Brockton's Celestial Forge (Worm/Jumpchain)

Why the fuck would Taylor make a ball of them?
How else am I supposed to describe an attempt by Noelle to swallow Taylor? Taylor in CC going to be effectively surrounded by extremely sharp threads (likely more than should be possible from a thread, since it's a conceptual reinforcement) thus swallowing Taylor is comparable to swallowing a ball of sharp wires.

He doesn't get to chose which adaptions he gets.
He really doesn't care. He is an extreme masochist and is happy as long as he gets to feel pain.
 
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How else am I supposed to describe an attempt by Noelle to swallow Taylor? Taylor in CC going to be effectively surrounded by extremely sharp threads (likely more than should be possible from a thread, since it's a conceptual reinforcement) thus swallowing Taylor is comparable to swallowing a ball of sharp wires.
You should describe it as a failure because nothing's going to be getting that close to Taylor in one piece. You may as well ask how to describe an attempt to eat a wall.
 
Another possibility for the use of her indestructible silk could be flight, either swarm aided or like the parachuting spiders are known to do and just drift with the wind. For the swarm side, have several thousand flies each holding a hyper-fine thread several hundred feet (or less, but that just makes them more visible and an easier target) in the air, allowing them to spread out and not interfere with each other, and collectively carry her through the air.
Though I pity the squishy that tries to jump/fly over her.

Indestructible silk would still be useless for flying like spiders. Spiders can fly with it because for small creatures the amount of silk you need is, by the square/cube law, much smaller proportionately than for large creatures.

ADHD POWERS ACTIVATE
Parachuting spiders do not fly via windsurfing. It is powered flight and the lift is provided by electrical gradient. The spiders check the charge in the air by holding their legs up and sensing static with the fine hairs on their legs. If they feel a strong atmospheric electrical charge they release a thread (the threads themselves have a strong charge.)
The thread repels the atmosphere and pulls up. They release more until the total released thread is being pulled hard enough to lift the whole spider.
They seem to prefer calm days with no wind as a windy day can mess up the thread and keep it from pulling properly.
 
Chippin' in for following the thread. You got a good thing going here Roust, with the pacing trade-offs all the same. One of the unintended quirk of how slow and steady the happenings of this story used to transpire, is how it always comes across as important or worth observing as every scene or event has varying levels of consequences to the forthcoming arcs we're gonna get.

I'm frankly engaged how Taylor would leak the documents, as any gun in a story is liable to be used.
 
While cooperating with Garment should be a major boost to Sabah's career, she doesn't see it as an opportunity and is perfectly willing to throw it away to spite Garment.
Close, but not quite. It's more vulnerability than pride at play. A need to protect herself from a world that is often hostile.
She see's Garment as a threat, because her safe space - being fashion cape - was safe. Then Garment came, a competitor.
Garment's a great person, but she can't read people sufficiently to realize that Sabah saw her as an invader which would kick her out of that safe space.
Garments offers of collaboration were seen as attempts to gain advantage over Sabah, by trivializing or taking credit for her work.
I respect spite born from a feeling of insecurity more than spite born from pride.
I'm pretty sure that Survey will bring it up to Joe as he has shown increased interest in Taylor's well being and she's got the legal nous to know that those documents are designed to fuck over Taylor. Knowing that she'll bring it up with Joe ASAP.
Remember: Survey was raised as family, but her mind is not human. It's enough that we cannot rightfully say if she'll recognize the need or not, like how autismos like me can not see otherwise obvious stuff.
 
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Survey was raised as family, but her mind is not human. It's enough that we cannot rightfully say if she'll recognize the need or not, like how autismos like me can not see otherwise obvious stuff.
  1. The scan was done
  2. Survey is made aware of the scan (IIRC, everything that was scanned by the watches was passed to her but Joe added privacy instructions about what could be passed on to Joe and the rest of the team)
  3. She then reads it to check if it meets those privacy parameters
  4. Realises that its a legal document written by the school which does not meet privacy checks (She hasn't broken into the school system to get it and, although it relates to Taylor, isn't actually Taylor's)
  5. She analyses it and realises that its designed to be detrimental to Taylor and, IIRC, Joe also has specific instructions for danger to the Undersiders being a point where privacy can be ignored and Survey will undoubtedly understand the danger a legal document can represent
  6. Taylor is of interest to Joe, is part of the Undersiders, and is now in danger which matches all of the flags that's been set about info being passed on and so she makes him aware of it
So, yes, I can see Survey making Joe aware of what's happening despite the fact that she's not actually human.
 
I don't think Survey has access to the watch scanner function. Joe told Tattletale they were totally private and she would have known if he was keeping something from her.
 
I don't think Survey has access to the watch scanner function. Joe told Tattletale they were totally private and she would have known if he was keeping something from her.
Pretty sure that when Joe had the discussion with Survey about privacy it was mentioned that there was no way that to stop it especially if he wanted to save them from danger (After TT called him in on Bakuda). I'm also pretty sure that the devices communication is totally private - nobody else can intercept them - which is why Joe gets to tell TT that without her getting suspicious.
 
I don't think Survey has access to the watch scanner function. Joe told Tattletale they were totally private and she would have known if he was keeping something from her.
Pretty sure that when Joe had the discussion with Survey about privacy it was mentioned that there was no way that to stop it especially if he wanted to save them from danger (After TT called him in on Bakuda). I'm also pretty sure that the devices communication is totally private - nobody else can intercept them - which is why Joe gets to tell TT that without her getting suspicious.
I think that when Joe said that the watches were private he meant that no outsiders could intercept them, and that he wouldn't look at any communication except in an emergency.

The emergency clause is important here, because this means that there is some form of surveillance on the watches - probably in the form of automatic programs or VI's, but it is also likely that Survey has access to this input, even if the privacy directive Joe gave her keeps her from bringing up the information unless there is a great enough need.

Tattletale was told that the information was private except in emergencies, which reassured her enough that she and the other Undersiders actually felt that they could wear the watches all the time instead of taking them off when they wanted privacy. Joe was honest here -he doesn't look at the information- but might have ended up unknowingly lying by omission once Survey developed further, since she wasn't really advanced enough to count as someone at the time when Joe and TT had that talk. Which is why TT's powers told her that he wasn't lying, despite it possibly not being completely true.

The AI's developed extremely fast, and it's possibly that Joe himself didn't really keep up with counting them as 'someone who counts as a person listening in' when it came to the whole privacy part. Survey has come a long way from that time when she still used reaction photos as her chosen form of communication...

And on that note, let's remember this part when Joe told Survey to survey the Workshop:
Simply put Survey had no idea what most of the machinery in this place was, or what it did. The A.I.'s normal method of network research and analysis was a dry well considering this technology didn't exist yet. There were a few attempts at identification, but when those repeatedly proved to be inaccurate the program had defaulted to listing detailed and somehow slightly sarcastic descriptions of the machinery instead. Yes, I suppose a polymer fixation integration chamber did look a bit like an elephant having a stroke, but that wasn't a useful categorization method.

At some point Survey had also shifted from short sentences to attempting to convey reactions through images. I blame over exposure to Twitter for that particular development, though Survey seemed to have effectively found a bottomless well of 'girl looking exasperated' photos to help express frustration.
The AI's really are the stealth comedians of this fic, :D and it only gets better every time you do a re-read.
 
The thing is, even if Survey had the information she literally cannot act upon it unless Joe gives her the permission to decide if she should act first. It's not just "Survey has access to the information, ergo Survey can decide to ask Apeiron on whether she should tell him so they could decide to act", but rather it's closer to:

1) First, Survey has access to all the information that Joe tells her she could access AND she could actually access. This means that if Joe judged that an information source is too risky to get compared to potential benefits, like PRT databases prior to the Ungodly Hour, then she can't even attempt to access it. Similarly, if she is simply incapable of accessing it, like properly airgapped Tinker systems are without the aid of her divine blessing, then Survey cannot have that information.

2) Second, even if Joe gives her the permission to access the information AND she can actually access the information, Joe's privacy concerns and information security rules still apply. Her permissions to have access to information is different compared to her permissions to actually do analysis. We can consider most personal and private information to be here, which includes everything inside the Undersider's watches, most of social media not including the parahuman aspects (as a reference, while Survey could already have done a thorough analysis on everyone Joe knows, until Joe gave her the permission to actually do so she hadn't actually looked up Theo beforehand despite having already cyberstalked the entire parahuman online community), and basically all conventionally secure communications in existence like phone calls and emails.

3) Which means thirdly, for Survey to recognize Taylor's situation as something she could potentially step into, she would first have to analyze the paperwork that Taylor scanned. BUT, while Survey has free reign to act upon the results of Tattletale's scanners as she likes since TT's interlude, she doesn't actually have the permission to even do a basic analysis on anything Taylor's scanning. The last time she had those permissions were during the Ungodly Hour's aftermath, and the time period since then has long passed.

So will Survey be acting on Taylor's paperwork and introducing herself as Delphine Mertens to solve her paperwork woes? No, not really. She literally doesn't even have the option to be. It's not like she would even be able to act on it timely anyway if she did - the same limits to her having only one physical body applies, and this is explicitly during the same time period where Survey would be at Garment's charity as her legal aid. By the time Garment's charity is over and Survey has wrapped up on that job, she already has other things to do with her physical body like preparing for the coming Slaughterhouse Nine, while by then Taylor would've already gotten the paperwork to Danny who presumably could at the very least also contribute to Blackwell's downfall by himself.
 
I agree with almost all of this. Especially the part about certain systems being completely off limits since Joe deemed them too risky, and the fact that Delphine Martens won't show up and help Taylor - no matter how satisfying that would be (Plus Danny should be able to get the ball rolling on this on his own).

The part about Survey being completely forbidden from analysing private information is something I'm less sure about. I've gotten the impression that Survey has collected information and made basic analysis of everyone who comes in contact with Joe, but she won't volunteer any information deemed private, unless Joe asks for it or some other threshold for making an exception is reached. She basically has prepared files ready if the information ever is needed, but until then she's a faithful secret keeper who won't reveal private things even if she knows them all.

That's been my read anyway, but I could be wrong.
 
The part about Survey being completely forbidden from analysing private information is something I'm less sure about. I've gotten the impression that Survey has collected information and made basic analysis of everyone who comes in contact with Joe, but she won't volunteer any information deemed private, unless Joe asks for it or some other threshold for making an exception is reached. She basically has prepared files ready if the information ever is needed, but until then she's a faithful secret keeper who won't reveal private things even if she knows them all.
The thing is there's a difference between having the data and actually doing the analysis. Think of it this way: Survey has a library, with all of the information she has stored in books in that library. Information that she doesn't have the permission to do any analysis with is the equivalent of it being added to the index for easy referral later on, while actually doing the analysis involves reading the books. If Survey already was doing the analysis for everything she had and merely withholding the results, then 1) she would've immediately pointed out Theo's relationship with Kaiser and 2) it would've also gone against the whole AI development thing where she slowly learned to prioritize and focus on salient details to some degree instead of just blindly analyzing every avenue available to her. Sure, it's in her capabilities now, but Survey's development in this fic has largely been in the aspect of not being focused on the big picture all the time.
 
The thing is there's a difference between having the data and actually doing the analysis. Think of it this way: Survey has a library, with all of the information she has stored in books in that library. Information that she doesn't have the permission to do any analysis with is the equivalent of it being added to the index for easy referral later on, while actually doing the analysis involves reading the books. If Survey already was doing the analysis for everything she had and merely withholding the results, then 1) she would've immediately pointed out Theo's relationship with Kaiser and 2) it would've also gone against the whole AI development thing where she slowly learned to prioritize and focus on salient details to some degree instead of just blindly analysing every avenue available to her. Sure, it's in her capabilities now, but Survey's development in this fic has largely been in the aspect of not being focused on the big picture all the time.
I sort of get what you're going for, but I'm not sure it's possible for Survey to gather information without analysing it at least a little. If it's a whole database she can simply copy down to one of the Workshop computers, sure. That would be like buying a book, taking it home and putting it in a book case without ever opening it.

But more complex and scattered information, like about the individuals surrounding Joe, that would be more like... Hiring a research librarian to find the information? They would need to be given the task, search for and pick out many different books in a huge library, then read and find the specific pages or paragraphs containing the information needed, copying it down, before looking up new books that are refereed to in the one they just used, and so on. It's a far more involved form of search, and even if it's not their research and they don't try to look for any meaning, just the fact that they have to read and search for things means that a certain degree of analysis is done and conclusions are drawn no matter what.

The fact that Survey hasn't told anyone that Theo is Kaiser's son doesn't really prove anything one way or the other. Either Survey doesn't know, and hasn't said anything because of this. Or she does know, but this type of information is both private and falls under the umbrella of the Unwritten Rules about not unmasking or trying to find out the civilian identity of capes, which is something Joe has stated he intend to follow. Which means that Survey wouldn't say anything because of this. Just like she hasn't mentioned that Grue and Lethe are siblings to anyone, even if she has known that for a long time now.

As for the AI development, I agree that a big part of her development as a person and character has been to learn to limit and prioritize her data search and analysis, but that would have the opposite result of what you describe. She started out with wanting all the data and doing all the analysis -almost to the point of madness- but as she has grown she has, painfully, learned to sort and prioritize what to do.

This means that even if the Survey of today would be more restrictive with how much information she gathers and the analysis she does, younger Survey would still have been in the 'all the data all the analysis' stage when she first was allowed to interact with the outside world and do her first forays of information gathering. Finding out everything she could about the people directly interacting with Joe would very likely have been a high priority for her.

The older and more mature Survey would perhaps not do this, but her younger self did, and she can hardly forget the information she's already gathered and the analysis already done. (Or, well, she could. Because she's an AI and presumably has the ability to edit her memory files if she want, but this seems like a bad idea in so many ways. Especially when she simply can put the knowledge to the side and label it as 'confidential' instead.)
 
Or she does know, but this type of information is both private and falls under the umbrella of the Unwritten Rules about not unmasking or trying to find out the civilian identity of capes, which is something Joe has stated he intend to follow. Which means that Survey wouldn't say anything because of this.
Except the entire request about Theo in the first place is "Does he have any affiliation with the Empire?" to which if she already had that information as a result of a previous analysis, would be at the very least a resounding, "Yes, it seems the Anders family may have connections to the Empire because of these oddities..."

As for the AI development, I agree that a big part of her development as a person and character has been to learn to limit and prioritize her data search and analysis, but that would have the opposite result of what you describe. She started out with wanting all the data and doing all the analysis -almost to the point of madness- but as she has grown she has, painfully, learned to sort and prioritize what to do.

This means that even if the Survey of today would be more restrictive with how much information she gathers and the analysis she does, younger Survey would still have been in the 'all the data all the analysis' stage when she first was allowed to interact with the outside world and do her first forays of information gathering. Finding out everything she could about the people directly interacting with Joe would very likely have been a high priority for her.

The older and more mature Survey would perhaps not do this, but her younger self did, and she can hardly forget the information she's already gathered and the analysis already done. (Or, well, she could. Because she's an AI and presumably has the ability to edit her memory files if she want, but this seems like a bad idea in so many ways. Especially when she simply can put the knowledge to the side and label it as 'confidential' instead.)
Yeah, but this is in the context of whether or not she would be accessing Taylor's scanners. Which is, no, she wouldn't be doing that without someone pushing her to at this point.

As for whether or not she can't just do the bare minimum of an analysis, a cursory look so to speak first before just indexing information, I thought that was obvious enough from the analogy. You cannot index a book without at the very least looking at the title, identifying what it's about, and then sorting it in the right location. But there's a massive difference between looking at a book's title and saying, "Hm, this should probably go here" as opposed to outright writing a report on the book's contents.

Can Survey not do analysis on something that is in front of her? To be honest, she is as far from that as she could possibly be with how her entire existence is based on analyzing and surveying everything, but remember: Survey first and foremost always respects the boundaries that Apeiron sets upon her. If Survey is told, "Don't look at this data, that would be violating their privacy" then Survey would respect that even if it's not tactically sound. And if that means just blindly storing her observations into some kind of input buffer only to be accessed later on when it comes up again, then Survey would do that. It's not like she'll be running out of storage space and processing power anytime soon anyway, so it's not exactly a loss for her to wait on the data she has until it becomes relevant.
 
Except the entire request about Theo in the first place is "Does he have any affiliation with the Empire?" to which if she already had that information as a result of a previous analysis, would be at the very least a resounding, "Yes, it seems the Anders family may have connections to the Empire because of these oddities..."


Yeah, but this is in the context of whether or not she would be accessing Taylor's scanners. Which is, no, she wouldn't be doing that without someone pushing her to at this point.

As for whether or not she can't just do the bare minimum of an analysis, a cursory look so to speak first before just indexing information, I thought that was obvious enough from the analogy. You cannot index a book without at the very least looking at the title, identifying what it's about, and then sorting it in the right location. But there's a massive difference between looking at a book's title and saying, "Hm, this should probably go here" as opposed to outright writing a report on the book's contents.

Can Survey not do analysis on something that is in front of her? To be honest, she is as far from that as she could possibly be with how her entire existence is based on analyzing and surveying everything, but remember: Survey first and foremost always respects the boundaries that Apeiron sets upon her. If Survey is told, "Don't look at this data, that would be violating their privacy" then Survey would respect that even if it's not tactically sound. And if that means just blindly storing her observations into some kind of input buffer only to be accessed later on when it comes up again, then Survey would do that. It's not like she'll be running out of storage space and processing power anytime soon anyway, so it's not exactly a loss for her to wait on the data she has until it becomes relevant.
Alright, when you formulate the question like this and in the now I agree.

As for the Theo situation. Did he specifically ask whether he had Empire affiliations? I might have to re-read the chapter, because I sort of remember that Joe gave a general: "Something's off about Theo. I've known that for a while, but ignored it because the Rules, but now I actually want to know" and then gave Survey the go ahead to do a full investigation. I was sort of expecting her to already have an initial file done, but now that she got permission she'll do some over the top research were she finds out what his grandparent's ate for breakfast on their twelfth birthday or something.

About Survey prioritizing Apeiron's orders over common sense, and even when it tactically disadvantageous... Yeah, you might be right there. Joe really need to go back and go over his intel gathering priorities, doesn't he? :facepalm:
 
About Survey prioritizing Apeiron's orders over common sense, and even when it tactically disadvantageous... Yeah, you might be right there. Joe really need to go back and go over his intel gathering priorities, doesn't he? :facepalm:
Honestly while this might be a divisive opinion, I like it that it's like that. Because one, having effective omniscience is a great way to neuter what remains to be the few ways this fic can still maintain some semblance of drama (like for example, if Joe didn't respect privacy, then a lot of the fic would've just been Joe tracking down his enemies out of costume and preemptively eliminating them as well as get rid of the delicious identity shenanigans like Aisha's relationship with Grue).

It's also very different from how AIs are generally used in Worm fanfics. For example, every Marvel/Worm fic I've read that has JARVIS always has JARVIS pick out everybody's secrets pretty much immediately, including Dragon's status as an AI, which makes Survey's more moral limitations to be refreshing in comparison.

Lastly, tactically wise or not, you just have to respect Joe's ideals. We know that he could've had it easier from the start, if he wasn't The Fettered. If he simply took every advantage he got, if he had any less qualms about what he did, if he was anymore of a munchkin then this fic would've ended a lot sooner. But Joe doesn't. Even with all the power in the world, even with all the changes to his body and mind, there are some things that Joe respects no matter what and that's a good thing. It sets him apart from most OC protagonists and most importantly, sets him apart from Taylor who has no such qualms whatsoever.

Heck, Joe has problems with the idea of invading other people's privacy even if it's for their own good, giving the Undersiders all that leeway so long as they could be protected by his watches, even if he could've just made wearing the watches mandatory instead of optional. While in comparison in this interlude we've just seen Taylor quietly go Big Brother on everyone in her school and in the surrounding area just so she could feel more in control and to train her power. As Brian pointed out as far as the first interlude:
Then again, he had held back from using them even after Oni Lee dropped an Easter basket worth of grenades on him. That was better restraint than most capes. It was a serious contrast to the bug girl throwing everything but the kitchen sink at Lung in an attempt to bring him down.

Brian had seen the effect of a brown recluse bite once. Once. That was enough for a lifetime.
That sheer dichotomy, in that Joe with all his power would always hold back while Taylor would use everything she has no matter what, has existed since the start of the fic and that's a great thing.
 
Honestly while this might be a divisive opinion, I like it that it's like that. Because one, having effective omniscience is a great way to neuter what remains to be the few ways this fic can still maintain some semblance of drama (like for example, if Joe didn't respect privacy, then a lot of the fic would've just been Joe tracking down his enemies out of costume and preemptively eliminating them as well as get rid of the delicious identity shenanigans like Aisha's relationship with Grue).

It's also very different from how AIs are generally used in Worm fanfics. For example, every Marvel/Worm fic I've read that has JARVIS always has JARVIS pick out everybody's secrets pretty much immediately, including Dragon's status as an AI, which makes Survey's more moral limitations to be refreshing in comparison.

Lastly, tactically wise or not, you just have to respect Joe's ideals. We know that he could've had it easier from the start, if he wasn't The Fettered. If he simply took every advantage he got, if he had any less qualms about what he did, if he was anymore of a munchkin then this fic would've ended a lot sooner. But Joe doesn't. Even with all the power in the world, even with all the changes to his body and mind, there are some things that Joe respects no matter what and that's a good thing. It sets him apart from most OC protagonists and most importantly, sets him apart from Taylor who has no such qualms whatsoever.

Heck, Joe has problems with the idea of invading other people's privacy even if it's for their own good, giving the Undersiders all that leeway so long as they could be protected by his watches, even if he could've just made wearing the watches mandatory instead of optional. While in comparison in this interlude we've just seen Taylor quietly go Big Brother on everyone in her school and in the surrounding area just so she could feel more in control and to train her power. As Brian pointed out as far as the first interlude:

That sheer dichotomy, in that Joe with all his power would always hold back while Taylor would use everything she has no matter what, has existed since the start of the fic and that's a great thing.
Oh yes. From a Watsonian perspective Joe is massively shooting himself in the foot by limiting the AI's as much as he does, but from a Doylist perspective the restrain and limitation makes perfect sense, and makes the story far more interesting (and longer, because it would have been over already otherwise, and just been added to the pile as just another power fantasy).

The contrast between Joe sticking to his morals vs. Taylor's 'pedal to the metal anything goes' tactic is thematically interesting as well.

I mean, we just had a whole chapter where Taylor somehow managed to talk herself into believing that Joe actually approved of her making herself as horrifyingly deadly as she could by misusing a costume specifically made to be defensive. It sort of says a lot about Taylor's mindset that she always looks for the most deadly way to use anything and is able to always twist the facts in her mind to find a reason to believe whatever conclusion she already have reached. Although she's hardly alone in doing that last thing... Honestly, Taylor's whole character and arch of development is an illustrating example if the proverbial slippery slope.
 
It also ilustrates how their upbringings/trigger events do not dictate their predispositions, while Joe was under a walking dysfunction of a family, his moral fiber shines through nonetheless with how genuine his intentions are so is innate affability coloring Joe's actions, trying again and again in order not to fall in old habits. Taylor's checkered past has marred her conscientious care as it now leans into escalating matters, proactively preparing the more drastic courses of action as it sees any other reasonable alternative as nothing more futile for how disaffected it left her at the time of the locker, hence her jumping the gun on her gung-ho justifications, taking upon herself each time when she seems nobody's on her side. Joe's raising above from his hang-ups of his trigger, Taylor's still acting in terms of hers.
 
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