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Brockton's Celestial Forge (Worm/Jumpchain)

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Mr_Rose said:
Also, nitro boosters on a vehicle with no combustion engine, or internal power source at all? That has to be bending physics somewhere unless it's rigged as a pure compressed gas expansion assist motor. In which case it's entirely the wrong gas to be using.
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Congratulations; the chain/gear-teeth interlock of that bike are now pseudo-piston combustion-chambers.

Relatedly did you know that Nitrous Oxide is the combustion-enhancer of choice for overclocking cars because of how ineffective it is? Turns out that if you use anything more effective at delivering oxygen to the fuel it damages the engine.
 
Not specifically but it makes sense from one perspective. I mean there's nothing actually stopping a vehicle from carrying a tank of pure oxygen either and that would obviously be much more suited to adding oxygen to the input. I don't want to contemplate a booster that uses anything more effective than pure O2. Personally I think it really just speaks to how we've collectively "settled" on reciprocating pistons as an engine design rather than actually expend effort developing something more effective.
 
OtteryLexa said:
It would be extremely dubious as a performance enhancing drug too.
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It's a libation to the Speed Force. :V

A further remark on the Percy Jackson god-blessings: We are quickly reaching the point where these blessings start exceeding any given god's output. I believe the Trolls from World of Warcraft ran into this problem when they used too many of their gods as raid bosses and ended up exhausting their whole pantheon.


Other points: The S9 being isolated from the real world, tricked and made unable to interact with reality? That's Jack's trigger down to a tee. (He was the son of survivalists who hid in a bunker for years and then found out he was lied to when he was in his late teens. Literally the movie 'Blast from the Past.')

Relatedly I saw someone say that Joe has to be thorough, because Broadcast might cheat some more if Jack dies. To which I reply: Yeah. It was called the slaughterhouse 9000. We won't be having that bullshit here.

Now combine the last two points. If there's ever a time Jack's gonna second-trigger it'll be when standing across from a v-formation of capes that have kept him in a bottle for a week.
And Broadcast will leap at the chance.


Jfan999 said:
I wonder if Joe can create an off switch for Broadcast or a way to shield Aisha from it's effect?
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He did, eventually!

savlbaeiwq said:
I fully expect Roust to write a very compelling Jack Slash who must finally face defeat against a "parahuman" in the form of Fleet—in 2024.
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We shall see. Two thirds of a year and two in-universe days to go.
 
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JoshuaSweetvale said:
Now combine the last two points. If there's ever a time Jack's gonna second-trigger it'll be when standing across from a v-formation of capes that have kept him in a bottle for a week.
And Broadcast will leap at the chance.
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Jack might not get time to second-trigger and die mid-triggering; he might - emphasis on might - stun Joe and Aisha but unlikely in both cases since Joe is atypical parahuman off the grid and Aisha is basically isolated from said grid. But even if trigger stun goes through somehow the rest of the forge still can just steamroll Jack because none of them are parahumans in any capacity.

Broadcast is bothersome because it will leap onto the new host and, given that it already heavily bends rules of the cycle, might, probably WILL start doing same bullshit with lightly mastering other parahumans into being stupid so they cant do shit to its host. Thats why throwing Broadcast into naughty corner is a good thing to do. People, especially parahumans, being LESS stupid is net positive.
 
Its bad when ypu compare to sundancer.

Image though, you have a cubic yard of roiling fusing hydrogen. Suddenly its telleported to earth, with no massive presure keeping it together. Bang!

You could make as much conventional destruction as you wanted.
 
Would someone as mentally old and inhuman as Joe seriously look at an outing with Crystal in a romantic light?
 
BoredMan said:
Would someone as mentally old and inhuman as Joe seriously look at an outing with Crystal in a romantic light?
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Don't care about romantic part, but I got something to note about "as mentally old and inhuman as Joe" part. Look at what Joe thinks at the end of the chapter:
I was going to have to leave the Workshop and interact socially with people my own age.
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He considers Crystal and her friends as people of his own age. Which is fair, having a patchwork of alien memories forced upon you hardly qualifies as ageing, and Joe explicitly tries to NOT be inhuman, with which holding onto being himself (Jozef Michael Dirus, a collage dropout in need of therapy), and not some eldritch entity older than humanity itself, helps tremendously.
 
Slentoru said:
He considers Crystal and her friends as people of his own age. Which is fair, having a patchwork of alien memories forced upon you hardly qualifies as ageing, and Joe explicitly tries to NOT be inhuman
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Memories make up a significant part of your ego though. He's gone through enough mental changes at this point (and will continue to) that some disconnect with humans is inevitable. Really you can already see the beginning of that with the way other people react to his works and his own thoughts on the matter hence the "three day old tech" meme. A loss of perspective is part of the reason Aisha is around.
 
BoredMan said:
snip
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I mean, sure, but it's the difference between having those memories inserted when you have no personality/ego of your own and getting those memories when you have a fully developed one. Getting memories doesn't override your own personhood, it simply provides additional context.

If the addition of new memories overrides previous personality traits entirely, the Joe should be fully speaking, acting and interacting with others like a transformer, because that set of memories dwarfs everything else. He isn't, because ultimately Joe is Joe, just with more context.
 
Narsauce said:
If the addition of new memories overrides previous personality traits entirely
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Not saying that. I'm moreso pointing out that his perception of other humans and the lens he looks at them with is constantly being altered. I'm sure he could still see humans in a romantic light I just question if he would in this case. Though I had forgotten that it's not just Crystal there so it probably isn't relevant right now.
 
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To quote the wiki:
Trigger events usually produce Thinkers when the parahuman experiences large amounts of emotional and mental strain while a crisis point is reached in a short period of time.
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This fits very well with Jack realizing he was isolated from the rest of the world and triggering. Jack might be noticing subtle bouts of seemingly good fortune and only put all the pieces together when he encounters the Celestial Forge.
 
BoredMan said:
his perception of other humans and the lens he looks at them with is constantly being altered
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Not really. Perks give him insight into a lot of things, forcing him to reevaluate his viewpoints as he learns more, but one of the viewpoints that withstood all the perks is Joe's opinion in other people and humans as a whole. He never started to think of Ms. Gartenberg as younger than him, never though less of Doug just because he is (relatively) worse at organizing people, and he even managed to connect with Theo by just offering genuine understanding of his struggles, something he wouldn't be able to do if he truly started to disconnect from human experience. Perks have no sway on Joe's perception of people. The closest perk got to affecting Joe's perception of humanity is Master Builder's "human tech is rubbish" effect, something Joe stumped out and never returned to. After that, Joe never thought of anything "human" as separate of himself (aside from that one time with Butcher, but that was more him taking every opportunity to belittle a person he already despises than anything else. Joe is a bit petty, it is hereditary.).

And that is the thing. You word your questions as if Joe is not human. But, while yes, some disconnect happens, it is prudent to remember that Joe works on eliminating it and remaining human. It's the whole reason Aisha being around works. It's impossible for Joe to start thinking that humans are unfit to be romantic partners for him, because that will require him to think of humans as something completely disconnected from him, either lesser or too different to have commonality required for romantic feelings. And Joe puts too much effort, Apeiron level effort mind you, into being human for such disconnect to ever happen.

The real question is if Joe too work oriented at the moment to entertain a romantic relationship. Or any kind of social relationship for that matter, he did almost refuse that non-romantic coffee meet up under the pretence of "We have too much work to do". Haha, Joe has a personality that could lead him to became just as socially isolated as Armsmaster, that tracks. Good thing that duplicates and the team are ready to beat him with sticks whenever he's trying to be too "efficient".
 
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*HEADDESK*
*HEADDESK*
*HEADDESK*

Got that out of the way.

EDIT: On a more relevant note, when's the next time Joe sees his therapist?

Some checking later, and... if I had to guess, maybe some three, four chapters hence.
 
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Slentoru said:
And that is the thing. You word your questions as if Joe is not human. But, while yes, some disconnect happens, it is prudent to remember that Joe works on eliminating it and remaining human
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You missed my point entirely here. When I said human I was referring to the fact that Joe is physically speaking no longer a human.
 
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