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Same, seeing someone with both the personality and abilities to appreciate just how much detail goes into even the tiniest craft, and hasn't gotten used to them like the Forge is very fun
Brockton's Celestial Forge (Worm/Jumpchain)
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Nullius in verba
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I guess Uppercrust could fill that void, but it has been over a year since the last one(C83) that we're really starved for some good old fashioned informed gawking at our impossible primate.
SiegfriedisOP
Calamity Demon King of Time
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What do you think is higher Apeiron's Trump rating or his Tinker rating. I mean tinkering is what he does, but he constantly gains and gives powers, plus he can alter parahuman powers as well.
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Honestly, at this point his rating should be S.
Even as far as the Protectorate knows at this time Apeiron going full bore is an S class scenario.
The main reason it wasn't good for humanity was that Eden was showing signs of sadism generally being smug about being better than humans and enjoying putting them in their place. She was also literally the thought police being able to read someone's mind and place blocks to prevent them saying things.
I will correct you though that it was a ptv simulation of Eden's optimal timeline and that those weren't endbringers. They were superweapons which are far smaller and weaker than endbringers being specifically called endbringerlites because their roles were different. Within the simulated optimal cycle humanity would basically be broken down so that each city is it's own kingdom at war with the others near it and tinkers like Leet would appear to prop up failing kingdoms only to then have their stuff fail when they have the advantage.
The role of the superweapons were to basically be border guards camping out in specific places and fighting anyone who gets near them. However, due to this they are far weaker simply because they don't have to fight anywhere near as many capes at once on top of those capes being weaker due to no Cauldron capes with improperly set restrictions and restricted shards and so a superweapon would be killed if it had to do an endbringer fight.
This is also incidentally where that there are 20 endbringers fanon comes from because simulated Eden told the Bay team there were 20 superweapons without it actually ever being made clear if she was being honest and people just assumed a 1 to 1 equivalence despite all the reasons that's unlikely to apply. These reasons mainly boil down to the endbringers being significantly larger and stronger so probably requiring more resources and that the superweapons are as deployed by Eden for it's optimal cycle as opposed to canon where Eden crashed into the planet, fumbled a ton of shards and then died with Cauldron making vials from it.
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Rating are a shorthand, a way to quickly inform the PRT troops about what they should expect in the field if they are facing a given parahuman. At that point, if the PRT face Apeiron, they would need a briefing specifically about him, so his exact rating is no longer relevant.
So let's say Trump: nightmare, and Tinker: no.
Probably with subrating in Brute: do you have an annihilator ?, Mover: he's behind you, Shaker: say goodbye to the city, Thinker: can destroy a familly within a single conversation... you get the idea.
Shadow Archon
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In order?
We don't know. Dragon keeps her Fetus Processors hush hush given the biotinker implications, so even if they did have this effect of growing a Corona Pollentia and Gemma as she used them, it's not like she would ever talk to anyone about it.
Her power is literally "Can understand and use other parahuman tinker tech, and can copy it and make improvements on it." It's essentially a Thinker power, but practically is a Tinker power. As for the cruel irony that all Worm powers have, her power lets her literally improve and expand on all tinker tech... which she technically is herself, but of course her limitations prevent her from working on herself.
No. Richter was an AI Tinker, Dragon is a Thinker that can copy Tinker tech. Put Richter on a non-powered earth, and he could still build AI. Put Dragon on a non-powered Earth, and her power becomes literally useless.
I think that's really splitting hairs. The Superweapons in the interlude were optimally designed by Eden for efficiency sake and given very specific roles in what they should do. Endbringers are essentially the subconscious spawns of Eidolon's desire for worthy opponents, and the moment Scion killed Behemoth, the next set were not only tougher due to having force fields between layers, but also had a wildly different MO so Scion wouldn't be as likely to kill them.
At their core, I don't think they are completely different things, I just think they have different settings applied to them in the creation phase. Eden went for efficiency so they could fit their purpose and had the precognitive power to ensure "These things just need to be strong enough to never be defeated, powerful enough to do what I want, and I know exactly what that should be", meanwhile Eidolon subconsciously wanted monsters he could go all out on, and the Endbringers literally are set up to use all of their power in three hundred years when their wells go dry. Thus, they were modified to fit those roles. Given the new three are differently designed than the original, we know their creation is malleable. There's nothing saying Eden couldn't make a superweapon be as tough as an Endbringer, just that she didn't need them that strong.
Also narratively, it doesn't make sense for Wildbow to invent an entirely new and separate thing that has nothing to do with current elements in the story. Occam's razor would suggest the Superweapons are Endbringers rather than an entirely separate part of the Entity's toolkit.
I will say people do focus too much on the 20 count. That's just the number Eden needed in that timeline. There's trillions upon trillions of Shards. If an Endbringer is just a Shard or parts of a Shard that's connected to the world as a construct rather than to a host.. well, then there's potentially as many Endbringers/Superweapons as there are powers.
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As of the Chubster interludes, it didn't appear that the Protectorate rated Apeiron's Trump powers separately from his Tinker power; rather, they considered the Trump effects to be an application of his Tinkering. That implies his Trump rating couldn't possibly be higher than his Tinker rating.
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Weaker Endbringers could still be using the same Shard irregardless, given that High Priest is Eden's QA.
Honestly, I feel full Solomon Clairvoyance would be less bullshit than canon PtV and it would emphasise the anguish of being a perfect machine taking incomprehensible actions and suffering inside.
Could it be a bud though, given how rare AI programming must be as a speciality, he surely had enough information for one bud. Especially for Dragon's Tinker power, which is effectively just a Thinker power with a Tinker specialisation subspecialises in other Tinkers, given that's just a part of any Tinker power, only with the Blackboxing removed, his Shard being that he has the only emotional connection at the time since Dragonslayers aren't hosts, or maybe one of the other Guild members.
Shadow Archon
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Canon and even WoG are silent on the matter. Dragon's and Richter's shards, their titles, and their overall purposes to the entities are never explored.
I'd say it's unlikely a bud. Generally, a bud connects to a host near the living host of the original shard. Richter was dead for a full year before Dragon triggered. The timeline is also unclear so there's no telling if Dragon was even a member of the guild before or after her trigger.
The only cape I could even see their shard budding to Dragon would be Masamune given his power is the ability to mass produce tinker-tech without maintenance issues, but he was in Japan for years and wasn't recruited by the Guild until 2012. Of course, he's been a cape since the 90s, so it's technically possible? Given Dragon is active worldwide, she could have been near Japan for that to happen, but there's no supporting evidence for it.
Citation needed. Counterpoint, Panacea: Adopted by the Dallons circa age 6, triggered circa age 15, still got a bud from the power of the father she hadn't been near in around 9 years.
Shadow Archon
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I said generally. Amy is kind of an exception.
Word of Wildbow said:
Interlude 16.z said:
Somehow, Amy's Shard is considered a Noble Shard by GU on the same level of Eidolon's and Taylor's, but Marquis's is not. Amy is her equal, but he isn't.
This implies some wackiness is going on. Compare her to all the other buds we know of: the E88 capes, the New Wave capes, Taylor to Aiden, and so on. All of these buds happened in close proximity at the time of the trigger. Given the fact Pings don't happen across an entire cities, there is a range element when it comes to buds and how they express themselves at the moment of a trigger.
Amy is an exception, not the rule. While it's not fully explored, there is a fan theory that explains it: Amy doesn't actually have a bud. Shaper gave a bud to Marquis to continue running his limited expression of the Shaper power, then fully jumped ship to Amy. That's why she has a Noble Shard, but Marquis does not.
Even beyond that, Marquis was still alive when Amy triggered. Richter was not alive when Dragon triggered. There's never been a canon situation of a living cape getting a bud from a dead cape as far as I remember.
...We're also getting way off topic at this point. This is just general Worm discussion now, and shouldn't really be clogging up the thread.
Speaking of Amy, she's the most likely one to notice the hospital Shikigami shenanigans. As soon as she gets back to the hospital, she'll want to know how many people died because she wasn't there yesterday. And then she'll encounter a suspiciously large number of patients teetering on the edge.
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Technically, a Bud isn't a new Shard yet more like DID, it could be a Danny situation, where two promising hosts were precogged or selected sequentially and Marquis was less compatible or in a specific Trigger where Shaper sent a bud instead. In other news, how would the Birdcage react to Joe?
Lung is dead, Bakuda and March won't live much longer, you think they would do well in the Birdcage?
Since Lung isn't around to make a example out of them.
She would probably think it's a generalised healing field because of the Divine Stealth, maybe she thinks he stole her powers under the officially endorsed Power Tinker theory. I wonder if she would want the brooch back from Accord, I got the feeling during her first interlude she appreciated having a gift for Amy, the girl who helps out at the hospital rather than Panacea, member of New Wave.
Shadow Archon
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Well, yes and no. The Fragile One is definitely a whole new Shard, but it's also a special case. But yeah, Buds can just be essentially sub-processors too.
Birdcage? Well, considering Bakuda got power jacked by GU anyways, I'm expecting that. No telling if March will survive the next time she sees Joe, but I can see GU yanking her too, with maybe some comment on what she did to herself in relation to her fae. No idea how that works when it comes to cluster triggers though, and if that will affect Flechette in anyway though.
Of course, Joe could just consider the Birdcage far too inhumane and come up with another solution. He could offer to build a new more humane parahuman prison or maybe create a power nullifier device so they can be sent to a normal prison instead. Of course, I'm pretty sure if you nullify March's power at this point, she'll just keel over dead.
As far as the Birdcage as a whole goes, I'm mostly interested in seeing Glaistig Uaine's reaction to Joe. The same with Chevalier. Those two should be able to instantly tell that Joe doesn't have a shard at a glance.
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Not an active one in any case.
Does Joe still have his Pollentia, given that he was almost a host for the Master of Arms?
Can they detect dormant hosts or will they think it's a weird Master/Stranger power?
Shadow Archon
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After all of the perks he's gotten that's transformed his body? No telling if he has a Corona anymore.
The big thing is GU and Chevalier can see shards overlaying their hosts. So by looking at Aperion and seeing nothing... well that's something that just doesn't happen. While I doubt Chevalier will jump correctly to the conclusion that he lacks a Shard, and merely assume Aperion is blocking his sight due to the tech Survey has already demonstrated, GU would probably immediately know that Aperion is not part of the cycle, is not host to a fae, and something has gone quite wrong.
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The final straw, I think would be the Hindu Cyborg Godbody, now that any hint of his original body is fully gone on top of the general weirdness and demigodhood and it would be impossible to distinguish the Corona , especially with the two Halo brain implant rebuilds as well.
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If they can scan his Corona, I bet they would be more worried about the complete body rebuild, makes them think that he 's totally gone off the rails
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that's fanon, or at least retconned wog/ward fix, contessa is fully able to have her power explain to her why she needs to do a certain step or any other detail or clarifiation she would like to know about any action whenever she wants. she's far from an unwilling robot unable to function without running a path 24/7
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On the off chance they actually end up in the birdcage since they are people Joe is willing to kill extremely badly on top of Bakuda's deadman switch no longer being an issue. Bakuda on top of all her crimes gave herself a rapidly progressing form of cancer which at minimum is in both hands but also probably her legs. That will probably remove the niche she found there in canon fixing their limited tech like tvs and she'll soon die to it. March on the other hand can't manipulate anyone with her power anymore, suffers from random lag and also can't speak so I wouldn't expect either of them to live long.
GU got Bakuda in canon because she automatically collects any cape that dies within a certain distance from her. Lung was the one to kill Bakuda in canon because as part of her failed escape attempt during the transport she insulted him to ramp him slightly so he could make a flame and because Lung knew how prisons work and so killed her to establish a rep.
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I was referring to her broadly being perceived as a plot device/Cauldron enabler, and lack of characterisation/screentime in canon, it's not to say I dislike Contessa, in fact, I find fics like Loaf, Felix Fortuna and Path to Munchies rather enjoyable. I like how Lord presents problem-solving as a realistic and drawn-out process, instead of being a quick fix-fic like most fanfics. Cauldron being inferred through the Coil, Accord and Chubster interludes instead of outright revealing adds some of the mystique back into the tired old setting.
With how much his perception powers have stacked, would Joe be able to qualify as Grand Caster, he's now indisputably the strongest Tinker in recorded history, a hero of the era, and his Clairvoyance should be EX, if not in range than in detail. Crafter appears to be a niche, ultra-specialised Caster variant in the first place.
It would be interesting to see what a Call Bead would do to QA/Taylor, would it be like an unrestricted Khepri, i.e. Lady Khepri, finally living up to her name? Post-biblical levels range from international-intercontinental and global, maybe even cross-dimensionally. It would be fun to see how Taylor accidentally weaponises the nanites and the potential Call Bead, maybe he should unlock the Survey in the watch to supervise her and make sure she doesn't disintegrate the rest of the heritage-listed sites in New Hampshire.
If we're talking from the image Apeiron projects on the perception of the public, then it wouldn't qualify as no-one aware of Apeiron's clairvoyance. Plus, the influence of his earlier appearances now getting distilled by theories that it all was an effort of a group of tinkers, so even his status as strongest Tinker might be not so indisputable. Probably going to be a lot closer to qualifying after S9, but for now we got what we got.
If we are talking from Joe's actual powers, then he is not qualified for an entirely different reason. Even now, Joe eclipses the power of Grand Caster, more fitting into upper levels of things Grand Servants are summoned to fight against (And Apeiron fits Beast class surprisingly well. A powerful being that defies common sense by his own existence, has innate love for humanity and seeks to overturn the established order of things in pursuit of a better future.). If Counter Force could summon something like Apeiron to protect mankind, then there will be no use for Grand Servant system.
Shadow Archon
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I know that. I also know that if her cancer doesn't kill her first, she's going to stick her foot in her mouth to some cape, and get murdered over it. I give her two weeks top before she becomes a GU ghost if she gets caged.
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If he is summoned, he would be weakened considerably like Solomon was, although beyond his normal Crafter class and other Casters.
Mass spamming of CGs is usually the preferred option, the CF doesn't take action unless an absolute majority(>50%) of humanity has already been eliminated, I get the feeling that the CF uses Grands just because of weird time/dimensional shenanigans, and that they don't want to waste energy on a fully-fledged Divine or Heroic Spirit. I mean even with Velber, it's likely they just empowered some random worthy wielder to use Excalibur in its full fuck-off thermal laser form and became CG #1 or something.
It's been a while since we've seen Joe do Nasu things in-universe, Do you think he'll manage to make something that Taylor won't inevitably weaponise, maybe imbue the concept of protection or something?
They already think he's sweet on her, better not to feed the flames, as agreed upon in their last meeting.