How about this to get things onto something completely different.
Very well, my last post of the day possibly due to severe weather in the area.
Due to the weather clearing and this getting back into my head here is some more:
Thank you Torn2.0 for those inclusion. To make it official!
Thanks for the omakes.
Doobie Doobie Doo Bah Doobie Doobie Doo
Missy Byron, completely normal schoolgirl, was having a completely normal day. School was good, her parents were harpies, and her friends were all having fun. She had been doing her homework like a good little student, when all of a sudden, the floor opened up! Her bed was sent careening down a secret track as mechanical arms changed her out of her pajamas and into a very spiffy costume. As she got out of her bed and dusted herself off, the jumbotron on the far wall turned on, revealing General Gallant.
Thanks for the omake.
An
Ad
These are the type of typos I hate the most, because I do them the most often and they are super hard to find.
Considering how rough education is on the worm universe, it might be safer and smarter to just have Aisha test out of classes entirely.
Thank you, corrected.
Testing out of school would probably raise as many red flags as suddenly excelling in her classes. Really, her best bet would be to kick the problem down the road as far as possible and claim any alternate education options (home school, tutoring, online classes) to avoid dealing with a direct evaluation.
Typo- "introductory", I think?
So, about that "cluster trigger" and "material generating Shaker power" theory the PRT are working off...
I'm not... 100% sure that servo-skull-ification is always quite that voluntary, Joe.
Thank you, corrected.
My general impression was servo skulls were reserved as a position of honor while servitors were for criminals and 'human resources' needed to fill demand. That said, Warhammer 40,000 is a big place. There are plenty of places with plenty of different approaches to things. There were probably also situations where the need for servo skulls exceeded the number of honored dead, so people decided to help things along without losing any useful workers.
That's not the case with the Laboratorium. It's from one of the Light of Terra DLCs (DLC 3 - A Grand Day Out) as one of the facilities salvaged from The Righteous Path, a grand cruiser that took part in the Angevin Crusade. It's not the kind of equipment that gets scrounged together in an underhive. Everything there is top quality, including the servo skulls. Anyone selected to be part of that lab damn well earned their position and was interned with all appropriate rites and honors.
I believe it was stated by Wildbow and has been implied in canon that Aisha suffers from ADHD, or Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder.
That can make learning difficult along with at times normal life. I myself have it leading to a tendency to have a few pens around to twirl and losing focus when doing tests when I attended college.
And readerdreamer, I will admit to wanting to put a focus on grades which sadly is something a lot of people tend to focus on when it comes to education in our society. After all, why would a genius work at the local Deli when they could be churrning out experiments to improve your life? Or work in a small town garage despite enjoying working on cars?And now for something completely different.
Thanks for the omake.
I believe that should be "it's" or "its," not "it."
I'm fairly certain we're missing a "from" between "got" and "Kinoko Nasu." Also, commentary on FGO? huh.
So... how can Joe explain it, then? Is he only explaining the parts that have principles that can be replicated behind them? Is the Miniaturization and Efficiency Perk basically forcing new principles into reality to facilitate the lack-of-shard thing?
I wonder, assuming that Joe had Mixing Mixtures and six of the Duplicates spent their entire durations (which according to a note on my phone should be somewhere around fifteen hours if using twelve duplication potions mixed together) doing nothing but upload Miniaturization and Efficiency data, would the database be completed in any reasonable length of time? A year, two years, a decade?
I kinda forgot that Aisha was learning to speak Felyne. When did that first come into play?
I think it's a reference to Tetra's designation on Joe's List of Things That Might End The World. Tetra is the fourth, after Fleet and Survey, who I believe are listed as the first. Other members of that list include Matrix, the Imulsion Pump, and... well, I'm certain there's other stuff.
Thank you, corrected.
The reference to teaching tinker principles was specific to how tinker shards will come up with an application of their specialization even if the materials are less than ideal. Since that aspect extends to all of Joe's technology Joe is able to teach basic use of sciences that would normally be inaccessible without incredibly precision conditions. It's taking the tinker 'make it out of garbage' principle and applying it to things like Star Trek science and Transformers technology.
The jump gives no precise information given on the size of the database available from a tinker shard. It's possible it's not even a database so much as the shard doing design work based on previous knowledge and sharing the results. The more time Joe spends uploading designs the more that the Matrix and other A.I.s will be able to recreate, but it's not going to be a simple matter to just transfer over everything from the power. Additionally, some aspects, like the extreme miniaturization of other technology or the hyper efficient designs aren't transferable since they're basically fiat backed effects tied to the power.
Joe had made a reference to Aisha's language lesions, including her first horrifying attempt to actually speak Felyne, with Tybalt's reaction convincing her to never try that again.
as the ones
This, I believe, will not go nearly as well as Garment is hoping it will.
Garment is endearing in her optimism, which contrasts beautifully with the general nature of the world of Worm. Of course, coming into the meeting with the attitude that a team up couldn't be anything but wonderful for everyone involved probably isn't going to help to endear her with Parian.
It would actually be amazing if the PRT actually know where Joe is. Do you really think the E88 or the PRT wouldn't have come busting down his door early on if possible if they did? Cauldron has at this point a possible idea at the very least.
But it's Cauldron I'm talking about here. I don't have high expectations of them. But I do have this right here.
Thanks for the omake.
All things considered, we were probably safe on that front.
A semicolon is used to connect two independent clauses; the phrase "all things considered" is not an independent clause because it is not a complete thought.
Thank you, corrected.
Well this popped into my mind so here's a continuation with...
Thanks for the omake.
Chubster seemed to really want to give Appeiron the benefit of the doubt, is he trying to be really positive because he needs to be with all the crap he has seen? or is he playing a reverse "devil´s advocate" to the general analysis of the PRT, which to be fair has proven to be rather unreliable? The guy could also be just hoping they aren't sent against Appeiron.
Have they still not realized that Appeiron was the one to stop the fires from spreading with his Alchemy? Are they going to attribute it to one of the other members of the team?
Im really curious about what Joe thinks of the Triumvirate, what with his passenger knowing 2/3 of the members are human garbage with an end justifies the means mentality. And what the prt analysts would say about his "Thinker" power when he refuses to work with them based on it's opinion of them.
The view of Apeiron outside of Brockton Bay is generally a lot more positive. Apeiron's only serious crime is selling weapons, and they only know that because he confessed and healed the person injured by said weapons. The master accusations have never made sense outside the city, as they consistently worked against Apeiron's own interests. Experienced members of the Protectorate haven't missed the fact that 'Blame everything on Apeiron' is a convenient alternative to 'accept responsibility for a massive, career ending disaster'. If you take away the initial weapon sale and supposed master attempt Apeiron has done nothing but fight criminals and protect people, including freeing over a hundred people from cranial bombs with no compensation demanded. Experienced capes are also aware of how close he came to dying and how screwed the city would have been without his interference during the Ungodly Hour. Without and of their own fat in the fire they can afford to take a more charitable view of things. It also helps that not taking a charitable view means they're up against an S-Class Tinker and his support team, so there might be some wishful thinking involved.
There's no clear answer as to who stopped the fire. Apeiron is suspected as a cause, but he was fighting Dragon right up to the moment it was snuffed out. Assuming it was him means assuming he could create a multi-block wide transformative effect with less than a minute of notice. It's not unheard of, but it assumes something that people haven't seen from Apeiron before or since. It was also a unique energetic effect with a very distinct signature, something that thinkers have been picking apart with near obsessive determination. There isn't a lot of data on what happened, but it's clear it was something significant. Alchemy is a science, and it's basically catnip for a certain type of shard.
Joe hasn't been dwelling on the Triumvirate and his passenger hasn't been flagging them to any great degree. There's some feelings of unease, but like with Scion the passenger doesn't want Joe running off to fight them before he's ready and possibly tipping his hand. If he starts interacting with them directly he'll get much more clear impressions from his passenger, but right now things are a bit nebulous.
So
@LordRoustabout did Alexandria regrow her eye and enter this meeting mask less?
Wiki says Alexandria has a prosthetic replacement eye indistinguishable from the original.
As has been mentioned, Alexandria wears an artificial eye, one good enough to pass. People close to her probably know about it, but don't specifically call it out, not even in their own internal narratives.
"According to our most powerful thinkers, the most likely explanation is that he was taking a nap."
"…"
"You know how cats are."
"Oh yeah, makes sense."
It's funny because Tybalt was literally sleeping when Joe opened the locker. He might actually count as having slept through the Ungodly Hour and be able to claim so with complete honesty.
I feel the need to defend Tai Chi. Chubster said that it barely qualified as a martial art. That is wrong. Tai Chi is a very serious martial art if it is actually trained for fighting. However, almost nobody does. They practice it as a dance/yoga like stretching routine. That's fine but the fact that most people have never seen it done for real means they see arm drags, snap downs, joint locks, grip stripping, etc. in the forms and don't recognize them and instead imagine that their moving chi balls and stuff. Trained for actual fighting though, by someone who's actually trained in the actual tradition of combat though and you have a very serious form of grapling and striking martial art that wouldn't be terribly out of place in modern mma.
This was more reflective of Chubster's own opinion of his practice. He would be familiar with the more martial applications of Tai Chi, but for him to get the most out of his powers he needs to lean into the dance/yoga aspect. Looking like you're doing morning stretches in the middle of a battlefield isn't the most dignified thing. Still, there have probably been plenty of people who thought they could dance around his slow movements only to find that he can move fast when he needs to and, while he doesn't have his powers helping him, he's still a very large man with considerable natural strength and a very good understanding of joint locks and grappling. And, of course, once Chubster gets a grip on someone it doesn't really matter how fast or strong they are.
I've seen Apeiron's shard referred to as King of Arms in this thread a lot. What's the significance of that? Is King of Arms a shard in canon? Is it from a WoG somewhere?
WoG is that the Biotinker/Master passenger Joe would have obtained without the Celestial Forge intervening is named King of Arms. This is not a named shard from canon.
What I'm wondering is whether it's a noble shard, given the name. If so, what is its role in the Cycle?
Noble shards were listed in canon by Ciara. They are the fairy queen (Ciara / Glaistig Uaine), queen administrator (Taylor / Khepri - QA is the common fanon name, but I'm pretty sure Ciara only call it "administrator"), champion, high priest (David / Ediolon), observer, shaper (Amy / Panacea), and the demesnes-keeper.
So no, King of Arms isn't noble, unless a WoG come and contradict this (at which point we'll learn what was his purpose in the Cycle).
To add some context to the name, despite being called 'king', there's nothing royal about the King of Arms. It's a reference to an
actual position responsible for certifying genealogies and noble titles. Specifically, it was a shard devoted to tracking details of host species, both biological and psychological. I've referred to it as semi-noble because it's not necessary for the cycle, but it would help facilitate various aspects of it. For contrast, if the Queen Administrator was a reining monarch the King of Arms would be a court official. Nowhere close to as important, but more significant than the more general purpose shards.
I though it was stated that most other effects don't work on Sting-enhanced stuff? Like, March's explosions could benefit from a power to make explosions bigger, but would not be affected by a power to prevent explosions. Lily's projectiles travel in a straight line until the Sting effect runs out, and she has a secondary power to help her aim (her variation of March's timing thinker ability); therefore, the Butcher's ability to never miss, which works by warping space to change the projectiles' direction, would be ignored by a Sting projectile.
One of the things that makes Sting so dangerous is the ability to selectively ignore effects. Lilly can basically decide what she want's to be able to affect sting when she deploys it. If you find a hard counter for her attack (like Gray Boy's fields) she can just exclude it with her next shot. Likewise, anything helpful she can decide to include in her effects. If you did have a Butcher Flechette she could decide to allow Butcher XIV's space warping power to affect she shots, effectively guiding them wherever she wanted them to go. At that point it's basically instant death for anyone who can't get out of range.
Theory that wasn't brought up: They knew of Aperion and he used to be known and then Lethe + Aperion combo retroactively wiped not just him but his entire team from memory, data, and files.
That's a level of paranoia that's not really productive to indulge in. At that point their only option would be to try to find some kind of record that Lethe can't effect and compare that against their records and databases. With no red flags they can file it as a frightening possibility, but there's not much that can be done if things can be altered to that extent.
Now before anyone tries to lynch me, I have to ask
@LordRoustabout, is Chubster the really best tool in your kit to paint the wider Protectorate's current SOP on Apeiron?
Hear me out, Chubster is being used here as a narrative framing device to paint the Protectorate's current intelligence about the CF and their preliminary protocols dealing with them. But is Chubster really a better POV than that of Legend or other higher-tier Protectorate capes? Legend is the closest to BB geographically, he is also the Protectorate's leader; wouldn't it make more sense to have the interlude be done in Legend's POV? Not only will the author be painting a more weighty perspective, narratively, via Legend, but it also characterises an important character that is sure to interact with Apeiron down the line. Perhaps during the Travellers' Arc, Coil's Arc, or during the EB fight. A Legend POV also neatly creates a thread about what Cauldron has told Legend compared to what we readers know that Alexandria et.al. are truly puzzling out. We know for a fact that Legend is being blinded to some of Cauldron's moves, it makes sense that such exclusion also applies to information regarding this cape that has proven that the distance between BB and NYC is too close for comfort. Done right, it allows many threads to further world-build this particular setting instead of someone who has a dubious utility further down the road. That is not even counting the fact that March and Flechette came from NY. The narrative might have been tighter if Legend is shown calling his former Ward and handling the Protectorate's current plan with regards to Apeiron and the CF.
Just a thought.
Chubster is in no way the best POV to show the condition of the wider Protectorate and give their perspective on Apeiron and the situation in Brockton Bay. It doesn't set things up from the perspective of reoccurring characters that will be instrumental to the future of the story. What is does is show the perspective of the situation from a grounded, third party with personal and professional connections to the situation. The entire reason I wrote this set of interludes was for the scene with Chubster having breakfast with his daughter while they talked about their lives and concerns about what was happening on the other side of the country. That was far from the most efficient way of handling things, but I think it's no secret that this fic isn't exactly a model of efficient storytelling. I know people are chomping at the bit for the big fights that are around the corner, but honestly, my favorite parts of this story are the little moments where people can take a moment and soak in the scenery while giving some time to their own thoughts. I don't want to be pretentious, but really like the quiet moments. Given the length of the fic there is an understandable drive to trim the fat whenever possible, so things like Chubster having breakfast with his daughter can seem unnecessary, but I guess that comes down to what you're trying to accomplish.
I'm not trying to be callous to people's concerns about the fic. I know where they're coming from and am doing my best to keep things going, but parts of the story like this interlude are kind of necessary to give me the breathing room I need to push forward with the heavier elements. Particularly after something as heavy as the summit, I really needed the breakfast interlude.
Good god. That was... deliciously satisfying.
Hear me out. We have had multiple stories where the PRT and Protectorate were utterly incompetent. Failures concerned only with PR and Control.
This though? This reads like a briefing by the SCP ready to try and lock down a keter class event. With so much more competence.
It is showing a level of simple competence that is so LACKING in the original canon material it has become an absolute joke and EXPECTED that the PRT and Protectorate are all fucking failures and barely holding the country together. It doesn't show the hidden S-class threats. The tasks they had for 30 years of keeping a country together and sane all save for Contessa's Plot Fiat.
This actually makes me BELIEVE that Alexandria is a brilliant leader, tactician, and person. Not the utter failure she was shown to be in canon. A cruel and manipulative bitch that deserved to drown on dry land.
And that is so fucking satisfying to me.
Because Wildbow utterly failed to convey that and just use Contessa's Dues ex Machina as 'how the rest of the country works and is stable'.
Holy shit that was great! Thank you for sharing that
@LordRoustabout ! That was amazing!
Chubster was an excellent, relatable source for a PoV and the entire thing was handled wonderfully.
And the fact they actually reversed Tybalt's stranger power is the funniest shit yet!
God... Imagine when they apply that to Scion rescuing cats from trees.
...the ParaCats have been keeping Scion contained and stable for far longer then anyone realized~! The Secret ParaCat Conspiracy to stop Scion has been revealed!
Thanks. This is probably going to sound less complimentary than it's intended, but I try to give Worm the same level of respect that I extend to something like Strike Witches. What I mean is, Strike Witches is a ridiculous series. There's the gem of something great there, but it's burred under an uncomfortable amount of pantless animal girl fetish material. Still, trying to treat the series with respect, there must be some rational reason for why people acted the way they did. Some aspect of the technology, magic, or societal structure that caused everything to happen. It's based on the idea that everyone in the series is rational, or as rational as any group of people get, and are just working around the insanity of the situation they're in. I have probably expended too much effort in justifying the eccentricities of things like Striker Units or Kamui design or other assorted (mostly anime-based) nonsense.
When writing the Protectorate I extend the same logic. The parts of the organization that don't make sense at first glance, the dogmatic commanders, the questionable command structure, the levels of secrets and conspiracies, you could look at it like the ridiculousness of Strike Witches magic system and pass it off as nonsense, a caricature of incompetent authority with no rounding in anything sensible. Or you can look at the larger picture and assume that there has to be some level of competence and organization for this to not fall apart. That when they're not dealing with the box of snakes that is Brockton Bay they can actually do their jobs to a passing degree of effectiveness. You don't deny the elements that led to the mess that was Brockton Bay, but those don't need to be indicators of the Protectorate as a whole. In the end you don't need a caricature of evil, just a bunch of people doing the best they can while being prone to overlook what doesn't stare them in the face.
I think, fundamentally, no matter how insane the situation or the setting, as long as you can recognize the characters as people, there's a story there. Relatable people dealing with insane problems is fascinating. Unrelatable people causing insane problems is tedious. If you strip out the 'plot device' thinkers from Worm you're left with more of the former than the latter, and I think that's what drew so many people into the setting.
Why do I picture a 'cat' knocking over a stack of papers in the BB PRT HQ and Piggot grumbles, while this group was informed of Kataklyzein, Observes it on Security Cameras?
Will they Ban Cats in the Future?
Tybalt's 'stranger' power is limited to him. It doesn't extend to all cats. Having that power won't end discrimination against whatever demographic you belong to, it will just ensure that YOU are never judged based on superficial traits. Everyone knows what cats are and all the limitations they have, but everyone also knows those things don't apply to Tybalt.
I think that the mech was deployed against Lung, not Aperion. And didn't the material come back after 48 hours? It least that was what I remembered, it being two days not one.
Items built in the workshop have a 48 hour repair time. Items granted directly by the forge are restored in 24 hours, and also recovered if lost of stolen. It's a more powerful effect that can only be granted by spending points (or receiving specific, free items).
Hunh....interesting but of backstory there for Goddess. I always thought she was a Cauldron cape that got dumped on Shin to play warlord cuz she'd screw with Bet's "stability" too much.
Then again, my memory is trash and I never bothered to read Ward soooo.....
Goddess was never expanded upon until Ward. Personally I liked her fan name of The Blue Empress a lot better than Goddess. If Joe ever meets her he'll probably have something to say about her delusions of divinity. He might not be comfortable with his own demigod status, but he's not about to tolerate other people making erroneous claims in that direction.
I loved how they had to twist their head around the fact a cat was a cape. Why was Alexandria dissapointed? Was she hoping to find someone immune to the effect?
The bit at the end with thinking the director and Alexandria not getting along is great, makes me think about it being foreshadowing for later.
I liked the Cluster Trigger theory, at least it was "plausible" from a serious perspective. Do they not know Flechet was part of March´s cluster?
In canon Flechette wasn't aware of her status as a cluster cape until the possibility was pointed out during a Parahuman Studies lecture. It's likely that was because her support powers (timing and accuracy) are close enough to her blaster power for them to pass as the kind of base thinker powers capes have to support the primary expression of their abilities. There are probably people looking into things and the possibility of Flechette being in a cluster with March has probably been raised, but there's not enough confidence to include it in the main briefings just yet.
It's a bit "hurr durr Joe should have already solved Worm" but I really couldn't be arsed to read the tension as actual tension during the summit or in this briefing WRT Aperion and the Butcher.
Aperion has the technobabble to chop her head off and be done with her situation but obviously won't, that's not his MO, etc etc. As a reader I took great meta-humor from the situation. A sort of masochistic feeling where I want to read more about the big bad Butcher who is an ant in the colony compared to Apeiron.
The tension wasn't supposed to be on the part of Joe. Joe made it clear he had the Butcher handled, even in the worst case situation. The tension was from everyone else. Concern over how they would act, the fallout, things spilling out of control. Could Joe manage it? Possibly, but how much damage would he need to contain to deal with desperate last plans, gang wars, Coil's schemes, and collateral damage? What would his situation be like after he had to exert that much power? What would the fallout look like? How much damage would it cause? Just because Joe wasn't at risk didn't mean there was no potential for the situation to spin out of control, and while that wouldn't have hurt Joe physically he wouldn't have been unaffected by an event that decimated the city so soon after the fight with Lung.
Hey am I the only one who saw this?
"Apeiron had arrived with a cape who possessed extremely atypical biology, one who may have been present as a symbiotic or even parasitic presence within him as far back as his fight with Uber and Leet's mechs. A cape who had remained a mess of tendrils through his fight with Lung, but was now standing next to him in a mostly humanoid form."
from the latest chapter, this was when they were talking about Tetra. Wasn't she in Mink form the whole time and Lord had a moment or am I not reading this right?
Yes Tetra was in mink form the whole time, but between Apeiron saying she was all the strings during the Lung fight and them putting together that she was responsible for red nightmare mode, they concluded that she could change forms and was inside Apeiron at least during the Lung fight.
My bad. Well, this has certainly changed my mental image of Tetra a lot!
In her zoanthrope form Tetra is about the same size as Tybalt and slightly more humanoid than him. She can run on four legs, but is usually upright or clinging to Joe's shoulder, though the position is more comfortable if Joe is also in zoanthrope form to give more shoulder to cling to. It's hard to get a decent picture of what Tetra would look like since image searching for any anthropomorphic animal is a minefield that benefits immensely from safe search. One thing of note, the reason Tetra manages to consistently freak everyone out is because she's almost always smiling when she meets new people, and mink teeth are kind of terrifying.
Aisha is probably the most powerful stranger in Worm even before she got enhanced by Apieron's technology. Without knowing the exact limits of her power they can only assume the worst.
I wouldn't say PtV is immune to Aisha's power. It's not like Contessa knew Aisha was there at the time, just that her power determined it needed to say those at that time without knowing why.
What's crazy is that, even with the full scope of her abilities, Aisha isn't considered the strongest stranger in Worm. She might edge into that role now that she can affect electronic records, but Worm has people like Nice Guy, Mama Mathers, and August Prince. In canon Imp was only a stranger 5, which says something about the scope of abilities the Protectorate have to deal with.
You have to admit, Aisha kind of has the Protagonist title more than Taylor at this point. It's basically a novel summary:
"After a traumatic experience and having to rescue her father, Aisha suffers from loneliness and lack of control caused by her power when she stumbles into a secret bigger than she could have ever imagined! Now, with the trust and aid of Apeiron, Aisha finds out more about the terrifying world she lives in, and what consequences there may be if she ever fails to keep Apeiron's secrets. Fortunately, she has tech and magic by her side, and with her magical transforming armor, her enchanted hairclip, and robot unicorn Aisha will do what needs to be done to save Earth Bet!"
It sounds like a YA novel summary. Right down to the deceptive description, ala Animorphs. A surprisingly brutal world where authority grapples with bad calls and worse decisions, you can't trust the system to bail you out, the ones with the capability of helping are suppressed by the media, government and corporations, the heroes are usually jerks or damaged, if they even bother showing up.
Book reviewers: "Funny, sometimes frustrating and definitely not for children, don't let the unicorn fool you. This world needs to be fixed, and its only lucky the protagonist's mysterious mentor was prescient enough to start getting therapy long before he became the force of nature he was introduced as. Just about every character in this series could use it!"
I've joked about Aisha living out her magical girl fantasy, but it didn't occur to me that things were heading into YA territory. It was probably the lack of a love triangle that threw me off. There's certainly some truth to the idea that everyone is the protagonist of their own story, and you certainly have enough characters struggling with recent events to build their own compelling naratives.
Considering Terminator time travel is one of the few examples in fiction where the time travel actually changes the course of events, and the part where Damaged Microchip literally costs 800 points just to get designs for a time machine, it's definitely something that could change the past. It still depends, of course, on the interpretation -
@LordRoustabout I actually have a question on whether that creates alternate timelines instead of changing the same timeline - but the time machine itself should be solid considering 600 points was enough to let Joe create Divine objects.
It might cheapen the ability somewhat, but for the sake of the story I'm only writing time travel involving stable time loops. No multiverse theory, no rubber banding changes to the past, no fixed points or timey wimey. Even if you have the rules completely locked down time travel can eat a story. For the purposes of the Damaged Microchip it's stuck on the mechanics of the first Terminator movie. Any changes to the past have already happened, predestination paradoxes are fine, but they're baked in and unchangeable. Joe can still go to the past, it's just any changes he makes will have already happened.
I was discussing the idea of Riley, based on what she was like as a 6 year old cape, ie trying to heal people iirc, becoming anything bonesaw-esque without Jack Slash's influence affecting her; ie of her own free will to any degree that free will exists. Answering with "Who knows. Maybe she could get brainwashed." came off as rather disingenuous, since it seemed you were simultaneously trying to both dodge the question and also give the weakest refutation possible, hence my response.
Also, I think you're dodging the question by saying "anything could happen"; like yes, obviously that is the case, but that doesn't mean predictions can't be made.
You insisted that Bonesaw did things of her own volition, and that Jack Slash only 'manipulated her' as opposed to brainwashing her. I asked you if you thought Riley would've done those things independently, to which you responded with a shrug. Understand my frustration?
You can't just make claims and then refuse to grapple with the implications of them because they'd prove you wrong. Like it would be one thing if you made the outlandish claim that yes, Riley would have become a villain creating biomechanical horrors, even had Jack Slash never come to her, but you couldn't even commit to that. You just shrugged when I asked you to think about what it was that you said.
That video but it's Legend trying to get answers out of anyone who's actually in the know
(I know I already made this joke leave me alone /j)
Classic clip though...
"T H E G R E A T E R G O O D"
I feel like that would make a good title for an omake of some kind, just not sure what said omake would be about.
There was some heavy discussion regarding Riley and the Slaughterhouse Nine. I'm not going to reopen that, but what I will say is the challenge of rehabilitating Riley is severely undersold in most fics. Riley isn't six anymore, she's twelve. She's spend half of her life doing horrible things with the Slaughterhouse Nine. Even setting aside Jack's telepath power, she's had to build a mindset that allowed her to function in that environment. That's not something she's just going to snap out of. In canon it took Contessa's interference and two years of personal growth to begin to break free, and even then she still launched the Slaughterhouse 9000 before turning around. Just taking her away from Jack isn't going to snap her out of her mindset, and it's very hard to help someone who doesn't want to change. Riley's ability to function is based on the mentality she built up as a member of the Nine. The process of breaking that down in painful and devastating and without the advantage of the specific circumstances afforded by canon and the PtV is likely to be very messy.
Someone wanting to 'save' Riley has their work cut out for them. It is also a very dangerous prospect, and if even one innocent person gets hurt during the process you have to call the entire endeavor into question. Most people can't hope to effectively contain Riley long enough to have any hope of making progress. Joe can, and Joe is probably one of the few people who could counter her well enough to actually say there is no chance she will hurt anyone else. It will still be a nightmarish process to try to walk her back from her current mindset, but it would be possible. What I meant with my earlier statements is that Joe is likely to focus on helping Bonesaw's victims before he took on the monster of a task that is Riley's psychology. At the very least those people would want help and wouldn't be fighting him every step of the way. Also, Joe does not need her. He already is beyond her in terms of medicine and cybernetics. Joe neither wants nor needs Bonesaw on his team. If he does save Riley her future isn't membership in the Celestial Forge, it's proper medication and intuitional care until she can handle society again.
Really loving this chapter dude! It feels like the pace is picking up even further👍
Is it me or has the crafting aspect of the story taken a backseat as of late? It is probably because the crafting time is so small that any crafting is done instantly, but it is a bit sad that that spark of wonder from the beginning is a bit muted😕
@LordRoustabout is there potentially going to be a Megaproject, that will make Joe partake in the crafting process instead of just his clones? They feel a bit Deus Ex Machina lately🤔
We've hit the point where only new or major works get attention, with most of the rest happening off stage. Between the duplicates and Matrix being able to nano-assemble anything that's needed most of the work isn't worth focusing on. The last MAJOR project was constructing the bodies for Fleet, Survey, and the Matrix. There will be more work of the level, but projects like that aren't something Joe will be rolling out every day.
Thankeee for the chapter! Pffft, 9k being 'short'. Keep being a legend, Lord!
(totally not throwing a comment despite being an everpresent lurker to try and get a shamrock and this being the only story I'm currently comfortable giving the activity/interaction to)
All that said… anyone interested in maybe making a Shamrock-based interlude? Possibly based around the 'luck scewing' cape that would canonically join faultline's crew?
In its ideal state, rather than 9k this chapter would have been about 25k, including a preamble and addendum and setting things up to jump into the Undersider's meeting, Garment's appointment with Parian, and Joe's call to his sister. I would love it if I could consistently put out chapters like that, but I haven't been able to manage that kind of pace in quite a while, and my commitment to not miss a week has meant I'm not building up buffers for longer chapters (but also don't feel I need to make up for the wordcount of missed weeks). All I can say is I'm writing as much as I can fit into my schedule. Sometimes that means extra long chapters, sometimes it means half length interludes. Unfortunately, I can't guarantee what will happen from one week to the next.
So, I have no idea if it's been address already, but there is a Fanficion on Spacebattles called :Flowers for Apperion. I just wanted to point it out, because I am not sure if the guy who made it even asked for permission.
Heck, in the description he openly admits that he had tried posting it here but 'wasn't allowed'.
There's already a Staff Post in the thread that says 'This Story doesn't break any if our rules', which sounds bullshit to me.
There's a bit of sensitivity over original characters in fan works, but I always felt it was odd to have a different approach for fan created works compared to the published ones that everyone is free to write about. I haven't looked into the story, but even if it is mean spirited someone isn't going to write thousands of words about something they don't care about. As long as they acknowledge the original work and make it clear I'm not associated with their version of the story and character then I don't have a problem with it. There are more important things to worry about than fanfiction of fanfiction.
QUESTION:
Hypothetically, if Apeiron wanted to, can he wreck or damage the Titan room so it doesn't build more Titans?
Same question to other troublesome rooms, like the Prismatic Laboratory that produces reality-warping colors or the Infusion Chamber that generates radioactive bacteria/fungus.
The only way to stop production is to deploy one of the Titans. If that happens the automated production stops until the Titan either returns or is destroyed. Outside of that, the production is fiat backed and will continue. Also, damage to the hangar will repair on the same schedule as Titan Production, so it wouldn't work even if the production wasn't guaranteed.
@LordRoustabout
There is a way to kill 2 birds with 1 stone. Have Parian take out the Teeth. Hear me out, Parian is going to meet Garment, in her excitement Garment will show her the special thread collection. Since Garment is alway giving out gifts of clothes she will want to give something to her fellow fashion designer. Parian will get a spool of spiritually infused monomolecular thread, which she will completely love.
Returning to her shop she will find it destroyed and the teeth rampaging in the area. Seeing her life's work destroyed, she'll snap and butcher the teeth in her rage. Using her new thread like the teigu cross tail from akame ga kill. As they all bleed out The Butcher shows up to kill the one that butchered her gang after all there can only be one "Butcher" in Brockton Bay. Unfortunately, Parian has no fucks left to give. She stabs the spiritual tread into Butcher's body, wrapping around the spine and brain. Looking at the Butcher she hisses with absolute hatred, since you destroyed my precious puppets you get to replace them. She starts using the Butcher like a new puppet.
When the PRT finally shows up, late as usual, they find corpse, body parts and blood everywhere and the Butcher helping Parian look through the rubble for anything salvageable. The Protectorate member finally works up the balls to ask Parian what happened and why the Butcher is helping her.
Parian looks at the bodies and answered someone littered and left trash everywhere and the garbage men only showed up now to take out the trash. There's no Butcher here, there only me and my new puppet, she says while patting Butcher on the head. Creeped out and scared the protectorate member says, of course miss Parian this "trash" will be taken care of as soon as possible and backs away from the clearly unstable cape.
PHO explodes, people have been trying to take care of the teeth for so long and the tailor takes them out is puppeteering the Butcher? Only in Brockton Bay, Only in Brockton Bay, where even the tailors can butcher entire gangs.
The PRT come to a horrifying and of course as usual wrong conclusion, maybe this is why the empire, the abb, the merchants, and coil never went after Parian, they knew how dangerous she was and walked lightly. How did we miss such a dangerous cape right in front of us?
This seems fairly out of character for both Garment and Parian. Garment isn't going to give out weaponized threads, not when there are prettier fabrics she could hand out for potential collaborations. There's pretty much no reason for the Teeth to attack anywhere near Parian's shop. It's on the other side of the city from the conflict zones and much closer to Protectorate response. The Protectorate and every gang in the city would jump at the chance to prevent Apeiron from fighting the Butcher, meaning they'd get swarmed as soon as they made their move. While Parian could certainly 'snap' it probably wouldn't play out like that. We have a picture of how she handles that kind of thing from the aftermath of Leviathan and the Slaughterhouse Nine. Honestly, the whole situation seems to be based on Garment basically handing out a worse version of the knife Joe gave to Taylor, which started the entire mess in the first place. If you want to write an omake that's fine, but as a story suggestion I don't really see it.
Does anyone know if Joe can create Fate Philosopher Stones, Homunculi and Atlas tech?
I... think he can do Philosopher Stones. Not sure about the other stuff.
The photonic crystals used in spiritron computing are actually Philosopher Stones. They're creatable with alchemy and high level Item Construction skill, which Joe has in spades. He can handle homunculi, both the Fate version and various types from other media. Atlas Tech isn't covered in any of his perks, but he's developing it on his own and making good progress with the computer technology.
The Titans and the hangar are both a bit underwhelming honestly, and kind of useless even if they are free. If he wanted mechs he could have an army of 100x better ones in minutes. He's only refrained so far because he wanted to avoid giving the PRT any excuses to sign a kill order for him.
The Titans can be instantly deployed even from a sealed Workshop and take anyone from the Workshop with them. That's something Joe doesn't have from any of his other perks. Even the Gundam hangar is more limited than that. It's kind of another case of 'main perk meh, bonus perks are great!'.
When was the last time Joe mentioned the coin jar, for example?
Joe has been shifting the threshold for the coin jar from 'obviously inhuman/intrusive thoughts' to 'dangerous or damaging patterns of thinking'. Basically, the 'inhuman' thoughts built up so much that trying to flag everyone was a lost cause. Refining things to focus on only what was damaging meant accepting that the new mindsets weren't inherently destructive, which was actually a positive step for him.
