Is that a reference? Because I didn't get it.
Brockton's Celestial Forge (Worm/Jumpchain)
- Thread starter LordRoustabout
- Start date
Yep. Search Virtuous Sons by Y.B. Striker to know more.
So 3-4 chapters then coffee date with Crystal? Also removing bombs and S9 later in the day?
Next interlude... Gully? Would tie in with Crystal's date and could provide some insight into which Case 53s have come to BB, where they are and what they are doing. (I have a mental image of the Palanquin hosting a small cult meeting in which Gregor preaches to his brothers and sisters about patience and a future day in which their faith will be rewarded)
Next interlude... Gully? Would tie in with Crystal's date and could provide some insight into which Case 53s have come to BB, where they are and what they are doing. (I have a mental image of the Palanquin hosting a small cult meeting in which Gregor preaches to his brothers and sisters about patience and a future day in which their faith will be rewarded)
It'd be cute if Gully comes along for socialization with the college kids, considering Crystal's open cape nature, before Joe and her head off on their actual date.
Yeah but she already declined Crystal's invitation during the gala. I doubt Crystal would be so crass as to try again (offscreen) and push her into something she's uncomfortable with either.
- Location
- Right Where I Am
It's no surprise that Fleet was good at giving Rachel a lesson. He was designed first and foremost to teach. His purpose before was to teach Joe how to ride his bike. He internalized the connection to vehicles, and he's internalized that teacher aspect as well it seems. We did already see that with him teaching Aisha how to pilot her armor, but it was neat seeing more here.
From my understanding Alec had something different with his brain that Joe's healing detected as a problem and healed. It seemed that he had issues with Empathy but i am not sure if that was caused by his father and families use of powers or something he was born with.
Rachel just seems to have poor upbringing, education and quite possible either neurodivergent or her power is effecting how she thinks.
Joes power doesn't seem to detect Rachel being neurodivergent as something that needs to be fixed or a issue and Joe's healing at the time wasn't powerful enough to influence passengers connections.
So i don't think the healing has done anything to Rachel, i just think they have found someone that is able to communicate with out all the bullshit and she has had quite a bit of character growth thanks to Joe's watch.
In the end they are both balls of trauma that have gone and had a bunch of character development
(Be warned my understanding Worm is from looking at the wiki and reading this story and Lords WoG describing characters.)
From the way she acts and how her perspective is portrayed, a lot of her problems are academic in nature; a combination of missed opportunities and undiagnosed/untreated educational needs in her past. I don't reckon a "fix" in the present would actually make an immediate difference to those unless Joe somehow included a high school diploma too.
Which is part of the reason I want Joe to have a go at teaching her in the Spiritron Core; the other part is the look on Lisa's face when Rachel starts explaining advanced canine biomechanics to her.
Which is part of the reason I want Joe to have a go at teaching her in the Spiritron Core; the other part is the look on Lisa's face when Rachel starts explaining advanced canine biomechanics to her.
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That's cause his dad is heartbreaker who basically got emotion controlling powers and chose to go full hedonistic pig with them using them to not have to work by continually making pretty women host him and his ever growing contingent of kids and women. However, as you'd expect all he cares about is himself with his kids existing as a matter of force projection and for his protection. Which means as you'd expect he's a really horrible parent because he views them as more tools than people.
Basically for the most part he has nothing to do with his kids while they are young unless they make enough noise to disturb him and then he deals with it by hitting them with intense terror until they stop until they get to around 10 when if they haven't triggered yet he uses his power or does things like crash birthday parties and act like a s9 member to get them to.
Naturally this has mentally effected his kids since they are free to drink and do drugs from birth on top having not really been taught morality or empathy. His power has also caused issues because of how intensely and for how long he hits them with emotions both due to the power itself sort of emotionally burning them out and that they don't feel things like terror that intense or for as long from anything else.
Was reading back a little and I found this. and I'm like: really? would there be a "major reaction"? what exactly? What is the PRT or whoever supposed to do about it? walling up the city to contain Lethe or the Celestial Forge is a laughable notion, so what are they going to do? panic, hold meetings and throw their arms into the air? The only other thing they could do is issue a kill order, that would be basically declaring war on Apeiron and I very much doubt they would be willing to do that
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- Location
- Russia, Perm
- Pronouns
- He/Him/His
If you already know answer why do you ask?
Eh, let's see... Well, the first thing that come to mind is that paras immune to Lethe's powers become even more of an asset, which means that groups that don't have that asset become even more desperate to acquire it. At this point, groups will start panicking to get some form of protection against forgetting Apeiron for hours, with groups like the Yangban and the Fallen stepping up their kidnapping game to get themselves some immune capes. That already enough of avertable tragedies to warrant some care.
Also, as Yangban can share their powers, if they can acquire immune cape and rest of Eurasian cape groups get desperate and panicked enough by the idea of forgetting about Mad Tinker on the loose, China can leverage to try starting an Anti-Apeiron coalition. That can be an interesting problem.
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Not how Earth Bet works. Capes come from regular trauma, and 'abandoned and falls into a bad part of the system where abusers take advantage of them' is a real world issue. Why the hell is some random woman important enough to Master like 8 years ago?
Actually it was shown that people hit by Heartbreaker's powers actually develop brain damage. And by that, I mean actually damage to the tissue caused by all the sudden emotions hitting them as children when they are developing.
So when Joe healed Alec, he actually repaired that damage because it was artificially inflicted.
The drugs and alcohol didn't help at all along with the environment. That is very true. But a bigger part of it is actual damage caused by Heartbreaker and his power.
So when Joe healed Alec, he actually repaired that damage because it was artificially inflicted.
The drugs and alcohol didn't help at all along with the environment. That is very true. But a bigger part of it is actual damage caused by Heartbreaker and his power.
I don't see it. Yes there may be some kidnappings... of a couple of aditional capes. Lethe resistant capes are already in high demand, so an increase of the recruitment drive shouldn't really make much of a difference. As for the coalition. Lets say China makes such a coalition, and lets assume they are willing to risk having the weapon that killed Lung pointed at them... Then what? invade the US?
- Location
- Philippines
You are missing the point. As far as Joe is concerned, any panic or desperate action by others as a result of the Celestial Forge is best avoided for as long as possible because Joe holds intrinsic value in the lives and welfare of the public. That kind of chaos will cause harm, no matter what, and Joe's standards are so high that any cost should be minimized, if not outright avoided. That if he buys more and more time, the more he can prepare and get stronger rolls so when the inevitable chaos arrives, the less time he needs to spend putting out fires and saving people's lives from their own panic. That is what behind Joe and the Celestial Forge's current policy of hiding what they can do to minimize public response.
And the thing is, it's not even that much patience. At this point, it'll be only days in universe before he deals with the S9. It'll be only a week before he deals with Coil as per Lisa's deadline. It'll only be a week before all the gangs' conflict go into a head with all of the concurring plans of each individual gang's subplot, like Max's hatred for the Butcher and Victor's Human Transmutation attempt for the Empire, Bakuda and Zombie March's death throes for the ABB, the Butcher's desperation and the rebelling heroes in her head for the Teeth, Coil and the Travelers trying to negotiate with Apeiron, Leet's incoming megaproject, and so on and so forth. Frankly, it's such a gambit pileup that Joe really doesn't need to do anything but let the dominoes fall so he can justify cleaning up the Bay of all the gangs without s being too proactive about it.
And the entire time, he'll be getting stronger and stronger to the point where the ending of the fic might end up being a bit of an anticlimax with how quickly Joe would deal with everything else at that point, but that's just the natural consequence of how this writing experiment has gone really.
This implies that action would actually be taken. Yes, some people will panic, but realistically what harm are they likely to cause? The Protectorate would hold meetings and say that "this is a grave situation" or whatever, but effectivly they can do nothing, the same as anyone else, there is no place for their "measures" to be directed. What chaos is supposed to happen? who would fight who? what industry is supposed to colapse? what organization is supposed to mobilize? with what objective?
Realistically, what is the point of beating the dead horse of 'omg joe doesnt DO anything i want my curbstomp already' posting do for the thread?
Shadow Archon
Protoss Preserver
- Location
- Louisiana
They could always declare Brockton Bay a HOSV, literally put walls up around it, and shut off the city from the electric grid. With a proper PR campaign, they could just label the CF as something akin to the Sleeper, and state the whole city is compromised and thus it needs to be cut off from the rest of America. Unless Joe decides "I need to turn Brockton into a city-state supported by the CF" then that chaos alone is going to easily kill hundreds of people.
And they're already prepping a Celestial Forge response team back in LA, so if someone gets twitchy enough from Joe fighting the Butcher they could pull the trigger on that.
Will it be a challenging fight for Joe and the Forge? Not really. Will it throw a wrench into his uplift plans? Definitely.
Let's say they quarantine the city. Aperion suddenly goes, "Well shit" and tries to fill in the vacuum of government so people don't starve or die from a total breakdown of logistics. The most likely plan for Joe here is to let Matrix handle it. The PRT and the US government panics at him taking over the functions of an entire city with ease. They panic more if Joe shows off some of his utopian tech and makes the quality of life in the Bay a bajillion times better than the rest of the US. They panic even more if there's proof that Matrix is unshackled AI in a nanite swarm body. Someone does the math on what that kind of industry would look like if it was focused entirely on building up a military.
Eventually, somewhere along that chain of events, someone is going to panic and order Aperion pacified "before it's too late!" (spoiler: it's already too late). Because the perceived alternative is him winning the cultural victory and supplanting the US everywhere. So, they send in their strike team. What happens if they get easily defeated? They send in the whole Triumvirate and declare the CF an S-Class threat. What happens when Aperion non-lethally takes down an entire army of capes the likes sent against Endbringers, and unlike an Endbringer doesn't go away for a few months? Mass panic and hysteria. Someone might even reach towards the nuke button. And the more the US buckles and crashes to pieces, the more the CF supplants it to save lives, the worse things get from other people panicking.
Unless Joe manages to diplomacy his way off that escalation train, things are going to go very bad for the average man if someone in the government decides "We have to attack him now" or "We have to quarantine Brockton Bay."
It's very obvious that this is a bad situation and is something to be avoided.
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That's "couple" too many. Joe kinda values human lives enough to not dismiss them with "Ah couple more, couple less, what is the difference" attitude. Novel concept, isn't it.
Yes, invade the US. If they went so far as to create a coalition, while willing to risk fighting what killed Lung, why not commit to pre-emptive strike while they think it's not too late?
As you yourself agreed, if Lethe's powers actually revealed to be capable of going on for hours, there will be increase in kidnappings of immune capes. And kidnapping is a harmful action.
Brocton Bay is a place. Earth is a place. World is place. The fact that they can't harm Celestial Forge, doesn't mean that they incapable of fucking up the world (Shadow Archon already said how PRT can fuck things up, and groups like Cauldron, Gesellschaft, Yangban and others can be even more of a nuisance. If ruckus is big enough, even Scion might get curious.). And while CF can stop them from doing so, it is safer to disarm the bomb with the controlled explosion than by randomly blowing it up in a crowd. What is hard to understand here?
- Location
- USA
Joe is well past the point that any panicked response to his actions are a true problem. He can easily deal with literally every single problem that crops up on that side of the equation with relatively minor casualties if he went all out.
The real problem is the escalation; that once he starts, he'll have to deal with pretty much everything in one go, as the force used to solve one problem leads to others. That level of escalation on solving the world's problems has a very real probability of catching Zion's attention and triggering the true end game.
Joe isn't completely sure what the true threat is yet, but he's getting more and more clues and he understands enough. Especially with learning about the sheer power and scale of shards. While he can handle the earth side problems without much issue, even if he doesn't want to necessarily go all dictator and would prefer a less forceful transition into his uplift, he isn't actually sure he could handle the shard response that well. Every bit of time he buys is time he can grow stronger and learn more about and prepare for the real threat.
He'd win even right now; fiat invincibility + multiple infinite scaling powers means there isn't much in fiction that could beat him. The question isn't if he'd win, but what would be left. Unless Joe gets lucky and discovers Zion's weaknesses early, Zion could and would cause enormous damage in that fight while Joe is ramping up.
The real problem is the escalation; that once he starts, he'll have to deal with pretty much everything in one go, as the force used to solve one problem leads to others. That level of escalation on solving the world's problems has a very real probability of catching Zion's attention and triggering the true end game.
Joe isn't completely sure what the true threat is yet, but he's getting more and more clues and he understands enough. Especially with learning about the sheer power and scale of shards. While he can handle the earth side problems without much issue, even if he doesn't want to necessarily go all dictator and would prefer a less forceful transition into his uplift, he isn't actually sure he could handle the shard response that well. Every bit of time he buys is time he can grow stronger and learn more about and prepare for the real threat.
He'd win even right now; fiat invincibility + multiple infinite scaling powers means there isn't much in fiction that could beat him. The question isn't if he'd win, but what would be left. Unless Joe gets lucky and discovers Zion's weaknesses early, Zion could and would cause enormous damage in that fight while Joe is ramping up.
To what end? this woulnd't take away Lethe's power, woulnd't diminish the CF capabilities in any meaningful way. They are not a gang, they don't depend on revenues streams from the city or have personel that depend on the funcionality of the city to operate. And the notion that walling the city would contain them is laughable
I actually agree with that, they may be willing to nuke down the Butcher to prevent an Apeiron-Butcher situation, but I was not arguing that
Again, that would mean that they are willing to fight him, and I really don't think they are
Again with the premise they would quarantine the city... Where does that ridiculous notion comes from? there is no way they would quarantine the city because of Apeiron, mostly because they have no reason to belive that would contain him in any way
The same reason they wouldn't do it normally? They likely wouldn't like their chances agains the US military in normal circustances, then how about the US military + Apeiron? the very thought they would entertain the notion is absurd
Ok, I'm really struggling here... So lets walk through this logic.
Lethe too powerful -> Some powerful politician/specialists/Military officers gather to make decisions -> Lets attack the US/Brockton Bay (because this will achieve something?)
I'm sorry, I just don't see it. I honeslty think they would get scared to be killed in their sleep if they gave such an order
Shadow Archon
Protoss Preserver
- Location
- Louisiana
Well first of all, it's because it's something they've done before and governments don't simply roll over and die when facing potential existential threats. They'll do something even if that something probably won't work, and they have a track record of quarantining cities. There's seven quarantined cities in the continental US at the start of Worm, and in canon, they talked about doing the same to Brockton Bay after the Undersiders go full warlord.
BCF Brockton is, while considerably less a wreck, has more potential of going FUBAR real quick.
Besides, it's not as if the wider world has any inclination about Joe's workshop, nor do they know he can safely teleport between doors, nor do they know what sort of resources he has access to. They have absolutely no idea what the CF can fully do when they're not holding back. You know what Joe and the CF can do. The PRT, the USA, and the rest of the world do not. So far, Aperion has been sighted within Brockton Bay, thus it's a safe bet his civilian identity lives in the Bay in some capacity, and thus his tinker workshop has to be in the city. Quarantining the city is something they've done before just from villainous gangs taking over a city. Aperion and the CF meanwhile are a huge Cluster Trigger and from all signs are highly unstable from how powerful they are. Thankfully Aperion's, seemingly, got a major code about deals and contracts, and basically believes things like the Unspoken Rules are iron-clad rather than the thin suggestions they actually are. He's also generally reactive, which current plans hinge on.
What is also known, is that Aperion does care about civilian lives. He spent hours doing surgery on hundreds of people to remove bombs from their heads. Somewhere on some desk in-universe, there's probably a cold calculated plan to quarantine the city to use the civilian population against Aperion due to his empathy. He'll have to use up his time and resources to take care of them in that situation when the US cuts all electricity and food coming into the city, and that could buy them maybe a few extra days with his crazy three day cycle perhaps.
Is it a particularly good plan? Not really. But that's kind of the point? The thing is, when these big groups who want to be in control start panicking from losing control, they'll start acting like rabid animals and do anything in their power to regain it, even if the scrambling for options leaves them with poor plans and a frightful amount of collateral damage.
Quarantines are also something Cauldron has made the PRT do in odd cases like Flint when some fucky power shenanigans happen. A guy there literally can make people trigger with powers by just getting near them, and while the CF isn't that crazy, if any of Joe's powers that he can gift or teach start spreading around the city... well Cauldron might push for a Quarantine just for that, especially when Aperion casually shows "Oh yeah, precogs are just wrong about me." That's going to cause some fucking panic too, especially for Cauldron if Contessa doesn't work on him.
As far as taking care of Lethe's power, well the main way to deal with her power is to kill her, so given her use of power affecting the entire planet (and other universes even), there's probably several analysts writing down potential kill order plans just in case the CF destabilizes or one of them becomes the Butcher. One of them is probably just indiscriminate bombardment in the direction someone immune to her power points at.
I think they're totally willing to fight Aperion, even if it ends with Brockton Bay on fire and mountains of civilians dead. Because they unfortunately and wrongfully fear the alternative being worse.