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Bootstrapping to Overwhelming Firepower (Worm x Planetary Annihilation: Titans+Legion)

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CosmoKnight said:
Babysteps before giant mechanical army my friend, babysteps
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Heresy!

Ok, jokes aside, power armor is not an entirely stupid idea. It's not all that smart, but I can see the appeal. Although his first line of defense should be to not be attacked personally... And let's be honest: no one who has some clue (which he should be happy to provide) wants to actually kill him as soon as he is set up without first taking everything else out. And then the power armor does not matter.

My playstyle in that situation would be to hide in the basement as much as possible and play the fun little game of digging Into Coils bunker with my troops. How nice of him of leaving that thing to me, so thoughtful (also making sure to kill him, but that's easy if you know his power. Simply say three days beforehand when you will attack and he cannot escape... (although you might get charged with murder of a PRT consultant, but sending his files over to them should help with that)

Why first attack Coil? Because he gets more dangerous the more time you leave him, and his try again trick is annoying and has better chances than most of getting through your defenses. Especially if he cooperates with cauldron...
 
and how are you going to get your stuff out of the basement when you decide to move to a place with more room or are you going to just dig down for more room
 
Dig down and out somewhere. Or hell, have the stuff somewhere you can easily get out of, as long as you have easy and inconspicuous access to it, the bases are covered. Assuming you need access. If you only need, let's say, six hours of work and you can control everything from your home, regardless where you put the tech, you have a lot more options.

Like putting it into Boston at the very least :)

If you can pull it of, the other coast. Yes, I understand having less access to your stuff is dangerous, but, as long as no one can realize you are a Parahumans/tinker not anymore dangerous than living is. And most of the dangers that could affect you in that case will affect you outside costume, so...

(and as long as your not building anything, who figures out that you are a tinker? Besides Coil. F that guy. As soon as you are able, send an assassin drone or whatever after him. He needs to go, because if He gets a reason to go looking, like accidentally killing/near killing (and thus your stuff screwing up everything if you did the F-you programming right) you in a disposable timeline, he will figure it out, eventually)

And it has the added advantage of making it fairly easy to restart if attempt 1 does not work out, or begin by building a distributed network...
 
Find a way to remain independent, the PRT will never let he build what he needs to survive, let alone by the time the world ends.

Power armor looks nice and the stealth system is definitely a plus, but I would build some scavenger/fabrication drones as fast I as I could and have them go to town on either a secluded spot on the boat graveyard or some trash dump. Having them build up his base and better tools outside the city or in a tunnel, with only a monitor/control station on his basement, would be the best choice to remain safe.

Without tech he is as good as dead or drafted to the gangs/PRT if someone notices, and in a town running a Cauldron experiment plus Coil and Tattetale, it's only a matter of when, not if, things will go wrong.
 
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Yukon Heavy said:
Find a way to remain independent, the PRT will never let he build what he needs to survive, let alone by the time the world ends.

Power armor looks nice and the stealth system is definitely a plus, but I would build some scavenger/fabrication drones as fast I as I could and have them go to town on either a secluded spot on the boat graveyard or some trash dump. Having them build up his base and better tools outside the city or in a tunnel, with only a monitor/control station on his basement, would be the best choice to remain safe.

Without tech he is as good as dead or drafted to the gangs/PRT if someone notices, and in a town running a Cauldron experiment plus Coil and Tattetale, it's only a matter of when, not if, things will go wrong.
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Fortunately, OP specifically included Legion Canon here, so that means once he gets to actual Commander scale he can start invading and/or Annihilating Shards; the Xyphids were extradimensional, so Commanders definitely have the necessary tech to do it.

Also, Air Fabbers are always the way to go in complex environments, but Power Armor is... pretty much a Rite Of Passage for Tinkers. You gotta build at least one! That aside, MC should definitely get a mobile fabber and set it up digging a bunker to work from, as well as a Resource Core. Having an operational RC is extremely important right now, as MC is having some major Econ issues. Even if it's just a hundredth the power of the ones powering Commanders, it's still unlimited mass and energy, just lower throughput.

Totally agree with you and everyone else in the thread, Coil is a major threat right now, and needs a nuclear-tipped GILL-E round to the head from a few dozen miles away ASAP.
 
Hiraeth: a longing for something or somewhere which no longer exists, to which you can no longer return; the longing for the lost homeland, which you know only through blood and tradition, and will never feel under your feet.

Also know as Nostalgia.

So... I hope the MC is not like a standard Tinker. In that he actually UNDERSTANDS his technology and can make innovations rather than being stuck with what is provided. If he has a Fabricator, all he needs is a Reclaimer and a storage device. Then he can do Matter-to-Energy and have all the energy and materials he needs. Also hope he does NOT have a shard. Or if he does, it is not a shard of the entities. Maybe have him have Essence of the PA-Commander(Essence META CYOA).

A little bummed he seems to not have an interest in working on a relationship with Hana(who I am guessing is Miss Militia), but it is understandable.

Hope the MC, if he does understand his technology, makes some medical tech as well. I like it when the MC focuses on Self-improvement/enhancement. Go full-on kryptonian(where they refine themselves, gaining abilities and becoming better). If this ever goes multi-cross, maybe could see the MC doing all kinds of interesting and cool things. Gaining Magic, Chakra, Psionics, X-Gene's, Alien Genetics, maybe even replacing all his bodies cells with Organites and turning himself into a kind of biological Asuran from Stargate. Allowing himself to alter himself as desired while being much safer in the event something catastrophic happens...

I dunno.

I like the premise of this story so far and it has obviously inspired my imagination.
 
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very interesting and I cant wait to see where you plan to take this. The power set has so much variety to it that its so endless. There is so much the MC can do instead of always being a punch wizard.

If you are taking ideas since he is making armor I think that he could build an armored carrier that comes with stealth tech that deploys either drones for his use or armored parts for his suit. IN the comics tony had his nano organic suit that could also go hulk buster mode but in the movies they gave him veronica.

That would not only up his tinker rating but he can also use it to dunk on Armsbeard about being alot more efficient, also a swanky pad to take pan pan on rides around the city. thats just a suggestion. Also, the boat graveyard or the junkyard offers plenty of metal to assimilate if you drop a stealth drone to go between the house and a secret warehouse.
 
fingers crossed that the MC is subtle about how he uses his power. Building his infrastructure under ground, maybe even in/around the Aquifer. Constantly working on further improving/upgrading his tech. A LOT of people/authors like to go the transhumanist route. Making their MC upload their mind to machines, then just turning themselves into a robot. Kinda hope the MC will, if he can, go the Asuran route. Where he will either get advanced enough Replicators/nanites or even Organites(bio-mechanical semi-organic Nanites). Basically, even if he DOES upload and go transhuman, he would still look and feel human, able to eat food and everything. But with the added benefit of all that technology. Even more so if he eventually gets pocket dimensions or folded space, to the point where he could literally store entire factories/worlds in his hands, then be able to build and do anything with a handwave. Sufficiently advanced technology looking like magic. That, and if he goes the Organite route, he could replace his cells, or if they are small enough, even go sub-molecular(like molecule man, or Ant-man, just with his tech), then he could study any interesting genetics he finds and give them to himself. Like Wolverines/Lobo's regeneration, Kryptonian/Tamaranean/Asgardian powers, Homo-Magi magical abilities, Martian/human psionics, etc...
EDIT: Apologies, did not notice until going BACKWARDS that the author has not reopened discussion and that the thread had been NECRO'd.
PLEASE DO NOT NECRO.
 
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Mastersgtjames said:
EDIT: Apologies, did not notice until going BACKWARDS that the author has not reopened discussion and that the thread had been NECRO'd.
PLEASE DO NOT NECRO.
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I'm not dead yet!

Sorry it's just I have a problem with focusing on writing for a while, so updates will come irregularly and sparcely on them, I will endeavor to post more regularly but I make no promises.

And thank you for the feedback and enjoying my story!
 
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Chapter 3: Warming Up
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    • AN: Hello again, Sorry it's been quite a while since my last update, but writer's block and my self-diagnosed ADHD make it really hard to really sit down and write a chapter, hopefully this is worth the wait!

    Big thanks as always to the Cauldron Discord Server for draft reading!

    Enjoy!    ​

    I sip the to-go cup of coffee from the stall. Not half bad, all things considered—it being glorified diner coffee and diner coffee usually being burned— the owner knows her stuff. The sea breeze blew the steam from my drink while studying the Brockton Bay Market. The murmur of the people milling about, resting my thumb in my pocket and fingering my tinker-crafted knife, looking like a regular folding knife barring the monoatomic edge, a pain to sharpen but worth the effort. A smile grows at the knowledge of how my production capability has spiked with the help of my fully functional second-gen fabricator and the freshly constructed lithium power cell. Now I can get a little work done without alerting the Protectorate. Another upgrade is my wireless energy transmitters—I can feel Tesla's approval—allowing my technology to go around my basement and a little beyond without worrying about running out of juice. Still, they'll need better batteries or engines of their own to go much further. My machines currently use modified car batteries from the scrap yard. I would have liked to use my armor to accelerate the process, but my basement does not have a convenient escape tunnel, making it infeasible without an almighty ruckus.

    Significant oversight on my part—

    I break through the Tinker fugue and force a reboot. Standing in the middle of the Market drooling is probably not the best look, so I scan my surroundings and find my mother waiting for me. She's outside Fugly Bob's, a loose collection of walls you could charitably describe as a single building. Exactly as Worm described; part restaurant, part bar, part shack, brick and mortar with dark wood for the parts that connect to the boardwalk. An oddly homey feeling settles in my stomach as I wave at my mom to get her attention. Mom turns and smiles as I approach to hug her, which she gratefully returns.

    "Hope I didn't keep you for too long," I venture, pulling away. Letting her ruffle my hair.

    "Nope. Just got off the phone with work. I should be in the clear." She leads us into the diner, the wafting smell of fried food so thick that I can feel my blood thickening in my veins. "I'm glad I can finally spend some time with you. Work has been murder recently."

    "I understand, mom, but can I ask why you've brought me here?" I can probably guess why I'm here, but it is best to let other people explain so I don't put words in their mouths. Unfortunately, I have a problem doing that.

    "How have you been adjusting to moving here?"

    The loaded question hits me like a sock full of ingots.

    How have I been adjusting to the hell hole that is Brockton Bay? Near daily anxiety attacks, severe paranoia, puberty, emotional whiplash, puberty, scholastic boredom, complete lack of Dungeons and Dragons/Other RPG groups, looming dread of sociopaths holding the fate of humanity in their hands, did I mention puberty? But me being a teenager, I can't tell her any of that.

    Why?

    It would put too much pressure on her. Besides, I'm fine. Who doesn't suffer from the chronic anxiety of looming armageddon?

    Just me?

    So I do the old standby of teenagerdom that will leave an incredibly sour pit in my stomach.

    I lie.

    "Eh, doing fine. There's always that adjustment lag between transferring over, trying, and making new friends. Lunches are still terrible, though." I smile at that last bit, getting a chortle from mom. My attention drifts away to the modern-day tavern; people on their lunch break yammering about terrible customers and griping that their shift continues soon, the heady symphony and scent of frying food, and some are chattering about recent parahuman activity while barking at the television. I look at the offending electronic, an old CTV affair showing a PRT announcement. Somebody behind me shouts at the proprietor to turn up the volume. Thank you, kind stranger.

    "Ladies and gentlemen of Brockton bay, we're proud to announce a recent addition to the roster of the Protectorate." A short, rotund woman spoke on a stage, obviously Director Piggot. A new addition? Well, it's still January, this section of the story was primarily regulated to backstory– that I remember, anyway. "Please welcome Mouse Protector."

    What.

    The screen switches back to the news presenter, a classic American beauty named Janet or something. "That was yesterday's announcement of the PRT ENE, getting some needed help after so long under siege—" My head began to spin. Mouse Protector, here? Now? Why? Crap. That could drastically change the timeline here. Especially if she brings her arch-nemesis, who is dumb enough to think you can hire the Slaughterhouse 9 as an assassination squad. I slump back into the chair, staring into nothing as I try to amend my plans to include the new factor rapidly.

    "Isaac?" I snap back to reality with a touch of my shoulder, my body tensing. I stare into my mother's worried face, shaking my head to smile at her.

    "Sorry. Just. Wow, Mouse Protector's here. She's one of my favorite heroes!" I add some enthusiasm to my tone, dredged up from genuine memories. As a little kid, she was my favorite. Then, getting older, I fell for the same edgy teenager bullcrap of liking overly dark heroes. I suppress the shudder at thinking of Shadow Stalker as a hero. Mom's worry seemed to disappear, her smile returning, easing the pain of the knot in my stomach. "I wonder what she's doing here. Brockton is a little out of the way from her usual haunts." My smile falters, "And what about her 'arch-nemesis,'" My air quotes got a snicker from my mother, "Ravager?"

    "Ravager will probably just stay there and revel. Besides, Chicago's got plenty of heroes to keep her busy, especially with Myrd' at the helm." Myrd? Oh! Myrddin! The pocket-dimension tinker who dresses like a Gandalf-Merlin knockoff. From what little I remember, he uses his specialization very intelligently and in a fun way, he could have just made guns and real portal-looking things, but instead, he made a wizard staff and costume. Hmmm, misdirection, an illusion of a human where the suit is, could buy me some time if discovered earlier than I desire, looking for someone taller, buffer, and maybe even a different pallor or gender. It would require a modification of my gauntlet weapons, switching from a balance of kinetic and energy weapons to purely energy weapons. Keeping the gauss gun and rocket launcher may raise questions, but it's better to have them and not need them than need them and not have them. However, the Tesla cannons may need to get hot-swapped for something more in line with an Alexandria package. I could steal from Doctor Dire's Particle Cannons. They'd be significantly less potent due to size constraints.

    My musings about armor modifications are once more interrupted by my mother.

    "Isaac," I look up and notice the waiter standing there. I order a hamburger and fries with unsweetened tea. My mother orders the Challenger. I stare at her for a moment, processing that she requested that.

    "Hungry?" I softly chuckle at her embarrassed smile.

    "Shifts have been murder recently, and PRT cafeteria food-"

    "Is worse than school lunches, I know. You've complained before." We laugh at that.

    It feels good.

    "Secondly, well, I wanted to ask about your grades."

    "What about them?" I winced at my curt reaction, "I've been doing my studying-"

    "No, no, no," Mom tried to wave off my worries, "you're doing wonderful. I'm just curious as to why you never applied yourself before. What changed?" Ah. Crap.

    Short answer: I didn't feel challenged before.

    Long answer: I'm possessed by an alien parasite. Knowledge of mechanics and mathematics is more advanced than anything created by tinkers. Possibly autistic now. Bored out of my skull. And also thought that I was 'too cool for school' and the previous institution.

    I feel like I'm repeating myself.

    "I guess having a seizure changes your perspective on life," I shrug as I drink my tea. Not bad. I've had better, but this is pretty good. "It was an eye-opener—a wake-up call. I was going to do something stupid, and I woke up." The smile I give my mother could be described as non-committal at best. Talking about the incident is uncomfortable for both of us—primarily for me. "So, to interrupt this awkward silence—" that gets a snicker from my mother, "—am I going to be able to meet my father anytime soon? Or am I going to have to wait a few more months?" I wave my hand in a noncommittal matter. "I don't mean to rush you-"

    "Sorry, it's just been hard to set up a meeting between us due to work on both ends." Ah yes, the bane of my existence and any TTRPG player:

    Scheduling.

    I barely suppress a shudder of disgust.

    "Do I at least get a name? Is there any particular reason why you're keeping it a secret?"

    "Can't a mother keep some secrets?" I raise a suspicious eyebrow. "Besides, why are you so curious about him now? You never seemed bothered about it before."

    "The fact you've moved us here to meet him?" I thought it was obvious, "And now you're being dodgy about him, which makes me increasingly worried about the circumstances of my birth." My smile turns grim on my face as I watch my mother's reaction. Instead of an expected pensive, worried look—she appeared more embarrassed than anything. "Mother," I exaggerate mock horror, "are you unmarried?" As evidenced by her lack of a ring, even a tan line around her finger, an unhappy marriage or divorce would leave some evidence, but lack of one entirely. That made me feel uneasy.

    She sighed as she played with her drink, "That's a… complicated story that I'd prefer to have your father and I explain together." Gee, how comforting. No way can that story be heavily traumatizing, shape, or form. As our order arrives, I shrug and let the conversation fade into a comfortable silence.

    Holy crap, this is good. I've had a few good hamburgers outside of fast-food restaurants, but Fugly Bob, you've taken the cake.

    Soon, Mom pays for the meal, and we head onto the Boardwalk proper.

    The only nice place inside this cesspit of parahumanity that is Brockton Bay. Overpriced coffee, expensive clothes, a delicious burger, and gang-paid bodyguards keep this place looking nice, so the government and the gangs pay their taxes. 'The only things certain in life are Death and Taxes' indeed.

    Meandering between the shops—various temporary booths and actual brick-and-mortar stores—was pleasant, even with the frigid breeze coming off the ocean. I swear I could see icicles forming mid-air from errant splashes of water. Mom drags me through a few knick-knack shops, mostly just shiny baubles, but it would add some warmth with how empty our house is. We also do a quick splurge on some new clothes. Some of our luggage got lost on the way here. It mainly was tourist garbage, though I did find some cool-looking Armsmaster and Miss Militia shirts. After that, mom leads me to the Mall. A sense of nostalgia wafted over me like a tidal wave as the heat from the indoors banished the cold. The sweet'n'savory scent of some legitimately good food court snacks almost sends me back in time.

    Breath.

    I snap back into focus as I press my thumb into the palm of my hand. I focus on the sensation, the black edges of subconscious terror slowly ebbing away. I regain control, walking forward, one foot forward after another.

    "Isaac?" I look at my mother and give her a placating smile.

    "Sorry, zoned out." I wave it off as I catch up.




    "Uuuuugh…" I sigh as I kick off my boots. Tossing my jacket onto a hanger, I flop bonelessly into the couch, blaring the white noise of a newscast. Mom had to leave for work due to an emergency—she is starting to regret coming to Brockton Bay—due to Uber and Leet causing some chaos for a Livestream downtown.

    Mario Kart Double Dash by them being doubled up on one kart. I don't know who Daisy and Peach are, but Wario and Waluigi are Uber and Leet. Uber in a fatsuit is almost enough to bring me out of my social exhaustion. Mom had run into coworkers—A ginger guy and a raven-haired woman— and talked their ears off, leaving me to wander. I collected a handful of local protectorate t-shirts that looked cool, and my blush at the collection of Miss Militia t-shirts would not go away.

    Fuck why are women with guns so damned hot?

    I snicker at myself, slowly rising from the couch. I double-check the front door and the leftovers in the fridge. I barely register the rush back to my workshop. Looking past a facade I had placed between the basement and the now-completed link to the sewers. I'm thrilled I programmed it to build a hermetically sealed door between the two facades because hot damn shit stinks. I wonder if the rumors that Skidmark smells worse than this are true. Note, take an extra long shower. But now, with the tunnel installed, I need to move out. The longer I stay here, the risk of being discovered grows, and my mom being a PRT officer, I have no doubt she'd report me in a heartbeat.

    With the energy stored in the Lithium cell and my power at work, I rapidly completed two more fabricator drones. With their 3rd generation fabricators, I created my first series of basic combat units. About waist-high, armed with a coil gun that fires steel ball bearings and a riot shield made from the same diamond as my suit. I barely had enough material to make all 6 of them, but when the first returned with its payload of concrete and steel, I was back in business.




    I hate New England.

    My robot army and I are deep in the bowels of Brockton Bay's sewers. I created a handful of quick and easy stealth drones to scout the winding gridwork of the old England-style sewer systems. So far, it's a nightmare spaghetti of tangled pipes that desperately try to channel the immense amount of fecal matter out with minimal regard for rigid structure. The desire to vomit grows less from me trudging in ankle-deep— in my power armor— through liquid humanure and more at the horrible misshapen lump that is Brockton. I know that old-world cities always grew naturally like organisms that way of things until modern engineering and plumbing, but good grief, is it not fun to look at when you have a tinker ability.

    I grit my teeth. Grids, subways, skyways, fusion power, parks, terraforming, GEV cargo haulers, and roundabouts! Glorious roundabouts everywhere!

    My daydreams are interrupted by my infrasonic sonar getting ping, an Endbringer shelter with abnormally high activity. I place the palm of my suit into the wall and send another infrasonic pulse through the concrete. I command my scout drones to complete the 3d imaging of this serpent's lair. I find myself standing at an office's entrance— no, an exit with a man typing away at a computer. A simple hijack of the local wireless confirms it.

    Coil's Lair.

    For a split second, I damn near charged through the door. But forethought wins out. If I do that, I end up collapsing this timeline, and Coil gets away. What would I do if I found this place empty? Break in, hijack the computer, and take control of his operations? I nearly jump as Coil immediately begins to type away at his phone. Why did he—? Dumbass! That's precisely what you did in the other timeline! He's possibly already countermanding it as well. Well, let's play dirty then, shall we? I back up and order a fabber to make a suicide drone. Looking like it was made by a junkyard tinker. I give it an order.

    "Find Thomas Calvert. Upon his discovery, kill him." I feel a sour churn in my gut. Push it down as I turn to focus on my target. The flying bomb zips away on a whir of antigravity. Finally getting my head back into the game, I tap the phone's connection.

    "—what do you mean you don't know who it is?" Thomas, panicking. I've spooked him.

    "I'm telling you what my power knows, jack and shit!" A girl my age, Tattletale.

    Thomas flinches, and my system pings silently: "Target not found, returning to base."

    "Maybe it's the Merchants?" My immediate reaction is to call him rude, but that's why I made the damn thing look like shit in the first place, so I hold my tongue.

    "Unlikely, their leader isn't known for his cunning mind." My face nearly splits in two as I find a stopgap solution to my problem.

    "A new tinker, then? Why attack me?" A pair of diesel generators meant to keep the lights on, just in case. Using my fabber's as a silent tunnel bore, we make way to the key to me earning the title of 'The King of Escalation,' if not the prince.

    "There was a tinker that attacked Cornell a week ago, used bombs, still leaves—." Bakuda. I need to grab her before she becomes a problem. I can probably make my own time stops after studying Clockblocker, but she'll be helpful. We breach the wall without difficulty and avoid alarms by rerouting the wires around our entrance. Another quickly fabbed door and a pass to clean me of excrement as we began to hijack the generator.

    "Enough, theory crafting is doing me no good. Find this mystery tinker, and either recruit them or eliminate them." I made him mad.

    "That's why you hired me…." Tattletale muttered, "Yeah, I have a possible trigger event to follow up on. It might be our mystery tinker with a renegade project."

    I tuned the duo out at this point, entirely focusing on hijacking the diesel generators and fabricating my first-generation fusion reactor. Gathering metal from—I was minimally aware of what my fabbers were deconstructing at this point. But as soon as I deconstructed excess diesel into deuterium fuel and ignited the microreactor, Work truly began. Disassembling the two generators was simple, with the surplus power delivered from the reactor easily keeping up with my demands and keeping the base none the wiser. Using the refreshed supply of metal, fabricating a full-sized Fusion Reactor is a simple task.

    I feel the thrumb of power rattle my bones as a star is born under Brockton Bay.

    I couldn't hold back the mad cackle.
     
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