Given it's stated capabilites and the universes the tech was sourced from I disagree, it should of been completely impossible barring Oni Lee gaining extra powers of some sort or Joe juggling idiot balls while designing the Motoroid.
I think a lot of people are for getting that the motorized was already taken out by the time Joe was surrounded. We don't know specifically what took it out but it's reasonable to assume there was a bakuda bomb/March sting crossover of some sort that could have taken the motoroid and drones out in one go. So his point defenses were gone at that point. He did the smart thing and tried to nope the fuck out of there but that was accounted for by bullshit tinker powers which are canonically bullshit. So here is joe with no point defense to kill the oniclones as they pop up and Oni Lee knows exactly when and where to teleport to ahead of time because of the aforementioned tinker powers coupled with the stated cause of the shards pushing their powers to 11 cause they want some of that good data I think it's entirely logical that joe could find himself in that situation. One that pushed him to his limits and one he survived
Edit: the motoroid was something that had been seen before and had only received a few Arsenal upgrades in this last go round not a full remodel. So t is well within reason that between bakuda March and leet they were able to figure out some countermeasure for it.
I'm not talking about the ball of doom which also seems dubious given the problems involved in getting the line of sight necessary to perfectly surround someone like that in an instant given how his cloning works.
I'm talking about when he somehow teleported next to and blew up the flying power armor with point defence systems specifically designed to prevent him from doing that.
Honestly, while the technical quality of writing continued to be good, and I did generally enjoy the chapter, I found myself paging down and skim-reading a decent chunk of the fight because... well... the details stopped hooking me in. The feeling that it'll be yet another clash of titans with no significant resolution, the general sense (even with the Shard realization) that it's the lightsaber/Death Star scenario...
I honestly just kind of want the story to move on from March. The clashes have become... less interesting. What about the ongoing issues with the PRT - which can't be solved by sufficient violence? Or the "mastered" Dragon? Or the internal issues?
I suspect the author forgot about that... or that it would obliviate the need for a "second berserk wind" scenario. It's kind of irksome, since in that case it could have simply been neglected earlier to get the same result.
Honestly, I feel like March's strike power has been made a bit... overdone. Yes, it's omnidimensional and so on - but Apeiron runs partially on things completely outside the context of dimensions or Shard understanding. That's why (supposedly) the Shards are unlocking restrictions around him, after all.
It just feels like a weakness of the story. Not to sell what it does well short, but... yeah, that kind of thing is part of what's fueling my lesser interest in combat in this story.
I'm not talking about the ball of doom which also seems dubious given the problems involved in getting the line of sight necessary to perfectly surround someone like that in an instant given how his cloning works.
I'm talking about when he somehow teleported next to and blew up the flying power armor with point defence systems specifically designed to prevent him from doing that.
And in the story it was clearly marked out that the Motoroid and drones were not immune to some new stealth tech. That was why Joe was picking the sources of them off. A stealth tech that seemed based on the writing to force the motoroid into being only capable of shoot on sight when it came to Lee. As I pointed out in my previous post. (which was probably not as well worded as it should have been.)
It'd had been seen before yes but the one he deployed previously was basically a completely different machine after the week of upgrades that went into the new one. If there was some kind of other super effective super weapon they would of used it to kill Joe so I think it's safe to assume this was supposed to have been caused by Oni Lee + sting.
And in the story it was clearly marked out that the Motoroid and drones were not immune to some new stealth tech. That was why Joe was picking the sources of them off. A stealth tech that seemed based on the writing to force the motoroid into being only capable of shoot on sight when it came to Lee. As I pointed out in my previous post. (which was probably not as well worded as it should have been.)
Whatever the stealth tech was it didn't block camera's and given the motoroid is piloted by an AI the difference between aim time governed by scanners and camera's should be imperceptible.
Still reading the comments (lol we produce a lot of comments this time^^).
I wonder if the Author's thoughts and the same for the other using the forge in their writings of pre rolls.
And by pre rolls I mean just rolling ahead since the amount of rolls would be similar (+- the writing 'fuel') that could help with planning ahead since they would already know what rolls they got.
In the other hand that probably is less fun for them. Exactly because they already know when X amount of right (+-) will lead to x perk.
Edit: grammar and writing to make it more clean (I hope)^^.
It'd had been seen before yes but the one he deployed previously was basically a completely different machine after the week of upgrades that went into the new one. If there was some kind of other super effective super weapon they would of used it to kill Joe so I think it's safe to assume this was supposed to have been caused by Oni Lee + sting.
Whatever the stealth tech was it didn't block camera's and given the motoroid is piloted by an AI the difference between aim time governed by scanners and camera's should be imperceptible.
While true the aim time would be largely negligiable for anyone other then Bullshit Timing Thinkers, being restricted to camera's only also means one very glaring weakness becomes exploitable. Blindspots. And, while it is an assumption, and really a theory, Fleet isn't exactly a tactical AI. There's a good chance that in his position as overwatch he had all the cameras trained on the ground and Apheiron, and could have left himself vulnerable from above. I mean, none of these capes their up against can fly or have jet boards. They are the ones with superiority and dominion in the skies. No way will they dive bomb us.
I'm not talking about the ball of doom which also seems dubious given the problems involved in getting the line of sight necessary to perfectly surround someone like that in an instant given how his cloning works.
I'm talking about when he somehow teleported next to and blew up the flying power armor with point defence systems specifically designed to prevent him from doing that.
Ablative armor and sacrificial clones? Contessa bullshit cause it happenned offscreen?
And yes, powers are being presented as stronger. Supposedly, having his shard highjacked by the forge made it interesting enough that passengers are removing limitations.
I suspect the author forgot about that... or that it would obliviate the need for a "second berserk wind" scenario. It's kind of irksome, since in that case it could have simply been neglected earlier to get the same result.
He was too short on time to drink the potion (or cast the formula - he have both I think). Although I think Lord should have pointed that explicitly in the text.
"Re-markable." She sang. "You really did it. You saw it as well." She whispered conspiratorially. I felt my reforming guts wrench at the implications of her words. "But you didn't use it. Why? If you could pull back the curtain like that, why move on?" She shook her head. "Such a shame. Someone who can reach the agents, but decided to move on. I don't know the kind of look you got, how it worked, but to mistake the finish line for a stepping stone? I'll never understand that."
[...]
"Oh," She leaned over me and crooned. "Is that regret? Disappointment? Someone didn't grab the brass ring when they had the chance and now it's slipping away." The motoroid sparked again and March glanced towards it. "Did you even know what you had, or was it buried under all that other technology? So many new ideas that you let the best one pass you by."
[...]
"Don't worry." March whispered. "I'll make sure it's put to good use. So many doors opening, and we'll be together again, forever." She paused and looked down. "Well, not you. Shame. Alone forever. And you could have had eternity." She looked to her blade, then paused before reaching towards me. "Oh, one last thing before the last thing. I promised Bakuda I'd give you a present, especially from her. Unfortunately, she wasn't able to get her toys ready before you decided to send that inconsiderate houseguest of a robot, so this will have to do."
Now perhaps it didn't pick up the last paragraph, and either way March sounds kind of nuts, but given the sheer magnitude of what Apeiron (and March!) have done lately, the way all the 'rules' and soft limits of how powers work have been broken, this should create some serious conspiracy theories on PHO. Even worse with the PRT, depending on how much Triumph does (or does not) remember of the timing - her saying these things in response to the motoroid provoking something in them all.
More potentially troublesome is the use of the term 'agents.'
Shards are a secret. Bonesaw calls them passengers, Scion (I think) thought of them as shards, or rather that was the word used in the feeble translation of his thoughts that constituted his interlude.
Cauldron calls them agents. They do not call them agents with customers, or with consultants. March's wiki page says she was resuscitated at one point by a Cauldron team, but it has no cite, so I can't see any contextual details. But I don't see them discussing something like that with her. She's the definition of a bad idea, a nutter who can't be reliably predicted long term.
Which makes me wonder if she compromised Cauldron in some way at some point and gained access to sensitive data that even Bonesaw never managed.
Regardless, she's literally spelled out for the Triumvirate the implication that Apeiron may have achieved some sort of revelation or special insight into shards, implied that he's benefitting from this.
The implications - particularly in the response, as rational or irrational this all but demands the opening of dialogue with Apeiron, which so far as been avoided like the plague - are to the point I wonder if it's an error, if it wasn't meant to be that significant. But I think it is that significant as it stands.
Absent Doylist considerations, it doesn't seem possible for Cauldron or at least the PRT as their instrument to not cut the bullshit at this point. Chief Director-backed, board-approved slashing of red tape, one-sided-in-his-favor offers and invitations that Joe can't rationalize out of without beyond-Tayloresque delusions. Whatever it takes to clear the air and by extension introduce stability to the situation, yesterday, and if it gives the Powers That Be - in a PRT costume or a Cauldron one - the opportunity to have a conversation about this matter, well how convenient is that.
Frankly even all the other shit he's demonstrated should have crossed the threshold. But I'd argue that with this? For this clusterfuck of misunderstanding to be allowed - for that is what it would be - to continue by those in-the-know about Scion and the implications of that dialogue would be... possibly even more contrived than the fate of March.
Which... I guess means it could happen. Eh. We'll see, I guess!
Given the scale of the reaction to this chapter I wanted to try to address things before I began any of my usual spelling and grammar corrections and management of the thread.
Firstly, I want to thank everyone for supporting this story. Given how strong the reaction has been to the last chapter I can tell how much this story meant to people. I know disappointment like that doesn't happen unless someone is very invested.
I could begin by addressing specific points of the chapter, but I actually wanted to start with a general statement. I take full responsibility for the narrative decisions in this story. Some authors regard their works like the watchmaker analogy, that the world and characters exist largely independently of the author input. Plots happen because that's what certain characters would do in certain situations, rather than because the author wanted it to happen. It's the kind of mentality that lets you defend plot points by saying they were just the consequence of logical progression of the forces of your story, rather than a deliberate choice. It lets you avoid responsibility for the elements of your story.
In a way, Worm is especially bad about that, because it has plot device characters built into it. Contessa, March, and the Simurgh can be used to have contrivances while also pretending it's a natural interaction of characters. Really it just shifts the annoyance of the audience from the author to the characters.
Basically, I'm saying that things are happening because I'm choosing to write them that way, not because it's a perfect logical path for the characters. If the actions in the story come across as out of place then that's on me. I failed to set up, explain, or moderate an element of the story, and it broke people's suspension of disbelief.
So I could get into the exact technique Oni Lee was using to teleport, or the distinction between reaction speed and movement speed under life fibers, or how the aftermath of the attack affected Joe's mind and ability to function, but addressing those points here wouldn't fix the fact that I wasn't able to bring them across in the story.
This particular story is both easy and very challenging to write. The point mechanics makes it easy to keep writing and maintain a good speed, but managing pacing, story structure, or plot points is very difficult. I have probably thrown out a dozen fics worth of ideas because the story or Joe's powers moved in a way where they no longer fit. I am trying to maintain a consistent narrative with a short timeframe and advancing powers. Additionally, the serialized format of the story and the fact that chapters are weeks apart in real time while they take place within the span of hours in-story probably makes these problems worse.
Really, I never expected this story to become popular. I'm not trying to humblebrag, I just never figured I would get as devoted an audience with a concept like this. I'm very grateful to my reader base and am trying to maintain the quality of the writing, but I am a bit concerned that some of these issues may be fundamental problems with the structure of how the story is written. That it has gotten big enough that the cracks in the foundation are starting to show.
To try to address some of the concerns I wanted to clarify the status of things post-chapter, as well as provide some spoilers for the upcoming chapter. I do think leaving the addendum off was a mistake, particularly with how the chapter ended without it. It just reached the point where there was too much I wanted to include and didn't have the time or space for this week. I hope at least removing the uncertainty will help with the situation.
Lung:
Lung is gone. He has vanished and is not coming back. There is no real clarity on what happened to him, and the fact that his death cannot be confirmed is somewhat problematic. On the question of if he is really dead, the only way Lung could have survived is with specific PtV interference and the use of Doormaker. If that happened he's in a Cauldron box labeled 'break in case of Scion'. Either way, not part of the story any more.
Bakuda:
As stated, Bakuda has cancer. The exact nature isn't clear, but it's bad and going to get worse fast. It won't be long before the symptoms start stacking up, and there isn't a convenient cure that she can rig. Even if she could manage it she lost her main lab, and most of the ABB assets that weren't exposed in Monday's attack have been revealed by the second duplicate. She will probably have to go to Uber and Leet for support.
Oni Lee:
Joe's attack caused serious trauma, enough for significant blood loss from the initial strike. Lee is running on robot mode, so he has fallen back to a specific clinic he was instructed to use in the case of major injury and is currently in critical condition. Even if he gets healing tech he will be out of commission for a while.
March:
March went through the equivalent of a car accident. She is not currently dead, but has numerous horrible injuries that will shortly be fatal. Even immediate medical treatment would be hard pressed to save her after a hit like that. (Though I said I wouldn't defend the parts of the chapter that I failed to write clearly, March got hit by the equivalent of a backhand compared to the full body punch Lung received. That was why she wasn't immediately pasted)
The ABB:
For anyone who was worried that things were going back to the status quo, 'the ABB' is basically finished as an organization. They just lost the last of their holdings, their capes are dead or injured, and all of their members can be tracked thanks to Bakuda's bombs. Bakuda might be able to conceal the signal of a small team of troops, but the 'city wide conscripted army' is a dead concept. It does mean that the PRT will be responsible for collecting the conscripts and gang members and dealing with the bombs in their heads. Lung being gone without formerly being proven dead will put the organization in a weird limbo, but their days as a city power are over.
The next chapter will be an interlude from Victoria's perspective. It will get into her reaction to the events in the city, the situation with Amy, the hero side of the response to the attack, general reactions to the broadcasts involving Apeiron and the ABB, reactions to the public spectacle of the Lung fight, and the aftermath.
The interlude was going to be a short look at the hero's response to the situation, but too many things came together, so I decided it would be stronger as its own chapter. As I have said earlier, I believe that may have contributed to souring a number of people's reactions to this chapter.
For those who really need to know, here is what will happen with March next chapter. I acknowledge that this will probably leave some people frustrated and could cause them to abandon the story. To them I would like to say: Thank you for staying with it this long. I greatly appreciate your support and patronage for my first published story and am sorry to lose you as a reader.
March was critically injured by Apeiron, but was still conscious. She had severe damage to her right hand (what remained of it, anyway), as well as a shattered arm, broken ribs, broken legs, and damage to her organs. She was barely able to move, but with attention elsewhere she was able to crawl to the downed motoroid, which crashed nearby. With work she extracted the call gem from the magitek core and, in an act of desperation, used her striker power on it. This was a very bad thing and caused a great number of problems, but one of the effects it triggered allowed March to persist in a state that could be technically defined as 'alive'.
For the sake of readers who would prefer to avoid information on upcoming chapters I would like to ask everyone to use spoilers for any commentary on these details until they are revealed in the story.
I'm going to be blunt. The fact that you're forcing the situation(s) to occur as you want it instead of letting it flow naturally and/or having consequences/payoff is a very bad thing. It reeks of the same crap that James D. Fawkes does and has tried to defend.
Last I saw, he had tried to claim that he was going to make a twist and/or heroic spirit that no one would see coming, yet it turned out that many A) predicted the twist/hero, B) said twist/hero didn't even resolve the main problem of the Noelle arc, and C) many came up with better off the cuff ideas on how to resolve that arc. James refused to change the arc because he wanted that situation to occur and forced it to happen, rather than allowing the narrative to flow organically.
It is not a good writing style and forcing things to occur because you want them to occur leads to unnatural and unconvincing stakes/situations and (often unnecessary) plot holes.
Secondly, the fact that you're refusing to even (meta)confirm that Lung is killed - after making Joe deliberately ignoring the true threats to himself and dedicating the majority of the update word count to Lung! -just reeks of desperation to keep any and all villains in play because you have no real plans after March/Bakuda/Oni Lee are done simply because you've gone too far too fast with escalation for the villains and supposed escalation for Joe. It also undermines the supposed "bite" behind Joe's tech that I had mentioned in my prior post as well, since apparently all his tech can now do is drive someone off. You further claim the ABB is finished but from where I look, that may be true for the normals of the ABB, but for the parahumans of the ABB, it's just temporarily going on hiatus until March gets the Dream Team back together with whatever new allies she'll pick up off-screen in additions to whatever upgrades she got from surviving the spoiler stuff (Like her shard isn't gonna reward her for the new data, for example).
It also makes the whole Lung/March/Bakuda/Oni Lee survival thing seem like a way to preserve Joe's "innocence" even though he's affirmed and reaffirmed his willingness to go lethal against the ABB parahumans (which, like I already said, coincidentally never materializes because either his tech is useless hyped up crap or he is somehow scaled exactly enough to not cause much - if any - damage to them) and his Mass Effect memories allow him to be able to deal with killing people.
There's basically no payoff from this arc now, as Joe has lost a bunch of crap while his enemies all survive and in some cases, may get stronger. Sure, you might claim they need time to recover and rebuild, but they apparently didn't need any of that build time when they were throwing all this shit together against Joe that (implausibly if Joe's tech was actually useful as is claimed and not hyped up crap that never amounts to much against the villains in a fight) succeeded.
I'm not gonna demand that you change your style because it's clear that your mind is made up, just like Fawkes', but it does not look good for your fic if you are determined to absolutely kludge events/people together in ways exactly as you want and imagine it at the expense of an organic narrative and/or payoff. The anime fight stuff that many people are happy about can only be shiny and distracting from the problems of the fic for so long.
I like many of the character interaction moments in the fic as I've mentioned before. The Forge stuff can be hit or miss. But the fights are downright awful since the stuff from the Forge never lives up to the hype given unless it's against normal people. Which is insane to me since this is supposed to be something that makes you a god/potential multiversal threat. And yet, for all that it's supposed to make Joe surpass parahumans, it seems more like it's barely allowing him to keep up with them.
While true the aim time would be largely negligiable for anyone other then Bullshit Timing Thinkers, being restricted to camera's only also means one very glaring weakness becomes exploitable. Blindspots. And, while it is an assumption, and really a theory, Fleet isn't exactly a tactical AI. There's a good chance that in his position as overwatch he had all the cameras trained on the ground and Apheiron, and could have left himself vulnerable from above. I mean, none of these capes their up against can fly or have jet boards. They are the ones with superiority and dominion in the skies. No way will they dive bomb us.
I'm pretty sure the motoroid and drones have all around vision. Joe used it to take cool pictures of the fight with uber and leet, so there shouldn't be any blind spots to exploit.
Timing powers don't matter if theres no time to exploit, like seriously if Joe with all his tinker powers can't build a point defence system that can react faster than Oni Lee after specifically desiging it for that purpose then what was even the point of all the tinkering segments?
Ablative armor and sacrificial clones? Contessa bullshit cause it happenned offscreen?
And yes, powers are being presented as stronger. Supposedly, having his shard highjacked by the forge made it interesting enough that passengers are removing limitations.
He can only make one clone at a time though and he always leads the way so sacrifical clones don't really help and Joe's weapons are so high powered I doubt armor would help. I guess you can never rule out Cauldron bullshit though.
One thing that I undeniably hate about the fic right now is how absurdly difficult it is for Joe to achieve a lasting victory. The only one Joe took out is Lung, and even that got a 'probably' from him. March, Oni Lee, and even the idiot duo have had their abilities elevated to ridiculous levels so they can put Joe through the wringer which makes it hard to believe that anything after this war finally ends will be a challenge unless similar BS is employed. Right now, I just want things to be over with the ABB dead and gone, unmourned by the population of Earth Bet after the atrocities they committed. I honestly was pissed off at how the villains keep pulling stuff out of thin air. They were nowhere near as powerful in canon which makes this even harder to swallow. I know I'm ranting but I can't help it. Hopefully Joe can turn things around in the next chapter.
On a side note, it's awesome that Joe can now utilize Big technology, his custom mech is going to be beyond insane down the line. Can't wait!
Typos/Suggestions:
gunshot Something - gunshot. Something
Broadcast Chen - Broadcast, Chen
magic like - magic-like
crystal plats hovering - crystal plates hovered
I have my - "I have my
good enough." - good enough?"
Cape sited. - Cape sighted.
other sight. - other site.
one is real." - one is real?"
straight bladed - straight-bladed
dressed up - dressed-up
though brought - thought brought
Corse, - Coarse,
Physically enhancing - Physically-enhancing
Lease, do - At least, do
latterly just - literally just
as a clear - at a clear
well placed. - well-placed.
roof running - roof-running
target rich - target-rich
building being - buildings being
high risks - high-risk
him on site. - him on sight.
created Boat - created the Boat
rail likes - rail lines
bolt hole, - bolthole,
dead man's - deadman's (4 changes)
building sized - building-sized
dominus or unrivaled - dominus of unrivaled
gapped at - gaped at
Over extended - Over-extended
kidnaped - kidnapped
some on the - some of the
mind boggling. - mind-boggling.
traps hidden - traps and hidden
build up she - buildup she
duplicate lest a n open - duplicate left an open
fail safes, - failsafes,
rows containers - rows of containers
heads up - heads-up
container year. - container yard.
man portable - man-portable
the year were - the yard were
shoulder fired - shoulder-fired
pouched of - pouches of
dumb fired - dumb-fired
shoddily made - shoddily-made
split screen - split-screen
Even connection - Even my connection
in A sparking - in a sparking
ariel units - aerial units
ach extending - ache extending
form lung was - form Lung was
was course, - was coarse,
on my I was - on me I was
over designed - over-designed
scarry - scary
flood gates. - floodgates.
Dragon's pulse let - Dragon's Pulse let
a vizor, - a visor,
Tetra glowing - Tetra's glowing
shot the embedded - shot that embedded
patch work - patchwork
divinely enhanced - divinely-enhanced
soul bound. - soul bond.
me that Clothing - me that the Clothing
My ringers - My fingers
mass bust from - mass burst from
live fibers - life fibers
mind numbing - mind-numbing
light headed - light-headed (3 changes)
Lee presence - Lee present
and sifting - and shifting
Aura enhanced - Aura-enhanced
teleported through - teleporter through
I say the - I saw the
that laps, - that lapse,
saber like - saber-like
lunch platform - launch platform
and shift grab - and grab
his knack - his neck
time frozen - time-frozen
Bakuda workshop - Bakuda's workshop
hang time - hangtime
hard pressed - hard-pressed (2 changes)
half dead - half-dead
communications efforts - communication efforts (2 changes)
behalf or Triumph - behalf of Triumph
minutes deployment - minutes' deployment
its, launch, - its systems, launch,
bit will - but will
Dragons arrival - Dragon's arrival
to Lungs. - to Lung's.
racking Dragon - racing Dragon
rocket powered - rocket-powered
out maneuver - outmaneuver
portion or a - portion of a
fiber enhanced - fiber-enhanced
as lung's head - as Lung's head
Tetras fibers - Tetra's fibers
fibers interaction - fibers' interaction
sub- monomolecular - sub-monomolecular
single edged - single-edged
targeted ABB - targeted the ABB
of peach - of speech
coordination of approval - coordination or approval
time frame - timeframe
suits they - suits, they
an I field - an I-field
in mid air - in midair
two handed - two-handed
Lung' forehead - Lung's forehead
worst. Someone - worst? Someone
half dead and - half-dead and
lung's chest Just as - Lung's chest just as
to kink to - to link to
snake heat - snake head
every cost from her to - every coast from here to
adrenalin crashing - adrenaline-crashing
limp of something - limp or something
this out. - this out."
half unconscious - half-unconscious
Thanks God - Thank God
I fuckin called it! I knew March was gonna pull some March Ex Machina BULLSHIT!
And for God's sake you don't even have the guts to admit if Lung's actually dead?! Please. Just admit you have no idea where to go after the ABB arc ends so you're milking it past the point where it's believable.
What did Joe actually accomplish in the long term? Nothing! None of the ABB capes are dead or in jail and somehow March "timinged" her way to survival when she and Oni Lee should've bled out to death.
Why is Joe going outside to fight anymore? He's never gonna actually finish a fight conclusively. His enemies will always get boosts and Adamantium tier Plot Armor. Just do what you actually want and have Joe hole up in his lab for weeks to endlessly build while ignoring the outside world.
Sorry for the rant, I just reallyneeded to vent my frustrations for the latest chapter. Don't take it personally LR, I'm still enjoying the story. It's just...yeah I can like a story as a whole while despising a specific plot point.
I just realized the most important thing everyone glossed over. Joe lost his fear of communication. He realized talking to the PRT is an exercise in futility so he spammed out to every platform simultaneously. Coil can no longer warp his every word to be a detriment to him. If he keeps up that method then he no longer has to fear the PRT spin doctoring his every word into a modern witch hunt. At this point the cat is out of the bag and he should know Simmy has her sights on him. He really needs to start rolling with this and release more statements after running them through Delphine Martens real lawyer extraordinaire.
The question I have to ask is do you think Dragon recognized the Motoroid speeding up and hitting Lung, or does every one think it was an annihilator beam attack? I am certain not even Dragon set up her scanning tech with the possibility of FTL attacks in mind so she might not even have seen the Motoroid. If she did, she might think it self destructed and turned it's power source into a beam weapon. The energy conversion rate is in the negatives which should be red flags to any real analysis.
Remind me of the Trope Talks: Character Death where it talks about how our culture and genre-savvy has evolved to the point where authors must be dramatic and painfully obvious with the death of a character or else it'll always be assumed they'll live/return.
It's an unfortunate consequence of the evolution of stories, tropes, and readers. It can make writing hard for authors. I'm hoping this is the case here. The situation, condition, looming threats, and speed of Joe would have made confirming the kill difficult to write because it'd need to be obvious and really clear and dug into. I can see Lord struggling with making March's death implied yet not wanting it to seem like the world was paused as Joe confirms and goes over a thousand dramatic thoughts while looking at her corpse. It's a case of there was no time to confirm. A real life thing in battle and warfare. The problem is at the meta level where it's not believed.
I'm going to be blunt. The fact that you're forcing the situation(s) to occur as you want it instead of letting it flow naturally and/or having consequences/payoff is a very bad thing. It reeks of the same crap that James D. Fawkes does and has tried to defend.
Last I saw, he had tried to claim that he was going to make a twist and/or heroic spirit that no one would see coming, yet it turned out that many A) predicted the twist/hero, B) said twist/hero didn't even resolve the main problem of the Noelle arc, and C) many came up with better off the cuff ideas on how to resolve that arc. James refused to change the arc because he wanted that situation to occur and forced it to happen, rather than allowing the narrative to flow organically.
It is not a good writing style and forcing things to occur because you want them to occur leads to unnatural and unconvincing stakes/situations and (often unnecessary) plot holes.
Secondly, the fact that you're refusing to even (meta)confirm that Lung is killed - after making Joe deliberately ignoring the true threats to himself and dedicating the majority of the update word count to Lung! -just reeks of desperation to keep any and all villains in play because you have no real plans after March/Bakuda/Oni Lee are done simply because you've gone too far too fast with escalation for the villains and supposed escalation for Joe. It also undermines the supposed "bite" behind Joe's tech that I had mentioned in my prior post as well, since apparently all his tech can now do is drive someone off. You further claim the ABB is finished but from where I look, that may be true for the normals of the ABB, but for the parahumans of the ABB, it's just temporarily going on hiatus until March gets the Dream Team back together with whatever new allies she'll pick up off-screen in additions to whatever upgrades she got from surviving the spoiler stuff (Like her shard isn't gonna reward her for the new data, for example).
It also makes the whole Lung/March/Bakuda/Oni Lee survival thing seem like a way to preserve Joe's "innocence" even though he's affirmed and reaffirmed his willingness to go lethal against the ABB parahumans (which, like I already said, coincidentally never materializes because either his tech is useless hyped up crap or he is somehow scaled exactly enough to not cause much - if any - damage to them) and his Mass Effect memories allow him to be able to deal with killing people.
There's basically no payoff from this arc now, as Joe has lost a bunch of crap while his enemies all survive and in some cases, may get stronger. Sure, you might claim they need time to recover and rebuild, but they apparently didn't need any of that build time when they were throwing all this shit together against Joe that (implausibly if Joe's tech was actually useful as is claimed and not hyped up crap that never amounts to much against the villains in a fight) succeeded.
I'm not gonna demand that you change your style because it's clear that your mind is made up, just like Fawkes', but it does not look good for your fic if you are determined to absolutely kludge events/people together in ways exactly as you want and imagine it at the expense of an organic narrative and/or payoff. The anime fight stuff that many people are happy about can only be shiny and distracting from the problems of the fic for so long.
I like many of the character interaction moments in the fic as I've mentioned before. The Forge stuff can be hit or miss. But the fights are downright awful since the stuff from the Forge never lives up to the hype given unless it's against normal people. Which is insane to me since this is supposed to be something that makes you a god/potential multiversal threat. And yet, for all that it's supposed to make Joe surpass parahumans, it seems more like it's barely allowing him to keep up with them.
I thought this felt familiar, hope it goes better then that story since while I loved the premise and the fight scenes were good I lost complete interest in that story and stopped reading it and I don't want this one to become so boring in the plot that I just forget about it.
The question I have to ask is do you think Dragon recognized the Motoroid speeding up and hitting Lung, or does every one think it was an annihilator beam attack? I am certain not even Dragon set up her scanning tech with the possibility of FTL attacks in mind so she might not even have seen the Motoroid. If she did, she might think it self destructed and turned it's power source into a beam weapon. The energy conversion rate is in the negatives which should be red flags to any real analysis.
It should be recognized as either a near-lightspeed or superluminal KKV. At worst (best) the impact on the atmosphere should be clearly relativistic. If the sensors (anywhere, really, considering the scale) recognize that the atmosphere was disrupted along the path before light could travel the distance, then it will be known to be FTL in nature.
Many thanks for the chapter ^^ getting more than a book size material per month is something basically impossible for me to do. So from the deep of heart I thank you. But I also hope that this don't give you trouble like burnouts, back pain and etc.
Changing topic here^^.
So the country is 100% aware now that Apeiron is a A rank cape. The deal in that bar will have some important feedbacks from Joe since he is in the big table. And he can probably reduce some of his self restrictions thanks from what he already show and what would be necessary now to force others to confront him (physically) which are all good things in my book^^.
Anyway I see this escalation and (probably) 'cooperation' of shards in the background to get data as good thing. Since multiple titans are a way worce threat than endbringers and Zion when motivated is far worse than even those. So fighting boosted shards that are using powers and other stuff that they don't usually grand their 'users' is a good thing too. He even got some data from multiple attacks of the main weapon of Zion. One of them was even on his skin that was calculated to cause only so much damage that he technique could have data from the nanites inside him.
Anyway. Joe you are the Dragon and you are the king of the hill. Use this demonstration of your power, this experience and the positive perk to grown to become the kind of man and hero that even RL can be rare. Much less worm where they selected this world among other Earths for being worse people in general even without powers.
Edit: I blame this one on my auto corruption.
I would have to go back to double check, but I'm confident that Joe literally ripped her arm off by partially mangling it before gripping hard lower and smashing her away.
Masterfully written...That's the good point that any author should be happy to read
Content tho... if there is a thing i was fairly against in worm cannon it was plot armor.
Almost every character in your story falls into that trap for me, especially march who, to be honest, i was almost thinking was an insert with all the thinker power ( inspired inventor turned to only thinker). i don't see how her cannon character can do what she does here otherwise ...
Anyway, she will survive cause why not. Prorably some Leet tech she had on her at the time wich made every dmg reverse or someshiit ( even if she should have been pulped, timing power or not) xD
Still all isn't negative, it was entertaining wich i gather is the goal ? ( and frustrating, see above )
"/rant on" In the end the problem with this kind of fics ( cyoa, jumpchain, celestial forge, etc) is that in the end if any of us would really have that kind of power we wouldn't do shit until we have THE WIN button. I'd like to think i would be selfless and try to befriend x, save y , blablabla but in the end in a world like Worm ? I wouldn't leave my workshop till leviathan, utterly destroy him and be sure to have 50 different ways to deal with simurgh, sion and ptv because at the end of the day ? City stuff don't freaking matter when u KNOW billion of ppl are doing to die at the end if nothing is done. "/rant off"
