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An Era Dawns (Worm/Kaiju)

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    • Scheduled vote count started by Lunaryon on Aug 11, 2023 at 12:08 AM, finished with 40 posts and 29 votes.
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    • the next mutation should be either the skin or the spine.
    while taylor has been mutated, none of the ones she has give her a better chance to survive being attacked by anything that could harm her.
    while she does live in the same town as panacea, that does not mean that we should consider her as safe if she were to be attacked.
    panacea is only one person
     
    Nictating membranes look like one of the worst defensive mutations, since they can be matched by sunglasses. Skin hardening looks like the best once-and-done if it scales to pistol proof armor by itself, and black fingernails seem like a match or superior choice to the spinal reinforcement (it hits the nails, then skeleton, then muscles and organs if I'm reading it right).

    Fingernails and skin hardening are also less visible than a row of plated skin along the spine. A streak of white hair and black nails just look like a goth phase (the best phase).
     
    KaMinSod said:
    Nictating membranes look like one of the worst defensive mutations, since they can be matched by sunglasses. Skin hardening looks like the best once-and-done if it scales to pistol proof armor by itself, and black fingernails seem like a match or superior choice to the spinal reinforcement (it hits the nails, then skeleton, then muscles and organs if I'm reading it right).

    Fingernails and skin hardening are also less visible than a row of plated skin along the spine. A streak of white hair and black nails just look like a goth phase (the best phase).
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    Somehow I don't think it's that easy to find generic easy replaceable sunglasses with transition lenses which can be deployed at will, provide protection against heat, and you don't have to worry about being throw off by sufficient impacts that you'd be sent flying. Oh, and they should also be able to grant the ability to see outside of the typical human visual range (such as into thermal). Though if you can provide an example of sunglasses like that which a freshly starting off cape can get, then by all means! Mostly though, Nictating Membranes are useful because they provide both defense for the eyes which no other defense so far does and it's the only sensory upgrade we've seen so far other than Avatar Of Nature ( which we passed up ).
    As far as skin hardening versus black fingernails? Skin Hardening is only a surface level protection and doesn't appear to protect Taylor from breaking bones or any such, whereas black fingernails provides protection to the stuff under the skin along with buffing up taylor's physical strength more than it will be in the first place.

    I still rate Nictating Membranes over the others because the human eye is remarkably vulnerable to damage if not actively protected, and sensory upgrades appear harder to come by than defense in the first place.
     
    Taylor managed to find shaded, safety rated, corrective lenses to put in her mask without any difficulty in canon, so I can't imagine it's too hard. Most cape costumes use something even more reliable then just sunglasses, and it's fine to upgrade to a full motorcycle helmet.

    More than that hitting something in the eye specifically is more a question of luck than anything else. Compared to bulletproof skin or hardened bones, nictating membranes can't match up. The human body is remarkably weak to regular bullets everywhere, and Taylor isn't godzilla yet.
     
    The nicitating membranes can lead to alternate vision modes such as thermal, electromagnetic, etc. Pistol-proof skin can be beat out by body armor once we start heroing proper. Spinal reinforcement is more handy at that point.
     
    The think with scales and skin is that they probably also progress. Pistol-proof now, rifle-proof later. And eventually, no self-respecting Kaiju even flinches at a mere tank cannon.

    Scales would grow to cover more, be harder, stronger. More inhuman yes, but as stated, few things resist damage like Kaiju scales.
     
    Razzocnor said:
    The think with scales and skin is that they probably also progress. Pistol-proof now, rifle-proof later. And eventually, no self-respecting Kaiju even flinches at a mere tank cannon.

    Scales would grow to cover more, be harder, stronger. More inhuman yes, but as stated, few things resist damage like Kaiju scales.
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    I actually doubt this to a degree.

    The entre point of skin is that it's a Damage threshold - anything that can't penetrate it can't hurt us. So I doubt its something that would make much of the setting irrelevant.

    It'll definitely increase in strength, but something like that isn't going to be allowed to unbalance things, or else theres just not much tension.


    EDIT: I will also say one of the reasons membranes appeals to me is pretty simple.

    I don't want to wear a mask. Maybe early on it'd be fine, but given how the mutations work, we're eventually going to reach the point where Taylor just cannot hide her identity, so wearing a mask at that point is... well it's kinda a fig leaf. Plus making Sophia mad as hell whenever our face appears on the news related to superheroing.
     
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    Meanwhile with the Heroes
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    [Forgotten Family Photos]

    With a frustrated sigh, Armsmaster rolls his motorcycle to a stop at the bottom of the massive freight elevator in the depths of the Rig. The man takes a single moment, looking up through the whole of the rig and to the skies far above. Shaking his head, Armsmaster hits the button next to him, listening as the elevator's chain door clatters closed behind him, before the titanic gears of the elevator begin to clunk forwards, slowly lifting the Hero towards the bridge off of the Rig.

    The leader of the Protectorate ENE leans forwards, bracing himself against the tinkertech motorcycle he rides, and seeming to all the world like he is waiting patiently. That could scarcely be further from the truth, however, as Armsmaster quietly flexes his hands open and closed, listening to the creak of the leather and metal that makes up his armor while he is forced to wait. Gritting his teeth, Armsmaster grips tight to the controls of the Armcycle, before the man shifts to just barely keep the cycle balanced and ready to explode out of the elevator the moment that the damned thing manages to reach the top.

    But for the moment, the only thing that Armsmaster can do is sit, and wait, and close his eyes. The elevator is laboriously slow, and Armsmaster notes to himself, as he does every time that he uses the elevator, that he really needs to remove the old and crumbling infrastructure of the elevator and replace it with a different, better system.

    How long has he been planning on replacing this thing…? Armsmaster feels a twinge of something bitter and rotten as he realizes that it has been over a half dozen years at this point. More than six years of grumbling about this stupid elevator, but he just has so many different projects that keep vying for his attention, and he's just not gotten around to fixing it yet. There are too many other things that are more important.

    Not that the feeling of lacking time is anything new for Armsmaster either. In a way, it feels like ever since he graduated from the first group of the Wards that he has been waging his own private war against the very forces of time.

    Because there are only so many hours in a single day. Twenty four of them. And it feels like with each passing month that more and more of those hours are being stolen away from him. He never has the time to focus on the things that he wants to. Instead he has all these responsibilities. There is all the paperwork and planning that his position as leader of the Protectorate East North East has saddled him with. Things like making sure that all the other heroes are keeping up with their different certifications - Which reminds him, Assault is past due on his first aid certification. Once he and Battery return, he is going to have to hunt Ethan down and make him take the class - Then he has to make sure that everyone's patrol schedules are filed so that the Police know where the heroes are likely to be, and he needs to track all of the public appearances so that he doesn't double book any heroes to charity events, or accidentally schedule Dauntless for a shift that would leave Addison all on his own.

    All of that is complex enough, even before Armsmaster has to fit his own schedule into the rotation as well, and he has to further schedule things around so that there is potential coverage in case something unexpected happens. There has to be someone available to step in if a member of the Protectorate ends up sick, or they have to leave town for any reason. All of this takes hours of carefully making sure that everything is properly balanced and set up, hours that Armsmaster doesn't have for his other responsibilities.

    The problem is that even discounting the time that he has to patrol the city, there are still more things that he needs to take care of. Over the years, Armsmaster has worked long and hard on making his technology and his inventions better. He works to make them function faster, to make them more durable and robust. Months of time put into simplifying everything down to have as few moving parts as they can possibly get away with.

    But even after all of that time and effort, Armsmaster still finds himself spending hours every day handling the frustratingly complex and intricate processes of maintaining his armor and weapons and all the other pieces of his technology to keep them from degrading even a little over time. Then he has to spend more than an hour each day doing the same kinds of preventative maintenance on himself. He works out, he eats well, he makes sure that he sleeps enough. All of these things take time and effort. In fact, back when Armsmaster was back with the Wards, he used to resources that he had available to him in order to search out and speak with nutritionists working with some of the best athletes in the world in order to learn what kind of diet and exercise plans he should be using to get the most out of all the time and effort he spends.

    Even all of that just isn't enough. He's had to skip some of his exercises more than once over the last month in order to have the time that he needs to get all of his other work done. Three times over the last two months, and that knowledge is eating at the back of his mind.

    There has to be something that he can do. Something that he can change, something he can invent. There has to be something that can be done, or else he's just reaching his limits, and Armsmaster doesn't know how he would even start to try and deal with that.

    Shaking his head, he pushes the thought out of head. There has to be an answer, something that he can do to try and claw some of that extra time back. If he had that extra time, then that would give him the time needed to replace the freight elevator on the Rig, and get a bit more of his time back, just from how much quicker getting in and out of the Rig would be.

    It would be a lot of work, but once the project is finished… Vague ideas start bouncing around the inside Armsmaster's skull, different methods and mechanisms all spiraling outwards as different concepts begin to piece themselves together. Some of the ideas are immediately thrown out, if only because of the fact that while he would love to do them, he knows that they just won't work.

    Replacing the Armcycle with a single pod mechanical gliderjet would be so much fun, but it would require far too much fuel, and it wouldn't be efficient for traveling through the city either. Maybe if he altered the designs… Something more organic might be better suited to…

    Fixed wings are too cumbersome, but if he were to design… Not even thinking about it, Armsmaster brings one hand up to his temple, his fingers rubbing a circle against his helmet while he thinks. More concepts start to dance across Armsmaster's eyes as he starts to think of how muscles and tendons and bones all link together to form a solid foundation for living creatures.

    Then, with a blink of confusion, Armsmaster realizes that the light of the sun is in his eyes, the light bridge extending out ahead of him. Somehow, Armsmaster lost track of his thoughts, following the designs and the potential combinations of pieces down a rabbit hole in his head. Some people might refer to it as a fugue, but that isn't actually a real thing outside of tv shows and movies and bad video games.

    It has been years since Armsmaster last lost himself like that, but he isn't going to let that happen again, not when there is so much to do. Gunning the throttle of his bike he feels the way that his heart seems to drop down into the depths of his chest as the Armcycle explodes forwards, rocketing across the light bridge and out towards the world. There are too many things to do now, and he doesn't have the time to sit back and think about things. The Armcycle roars, and if it weren't for the fact that he has carefully designed his helmet to block out the sounds of it, he would be entirely unable to hear anything else.

    That isn't a problem though. Thumbing one finger over the right key, Armsmaster hears the chiming click as his communicator comes online. A flick of the eyes connects things where they need to go as the cycle begins to soar through the streets, bending and weaving through the traffic like reeds bending in the wind.

    "Console, this is Armsmaster." Of course, moving at the speeds that he is, the Armcycle seems to be little more than a blur of silver and blue as it moves forwards, and any ordinary communicator would be unable to hear him over the rush of the wind and the purr of the engine. That isn't a problem, because Armsmaster uses a sub-vocal mic. It took months of training to be able to speak without a word, but it allows him to communicate with the rest of the Protectorate even when situations require everyone to stay silent.

    "Armsmaster, Console reads you loud and clear." Vista's voice is serious, but the young girl doesn't have the voice to be gruff. The sound brings a small smile to Armsmaster's face, hidden underneath his helmet. He may be the leader of the local protectorate, which means that he has to be impartial, but in the privacy of his own mind he can admit that out of all the heroes in the Bay, Vista may just be his favorite.

    It's unprofessional to admit, even to himself, but comparing Vista to the rest of the Wards, and even the rest of the Protectorate makes his decision clear as day. "Have we received a response from WEGDG yet?" Armsmaster asks.

    There is a moment of silence as Vista checks the reports, searching for an answer to his question, and Armsmaster leans to one side, carefully weaving between an old clunker and one of the Dock Worker's Union shipping trucks. Where the other members of the Wards would have responded immediately, Vista makes sure to have the actual answer before she speaks. It's a bit of professionality that the newest Ward could easily learn from.

    "We have not received any reports from Watchdog," Vista starts to explain, "However we have been sent three responses from other members of the Wards and the Protectorate. One from an Alaskan Ward by the name of Roulette. Message is as follows - 'Moderate chance for violence. Caused by accident.' End of message. A second message by a Triple Take, from Omaha. Available information says that he is a Precog capable of measuring danger in magnitudes of life lost. His message reads 'Possible death up to the Third Degree, all attempts should be made to de-escalate the conflict.' Finally a third message comes from a Forethought stationed in Arlington. Her message reads 'A great danger, but little threat to those that do not go searching for it.' Not entirely sure what you should take away from this…" Vista says quietly, but Armsmaster nods all the same.

    "What we can take away from it is that we now have more information than we did before," Armsmaster starts to explain, "And what we have learned is that there is a decent chance that something goes sideways. What is the status of the others at the moment?"

    Another moment of silence as Vista quickly starts to check on the other members of the Wards, and the members of the Protectorate as well.

    "Miss Militia is patrolling through the southern side of the city, showing the colors to remind the Empire that the PRT isn't worried about them." Vista says. "Should I call her in towards the Boardwalk?"

    That… That is a very good question, and Armsmaster thinks about it for a moment. "I do not think that will be required, at least not yet. The others?"

    "Velocity was patrolling across the northern side of the city, but he is on his way to the beach on the far side of the way as we speak."

    Armsmaster nods. "Assault and Battery are out of town, so that removes them from being a variable that needs to be accounted for. What about the Wards?"

    "One moment." Vista answers, and Armsmaster continues to smile. Vista is professional and talented, and she has a very powerful ability at her beck and call. She is going to be a hero that people all across the world are going to know the name of when she's finally fully grown.

    Not that Armsmaster is going to tell her that. It wouldn't go to give the young girl a big head. Well, any bigger of a head than she already has as the strongest shaker on the Eastern Seaboard. The fact of the matter is that she still has a long way to go before she is ready to take the leadership position that she wants so badly.

    After a moment, Vista sighs on the other side of the console. That… Armsmaster blinks, taking a moment to slow down so that he can give Vista the whole of his attention. "Is something the matter?"

    "Yes." Vista says, her words acidic. "The Wards patrol for the afternoon is Kid Win, Clockblocker, and Shadowstalker." There has been a bit of trouble with the newest member of the Wards, but Armsmaster wasn't aware that there was already this much trouble between the group.

    "I take it that something has happened?"

    "Shadowstalker has turned off her comms and split from the other two." Vista says.

    Ah… That… That is not up to regulation. "I see." That is really the only thing that Armsmaster can say about that. "That will be going on her record." There is a moment of silence on the other side of the line, and Armsmaster can tell that Vista wants to say something, but she is keeping her tongue for the moment. "There is something that you are wanting to add?"

    "This is not the first time that this has happened." Vista adds on. "Sophia ended her probation on Sunday, and this is the third time that this has happened." The frustration clear in Vista's voice is more than obvious, but Armsmaster blinks. That…

    This is the first that he has heard about this. Strange, someone should have told him if something like that was happening. "I see. I will look into this." Armsmaster says, "Once the current crisis is handled."

    "Okay." Vista says, and Armsmaster knows that he is going to have to get to the bottom of this, or else Vista might just lose what respect she has for the other heroes of the Protectorate. Still… Why wouldn't he have been told about that?

    "Speaking of the current crisis. What information do we have?" Armsmaster asks.

    Taking a moment to cough and clear her throat, Armsmaster can all but see the way that the girl sits herself up straight again, clearing her thoughts in order to be serious again. "The unknown was first reported at 0938 this morning by a fishing ship leaving the Bay. Since that time we have received multiple other reports, though no one seems to have any idea where the unknown may have come from. This is further complicated by the unknown appearing to stay out over the Scuttle, and due to that no one has been able to get a clear look at it, though plenty of people have heard it. Current theory being put forward by troopers is that it is a Case 53 that is just now appearing for the first time." Vista explains. "At this time it has not acted aggressively, but with the reports that have been sent in by the Protectorate Thinkers that cannot be guaranteed moving forwards. Additionally…" Vista pauses for a moment. "Huh. Odd. I am getting a notification that the unknown does not match any records in the PRT animal database. Why does the PRT have an animal database?"

    "Back during the Bad Old Days, there was a little known but very prolific animal Master that ran with Lustrum." Armsmaster explains as the boardwalk finally starts to come into sight. "The PRT spent months trying to figure out the limits of the animals that she was able to control, but eventually she either died or retired."

    Armsmaster goes quiet for a moment, thinking.

    [ ] Call in Miss Militia
    - With Shadow Stalker having decided to run off on her own, that means that there is one less Parahuman on the premise than Armsmaster is expecting, and it might be a good idea to have some back up if things go sideways.
    [ ] Do not call in
    - There is all the chance in the world that bringing in additional force might be what the Precogs are seeing, and what might set this unknown off. It would be better to sit back and wait for the moment, see how things are before calling for any more back up.
     
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