Brockton's Celestial Forge (Worm/Jumpchain)

famfrit · Sep 16, 2023

WillRobinson said:
All that means is that she wasn't being monitored as a potential host at that time, or if she was it wasn't the right type of trigger for the shard that was watching her. Taylor probably wouldn't have gotten powers in Emma's place, either because it wouldn't fit any of QA's preferred triggers or because QA was still monitoring Danny at that point.

It wasn't just the ABB atk in canon Emma didn't trigger from though she didn't trigger from anything that happened in canon. In total that would be: I think she was present for the undersider's atk on the gallery, concussed Taylor smacking her and the meeting where Taylor made the bullying claims, Levi atk; Taylor brushing her off at Arcadia which made Emma snap and atk her which led to her actually getting punished for it and the entry of Taylor's name in the system tripped the flag so the prt came rushing in quickly enough Taylor couldn't get out of the building before they arrived and then unmasked her which broke Emma enough she became a shut in that wouldn't leave her room even when Scion atked and destroyed the Bay killing her.

All that makes it pretty much certain in canon she didn't have a shard connected to her or if she did one that doesn't respond to things like what she's currently experiencing. Bcf hasn't really changed or introduced enough to have Sophia's bud since she's had less action than in canon by this point due to the youth guard and Taylor similarly hasn't really experienced enough to justify moving her canon budding point which is over a month away forward by so much. Which would only really leave some new shard poking around wanting in on the Apeiron data in which case you have to ask why would they pick Emma of all people when there's so many targets like the ABB conscripts.

bludvein said:
Not buying this explanation personally. Joe is already a mercenary in public perception rather than a hero, and lord knows there are a laundry list of people who would like the S9 obliterated and could conceivably "afford" that revenge. Pretending to be limited to Brockton Bay is not going to make them seem like less of a threat than they already are in any way, nor would waiting for them to come to Brockton have any real benefits over just destroying them as part of some made up contract and posting a video(or doing it in some podunk town the S9 passes through). It's simply an overcomplication in search of justification.

Dorian said:
I'm sorry, but that reasoning still doesn't add up for me.
What's the point in faking that thinkers can't predict him? You mean to say that he'll never act outside of Brockton Bay then? Or he'll wait for a more "worthy" occasion?
But the S9 are actually worth it.
What's happening is Joe's getting careless and not realizing the amount of damage those psychopaths could cause if they ended up fighting for their lifes inside the city.
And he's doing that for basically PR. Now he's both careless and irresponsible.
The S9 is gunning for him, and by extension, the brocktonites(?) due to his abilities. It's his responsability to shield those people from harm as best as he can.
He had a good plan: create an artificial battlefield that the S9 wouldn't be able to exploit in order to escape.
Now he's gonna let them roll in BB, the city which contains multiple gangs who would greatly benefit in a well-timed distraction.

Joe is a very big deal from the power lv he's shown off such as atks that are visible from other continents so there is a lot of panic about him. Just look at the alarms about Lethe using her power as an example. Those people such as in the prt have mostly calmed themselves by framing him under what they know of capes and thinker assessments so thinking they understand him. The key part there is they think he's passive unless provoked and limited to the Bay.

Moving out to crush the nine when they are not only as I covered multiple states away but in Legend's turf would freak them out and make them realise their understanding and thinker assessments were wrong which would have them panic even more than before. He also can't blame it on a contract because he has said he isn't accepting any right now and there isn't a known way to apply for them.

There is also the local situation with elements like Bakuda and Coil also having such views who would also panic over going to crush them now to say nothing of how it would have disrupted the charity event and recovery in general. Taking this extra time means he knows their ticks and secrets so can counter them, has let people have time to calm down and of course he gets more time to build up. He also isn't going to let them into the Bay or let them do anything once they have committed to final approach and it is undeniable they were heading to the Bay they are getting crushed without being allowed to do anything.

If you can't agree to that can you at least agree it was right of him not to go guns blazing hunting for them the moment he knew they were coming as in before finding out what the things his passenger was warning him about Siberian and Jack were especially since at that point he also didn't have their exact location and just they are somewhere within a large general area.

The Froggy Ninja said:
So the two dissenting voices went quiet at the moment they received a message and power boost? This certainly won't cause any problems.
I'm a little surprised Survey didn't manage to spy on Butcher's meeting with Uber. Even just knowing about the dead drops might have allowed Joe to sneak a dimensional tracker into one of the supply chain.

It was covered in the update but the good scrying devices require spiritual energy to make so most of Survey's monitoring is on them with what's left being on the sites the Empire is going to hit and the Empire forces that are going to hit them. The Butcher also ditched all the bones and things like them to appear as a normal civilian and specifically picked that time knowing Survey's attention would be on the upcoming fight.

readerdreamer said:
It is worth remembering that Joe's sense of time is warped even before he got the ability to speed up the Workshop. In truth, the delay is overemphasized. Joe is impatient over the S9 "toying" with the droids, but if you look at it closely it probably hasn't even been an hour since Cherish and Shatterbird got directed towards the droid in question since it only happened around the start of the charity ball.

It's probably been more than that because of the Emma thing. Joe got alerted to her snapping after arriving to the event and things like running into Sabah but since then it's played out enough for them to have been waiting in the office a while, Joe to call the cops and Danny, both to get to Winslow, all the talking while they were there and then for Taylor to be in the hospital and Emma in holding. Notably for the last one the cop that was there told Alan to revise the time it would take him to get to the station from Winslow to over an hour due to how the roads are.

Joe also mentioned how he was glad the students hadn't spread the video around much during their lunch hour and then there's all the stuff that happened this chapter so all in all it's probably more likely to be in the ball park of 1.5-2.5 hours the nine have been messing around.

PinkShadowReader · Sep 16, 2023

I recommend people that want to read about S9, Apeiron's thoughts why he's delaying this and so on to read chapter 108: 77 Determination - Preamble Mimi on AO3. Then its only to read from that chapter on it and then go to next chapter and so on to read WOGs about it. There has been a lot of WOGs about this. Here is the chapter in question.

readerdreamer · Sep 16, 2023

famfrit said:
It's probably been more than that because of the Emma thing. Joe got alerted to her snapping after arriving to the event and things like running into Sabah but since then it's played out enough for them to have been waiting in the office a while, Joe to call the cops and Danny, both to get to Winslow, all the talking while they were there and then for Taylor to be in the hospital and Emma in holding. Notably for the last one the cop that was there told Alan to revise the time it would take him to get to the station from Winslow to over an hour due to how the roads are.

Joe also mentioned how he was glad the students hadn't spread the video around much during their lunch hour and then there's all the stuff that happened this chapter so all in all it's probably more likely to be in the ball park of 1.5-2.5 hours the nine have been messing around.

Even then, it's far from being that big of a delay which had been my point. Normally when you say "They got delayed by a couple of hours", it wouldn't matter so much, especially when we all know the ending would always be "They arrived at Brockton Bay and instantly got gibbed in a very public manner by the Celestial Forge."

___ · Sep 16, 2023

LuxPurplishGreen said:
Honestly, could we all just agree to drop the S9 debate? Joe has them hemmed in, declawed, and will get around to deal with them in 24 to 48 hours of in-story time (which is much more time for us of course).

You could probably come up with a reason for him to act right now instead of waiting those hours, or just not buy the excuse that has been but forth in the story (about keeping the precog spoofing secret), but this won't happen for storytelling reasons.

One thing at a time. Garment's show has lots of social aspects that need to be told first, but if the CF dropped the hammer on the S9 the show would be cancelled. Roust has also spent all the time since the Summit chapter setting up the board for the confrontation between the Teeth, the Empire, the PRT, and anyone else wanting to stick their oar in - but the moment Apeiron goes after the S9 it will flip the board and make all this build-up for naught.

So. We're going to have the charity action with all the surrounding drama. The Teeth are going to fight and do their surprise tactics. The Empire will field Damsel of Distress and any other surprises they could shake up. The PRT and hero side gets the chance to regain some face if they handles this conflict decently - and finally some of the other members of the CF gets to show off their abilities in the field when the conflict inevitably escalates.

This is the upcoming story points that we want to get through before the S9 smack-down steals the show, so they're stuck on the backburner for now.

The weird thing is how many people still complain about it, after Lord explicitly made it clear that the prior pacing was not to his taste. It's not like anyone is paying for BCF, Lord doesn't even have a Patreon. It has been going for three years, almost 2 million words and every 50 pages or still people still complain about the pacing.

With so many fics with irregular schedules, going dormant for months or even years at a time. A regular schedule assures us that one day, the story will end, sure it may be in a couple million words, but studies actually find reading/watching something on a schedule is much more enjoyable then binging.

Besides, like I said previously we'll probably see the S9 in March. That's comparable to the wait for the Summit, Recovery or Exit. A longer arc allows for more power, plot and character development.

Caliburn0 · Sep 16, 2023

Tsotate said:
The problem with that reasoning is that for parahumans, shardspace is the afterlife. Her soul isn't just lying around; it's passed on.

According to whom? It's in the shard, the shard is the one that has control over the soul. If it wants to resurrect March all it needs is a functional body and a way to upload her mind.

We don't know much about the FMA afterlife, but we do know it's beyond the reach of alchemists. Why would that be true for shardspace?

Scrappycat · Sep 16, 2023

Alright, this is going to be my one and only post on the S9 (hopefully). Joe isn't doing any grandstanding for the sake of making the annihilation of the nine look good. He isn't attacking them so he doesn't have the Triumvirate (and S-class response teams, Protectorate, Guild, PRT, E88, Coil, and just about everyone else) decide that Aperion is a bigger threat than Slaughterhouse 9 and needs to be removed from the board.

Right now, the Protectorate and everyone else think that he is an extremely powerful (Triumvirate-tier+) tinker with a team that could level the eastern seaboard. Give or take. However, as long as they can predict him using thinker models, the Protectorate, PRT, and everyone else are reassured that Aperion is not going to go on an immediate rampage (remember everyone, their is a lot of mad scientist vibes being thrown around, Aperion is not really seen as stable). However, if Aperion goes after S9 right now, he will break those thinker models.

This is actually worse than acting out of character but having the models predict it. Without those models, no one has any reassurance that Aperion will behave according the the rules of cape conduct. That makes people scared. Scared that he might try to assume dictatorial power in Brockton Bay or worse. And since Aperion has demonstrated that he can level the eastern seaboard of the US, his threat level is off the charts effectively. Those two factors ensure that if he breaks the Thinker models, he is one step away from being declared an S-class threat and 'dealt' with.

Joe, despite his general density, can see this easily. Worse, he knows (or at least can estimate) the amount of damage that this conflict will cause which will vastly exceed any damage that S9 can cause. More importantly, Joe isn't going to wait for S9 to be in Brockton Bay. He is waiting for them to get into New Hampshire where it's plausible that Aperion will notice the S9 closing on his 'turf' and choose to view that as a provocation considering S9's usual modus operandi. Additionally he will likely confront them somewhere completely out of the way. If he really wants to grandstand, he can have a few hundred Shatterbird-proof cameras watching and choose the most epic POV. Its not like he doesn't have experience doing so.

Everyone should also keep in mind that Joe has been putting off attacking the S9 for less than a week at this point. Considering how everyone views the group in universe, a week of preparation to hit them is not unreasonable.

readerdreamer · Sep 16, 2023

Caliburn0 said:
According to whom? It's in the shard, the shard is the one that has control over the soul. If it wants to ressurect March all it needs is a functional body and a way to upload her mind.

We don't know much about the FMA afterlife, but we do know it's beyond the reach of alchemists. Why would that be true for shardspace?

Well, according to WoG it does. That is, just from the WoGs LordRoustabout gave about Victor's inevitable fate once he tries to transfer his dead fiance's soul into an artificial body, we know that it counts enough as a taboo of Human Transmutation for him to get slapped down by the Truth. And the reason was pretty clear too - if he created the body with Alchemy alone, it would've been fine, in a sense where he wouldn't die from it. His skills would probably not be enough to make a perfect body anyway, but he'll be able to make a body. But once he tries using Alchemy to transfer her soul, that's when he gets gibbed.

That's because Truth punishes alchemists when they try to meddle with souls and the afterlife. The shardspace counts as an afterlife - ergo, by trying to use Alchemy to access shardspace, Victor and in this case, Uber, would get punished for violating a rule they had no idea even existed.

udkudk · Sep 16, 2023

I thought that Aperion would've kicked Teeth and March again even if he didn't get Temporal power, however now them even managing to escape become impossible.

Fighting against Celestial Forge is like fighting against Scion. Even if they mass produce thousands of powers/clones, it would merely delay team.
And they don't have infrastructure to do it (Except Cauldron).

And while Alchemy could increase their power, Celestial Forge scale much faster. They still underestimate Aperion.

Travisplo · Sep 16, 2023

Tackyseven said:
no she wondered if they were together until tetra was introduced as surveys sister at least that was my read

I think that Parian was worried Survey might be married and that Tetra was her daughter, and had a flash of relief when it was revealed they were just sisters.

Caliburn0 · Sep 16, 2023

readerdreamer said:
Well, according to WoG it does. That is, just from the WoGs LordRoustabout gave about Victor's inevitable fate once he tries to transfer his dead fiance's soul into an artificial body, we know that it counts enough as a taboo of Human Transmutation for him to get slapped down by the Truth. And the reason was pretty clear too - if he created the body with Alchemy alone, it would've been fine, in a sense where he wouldn't die from it. His skills would probably not be enough to make a perfect body anyway, but he'll be able to make a body. But once he tries using Alchemy to transfer her soul, that's when he gets gibbed.

That's because Truth punishes alchemists when they try to meddle with souls and the afterlife. The shardspace counts as an afterlife - ergo, by trying to use Alchemy to access shardspace, Victor and in this case, Uber, would get punished for violating a rule they had no idea even existed.

Sure, Victor can't succeed, because he doesn't have access to the soul he wants. He probably doesn't even think souls exist. But really, he should know better. Souls can also be described a clump of information that is a person. He doesn't have that. He lacks the information needed to build what he wants, in other words.

He can build his ex's body, he has that information if he has her DNA. Or he could just go after a picture and build a lookalike human. But he can't build her personality because he doesn't have the information that made up her mind.

March's Shard probably wants Uber to succeed, and it is what has March's 'soul' - aka. personality information.

Alchemists don't get punished for soul manipulation. The entirety of the FMA story is filled with people that did it. Marco, and his entire team, Father - all the time - every single philosopher's stone, and on and on. Neither does it punish people for transmuting human bodies, living or otherwise, or Tucker would have met Truth when he transmuted his wife, and Hoenheim wouldn't have been able to manipulate Izumi's insides without consequences, and alchehestry aka. healing alchemy, wouldn't be possible and Greed's chimera friends, and on and on.

Truth doesn't show up for biological or soul manipulation. He shows up when alchemists reach beyond their abilities. They can create bodies, fully functional ones, if they're good enough. They can transfer souls, if they have access to them and know how, but they can't reach their afterlife and reverse the flow of souls.

Equivalent exchange. They can build a radio if given all the pieces, just like they can build a human if given all the pieces, there's no fundamental difference.

It's just that they don't have all the pieces.

There's no equivalent exchange for a human soul. They can't create one because alchemists don't create anything, they only shift things about, and they don't have the necessary soul-stuff to make one and even if they did that would just be a new soul, not one that once existed. Neither can they reach it and manipulate it directly because they can't reach into their afterlife and pluck them out.

Maybe Truth stops them (aka. it's just a fundamental law of the universe). Maybe it's a question of distance and energy. Like the alchemists can't make the sun into a black hole. Maybe there simply isn't an afterlife, and the glimpses we see are merely metaphor, all of that is really up to interpretation imo.

Whatever the case March's situation is different enough that her resurrection is easy to see. Honestly, any parahuman could probably be resurrected if the alchemist has a way to connect to their previous Shard, a body for them to inhabit, and the Shard is helping the process (or possibly even if it doesn't).

The shards are an 'afterlife' in that they are a place where the parahuman's personality continues to exist after their bodies stop functioning. But there's nothing fundamentally different in them existing in a Shard or them existing in their bodies. Both are equally physical, and equally real. It may be more difficult to reach a Shard, but it's not impossible, especially not when the Shard itself is cooperating.

Death is an idea humans have inflated with a bunch of mystical mumbo jumbo, but all it really is is the breakdown of the flow of information called consciousness. As long as that information exists in reality it can be manipulated. And alchemy is a way to do that.

readerdreamer · Sep 16, 2023

I wonder why you're so insistent and certain about this when Uber and Victor are in essence after the same thing. Victor's dead ex was a parahuman, and he knew that parahumans can be revived by powers like Butcher and Glaistig Uaine so he believes that with the power of Alchemy he can bring her back to life. He specifically chose this course of action as a result of believing that her soul or some equivalent is out there among the passengers, all because Apeiron basically proved Passenger theory to be right before saying that the Butcher was an example of how parahuman souls worked.

This he implies as much during his Interlude with all the subtlety of his incoming doom non-existent with his rants about breaking equivalent exchange, and then later confirmed by WoG. Said WoG then basically expound on all the reasons why he is doomed, the specific mechanics of why Truth is going to wreck him made clear from the get go.

Then here's March and Uber. The fact is, March is actually dead. We know this because we've also gotten WoG where it's not actually her, but the copy of March in her Shard that is now puppeteering the twisted mockery that is her body. By claiming to be planning on using Alchemy to "fix" March, Uber is also unwittingly going to make the same mistake that Victor would do by moving the copy of a dead parahuman's soul out of the shard afterlife into a human body.

Also, it's worth remembering that your examples in canon are either forgetting details or just straight up not actual Human Transmutation. Fixing injuries or making homunculi with Alchemy don't actually involve moving souls, they're just fiendishly difficult and immoral in the case of making homunculi. Even Joe stated as much during his recovery procedure - making homunculi with Alchemy was just difficult, not impossible with regular Alchemy, and Alkahestry also involves manipulating flesh to undo injuries.

That's where the other half of your examples come in. Where it's actual human transmutation. But in there, you also forget that the entire point of making the Philosopher's Stone is to be able to break the rules without meeting Truth.

Frankly, while you do seem to be quite informed about FMA mechanics, you seem to have ignored the mechanics of Worm - or more specifically, how LordRoustabout has adapted Alchemy in a setting that equates Shards to Magic.

Flufferton · Sep 16, 2023

readerdreamer said:
Well, according to WoG it does. That is, just from the WoGs LordRoustabout gave about Victor's inevitable fate once he tries to transfer his dead fiance's soul into an artificial body, we know that it counts enough as a taboo of Human Transmutation for him to get slapped down by the Truth. And the reason was pretty clear too - if he created the body with Alchemy alone, it would've been fine, in a sense where he wouldn't die from it. His skills would probably not be enough to make a perfect body anyway, but he'll be able to make a body. But once he tries using Alchemy to transfer her soul, that's when he gets gibbed.

That's because Truth punishes alchemists when they try to meddle with souls and the afterlife. The shardspace counts as an afterlife - ergo, by trying to use Alchemy to access shardspace, Victor and in this case, Uber, would get punished for violating a rule they had no idea even existed.

Caliburn0 said:
Sure, Victor can't succeed, because he doesn't have access to the soul he wants. He probably doesn't even think souls exist. But really, he should know better. Souls can also be described a clump of information that is a person. He doesn't have that. He lacks the information needed to build what he wants, in other words.

He can build his ex's body, he has that information if he has her DNA. Or he could just go after a picture and build a lookalike human. But he can't build her personality because he doesn't have the information that made up her mind.

March's Shard probably wants Uber to succeed, and it is what has March's 'soul' - aka. personality information.

Alchemists don't get punished for soul manipulation. The entirety of the FMA story is filled with people that did it. Marco, and his entire team, Father - all the time - every single philosopher's stone, and on and on. Neither does it punish people for transmuting human bodies, living or otherwise, or Tucker would have met Truth when he transmuted his wife, and Hoenheim wouldn't have been able to manipulate Izumi's insides without consequences, and alchehestry aka. healing alchemy, wouldn't be possible and Greed's chimera friends, and on and on.

Truth doesn't show up for biological or soul manipulation. He shows up when alchemists reach beyond their abilities. They can create bodies, fully functional ones, if they're good enough. They can transfer souls, if they have access to them and know how, but they can't reach their afterlife and reverse the flow of souls.

Equivalent exchange. They can build a radio if given all the pieces, just like they can build a human if given all the pieces, there's no fundamental difference.

It's just that they don't have all the pieces.

There's no equivalent exchange for a human soul. They can't create one because alchemists don't create anything, they only shift things about, and they don't have the necessary soul-stuff to make one and even if they did that would just be a new soul, not one that once existed. Neither can they reach it and manipulate it directly because they can't reach into their afterlife and pluck them out.

Maybe Truth stops them (aka. it's just a fundamental law of the universe). Maybe it's a question of distance and energy. Like the alchemists can't make the sun into a black hole. Maybe there simply isn't an afterlife, and the glimpses we see are merely metaphor, all of that is really up to interpretation imo.

Whatever the case March's situation is different enough that her resurrection is easy to see. Honestly, any parahuman could probably be resurrected if the alchemist has a way to connect to their previous Shard, a body for them to inhabit, and the Shard is helping the process (or possibly even if it doesn't).

The shards are an 'afterlife' in that they are a place where the parahuman's personality continues to exist after their bodies stop functioning. But there's nothing fundamentally different in them existing in a Shard or them existing in their bodies. Both are equally physical, and equally real. It may be more difficult to reach a Shard, but it's not impossible, especially not when the Shard itself is cooperating.

Death is an idea humans have inflated with a bunch of mystical mumbo jumbo, but all it really is is the breakdown of the flow of information called consciousness. As long as that information exists in reality it can be manipulated. And alchemy is a way to do that.

Yes and no. Firstly WoG exists that Victor CAN pull his gfs soul from the shard and ressurect her with alchemy without meeting truth if he had the highest level of understanding of both alchemy and parahuman/shard stuff, but since he doesn't he is going to end up heading to Truth to try and get her back.

Secondly there is an equivalent exchange for a human soul. Edward Elrich figured out the appropriate price with his last transmutation to bring his brother back to life, and Truth congratulated him on it.

Hell, the show flats out tells us the right price in the Ed/Al flashback training arc. All is one, One is all. In other words the individual that is the One is equal to that of the World that is the All. And what does one of the titles Truth labels himself with? The World. The Gate of Truth is also The Gate of the World and is the only proper price for bringing a soul back. Which Ed pays.

Still...Victor the arrogant little shite won't be able to figure that out.

readerdreamer · Sep 16, 2023

Flufferton said:
Firstly WoG exists that Victor CAN pull his gfs soul from the shard and ressurect her with alchemy without meeting truth if he had the highest level of understanding of both alchemy and parahuman/shard stuff, but since he doesn't he is going to end up heading to Truth to try and get her back.

Not really. That WoG in question was about making her a body, not the actual revival process. LR said that if Victor then used some other way to have her shard put her soul into the body - similar to how Glaistig Uaine or even Bonesaw would work - then yes, he would succeed.

But because he's specifically using Alchemy to also try and move her soul into her body to revive her that he would meet Truth, and because he has no idea that such a distinction exists, he would indeed end up committing the Taboo of Human Transmutation.

Caliburn0 · Sep 16, 2023

readerdreamer said:
I wonder why you're so insistent and certain about this when Uber and Victor are in essence after the same thing. Victor's dead ex was a parahuman, and he knew that parahumans can be revived by powers like Butcher and Glaistig Uaine so he believes that with the power of Alchemy he can bring her back to life. He specifically chose this course of action as a result of believing that her soul or some equivalent is out there among the passengers, all because Apeiron basically proved Passenger theory to be right before saying that the Butcher was an example of how parahuman souls worked.

This he implies as much during his Interlude with all the subtlety of his incoming doom non-existent with his rants about breaking equivalent exchange, and then later confirmed by WoG. Said WoG then basically expound on all the reasons why he is doomed, the specific mechanics of why Truth is going to wreck him made clear from the get go.

Then here's March and Uber. The fact is, March is actually dead. We know this because we've also gotten WoG where it's not actually her, but the copy of March in her Shard that is now puppeteering the twisted mockery that is her body. By claiming to be planning on using Alchemy to "fix" March, Uber is also unwittingly going to make the same mistake that Victor would do by moving the copy of a dead parahuman's soul out of the shard afterlife into a human body.

Also, it's worth remembering that your examples in canon are either forgetting details or just straight up not actual Human Transmutation. Fixing injuries or making homunculi with Alchemy don't actually involve moving souls, they're just fiendishly difficult and immoral in the case of making homunculi. Even Joe stated as much during his recovery procedure - making homunculi with Alchemy was just difficult, not impossible with regular Alchemy, and Alkahestry also involves manipulating flesh to undo injuries.

That's where the other half of your examples come in. Where it's actual human transmutation. But in there, you also forget that the entire point of making the Philosopher's Stone is to be able to break the rules without meeting Truth.

Frankly, while you do seem to be quite informed about FMA mechanics, you seem to have ignored the mechanics of Worm - or more specifically, how LordRoustabout has adapted Alchemy in a setting that equates Shards to Magic.

Ah, Victor's ex was a parahuman? That completely slipped my mind.

Victor would still need a connection to her Shard though, and maybe the Shard's cooperation. Not having that and trying anyways would then be like fixing a radio when the antenna you intend to use is on the other side of the planet (or worse).

I acknowledge that I'm not the actual person writing this story and Lord can do what he wants according to his own interpretation and rulings on the mechanics at work, but according to my understanding of FMA alchemy it should absolutely be possible to resurrect someone if you have their soul, have a body, and the energy required to shift things around and fix one thing to the other

A philosopher's stone is not a way to break the rules. It just seems that way to people that don't know all the rules. A philosopher's stone is an enormous battery, with enough power to create matter out of seemingly thin air. E=mc^2 you know. The energy in the stones also seems extremely flexible and potent, like a prima materia that can be transmuted into anything else with very little effort.

The rules are never broken. They're the laws of the universe. They're just the way things work.

I've read some of Lord's posts regarding this, but that was some time ago and I don't remember everything, neither do I have the relevant links. Still, even within my interpretation of things things can still go wrong. It can be that the issue is a lack of energy, and transfering a soul from a shard to a body might be impossible without a massive external source (probably a philosopher's stone), or it might be that the Shards aren't actually cooperating, and that the alchemists will run into problems there (their transmutation is contested with alien bullshit and thus fails). And the simplest method to fail is just not knowing enough, or calculating something wrong. They're all human after all, and humans make mistakes.

And Lord might disagree with me on how FMA alchemy works, in which case his interpretation is obviously the correct one within the context of this story.

And regarding the soul manipulation in FMA, remember Barry? And the other soul affixed to an armor. That's definitely soul manipulation, and none of the people involved met Truth.

The only ones that did were those that tried to resurrect someone with alchemy.

Nonny3 · Sep 16, 2023

*Reads comments.*

*See's people arguing about S9 for the trillionth time*

*Snnnnnnnnnnnnoooooorrrrreeeeee mi mi mi mi mi mi mi*

readerdreamer · Sep 16, 2023

Nonny3 said:
*Reads comments.*

*See's people arguing about S9 for the trillionth time*

*Snnnnnnnnnnnnoooooorrrrreeeeee mi mi mi mi mi mi mi*

That was a page ago. This current derail is about Alchemy, not the S9.

But on that note, yeah at this point it's pretty much a derail. I can see that we've progressed pretty much as far as we possibly could at this point so, @Caliburn0, agree to disagree and just leave things here then?

Caliburn0 · Sep 16, 2023

Flufferton said:
Yes and no. Firstly WoG exists that Victor CAN pull his gfs soul from the shard and ressurect her with alchemy without meeting truth if he had the highest level of understanding of both alchemy and parahuman/shard stuff, but since he doesn't he is going to end up heading to Truth to try and get her back.

Secondly there is an equivalent exchange for a human soul. Edward Elrich figured out the appropriate price with his last transmutation to bring his brother back to life, and Truth congratulated him on it.

Hell, the show flats out tells us the right price in the Ed/Al flashback training arc. All is one, One is all. In other words the individual that is the One is equal to that of the World that is the All. And what does one of the titles Truth labels himself with? The World. The Gate of Truth is also The Gate of the World and is the only proper price for bringing a soul back. Which Ed pays.

Still...Victor the arrogant little shite won't be able to figure that out.

The price for Al's soul (when it was within the Gate) was Ed's left arm. The price for his body (when it was within the Gate) was Ed's Gate.

Ed succeeded in what most would call Human Transmutation without a philosopher's stone when he brought his brother's soul back and stuck it to a piece of armor.

Also, the One is not equal to the All. All is One and One is All refers to the connection that everything has to everything else. It has nothing to do with equality, it's about the fundamentals of alchemy as a discipline.

readerdreamer said:
That was a page ago. This current derail is about Alchemy, not the S9.

But on that note, yeah at this point it's pretty much a derail. I can see that we've progressed pretty much as far as we possibly could at this point so, @Caliburn0, agree to disagree and just leave things here then?

I think this discussion is super fun, personally. I'd be happy to discuss it for weeks on end. But it probably is a derail, yes, and as much I dislike the rules regarding derails I get why they're necessary.

___ · Sep 16, 2023

Link to discussion thread to avoid further derails.

Anyway, do you think the emblem of Apeiron looks like the new SB one or has anyone made any fanart for this?

Tackyseven · Sep 16, 2023

Kris-71854 said:
You know. I'm surprised that he doesn't have two copies of BB sitting in his warehouse already. Why two? One to stash everyone when the need for an evac happens. The other is to plop down and swap with the existing BB. Then he'd just swap the people back into their upgraded city. Problem solved.

the fact that this not only seem plausible to do but even practical is hilarious. not only could he build 2 replicas easy but to mass teleport the entire city and it's population in the blink of an eye so that no one notices what happens and continue to walk about their day as joe spends between 1 to 5 minutes to clown leviathan (or 6-30 seconds for everyone in fake bb) and then put everyone back again with no one the wiser.

Absolute gold

Graviator · Sep 16, 2023

LordRoustabout said:
"Oh, it's worth the risk." Uber said. She could hear the anticipation in his voice. "March has seen how far this can go. Stack enough connections and you become a new class of parahuman. A global threat." He grinned at Hemorrhagia. "If you don't believe me, you can see for yourself. Actually, I think you already have."

The Butcher tilted her head. "You are certain this is the method Apeiron uses?"

"Well, not certain-certain, but yeah, it checks out. Man's an admitted power tinker with a team on the same level. You can practically see the bleed over between them. I mean, you saw the guy in person. You had to notice something was going on."

This reasoning is subtle enough that I didn't follow it the first time, but it looks like the March-Uber-Leet group is actually ahead of Apeiron for once.

Back in chapter 97, Apeiron described using a Call Bead to Call one's own passenger as "parahuman powers with the brakes taken off". This is exactly what Uber described - stacking a second connection to one's passenger to break the limits of one's original connection. But Apeiron has only theorized that application. Only Aisha out of the entire Forge can use it, because none of the rest of them have passengers, and it's been a lower priority than the Striker boost.

March seems to have pulled the trick the moment she got her hands on a Call Bead. That bead was from one of Joe's early batches, so it was consumed in the process, but it was enough for a proof of concept. Now their bottleneck is a way to replicate shard connections without the secret of Evermore Alchemy.

Tackyseven · Sep 16, 2023

Pigsuper said:
Since the people that have been complaining about how the S9 are being dealt with (for weeks) don't seem to understand the reasoning behind this decision, here's the reasoning.

let me just save this one as a bookmark so I can throw it at the next complainer

LuxPurplishGreen said:
I had honestly counted out March faction from being much of a problem, but if she is messing around with Echidna clones and artificial triggers+extra connections to passengers we might end up with some type of Titans showing up - which would be an even bigger mess than an Endbringer attack and something that actually is a challenge for Apeiron. Not from a raw power perspective but from the side effects and potentially uncontrolled dimensional breach that has to be managed with no warning. Basically a big out-of-left-field mess that forces him to improvise while the rest of Earth Bet loses their minds and generally panics.

ain't no way that scion doesn't do an instant fly by ctrl alt delete if that happened before Joe would even have a chance to react to a titan appearing, a non brain dead warrior entity means no obvious shardspace chaos or instability.

Mister Phantom · Sep 16, 2023

It doesn't matter if they're ahead, since they are getting wacked the moment Apeiron stops pretending he has to care about PR.

LuxPurplishGreen · Sep 16, 2023

Tackyseven said:
ain't no way that scion doesn't do an instant fly by ctrl alt delete if that happened before Joe would even have a chance to react to a titan appearing, a non brain dead warrior entity means no obvious shardspace chaos or instability.

True, I forgot about Scion.

I kind of doubt that he would be that fast about fixing it though. I mean, last time some weird shard space breach happened due to March he was mostly curious and took his time before coming over and putting the shard matter back where it belongs. He probably wouldn't care if a Titan stomps around and wrecks a few unimportant things -like all of Brockton Bay- before he gets around to removing it.

Then there is also the possibility that he might see Hosts doing new and interesting things that results in Shards manifesting on Earth Bet as nothing but an unexpected result of The Experiment. He would definitely stabilize any spreading rifts and instabilities, but allowing one Titan to exist as a result of Hosts fucking around would generate lots of new [Data]...

AntaeusTheGiant · Sep 16, 2023

Spidey_phd said:
snip

OMG, that was magnificent. I literally cried. More snippets from you, please!

TerraBull · Sep 16, 2023

I for one am surprised the DragonSlayer's were not mentioned.

Lots of comments about S9 and how some are being lazy & other things.

Sure Uber and Butcher talked and a small bit of Aperion Power latched onto Butcher.

As well as the Travelers Boss, the power demonstrated.

I admit I want to see Aperion clones do a music video using songs from "Wreck it Ralph 1 or 2"

Why? It is funny.

Brockton's Celestial Forge (Worm/Jumpchain)

Nullius in verba

The Necromonsieur

Nullius in verba

Child of Gaea