Brockton's Celestial Forge (Worm/Jumpchain)

...I distinctly remember that the Capes exposed to the damaged technology of Apeiron had been given the name Case 69.

Did it get changed or did Lord just fat finger it?

If i remember correctly the Portal breaching into passenger space is Case 68 and those affected by the event and having their powers altered are classified as Case 69.

subsequent breach that was being classified as Case 68.

So its not a typo
 
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Which allows us to focus on the matter of Taylor Hebert.
Oh good, they are finally getting to this bombshell.
TBH, I'm not getting how they still don't realise it's a targetted, long-running harassment campaign and that Hess is involved, or at least consider the possibility :
  • the video explicitely mentions it's been an issue for 2 years ;
  • they are aware of the locker "event," and that it was traumatic-enough for Taylor to trigger ;
  • they know Hess and Barnes are close friends, and the first thing Hess did when asked was to try and cover Barnes.
Did they think about it and deliberately chose not to mention anything? (Or at least did Piggot do that? Her internal monologue wouldn't have shown up here)
Is it a more subconscious form of willful ignorance?
Some mix of incompetence (at least at this kind of police work), the people who could notice not having access to the information, and the accumulated exhaustion and stress?

Mapping the areas in which Sophia's oversight has been delinquent is something of a lost cause at this point. And not even close to our most pressing priority, or our most severe laps in this case.
That part makes me lean towards willful ignorance, conscious or not; even with everything going on city-wide, it seems incredibly negligent at best: Hess is known to be a problem, under probation, with "deliquent" oversight
... yet Piggot didn't even wonder what kind of additional disasters they caused, if only from the perspective of PR and their relationship with BBPD (getting the locker case transfered, now trying to shut down part of the assault case to hide Hess' identity, etc.)

It just... makes no sense to me they'd spend their capes' time on PR around Garment, but wouldn't spare less-critical staff to get ahead of whatever potential mess is waiting there.


I love the running joke of Aisha's power activation's being continually misunderstood. Everyone needs to take lessons from Apeiron's number 1 fan, and figure out that sometimes strangers just want to get rid of annoying memes.
Yeah, and I suspect the supernatural levels of luck will continue making "interesting coincidences" happen, at such a rate it will be seen as deliberate action.

Still, looking forward to what Joe & the team make of that (and of the PRT's bumbling around investigations), considering it would be very odd for Survey not to have at least one of her scrying devices pointed at Piggot's office (and all the delicious in-person-only [data])

PS: Sorry, only just realised how long this reply got >_>'
 
If the way those two agents were treated gets out, PRT ENE will complete its mutation into a joke in the eyes of other branches.

"In PRT ENE competent action is a punishable offence"
"In PRT ENE the only principle left is Peter"
"In PRT ENE criminal jails you"
"Sorry, you know how it is; the reward for good work is always more work unless we you are in PRT ENE where the reward for good work is to punish you."
"Gee, thanks for reminding me."
"Hey, just be glad that we are not in that shit place."
 
Oh… oh dear… the poor director still hasn't figured out that at no point has he demonstrated the full scale of his abilities. Like even when he made the knives for the Undersiders… he could have made guns with no recoil, no heating or cooling issues, that fired five times faster than they should, were completely silent, and in the hands of a skilled user had limited ability to direct the bullets to their target. And that's before he got into modifying the ammo.
Apeiron in shard space deploying thousands of weapons the size of cities, each capable of more damage than String Theory's mega project which held the world hostage and the Endbringer's avoid for fear of their life, "Man it's a good thing I don't go all out or people might do more than be mildly concerned. I'm not even physically here which means this stuff is missing half my upgrades, it's trash really."

Edit: All this infosec has also got to be strangling Coil's spy network. A consultant probably isn't getting any pertinent info so he's out of luck, and nothing is digitized so TT can't hack, and operational security is being used so his moles can't find out new info. Basically the place is being run competently for once (at great cost) and it directly counters him.
 
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Whoo! I'd forgotten that a chapter might be posted today.
Piggot's heart's in the right place, despite the hubris. She's a lot like Armsmaster in that regard.
Neat to see the Forge socializing some more. The Thing is my #1 favourite movie of all time.
I mean it was Among Us, but in the 80s with gorgeous SFX and good actors!
 
Yep. Show, don't tell. Unfortunately it's hard when you get powers faster than you get action (because of the extremely slow pacing).
I wouldn't say that the pacing is extremely slow. This is a result of a decision to cover other people's lives too back in Panacea's first interlude. Roust is just the first person to really cover the extreme amount of plot points, characters, literal plots while having to do it with something disruptive as the Celestial Forge. Characters here aren't just props to the main character. They live a life outside of that and it shows. Celestial Forge has a unquestionable presence that's shown either in the background, or through people's behavior or actions.
 
To clarify, what do we think is going on with Dauntless' Arclance? Did Joe really redesign it in such a way that other parahumans could use it so easily? Or are all of the Shards going "Oooh, Shiny!" and reducing limitations for their hosts so that they can play with the new toy?

...yes, I am totally imaging Eidolon sneaking into Shawn's house in the middle of the night to steal Dauntless' lance. In his pajamas and barefoot. While the Pink Panther theme song plays on the TV in the background. And that Shawn's son has left Legos on the floor.😏
What I understood is happening is that after Apeiron granted more power the Arclance, the part of this Arclance that is Dauntless' power still only works for him, but the part that is Apeiron's doesn't have that limitation. So overall it still works better for Dauntless but everyone can use it to some extant.
 
What I understood is happening is that after Apeiron granted more power the Arclance, the part of this Arclance that is Dauntless' power still only works for him, but the part that is Apeiron's doesn't have that limitation. So overall it still works better for Dauntless but everyone can use it to some extant.
Now imagine if Joe buffed Dauntless to let him charge any item for anyone. Imagine the fucking aneurysm Piggot would have then, lol.
 
As i read the chapter the only part that really surprised me was how there was no move to push every and all blame on Piggot herself.
I mean, her career is completely and utterly dead, she's inevitably going to face criminal charges and likely spend the rest of her life in prison, a normal prison since she's not a Parahuman, so adding to it would change exactly nothing for her while allowing to save many people (and maybe even the PTR itself).
Besides, the faster she's removed and the issue of who's to blame is solved permanently, the faster the situation can begin to improve.
 
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...I distinctly remember that the Capes exposed to the damaged technology of Apeiron had been given the name Case 69.

Did it get changed or did Lord just fat finger it?
Powers changed from exposure to shard-space is 69. Portal to shard-space itself is 68. Destruction of the motoroid caused a 68, capes exposed to it like Glory Girl became 69s.
 
Nooooo! Not First!!!!

Edit: Oh wait, now I am. Nice!

Also, I surprising feel bad for Piggot, like damn. Also hell of a coincidence that timing lmao.

My assumption has been that Survey knows what everyone else knows and is giving him subtle cues (that he isn't even aware of) to ensure that secrets are protected/power projected and that if questioned Joe can legitimately swear it was unintentional.

Aperion's luck is unable to do much to benefit him on account of his ungodly power, so it instead resorts to helping out his mortal allies and arranging coincidences for the sole purpose of intimidating the rest of the world.

Or this.
 
When all your choices are bad, is it surprising that you're making a bad choice?
Hannah makes it clear she's aware Piggot's past mistakes are at least in part to blame for current problems, but that as far as she's concerned now would be the absolute worst time to try to replace her.

You ever had to train or work with someone new at your job? Depending on the level of skill needed it can be months before they're more of a help than a hindrance.
IMO the main issue is that Piggot has proved herself to be actively detrimental, even a newbie fumbling around for some time would be a net improvement.

Agreed. But you know what she could do? Point at a foe and utterly scrub them from all memory and history everywhere and for everyone including themselves.
Just fucking Case 53 someone in broad daylight.

Who are you? You don't know.
Why are you on this battlefield? No idea.
Who's side were you on? No one is sure.
*cought*Jack Slash*cought* :V

If the way those two agents were treated gets out, PRT ENE will complete its mutation into a joke in the eyes of other branches.

"In PRT ENE competent action is a punishable offence"
"In PRT ENE the only principle left is Peter"
"In PRT ENE criminal jails you"
it's almost sad how true that is...
 
You know, now that Aisha's on talking terms with her Shard, I wonder if she can directly weaponize her power. Especially with a Call Bead.
Just imagine Lethe pointing at a foe, and just utterly scrubbing their mind of all memories.
She could already do that without a call gem. She has both the Prismatic Colors, which can do hellish things to your psyche, and Lethe Water, which literally washes all your memories away upon contact. Whether you get hit by water or light, you're good as gone.
 
Agreed. But you know what she could do? Point at a foe and utterly scrub them from all memory and history everywhere and for everyone including themselves.
Just fucking Case 53 someone in broad daylight.
Depends on how flexible her shard's targetting is, but yes that seems to me like a definite possibility (and a lot closer to her original power expression)

Thankfully, that doesn't seem to be the kind of place the story is going. Or at least, I hope it's not?
 
Ape-iron Clears a Misunderstanding

"I wasn't threatening you by deleting that meme when we did. It was just bad luck on your part."

"You know, it's almost comforting that someone as powerful as you believes in something as abstract as luck."

"I was speaking literally, luck is a tangible force and I have it."

"You have luck?! What the fuck does that even mean?"

"You know. I have it, I have the luck. It's all mine, all of it, all of the luck."

"You can see that this is much worse can't you?"
 
As i read the chapter the only part that really surprised me was how there was no move to push every and all blame on Piggot herself.
I mean, her career is completely and utterly dead, she's inevitably going to face criminal charges and likely spend the rest of her life in prison, a normal prison since she's not a Parahuman, so adding to it would change exactly nothing for her while allowing to save many people (and maybe even the PTR itself).
Besides, the faster she's removed and the issue of who's to blame is solved permanently, the faster the situation can begin to improve.
I think its because they want to make sure Piggot doesn't try to do a hail mary and burning everyone with those demonstrated decision making skills she is being evaluated for. Back a dog up in the corner and it's going to bite.

Of course, I think that if the higher ups knew the amount red flags and bombs Brockton Bay has whatever they were hidden or otherwise they would remove her asap.
 
Wow, Piggot isn't just staring down the barrel of a gun, she's outright blindfolded in front of a firing line.

I'd feel sympathy, particularly since I know full well she was left out to dry by Cauldron machinations... but so very much of this is still entirely her fault. She set up the hyper-micromanaged control system. Actively stripped out safeguards, checks and balances. Yeah Cauldron fucked her, and Coil probably helped, but the former didn't actively do anything, just stop doing things, and the latter could only manage it because she set up everything for him to easily do so.

It's not generally a good idea to assign malice to what could just be incompetence or negligence, but in this case? It was a decent heaping of all three. If she hadn't demanded authority over the wards out of her distrust of the protectorate. If she hadn't been so willing to send wards instead of troopers out of prioritizing normal people over parahumans. If she had been more detached about Aperion's 'accusations' on her, and reacted with less spite. If she had just delegated her paperwork more so oversights weren't misses as often...

This is a bed of her own making. All others did was buy her the sheets.

Edit: Er, to be clear, that first line is a metaphor. I don't think she is or deserves to be slated for execution. Being fired and outright blacklisted from such managerial positions sure, but not literally taken out and shot.
 
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I don't know if her shard is set up for that. The Slug can do it, and he has the Eden version of her shard, but Aisha's power profile seems to be more of a "target certain information for deletion" effect than "delete information stored in target repository".
I agree that those do seem to be the state of things… Which I find ironic, because it implies that Scion, the Warrior, has a more subtle approach to memory manipulation than Eden, the Thinker.

This amuses me, XD
 
I agree that those do seem to be the state of things… Which I find ironic, because it implies that Scion, the Warrior, has a more subtle approach to memory manipulation than Eden, the Thinker.

This amuses me, XD
Maybe. But consider this. The Slug does targeted deletion. Aisha does global AOE. One's a scalpel, one's a nuke.

Additionally, you'd kind of expect 'The Warrior' to need the option of 'everyone just forgets what happens' more than someone labeled 'The Thinker'.
 
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