity and it's own concept independent of it's pilot or animating spirits. Thus Aggravated damage used to hit a warstrider works like it hit armor. Conceptually coherent. If a Warstrider was struck by Agg specifically aimed at an inanimate and unattuned Warstrider, it'd take that Agg damage like any object would(and since objects don't differentiate Agg and Lethal, it does the same as Lethal)
A Colossus(an Alchemical at transhuman essence, who is remodeled to Warstrider size) is a Person. It does not have a distinct identity and concept from the soul it houses. If a Colossus was struck by Agg damage, it would suffer that Agg damage like a person would.
By the same standards, Agg damage hitting Saint in a stolen Dragonsuit is going to work like it hit armor. Agg damage hitting a true Dragonsuit would hit it like a person.
Graypairofsocks
What is Grammar?
- Location
- earth
Something I remembered about Soak:
There is apparently a distinction between soak from stamina and a creatures natural armor.
In stat blocks for people you get their soak listing then in parentheses info on what armor they have (and soak they get from it).
In some creature's stat blocks you get their natural armor in that space (stuff like thick hide, stone construction, jade hide, wood skin, or Orichalum hide) which is separate from the soak they gain from stamina.
You might be able to soak aggravated with that.
There is apparently a distinction between soak from stamina and a creatures natural armor.
In stat blocks for people you get their soak listing then in parentheses info on what armor they have (and soak they get from it).
In some creature's stat blocks you get their natural armor in that space (stuff like thick hide, stone construction, jade hide, wood skin, or Orichalum hide) which is separate from the soak they gain from stamina.
You might be able to soak aggravated with that.
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We see actual telekinetics in canon, and they're called out as such, if not in the books then in WoWildbow.
Rune, Browbeat, Shamrock.
Alexandria isn't mentioned as one.
How would you describe her flying powers, if they're not tactile telekinesis?
- Location
- NM
Iirc, Alexandria tries to hold up something massive (a building?) in canon, and it crumbles under it's own weight. Could be misremembering, but I'm pretty sure Uju has quoted that scene before. Beyond that, we don't really know what her power is/isn't, beyond it necessitating her brain stuff being handled by the shard.
Also worth noting, Scion is the Superman expy (if you're considering an expy to just be a reference, which it isn't). Wildbow has stated that that's basically where the idea for Worm came from—"What if Superman was truly/more like an Alien?" or something like that.
Twei
I have a face!
- Location
- the land where they write things
- Pronouns
- They/Them
Self-telekinesis? I mean, it's clearly pretty straightforward if so many otherwise unrelated powers have flight as a side benefit. (Looking at you, Aegis.) Simply saying 'apply X amount of force to host in the direction they want to go' must be quite easy for Shards.
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Imrix
Periodically Malevolent QM
"Space Whale Magic Bullshit" springs to mind.
Gromweld
Learning By Mistake
Actually, as far as I can tell, Warstriders ARE relatively common in Autochthonia - they are, when you come right down to it, force multipliers for a populace that is always in need of more of them. Besides, they were regarded as some of the greatest weapons ever forged in Creation, so it shouldn't be surprising that Autochthonia has their own versions; their aesthetics would be far different from the ones used in Creation's First Age, of course - eschewing the opulence for varying types of efficient design - but they are ultimately weapons that can be used by heroic mortals and Exalted alike.
Since Autochthonia also has martial arts designed for/by warstrider-sized combatants, and they've had many thousands of more years to perfect the uses of warstriders, it's also entirely possible that Autoland's warstriders can get more bang for their buck from them than Creation ever managed to.
Finally, note that Colossus-sized Alchemicals are far more rare than human-sized versions, so it's not like their existence completely obviates the need for warstriders.
That... what? Your argument doesn't actually impact what her effective Strength score would be; it's like trying to say that a crane rated for a thousand tons can't actually lift that much because all anyone has ever seen it try to pick up is poorly-structured cars.
Alexandria's power enables her to exert more than a million metric tons of force - it's not like its her actual muscles doing the lifting, since her body is effectively a statue and would likely be incapable of even moving without the assistance of the shard. Yes, the force she can apply is limited to her body - so she can't try to pick up an aircraft carrier and expect it to remain in one piece - but that doesn't change how much she can apply. If she were converted, Alexandria herself wouldn't have a ridiculous Strength score, but instead her shard-charm would be doing the heavy lifting (heh).
Nice! I mean, both are still massive walls of text, but it's getting there! Definitely worthy of some credit for the work you've put into it so far. +2 XP!
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Imrix
Periodically Malevolent QM
... They're also a populace that fights mostly in fairly cramped environs, so that seems odd. You sure?
- Location
- U.S.
Kind of, there are definitely lots of tunnels and cramped areas, but remember that most cities are built in massive cavities. They are definitely more limited in Autochthonia's terrain, but not useless. They also probably mostly use Scout types, because they are both smaller, more maneuverable, and take less resources.
What @Imrix said.
No indication that it applies to TK though.
They certainly have the knowhow to build them. Whether they have the resources to maintain a significant force? Dunno.
There is no explicit declaration, but they are implied to both exist and see use.
Artifact Perfection Node (Stamina 5, Essence 3, 4xp):
The Charm cancels all mobility penalties and fatigue value
from personal scale magical armor, but not warstriders and
similar scale artifacts.
Pristine Shell Upgrade (Essence 4, 4xp): Suffused with
the Great Maker's Essence, magitech armor of any scale
does not accrue maintenance or otherwise deteriorate while
bonded this way.
The Charm cancels all mobility penalties and fatigue value
from personal scale magical armor, but not warstriders and
similar scale artifacts.
Pristine Shell Upgrade (Essence 4, 4xp): Suffused with
the Great Maker's Essence, magitech armor of any scale
does not accrue maintenance or otherwise deteriorate while
bonded this way.
AUSPICIOUS REFORMATTING MUDRA
Cost: (Rating affected x 10)m
Target: Automaton
Minimum Clarity: 6
The Exalt forms the Mudra of Transformation with her right arm bent so that her hand is at shoulder height with splayed fingers and her left is extended out before her, palm downward and fingers together. Lightning lances out from her left hand to strike an automaton or any type of machine, reweaving its pattern permanently. Automata and machine spirits of higher Essence than the Alchemical make a contested Essence roll to resist the effects of this protocol.
Alchemicals might use this protocol to mend or reactivate broken machine spirits or to transform them into something else entirely. Gremlins could be reformatted again as custodians or broken down into inert components, or a warstrider could be transformed into an airship of equivalent Artifact rating. Exalts using this protocol can reconfigure a machine spirit with up to half the weaver's Essence into a device with an equivalent Artifact rating or into an Autochthonian familiar with a rating equal to (Essence + 2). If the weaver is transforming one artifact into another of equal power, his
player rolls (Intelligence + Lore) and must get a number of successes equal to the Artifact's rating for the Exalt to accomplish his task. N/A-rated artifacts cannot be created or affected by this protocol.
At Essence 7, the weaver may instead simultaneously reconfigure multiple machine spirits she can see for an additional five motes per added target. Used in this manner, the protocol only alters their programming. It does not rebuild their physical forms, and no target can have Essence
greater than 3.
Cost: (Rating affected x 10)m
Target: Automaton
Minimum Clarity: 6
The Exalt forms the Mudra of Transformation with her right arm bent so that her hand is at shoulder height with splayed fingers and her left is extended out before her, palm downward and fingers together. Lightning lances out from her left hand to strike an automaton or any type of machine, reweaving its pattern permanently. Automata and machine spirits of higher Essence than the Alchemical make a contested Essence roll to resist the effects of this protocol.
Alchemicals might use this protocol to mend or reactivate broken machine spirits or to transform them into something else entirely. Gremlins could be reformatted again as custodians or broken down into inert components, or a warstrider could be transformed into an airship of equivalent Artifact rating. Exalts using this protocol can reconfigure a machine spirit with up to half the weaver's Essence into a device with an equivalent Artifact rating or into an Autochthonian familiar with a rating equal to (Essence + 2). If the weaver is transforming one artifact into another of equal power, his
player rolls (Intelligence + Lore) and must get a number of successes equal to the Artifact's rating for the Exalt to accomplish his task. N/A-rated artifacts cannot be created or affected by this protocol.
At Essence 7, the weaver may instead simultaneously reconfigure multiple machine spirits she can see for an additional five motes per added target. Used in this manner, the protocol only alters their programming. It does not rebuild their physical forms, and no target can have Essence
greater than 3.
Big enough for Elder Alchemicals to maneuver fairly comfortably.
Big enough for the Estasians to maintain speeder-mounted cavalry after driving their riding rats into extinction.
THE GUNS OF ESTASIA
The glorious days of the Rodent Cavaliers are over, the famed riding rats having passed into extinction. Where Valor has failed the Militat, technology makes up the difference. Today, the heirs of the Cavaliers are one-man skimmercraft mounting Essence shock pikes; their fleet ensures the Militat dominates the battlefield in all three dimensions.
The glorious days of the Rodent Cavaliers are over, the famed riding rats having passed into extinction. Where Valor has failed the Militat, technology makes up the difference. Today, the heirs of the Cavaliers are one-man skimmercraft mounting Essence shock pikes; their fleet ensures the Militat dominates the battlefield in all three dimensions.
SCIENCES OF THE MACHINE GOD
Of Nurad's many peculiar technologies, none is as well-known or as atmospheric as its air fleet. This includes both airships—rigid dirigibles filled with lighter-than-air gas and propelled by small Essence impellers—and the smaller aircars, vehicles that fly by Essence alone, such as shaft speeders and aerial skiffs (see The Manual of Exalted Power—The Alchemicals, pp. 215-216). Recently, many of these vehicles have been broken down for recycling or sold to other nations.
Of Nurad's many peculiar technologies, none is as well-known or as atmospheric as its air fleet. This includes both airships—rigid dirigibles filled with lighter-than-air gas and propelled by small Essence impellers—and the smaller aircars, vehicles that fly by Essence alone, such as shaft speeders and aerial skiffs (see The Manual of Exalted Power—The Alchemicals, pp. 215-216). Recently, many of these vehicles have been broken down for recycling or sold to other nations.
Kinda like tanks.
EDIT
Can also be used for large scale construction, now I think of it.
So not entirely military craft.
Okay.
Gimme a couple hours to sort out commitments and pull citations for you on what Alexandria can and cannot do with regards to feats of strength.
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That's a very Autochtonian thinking.
Warstriders built exclusively for war are relatively speaking, not a very good investment depending on which Nation you are in(the ones deeper in Metal would have far less room than the ones in Steam or Oil, which can exploit the firepower of the larger frame better).
Giant construction/cargo/support mechs are very useful though!
Gromweld
Learning By Mistake
There are plenty of large, open environs within Autochthonia, actually - the difference between Creation and Autoland is that large-tunnel-sized tight quarters is the default, rather than the exception it is in Creation. After all, Colossus-sized Alchemicals would be useless if Autoland truly was only a world of cramped tunnels, and most matropoli/patropoli are set up inside enormous caverns to allow for growth.
Still, as I mentioned, Autochthonia's warstrider designs would obviously depart from Creation's own - Scout Warstriders, for example, would likely account for the majority, with other types designed to keep close to the 18-foot minimum size that a warstrider skeleton necessitates. They'd also pull double-duty with industrial/maintenance applications, instead of only being used for fighting.
I just looked at Worm 29.8, where Alexandria (her body, being piloted) manages to hold up the 1.5+ million ton Cauldron base superstructure for a moment before the supports around her start to give way because she's not capable of spreading that lifting capacity out. You're welcome to dig up more sources, but that's pretty definitive.
Yeah, I would imagine an industrially-focused society like Autochthonia uses warstriders rather heavily in this manner. Technically, warstriders are better at construction and demolition than they are at combat. Warstrider pilots suffer penalties to Perception and Awareness and loses successes when attacking anything less than ten feet tall.
FunkyEntropy
Occasionally insightful, possibly grumpy
- Location
- Los Angeles
That doesn't mean she's strong, that just means that her body is so tough that it can support the load. Although, tomato tomahto I guess.
In order:
Those are her clear, relatively incontrovertible feats.
There are lesser feats like holding Lung down in Venom 29, but most of this isn't disputed.
Now this is the controversial part:
That is a feat of her invulnerability, in that she can only be harmed by very specific forces.
So you can wedge her into place where a building is collapsing, and she won't break or be dislodged, like a normal support member would.
Not a feat of strength.
And even at that, she was only under the pressure of a fraction of that entire mass because location; said million plus tons applied to the entire base, not just the metre squared or so of surface area that Alexandria was standing underneath.
Compare this with the feat of strength when she was failing an opposed roll vs Echidna's vomit hose
Note that's supersonic Alexandria, so it's not like they were moving said vomit faster than her.
An Alexandria with an effective Strength + Athletics of 100 would be on a whole different scale of threat from her already scary levels.
And it would have shortcircuited several canon plot threads, notably Echidna.
Her fight in Brockton Bay had her using a building I-beam to smack Echidna around, instead of flying out to the bay and coming back with a significant chunk of ship and simply impaling her with that once the threat became clear.
Note:
We actually see one person who is able to apply his/her powers to normal objects she's lifting so that it doesn't crumple around them.
That was Siberian who was sprinting around with Manton's car.
Barring that, the accelerations involved may well have wrecked the vehicle and the person inside; not an engineer, so I cannot make any definitive claims.
Eh, it's vague enough that she might be still floating and holding it up, rather than (effectively) just standing there and just acting like a support. Still agree that it's not an accurate judge of strength, since that would be her flight lifting capacity instead.
Pretty sure Echidna's vomit had some form of power nullifying properties, so not necessarily totally indicative - it's possible Alexandria was immune, but considering there were Alexandria clones...
Since she can't protect Manton, if it was going to wreck him, it would've wrecked him
. I can't remember exactly how fast she was going, but I highly doubt it would've been enough to actually destroy a car, or kill someone (I doubt either would've liked it though, and whiplash would likely be a real possibility).Probably build them modularly too, so they can simply drop the construction systems and load up the military ones at need.
Use Enlightened Mortals and you don't even need to tie up your Exalts.
It costs between 10(Common, scout) and 15 motes(Royal) to attune a warstrider depending on type, and an E3 mortal has an Essence pool of 30m to spare. Train appropriately, enlighten the graduates, and you'd have an entire corps of elite mortals to play pilots whenever necessary.
Useful against massed gremlins though, I imagine, when appropriately supported.
And it's not like Autochtonia is above dosing with alchemical drugs and other enhancements as necessary to mitigate those issues.
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If the vomit had power-nullifiers, Lexie wouldn't be standing in it's path, would she?
The clones only happened when she got herself et.
She was accelerating and decelerating fast enough to throw off Legend.Since she can't protect Manton, if it was going to wreck him, it would've wrecked him
I'm no engineer, but I imagine that without Siberian physics-fuckery basically giving the finger to Newton's laws of physics and making the car an inviolable bubble of timespace unaffected by external forces, Manton would have broken his neck the first time Siberian went from 60km/hr to stopping on a dime.
Or put his head through the dash.
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- Location
- U.S.
Okay, calling bullshit on Autochthonians ever building a Royal warstrider. They are stupidly difficult to make, consume HUGE amounts of material, are massive, and don't really have anything to justify their construction or use. A Noble would even be stretching it, but those have a specific roll they can fulfill, and are overall much less impractical than Royals in every way. Even in Creation, Royal were vanity objects that were never really necessary, just another way for Solar's to dick around in as opulent and overblown a manner as possible.
I said they could, not that they would; they have the expertise.
And who knows?
Autochtonia is pretty resource-scarce as of when canon happened, but it wasn't always that way; Nurad is famous for having a sizable population of sapient automatons about, for example, despite now being so pressed as to be breaking some of them down for raw material and selling off the rest.
Or it might be a national pride thing, or showpieces.
Or heck, the Divine Ministers might mandate some for some reason or other.
Autochtonia isn't a zero-sum polity where only the economically optimal decision is taken after all.
Just ask Estasians, who have repeatedly attempted to conquer other nations despite crippling losses each time.
Or the Sovans, who instead of immediately recycling bodies of their elders, preserve them in opulent tombs and embalm them with honey so they can be eaten in a hundred years.
Well, not just Solars. Ketchup Carjack (oh I so love that fan name) had one commissioned for the Scarlet Empress roughly 4 centuries before her abduction by TED. And during the High First Age, they were also used by a number of Lunars and particular favored and/or Legendary Dragon Blooded and their families.
Crowd suppression weapons too