Brockton's Celestial Forge (Worm/Jumpchain)

[TitanFrost]

I could be wrong, but I thought they would become available after any constellation got completed with the capstone perks taking the old constellations' place.

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That is basically how I imagined it. A constellation is completed and its capstone constellation takes its place.

I bet when Joe finally unlocks one he'll have an easier time building up reach, cause every time he roles on a capstone constellation he'll be super unlikely to get anything he can afford. No stray perks between 100 to 400 CP to suck up his points in a capstone constellation.

 

[SCO]

The 'madness place' is just typical tinker behavior anyway. No one will be surprised a powerful tinker has screws loose (except him).

They already think this in fact.

 

[Kris-71854]

I doubt Aperiron would be showing up on anyone's future sight radar at the moment. He might confuse her when folks mention him though. He has interrupted Taylor's development but is also devoted to keeping her alive.

Joe's personality is rather predictable. What tools that he has in his toy box isn't or what he may spring at any given moment. At the moment, Apeiron likely shows to be a non-entity to most future paths.

He won't really be making major moves until he has some precog blockers and maybe being able to black-box his tech. Oddly, I can see him mixed on that front. He'd want to share tech with the world, but villains, idiots, and endbringers would make that a bad idea. It'd be one thing to use his tech to upgrade/rebuild the city, but he couldn't just give them the tech to do it themselves.

At one point, I'd have said the best way to handle Joe would be to give him a girlfriend. Now that might not be as effective since he has that flirting/teasing perk.

O.k. the real best way to handle Joe? Have random event kill his parents and injure his sister just enough where she can't keep going to her chosen college and needs to find someone to move in with. Though, Joe isn't talking to his family that doesn't mean he wouldn't help them if one showed up on his doorstep. Hell, he might want them to go away and never to show up again. That doesn't mean he'd have much luck with that.

 

[Cheetored20]

I doubt Aperiron would be showing up on anyone's future sight radar at the moment. He might confuse her when folks mention him though. He has interrupted Taylor's development but is also devoted to keeping her alive.

Joe's personality is rather predictable. What tools that he has in his toy box isn't or what he may spring at any given moment. At the moment, Apeiron likely shows to be a non-entity to most future paths.

He won't really be making major moves until he has some precog blockers and maybe being able to black-box his tech. Oddly, I can see him mixed on that front. He'd want to share tech with the world, but villains, idiots, and endbringers would make that a bad idea. It'd be one thing to use his tech to upgrade/rebuild the city, but he couldn't just give them the tech to do it themselves.

At one point, I'd have said the best way to handle Joe would be to give him a girlfriend. Now that might not be as effective since he has that flirting/teasing perk.

O.k. the real best way to handle Joe? Have random event kill his parents and injure his sister just enough where she can't keep going to her chosen college and needs to find someone to move in with. Though, Joe isn't talking to his family that doesn't mean he wouldn't help them if one showed up on his doorstep. Hell, he might want them to go away and never to show up again. That doesn't mean he'd have much luck with that.

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Sounds like something that could happen post leviathan? Just after leviathan? Would make an interesting narative twist that's for sure.

 

[The Shallow]

Sounds like something that could happen post leviathan? Just after leviathan? Would make an interesting narative twist that's for sure.

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His other sister doesn't go to Brockton U(destroyed by leviathan), so I'd be confused if she couldn't just move back to her dorm, but in such a scenario I can imagine Joe agreeing to drive her to Boston/Chicago(I forget where Alena lives), but I can't see him letting her move in. I could see him helping keep herself afloat in a dead economy by like helping her with rent, but that would need some unlikely reconciliation.

 

[Nimeroni]

If he ever meets eidolon I would go as far as to say that it is very likely that he straight up murders him to stop the endbringers

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Ediolon only awoke and control Endbringers. Kill Ediolon and the Endbringers return to their default programming, which may be much, much worse for humanity.

With Ediolon, the best solution isn't to kill him, it's to solve is crippling self esteem issue. Or alternatively tell him he control the Endbringers so that he can attempt to control them intentionally. After all, Friendbringers would help a lot against Scion.

Cauldron might not kill a powerful parahuman, but they should have no qualms dooring the Slug in at night to wipe his brain.

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They can't do that to Joe. Doormaker work in tandem with Clairevoyant (to get the coordinate of where to open the door), since his workshok is secure against scrying, they cannot door in there.

And Joe always sleep in his workshop.

His constantly changing powers might throw her for a loop, but his personality sure won't

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His personality can change, that's what threw March away last chapter. In addition, Joe's passenger is likely very hostile to Cauldron, so Joe might not even listen to Contessa.

 

[MagnificentMind]

With Ediolon, the best solution isn't to kill him, it's to solve is crippling self esteem issue. Or alternatively tell him he control the Endbringers so that he can attempt to control them intentionally. After all, Friendbringers would help a lot against Scion.

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It would be a great solution if not for the fact that having said knowledge would raise so many alarm bells with Cauldron for the mere fact that someone was able to discover such information in the first place when they themselves couldn't. The moment Cauldron discovers this they would mobilize, especially so once they realize what kind of information it is. Certainly they would make use of the information gained, but the person who discovered it? it will either be join, die or be mind wiped and watched for the rest of their lives

 

[AntaeusTheGiant]

it will either be join, die or be mind wiped and watched for the rest of their lives

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It really depends on how serious they actually are about their stated goals, doesn't it? If the path says Joe will help them with their goals more effectively without these things, they will do that. What I really want to know is: what if their Paths and batteries of various Precogs agree that the best way to achieve their goals was to place themselves under new management? I thought about this when I was considering the effect a MTG Planeswalker would have on the Worm setting. If Path to increasing powers and numbers of Parahumans had a step saying, swear permanent allegiance to the Planeswalker and subject yourself to her suzerainty, would they actually do such a thing? Even if long term Precogs showed her remaining in control of the planet, and nearby alternate ones as well, far into the future? While Joe isn't quite at that level yet, he may at some point in the future be able to induce anyone to get a random psychic ability, awaken people's auras, create personalized items to help any- and every- one with whatever powers they already have, and make weapons of incredible quality on the wholesale. Why wouldn't Cauldron just say, okay, here we are, and you are now in charge. Do with us as you will.

My personal opinion is that they would not, because Path to Victory is actually Path to Victory thru as Much Conflict as Possible, but that is pure fanon, and I would be happy to hear what others think.

 

[MagnificentMind]

It really depends on how serious they actually are about their stated goals, doesn't it? If the path says Joe will help them with their goals more effectively without these things, they will do that. What I really want to know is: what if their Paths and batteries of various Precogs agree that the best way to achieve their goals was to place themselves under new management? I thought about this when I was considering the effect a MTG Planeswalker would have on the Worm setting. If Path to increasing powers and numbers of Parahumans had a step saying, swear permanent allegiance to the Planeswalker and subject yourself to her suzerainty, would they actually do such a thing? Even if long term Precogs showed her remaining in control of the planet, and nearby alternate ones as well, far into the future? While Joe isn't quite at that level yet, he may at some point in the future be able to induce anyone to get a random psychic ability, awaken people's auras, create personalized items to help any- and every- one with whatever powers they already have, and make weapons of incredible quality on the wholesale. Why wouldn't Cauldron just say, okay, here we are, and you are now in charge. Do with us as you will.

My personal opinion is that they would not, because Path to Victory is actually Path to Victory thru as Much Conflict as Possible, but that is pure fanon, and I would be happy to hear what others think.

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That would be a very interesting scenario to see. Though if it were to actually happen, I think majority would play it safe and see how it goes piecemeal. If it works, I assume Contessa, Doctor Mother, Legend and Alexandria would go with it if it meant saving the world regardless of what would happen to them. Number Man would probably be neutral but would go along with it if the rest of the group does and his powers indicate that it is the best course of action. Eidolon ironically would likely be the most hesitant because of his pride and the fact that before all this he was parahuman #1 with no equal and Cauldron's only trump card and has been going on the majority of his hero life with that in mind. Swearing allegiance to a Planeswalker would basically mean that that isn't the case anymore and that the situation he has been preparing for basically the entirety of his hero life is now vastly different.

 

[KnightofRoyalty]

It really depends on how serious they actually are about their stated goals, doesn't it? If the path says Joe will help them with their goals more effectively without these things, they will do that. What I really want to know is: what if their Paths and batteries of various Precogs agree that the best way to achieve their goals was to place themselves under new management? I thought about this when I was considering the effect a MTG Planeswalker would have on the Worm setting. If Path to increasing powers and numbers of Parahumans had a step saying, swear permanent allegiance to the Planeswalker and subject yourself to her suzerainty, would they actually do such a thing? Even if long term Precogs showed her remaining in control of the planet, and nearby alternate ones as well, far into the future? While Joe isn't quite at that level yet, he may at some point in the future be able to induce anyone to get a random psychic ability, awaken people's auras, create personalized items to help any- and every- one with whatever powers they already have, and make weapons of incredible quality on the wholesale. Why wouldn't Cauldron just say, okay, here we are, and you are now in charge. Do with us as you will.

My personal opinion is that they would not, because Path to Victory is actually Path to Victory thru as Much Conflict as Possible, but that is pure fanon, and I would be happy to hear what others think.

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I also don't think cauldron will be willing to be under new management of Joe even when he is powerful. Cauldron not only wants to stop scion but also manage countries parahumans so they don't fall to chaos hence being in control of the prt and creating experiments in cities like BB which is why they have so low members since they don't trust many people outside their circle, so I dont think they will trust Joe with their responsibility and instead find a way to still hold control over him.

The other reason in my opinion would be a psychological one of sunk cost fallacy especially for Alexandria. They have done a lot of horrible and cruel actions with the justifications and mentality of being for the greater good which is why I think if Joe goes into them and with his passenger basically goes "yea all that stuff you did was not necessary and you should all stop" most members (especially Alexandria in my opinion) will rather call bull than face with the harsh truth that all their cruelty and sacrifices were meaningless.

Edit:
Also it wouldn't help that Joes passenger hates the majority of cauldron members (ESPECIALLY with Alexandria) to sway their trust to him and his "thinker" power

 

[Nimeroni]

Certainly they would make use of the information gained, but the person who discovered it? it will either be join, die or be mind wiped and watched for the rest of their lives

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None of those would work.

Cauldron will have a hard time killing Apeiron, he can only be damaged by annihilator effect. In addition, Apeiron can help against Scion. Finally, if Apeiron have those (metaphoricall) bombs, he might have very damaging intel on Cauldron too, things like "the PRT director is Alexandria", so he might set a dead man switch releasing those info to the world. For Cauldron, that's a lot of risk, a lot of work, for 0 benefits.

Apeiron joining Cauldron would be ideal for Cauldron, but his passenger have fanon opinion of Cauldron, so that won't happen.

As for mind wipping Apeiron, they can't do it in his sleep, and doing it while he is awake is putting The Slug at extreme risk. In addition, it risk wipping the useful knowledge still in Apeiron's brain.

 

[AntaeusTheGiant]

Now, I could see Cauldron deciding to just exile Joe to some rando alternate Earth like they did with Goddess, where he could build up in peace far away from their convoluted plans. And actually, that might be an interesting story, having Joe uplift an entire planet, perhaps even to interstellar space flight, without interference from Simurgh and others (while she did reach to Earth Aleph that one time, she is usually just limited to Earth Bet, right?). Though I guess if it got that far, Scion might get involved if he still even cared enough..

 

[MagnificentMind]

None of those would work.

Cauldron will have a hard time killing Apeiron, he can only be damaged by annihilator effect. In addition, Apeiron can help against Scion. Finally, if Apeiron have those (metaphoricall) bombs, he might have very damaging intel on Cauldron too, things like "the PRT director is Alexandria", so he might set a dead man switch releasing those info to the world.

Apeiron joining Cauldron would be ideal for Cauldron, but his passenger have fanon opinion of Cauldron, so that won't happen.

As for mind wipping Apeiron, they can't do it in his sleep, and doing it while he is awake is putting The Slug at extreme risk. In addition, it risk wipping the useful knowledge still in Apeiron's brain.

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True enough after giving it some more thought. Though if Cauldron does plan on dealing with Aperion I'm pretty certain they would go for pushing scenarios where Aperion is forced to see their way indirectly, as in, being put into a position where he has to choose between two evils multiple times before actually going up to him and getting him to join the group or simply manipulating the situation from far away so that Aperion would deal with their issues for them or simply so that they don't come into conflict and risk a loss of an potential high-value asset such as Aperion before the final battle.

Despite Cauldron being seen by the fan base as largely incompetent given their list of failures, I think otherwise seeing as how they managed to manipulate entire governments and parahuman groups besides for several years successfully despite mounting odds and rapidly shifting situations.

 

[Lightwavers]

None of those would work.

Cauldron will have a hard time killing Apeiron, he can only be damaged by annihilator effect. In addition, Apeiron can help against Scion. Finally, if Apeiron have those (metaphoricall) bombs, he might have very damaging intel on Cauldron too, things like "the PRT director is Alexandria", so he might set a dead man switch releasing those info to the world. For Cauldron, that's a lot of risk, a lot of work, for 0 benefits.

Apeiron joining Cauldron would be ideal for Cauldron, but his passenger have fanon opinion of Cauldron, so that won't happen.

As for mind wipping Apeiron, they can't do it in his sleep, and doing it while he is awake is putting The Slug at extreme risk. In addition, it risk wipping the useful knowledge still in Apeiron's brain.

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I think you've got the wrong idea of how the majority of readers view Cauldron. Yes, they're morally very gray, but most people understand that without them, there would be absolutely no chance of survival. So while his Passenger may project feelings of apprehension and distrust, it's not going to respond to them as it would, say, Coil or Jack Slash.

 

[klassekatze]

Don't they have the Nemesis Program, the program that relies almost entirely on mind control?

It's also stated that their back-up plan if parahuman feudalism is to mind control the villains using the Slug. So that means that mind control is viable.

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Nemesis program is an offhand thing where they MC a weaker C53 to get foiled by the customer, and it probably fails after a while too - it just doesn't matter because they use it on 'weak' 'trash'. We also only hear about it as mentioned to customers who are paying funny money in a giant charade designed to make them scared of Cauldron and more obedient vis a vis repaying their 'dues'.

I can find no evidence of it being a real backup plan beyond a C53 mob ringleader talking shit hyping people to bodily rip Doctor Mother to pieces. When they invaded Cauldron. Damn, too bad they didn't Slug all those C53s before dumping them, this mind control is shit I demand a refund...

So we have one kinda situation with dubious mind control versus them having Alex personally handle the PRT, seeding the PRT with Cauldron capes, not MCing Nilbog - even if we assume they are evulz trying to spam triggers there's no excuse there. nobody is triggering in Ellisburg - or Ash Beast or the like...

I mean, we can't have it both ways. Either Cauldron is moral or they ain't, and if they ain't and they don't go MAXIMUM MIND CONTROL it's because they can't. Unless we've got a better explanation that isn't "well they're just dumb" or "Wildbow is just bad author okay" or "God Contessa did it".

IMO it's easy to believe Cauldron isn't half as omnipotent as they like everyone else to think they are - I don't know why some people would rather the setting collapse into a ball of contradictions than consider it.

I suspect it's because then they can't be blamed for everything wrong with Worm - instead of 'Cauldron made everything shit' it would be 'people are shit' like in RL, and there's not such an easy fix-fic for that.

 

[AntaeusTheGiant]

Well, I would say the main limitation on Cauldron is their limited numbers. They are just too few to control billions of people on dozens of worlds all at the same time. And even if Contessa can do anything she wants, it doesn't mean she can do everything all at once. The number of paths she runs eventually becomes limited by what she can do/order to be done by the people they have available. And all of this is only possible at all because Wildbow created a very deterministic Universe, where there is little if any free will or actual multiple choices to be made by most people. If all the billions of people each had multiple varieties of choices they could make every time people believe they are making decisions, all the vaunted Paths would quickly involve thousands of steps and become impractical in minutes.

AAAand, now I'm drifting far off topic. I'll be quiet on this issue for a while now.

 

[Lightwavers]

Well, I would say the main limitation on Cauldron is their limited numbers. They are just too few to control billions of people on dozens of worlds all at the same time. And even if Contessa can do anything she wants, it doesn't mean she can do everything all at the same time. The number of paths she runs eventually becomes limited by what she can do/order to be done by the people they have available. And all of this is only possible at all because Wildbow created a very deterministic Universe, where there is little if any free will or actual multiple choices to be made by most people. If all the billions of people each had multiple varieties of choices they could make every time people believe they are making decisions, all the vaunted Paths would quickly involve thousands of steps and become impractical in minutes.

AAAand, now I'm drifting far off topic. I'll be quiet on this issue for a while now.

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The universe is deterministic—the world where a large enough computer can predict exactly what you'll do is our world. It's impractical in real life, of course, but theoretically, given the starting conditions of the universe, it's possible to know exactly what you'll eat for breakfast tomorrow, or what sequence of words will get you to go skydiving in a year.

 

[AntaeusTheGiant]

The universe is deterministic—the world where a large enough computer can predict exactly what you'll do is our world. It's impractical in real life, of course, but theoretically, given the starting conditions of the universe, it's possible to know exactly what you'll eat for breakfast tomorrow, or what sequence of words will get you to go skydiving in a year.

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Ah yes, that is exactly why I thought I was drifting off topic, this is an issue people can discuss forever. I remember when I was younger, and still had friends, we would talk about issues such as this late into the night. The mathematician and the psychologist were both absolutely convinced of determinism, while the historian and the English major were not having it. The Tyranny of Causality I think the discussions were eventually called, and it was one of our ongoing continuing arguments. Ahh, to have had a social life...

 

[Sterlyn]

The universe is deterministic—the world where a large enough computer can predict exactly what you'll do is our world. It's impractical in real life, of course, but theoretically, given the starting conditions of the universe, it's possible to know exactly what you'll eat for breakfast tomorrow, or what sequence of words will get you to go skydiving in a year.

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Obviously in theory of course, the computer example is essentially saying it's omniscient and that of course you can't really argue against. But considering how wonky things get when you look deeper into physics and the unknown and even within the tiniest of deviations within the computer itself, it could be just as easy to disregard it if you were to try a realistic approach so no, it isn't possible. I think it's easy to look in hindsight and come up with reasons why such an event was "always meant to happen" but it's a bit more complicated than that.

 

[TitanFrost]

I can't imagine anything good happening to Joe's social life if he ever realizes he's the only person with a real soul and free will in a soulless deterministic universe. Well, I guess we don't technically know if souls don't exist in Worm, as the oft quoted word of god only ever stated that the existence of souls doesn't matter to entities and whatnot. So it's basically as much a mystery as it is in real life. But that'd just be such an entertaining fucked up thing to happen if Joe suddenly felt like every other human he ever talked to was just a meat robot. Maybe such a realization would give him the urge to actively spread Alchemy around, as being able to perform Alchemy needs you to have a soul and thus a gate.

 

[Primal Lord]

Wasn't sure if you'd noticed Lord but when I checked the list of possible powers I noticed that Feel It Out/ Synchronicity Event is repeated three times. Manufacturing Line is also still present on the list even though he already has that power. Might I suggest replacing those with new powers?

 

[arromdee]

Logically, the fact that Cauldron doesn't just solve all their problems with mind control strongly implies that they can't.

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If they were that hands on Capes like the Siberian, Lung, or a variety of other S-class threats wouldn't just be running around

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That just means that Wildbow wrote Cauldron with certain abilities and desires, and didn't follow up on it. They certainly *should* have done that to at least Manton. (I read a story with a SI in the Siberian, and the SI was in constant trouble that seemed partly caused by Cauldron. This of course raised the question of why Cauldron didn't do that to the original Siberian.) Failing to stop Lung is explained by the Brockton Bay experiment. Of course they could also fail to stop a SI for the same reason, if the SI never leaves the city.

 

[Slentoru]

I can't imagine anything good happening to Joe's social life if he ever realizes he's the only person with a real soul and free will in a soulless deterministic universe. Well, I guess we don't technically know if souls don't exist in Worm, as the oft quoted word of god only ever stated that the existence of souls doesn't matter to entities and whatnot. So it's basically as much a mystery as it is in real life. But that'd just be such an entertaining fucked up thing to happen if Joe suddenly felt like every other human he ever talked to was just a meat robot. Maybe such a realization would give him the urge to actively spread Alchemy around, as being able to perform Alchemy needs you to have a soul and thus a gate.

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Well, then it's good for Joe's social life that it will never happen, because Lord mentioned that in BCF's continuity humans have souls(or something like that) and some shards even accidentally interact with them(Butcher's as an example).

Huh, Deja Vu.

 

[TitanFrost]

Well, then it's good for Joe's social life that it will never happen, because Lord mentioned that in BCF's continuity humans have souls(or something like that) and some shards even accidentally interact with them(Butcher's as an example).

Huh, Deja Vu.

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I thought that was just Lord explaining how Shard's saving their host's consciousness and other such related phenomena equated to soul manipulation under the forge's magic equivalency rules, but I guess that's fair. Even if souls only exist in others as a result of Joe's perks treating the world as if they exist, that's not much different from them just existing all along, at least from his perspective.

 

[TerraBull]

I am actually surprised on one point.

Not seeing Coils involvement.

I mean, I thought for sure we would be seeing throw-away timelines where Aperion is wrecking his stuff.