It's really kinda funny how the PRT took "I don't talk about the terms of my contracts or the details of my technology" to mean "don't ask questions ever" but that's bureaucracy for you. If they would just ask something casual he'd talk their ears off, delivering stunning insights into fundamental physics, biology, and passenger theory, enough to make them properly terrified instead of just wary and cautious.
Brockton's Celestial Forge (Worm/Jumpchain)
- Thread starter LordRoustabout
- Start date
- Pronouns
- He
I strongly disagree. Regularity is important, humans are creatures of habits. I don't think we should ask him to take time off, I think we should ask him to change his schedule.
"For whatever reason" ? You don't ask something if you can't pay for it or you can't extract concession through force. Both are laughable when it comes to someone as strong as Apeiron.
Lopezelpesado
Space worm best worm.
- Pronouns
- Something
You know, Ive just realized how unfair Ashia has been with Joe about certain things.
Like, telling him more about herself or things like Brian is grue. Like Joe has pretty much confided everything about himself to her while she always keeps everything about herlself to herself, which would be fine but like being part if his team and being trusted a lot by joe... You'd think she would open up more.
Like, telling him more about herself or things like Brian is grue. Like Joe has pretty much confided everything about himself to her while she always keeps everything about herlself to herself, which would be fine but like being part if his team and being trusted a lot by joe... You'd think she would open up more.
- Location
- Here
You take care of yourself! And have a happy fourth of July!
Probably didn't get points from this at bare minimum from everything before the call because that was not new time covered but the biggest sign is that the next roll was going to occur with 700 and lord still puts up perks gained this chapter in point earning other pov sections.
The story is at around 3 weeks in total from when it started. Things should speed up tho because aside from the point gain slowing down the number of known events taking place on each day is around half of what they were prior to the rock plus once the ABB is fully dealt with in 2 or so in story days it opens up the possibility of larger timeskips especially with levi still around 2 weeks away at the earliest.
He made it pretty clear he's going to ask for info especially about Weld getting healed.
Piggot is fully aware she's lost her job no matter what when things have calmed down the only thing up in the air is if she's going to face jail time. Due to that her only current concern other than getting revenge on whoever bungled the locker investigation that she got blindsided by getting chewed out over bungling is leveraging the prt's resources into minimising the chance of her doing jail time by working to shift blame and kick problems down the road even if it makes them snowball so when they blow up even if it's worse than before it's someone else's fault.
Of course this has come back to bite her since she ignored the rock since she'd be gone in a day or two only for it to be learned from Armsy breaking her orders that the teeth showed up so things are considered too volatile to remove her when she'd otherwise be gone. It also includes some really despicable stuff such as right after going on about how unstable, dangerous and volatile Apeiron is to Uppercrust and how she doesn't care about her career and would throw it away in a heartbeat to prevent the elite getting a foothold in the city it was revealed she'd been planning to get Apeiron a pre signed kill order solely because she'd had her media contacts already started on working on stories involving him having one to shift attention and blame onto him to save her career when from her words it'd probably result in him violently lashing out.
Eh that's small potatoes really to how all the undersiders other than Alec have been treating him especially Lisa and Taylor who had gotten way more than they deserved from him even before he gave them more stuff such as the bag, armour and garment costumes.
- Location
- Louisville KY
- Pronouns
- He/Him
There is absolutely no reason to apologize here. You posted a 6.3k word chapter (word count obtained by my notification alert) during a challenging time. I feel that you place to heavy of a burden on yourself. Remember, this is YOUR story that you're posting here.
Now, if this story is a form of relief from real life struggles and stresses, by all means keep knocking it out. However, if your real life headaches are being compounded IN ANY WAY by living up to some arbitrary timeline or "required length to be an acceptable level", please just learn to ignore those voices. Take care of yourself first.
- Location
- Auckland
Considering the multiple languages being spoken by the hostages, would Joe whip up a Star Trek universal translator?
Just to recap, what is this in reference to? Side effect of the Unholy Hour when shard space was breached?
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I can't wait for the polite straight man to encounter the friendly gift-giving fey. (Oddly, Joe doesn't count as only being taught by them once upon a time.)
I could see Joe leaving a crate of Star Trek Com Badges setup only for universal translation. (You know one for each person, national guard member, and any one remotely helping out.)
He could use that memory tech to somehow implant the memory of taking an English Fluency class into everyone in the area.
Knowing Joe, it'd be somewhere between the two. I could also see his entire team not needing it having learned every human local language on the planet just in case.
Matrix will be creating tons of odds and ends for everyone. I'd love for Joe to make everyone's clothing. I could see why Joe would rather Matrix do it though. They'd all be Joe's official-looking fanatics in lightly armored all-climate clothing if Joe made stuff for them.
Armstrong will discover that Blasto is in BB trying to babysit some lost garden kids while somehow leaving its entanglement/employment. I could see that minor comment amusing Armstrong to no end.
Armstrong will be in luck when he asks about any medical stuff for Weld. I could see Joe mentioning trying or hoping to get a general case solution giving any Case 53 their natural human changer form based on their soul.
Poor guy will end up making a comment and end up getting something other than a door prize. O.k. it might just as well be a door prize for Joe.
Will Joe have learned how to make clingy soul-bound items? You know so his gifts don't wander off or get stolen/broken from those he gives them to.
I could see Joe leaving a crate of Star Trek Com Badges setup only for universal translation. (You know one for each person, national guard member, and any one remotely helping out.)
He could use that memory tech to somehow implant the memory of taking an English Fluency class into everyone in the area.
Knowing Joe, it'd be somewhere between the two. I could also see his entire team not needing it having learned every human local language on the planet just in case.
Matrix will be creating tons of odds and ends for everyone. I'd love for Joe to make everyone's clothing. I could see why Joe would rather Matrix do it though. They'd all be Joe's official-looking fanatics in lightly armored all-climate clothing if Joe made stuff for them.
Armstrong will discover that Blasto is in BB trying to babysit some lost garden kids while somehow leaving its entanglement/employment. I could see that minor comment amusing Armstrong to no end.
Armstrong will be in luck when he asks about any medical stuff for Weld. I could see Joe mentioning trying or hoping to get a general case solution giving any Case 53 their natural human changer form based on their soul.
Poor guy will end up making a comment and end up getting something other than a door prize. O.k. it might just as well be a door prize for Joe.
Will Joe have learned how to make clingy soul-bound items? You know so his gifts don't wander off or get stolen/broken from those he gives them to.
From what I remember, March managed to collapse the electrical grid of the East Coast (I am not sure if it was done by using Bakuda's EMP bomb), as part of the ABB assaults, in order to keep the surrounding departments occupied and to have more freedom of action in Brockton Bay.
- Location
- Miami
It was the ABB's opening move the night of the storage facility fight where Joe saved the Undersiders.
In canon Bakuda had a mega emp designed to effect a very large area but after the villains beat the ABB capes the heroes were able to stop it going off. In bcf with March's help they got it ready and used it earlier with her power helping make it more effective too especially since she tipped off other villains like Blasto and the Teeth to have them atk taking advantage of the chaos basically so they'd be too busy to help the bay.
I don't think it was an EMP so much as destabilizing the electrical grid with specific timing. An EMP on that scale would destroy every electronic device in BB.
- Location
- United States of America
Bakuda didn't have the time to complete her giant EMP, but by knocking out parts of the electric grid with specific timing, March and Bakuda were able to disrupt power to the majority of the Northeastern section of the US. March told a bunch of villain groups ahead of time which further tied up various regional forces to prevent any timely intervention by other PRT departments. Not that they would have probably been all that timely anyway, but it definitely dragged things out further while explicitly making life harder for everyone else in the affected areas.
Another great chapter! Thank you for continuing to work on this story despite issues IRL. Obviously, your physical and emotional health have priority but we enjoy your work.
I predict Armstrong is going to be very uncomfortable in the next chapter.
Matrix and Tetra are going to be showing off skills and abilities which surpass any other parahuman Armstrong has ever seen (except, perhaps, Eidolon) while showing respect and deference to Apeiron. Meanwhile, Joe will be moving about among the traumatized survivors like superohero-Jesus, healing bodies and souls.
Elvish singing? At this point Joe's voice is magical when he just murmurs. A simple greeting, learning a patient's name, and a short conversation in which Joe says "you are strong", "have hope", "everything will be okay if we work together" WILL be a life-changing experience.
I'm imaging a crowd of people smiling, weeping, and embracing each other by the time Apeiron is ready to leave, Armstrong being objectively aware that he should probably be concerned about Master effects but feeling holistically better than at any other time in his life, then one of the Forge crew casually mentioning as they are leaving that the S9 has finally gotten close enough to Brockton to justify action by the Forge.
I predict Armstrong is going to be very uncomfortable in the next chapter.
Matrix and Tetra are going to be showing off skills and abilities which surpass any other parahuman Armstrong has ever seen (except, perhaps, Eidolon) while showing respect and deference to Apeiron. Meanwhile, Joe will be moving about among the traumatized survivors like superohero-Jesus, healing bodies and souls.
Elvish singing? At this point Joe's voice is magical when he just murmurs. A simple greeting, learning a patient's name, and a short conversation in which Joe says "you are strong", "have hope", "everything will be okay if we work together" WILL be a life-changing experience.
I'm imaging a crowd of people smiling, weeping, and embracing each other by the time Apeiron is ready to leave, Armstrong being objectively aware that he should probably be concerned about Master effects but feeling holistically better than at any other time in his life, then one of the Forge crew casually mentioning as they are leaving that the S9 has finally gotten close enough to Brockton to justify action by the Forge.
Pretty sure Joe had also decided to inform him of the whole people are praying to him and some of them will get weird visions thing which will probably get annoying with how pushy the prt and Armstrong himself proved to be during their first call with that stuff.
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This made me think about that comment Joe made about Kid Win and his BFG. The whole he was betting on the villains caring more about civilian casualties than he did. The attempted kill order stunt was Piggot betting that Aperion is more stable than her and cares more about collateral damage and the stability of the city than she does. I mean... She would be right but she should have no reason to believe that with everything else she's doing.
Honestly I think that the only way Piggot actually could avoid jail at this point would be If she bit the bullet and revoked all her directoral orders. Basically she puts out the statement that she admits she fucked up and completely mishandled the situation. With how the situation has changed removing all the mandates is the best course of action. Basically she admits she messed up, but doesn't take criminal responsibility for it. It would get her fired even harder, yeah, but that changes nothing. Even then still a high chance of her getting jail time. Basically she might be able to convince people that her going to jail is a waste of effort. There is no world where she blame shifts enough to avoid jail. Trying will just make it worse.
Star Trek translators are insane. Some of the best Sci-fi tech I can think of.
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That's the thing; she wants to but she can't. It's an element of the master/stranger protection rules that makes sense on paper but is hugely impractical in action. Basically a Director can't revoke their own directives without evidence they are no longer needed or were misapplied, in order to prevent infiltrators just impersonating or forcing a Director to revoke specific orders regarding themselves (or other capes they associate with I guess). But between the apparently solid evidence of Armsmaster's polygraph, Panacea's testimony, and the disappearance of Persephone's Rainbow along with the technician who was examining it they don't really have room to claim misapplication without a full investigation, while the "no longer needed" bit is stymied by the ongoing crisis directly involving the cape in question. Oh and the crisis is also killing their ability to actually perform that investigation as well; between the physical damage done to the city, the massive death and injury toll among the city's first-responder population, and the deployment of PRT resources to cover for them she's got nothing else left.
Basically it's a bureaucratic flustercluck wrapped in an emergency crisis protocol and dipped in systemic failure sauce.
Edit: fixed artefact label
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- Location
- Miami
A great summary of Piggot's problems. And it's Persephone's Rainbow.
Piggot: I wonder if I can shoot myself in the foot harder?
BagFullOfLizards
Some bag, mostly lizards
- Location
- A bag
I mean, she's a young teen, it makes sense that she has trouble getting herself to do something as awkward as this. And it's not like she's trying to hide it anymore, she's encouraged both Alex and Joe to come to the gym at the same time in the next day or two at which point they'll figure everything out. Her timescale of "I'll let Joe know about this in a day or two" is entirely reasonable, it just feels like it's taking forever since we're operating on Aperion time.
- Location
- The Temple of the Winds
That joke will never get old
Aperion time. The only time slower is government time. We don't talk about government time.
- Location
- Florida
I really love these chapters.
The 3rd person interlude view of him is so much better than usual.
I really think you should reverse the way you're doing the chapters. He's very much at the point of almost being TOO powerful for the setting and he's getting stronger. That's fine by itself, but it's jarring.
Making 3rd party characters the primary focus would allow you to get so much more done and further exemplify just how ridiculous he is right now. It would also allow the plot to speed up a bit, which is something a lot of people complain about.
The interludes could then be from his POV and remind us he's a normal guy.
The 3rd person interlude view of him is so much better than usual.
I really think you should reverse the way you're doing the chapters. He's very much at the point of almost being TOO powerful for the setting and he's getting stronger. That's fine by itself, but it's jarring.
Making 3rd party characters the primary focus would allow you to get so much more done and further exemplify just how ridiculous he is right now. It would also allow the plot to speed up a bit, which is something a lot of people complain about.
The interludes could then be from his POV and remind us he's a normal guy.