Lord said that Lathe metal won't protect from Damsel. Joe has his displacer field though.
Brockton's Celestial Forge (Worm/Jumpchain)
- Thread starter LordRoustabout
- Start date
See, in any fight Ape trumps (heh) Damsel 10 times out of 10 times, through sheer overwhelming firepower and his extreme mobility advantage. What she represents isn't physical power, its political; she could never get a good enough hit in to actually take out Joe with his myriad defences but the E88 don't know that, and Joe isn't exactly that confrontational a guy. He could instantly kill everyone who shows 8p to Somer's Rock even surprised, but he doesn't have the mentality/willingness to truely abuse his ridiculous power level difference because of his character/personality. Should he gain a confidence booster in M/E, Strong Spark or just seeing the gangs cross an unacceptable line he could and would cream them completely but the gangs also know that. It's honestly hard to speculate on Somer's rock meeting just because of how little information we have on the E88's intention, their endgame, etc... I don't think Joe's even thought about what he wants to get out of the meeting other than dreading it (please do feel free to contradict me), so we just don't know if Damsel being able to theoretically hurt Joe would come into play... maybe he notices her having control issues and just makes a power controlling single out of gum and some spare lint? Dont think he'll display that level of power though...
I like how Uppercrust has this whole convoluted plan of getting Joe to heal him when he could probably just ask/pay Joe. But I guess at this point people think they need some exclusive contact in order to contact Apeiron or something.
- Location
- Not here. Maybe on SB.
Pretty much that, but also he know that any relatively wide-scale actions that he enacts to make things better = more chances to trigger (heh) Simurgh to attack him. And since he's not ready to face her yet (at least he don't think he's ready, and in that case I understand and wholeheartedly approve overcautious approach), he don't want to risk it without a really damn good reason.
Oh, and also he don't want to have a reputation of someone who attacks without being provoked. Because he does not have an established reputation of a hero, so instead of "He's a hero, of course he fighting villains" that would result in That Mess(tm) all over the internet and PRT analysis again:
"He's a hero!"
"No! He's a villain who gets rid of competitors!"
"No, he's an absolute madman who blindly lashing out on anyone who offends him!"
"No, he's a secret lovechild of Hero and Eidolon, and what do you mean by "we talking not about his origin and biology doesn't work that way anyway"?"
Blasto, Bonesaw, and Panacea: "But, it could!"
- Location
- Philippines
To be fair, it's also an image thing for Apeiron now. Remember how Joe had to get something from Weld when he healed him, simply because people were expecting the healing to need payment at that point? And that was before Apeiron defeated Lung after showing off some truly ridiculous tech. Looking at it at the lens of "Apeiron is a mercenary" and "You get what you pay for, and Apeiron will not offer 3 day old tech" at that point it would only make sense that Apeiron's prices would have increased so much that the only way to get his attention would be through means that don't involve just paying for things.
I would NOT compare the dozen of millions of possible casualties that would happen as a result of your Country's Air-Defense System not defending against all enemy Nuclear Weapons with a dozen superpowered Nazis "rampaging" in one City. None of them pose any sort of threat to Apeiron and except for Fog are easily subdued and contained. Damsel in Distress is only notably because she is actually capable of scratching him and does not possess enough Control over her Power to prevent accidental civilian casualties (though Joe's new predictive Software might me able to mitigate or outright prevent that).
The Cancer only ensures that Bakuda is no longer a long time threat unless she goes to Blasto, Bonesaw, Panacea or blackmails Apeiron before he can decode the Deadman Signal. That only makes her a bigger threat as she has few things too lose at this point and still access to Armsmasters Data and the Leet Collaborations and while I do not doubt that the Cancer/-s will make building Bombs harder, I highly doubt that their enough to effectively them cripple them. Full operational Oni Lee was powerful enough that the he alone could have causes half the devastation the ABB unleashed in their Plan against Apeiron. Given that he should still have the already built Bombs and maybe even the hyper deluxe Rocket Launcher of Doom I would not completely write off the possibility of Bakuda and Oni Lee attacking Somer's Rock as a final fuck you to the Cape Community (and more specifically Apeiron who they possibly know will attend).
You forgot about hundreds fanatics who works for E88. They're insane and if Kaiser order them to make an rampage all around town, they'll do it.
Oh yes, Joe will destroy them quickly but still, hundreds if not thousand new victims.
Things have progressed so quickly that some wanting his services basically people have no idea what Apeiron wants as a payment.
Hmm, I suggest turning on the Brockton International Shipping Port® mode for a while and assessing the probability of the E88 annihilator deserting to the camp of a very Mysterious Inventor. Because solving the problem with control and remembering the description of how meaningfully the girl in trouble looked at the image of Joe... Well, you understand.
She tried a Gray Boy bomb. The results of which became a memorial to "Apeiron is awesome", complete with Duplicate and Motoroid stuck in cool poses. Oh! And that's also what lead to the infamous "three-day-old technology" quip.
How long is the Duplicate duration now? How long does he expect the Somer's Rock meeting to last? And, does he have a way to mess the potion about for "double duration, but only one duplicate" if needed?
- Location
- Odessa
I do agree that Damsel has very little to offer against Joe by this point, but Empire also has Othala, an invincibility granting trump. Joe might be able to bypass that in a number of ways (like time freeze), or he might not, in either case trying will cause a lot of collateral and there is a chance in needing to play hide and seek with an annihilator until invincibility wears off.
Personally I'm not sure about that. Forge treats parahuman effects as magic, not sure if 'time-freeze' will translate that way, how it will interact with actual magic and how much Omph 'time-freeze' will have, but by now Joe should have picked at least some magic resistance (magic circuits grant that passively), on top of the thing with functioning mind when brain was 'indisposed', on top of aura protecting user. I suspect that nobody will expect the result.
It probably was trivial for Joe to hook sensors to the 'displacer field' system and do "Bomb detected-> Matching signature-> Time is about to freeze, displacing."
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- Location
- Not here. Maybe on SB.
I woudn't, and didn't, campare a scale. Yet, it serves the very same purpose.
Damsel - she, as far as E88 know, can hurt Apeiron, the Enigmatic Artificer. So he won't be reckless.
A (implied) threat of rampage - he, as far as E88 know, do what he can to avoid casualties among civilians. So he won't push them hard to not push them too hard.
The Shallow
Shallow, Yet Deep
- Location
- Your Universe
- Pronouns
- She/They
The thing about the time bubbles is that time moves, just slowly, so it's an AoE "spell"; I can't imagine him thinking with his soul, the magic resistance of circuits, or Aura really negating that. Maybe time would not be as slow for him with circuits, but it's unclear. He could probably get his Displacer Field to react to magic though. However, even if he fails to escape, one should remember that March can pop the bubbles. I imagine Joe's duplicates (duration is based on Joe, according to WOG, so they would last untill/unless popped) could probably muster enough fire-power to destroy the field, any anti-magic effects excluded.
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- Location
- Earth
If March can pop the bubbles, so can Flechette. And she likes Apeiron due to him helping Weld.
She'd get to join Weld in the "too close to Apeiron for comfort"-club too.
The Shallow
Shallow, Yet Deep
- Location
- Your Universe
- Pronouns
- She/They
My post was misphrased, but yeah I didn't think about that. Lily could bring a bubble down. Also, she's Joe's best shot at getting the runes of Sting. Also, seeing as she's into Garment, I think she's headed for that Club.
- Location
- Odessa
Depends onto how thar AoE works.
There is a chance that it will physically push object of high dencity (Joe) out, like vawes push wood before settling.
There is a chance it will pop like a bubble due to uneven spread or will malfunction due to being 'confused' by some of the effects present.
If it suffuse and soaks objects, acts like a bounded field, there are at least 5 options:
- Joe will be slowed down less
- Effect will have delayed effect on Joe
- Field will be spending a lot more energy to maintain itself
- Joe's equipment will go the road of 'OH, Fuel!'
- Joe will become the fuel source making the effect more potent
Power interactions can be weird and Joe is a walking bundle of different powers and effects.
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Given the demonstrated Speed by 3 Motoroids and 15 Drones to effectively dismantle a greater Portion of dozens to hundreds of ABB Members and hundreds to thousands of conscripts both motivated to the extreme by Neck-Bombs, equipped with high-grade tinker tech and coordinated by a high-tier Thinker I highly doubt that there will be hundreds of victims through the E88, 1. I'm pretty sure that the Number of Empire 88 Members does not eclipse those of the ABB + Conscripts and 2. the critical lack of Thinker and Tinker to make said force an actual threat to some one of Apeiron's Caliber not to forget that his ABB response was made out of capabilities that are now 3 days old. I do not know how much of his scanning tech is used on the City but I think he would notice a Parahuman Conflict happening and swiftly interfering when civilian deaths happen en mass.
We as readers know of course that Joe wants to prevent Deaths as much as possible, but the rest of the world still thinks of him as some Enigmatic Artificer (heh see what I did there) who just did not want the City to end at the hands of the ABB (given the fact that at the Start of the story there was a speculated Connection between the E88 and Apeiron I would not discount the possibility of some of the E88 thinking that Apeiron is at least partially amiable to E88 ideology).
Ok i made the mistake in writing. Sorry.
I was not talking about Scale but the time needed for the Destruction and Deaths to take place. Nuclear Weapons are after detonation mostly near instant (with a frightening number of radiation deaths following up to years later) while an Empire 88 "Rampage" would take a good amount of time.
IIIRC the ABB vs. Apeiron took 1 hour and was described as disorientating fast and that was achieved with death threats as Motivation, a huge number of Participants and high-tier Thinker support, the E88 possesses neither a Thinker of Tinker or a defense against a mass scale attack (the tremor rune Bashing Rods from the previous week will still splatter Damsel just like any other human, I think the glass cannon nature of pretty much any Annihilator is going to be biggest disadvantage against Apeiron who can toast a few city blocks with a twitch of his magical cape).
I also think your putting too much weight on Damsel being able to hurt Apeiron. The greatest portion of the Parahuman populous is capable of killing each other. That is the basic minimum that most Parahumans have to converse with someone, the fact that the person they talk to is more than a simple distraction or annoyance (which is why Canon Kaisers refused Canon Shit Stain a seat at the table) and that said Person is actual capable of being a threat. The Empire 88 threatening Apeiron is as laughable as the Undersiders vs. the Triumvirate, it just is a no-brainer who will win despite the fact that both sides are capable of hurting each other (either physically or through Thinker Shenanigans in latter VS.).
- Location
- St. Petersburg
A very fun read.
Just a couple of little things that are bothering me (they may have been already answered a 100 times, but still):
1) AU of making Shards powers "magic" when they are canonically "so nonmagic that Entities can't even perceive the idea of the reality of magic which bars them from traveling to the magic parts of the multiverse". But it's an understandable AU - otherwise all magic powers would be actually useful just due to their inscrutableness, instead of appearing as crafting multipliers and nerfed curiosities. On the other hand, it shatters the main motivation behind Entities actions, without AU change they were driven by the need to escape a certain death due to limitations of the physical reality which is not the case when magic is taken into account.
2) MC's fixation on tackling everything head on. If he wasn't so fixated on defending against March strikes he would've realized that dodging and redirecting it is a lot better alternative - because her power requires a material medium, and also because even if given all the perfect timing in the world, most parahumans are not much faster than regular humans, all while MC is. Yes, it wouldn't have helped with Oni Lee's surrounding tactic, but... By that time MC had teleportation technologies - at least Transformers one, which wasn't even mentioned in any way. Also he didn't even for a second thought about any way to disrupt, negate or dissipate the effect.
Really, nothing ever was said about how he planned to oppose the thing, just his fear of it.
And what had happened with his scans of the Striker effect right before the explosions? IIRC he was sending live telemetry and with his suite of sensors he should've gotten something out of it.
3) Strike Witches stuff is super-arbitrary. It's like everything transformative MC can do with all of his other equipment (not the "upgrade everything to adamantium\mythril" part) he can't do to the strike craft tech for some dubious entertainment value, not for real reasons. Example? If pants can't be worn inside, then they can be placed on top - nothing so far had said they can't. The same goes to the familiar traits - he should be able to easily hide them using his hard light, holographic and illusion projection tech.
4) On the question of hiding... When he wants to hide his changes, especially forced stylistic effects, shouldn't his Efficiency power make him the most efficient at hiding these changes from the normal people? Efficiency in this field will also mean the least attention required for maintaining it.
5) MC's criminal under-utilization of the Super Science Household power.
Peeping on your neighbors is a household activity. Boom - Mad Science spy system capable of covering the whole BB right from his home because all of its citizens can be tentatively designated as "neighbors"; maybe even Shards can be included into "neighbors" category because they are, only in a different space.
Knowing weather forecast is a household characteristic - boom, Mad Science weather station capable of predicting weather with 100% accuracy; no more "maybe I-Field will dissipate due to rain, or maybe not" musings.
Connecting to and expanding your WiFi is a household task - boom, a Mad Science signal repeater with untraceable connection from his Workshop Dimension to the Mad Science router in his rented flat; it'll allow him to close The Door and still remain connected.
Cleaning dust is a household activity - boom, a device to clean the Dust from any area.
Watching news is a household activity; boom - a Mad Science TV that can inform you about anything "newsworthy" in the world, in the country and in your local area using a tech-based omniscience (a planned gathering of Supervillains is certainly newsworthy even if no actual news company will ever know of it; arrival of the Coastal Shields tinker, or one of the most destructive Villains in your town are also newsworthy; coming of the Golden Man itself is definitely a newsworthy event).
It's a bit of a rant and I don't demand (or expect for that reason, because this is my rant on things I found mildly irritating) any answers.
Just a couple of little things that are bothering me (they may have been already answered a 100 times, but still):
1) AU of making Shards powers "magic" when they are canonically "so nonmagic that Entities can't even perceive the idea of the reality of magic which bars them from traveling to the magic parts of the multiverse". But it's an understandable AU - otherwise all magic powers would be actually useful just due to their inscrutableness, instead of appearing as crafting multipliers and nerfed curiosities. On the other hand, it shatters the main motivation behind Entities actions, without AU change they were driven by the need to escape a certain death due to limitations of the physical reality which is not the case when magic is taken into account.
2) MC's fixation on tackling everything head on. If he wasn't so fixated on defending against March strikes he would've realized that dodging and redirecting it is a lot better alternative - because her power requires a material medium, and also because even if given all the perfect timing in the world, most parahumans are not much faster than regular humans, all while MC is. Yes, it wouldn't have helped with Oni Lee's surrounding tactic, but... By that time MC had teleportation technologies - at least Transformers one, which wasn't even mentioned in any way. Also he didn't even for a second thought about any way to disrupt, negate or dissipate the effect.
Really, nothing ever was said about how he planned to oppose the thing, just his fear of it.
And what had happened with his scans of the Striker effect right before the explosions? IIRC he was sending live telemetry and with his suite of sensors he should've gotten something out of it.
3) Strike Witches stuff is super-arbitrary. It's like everything transformative MC can do with all of his other equipment (not the "upgrade everything to adamantium\mythril" part) he can't do to the strike craft tech for some dubious entertainment value, not for real reasons. Example? If pants can't be worn inside, then they can be placed on top - nothing so far had said they can't. The same goes to the familiar traits - he should be able to easily hide them using his hard light, holographic and illusion projection tech.
4) On the question of hiding... When he wants to hide his changes, especially forced stylistic effects, shouldn't his Efficiency power make him the most efficient at hiding these changes from the normal people? Efficiency in this field will also mean the least attention required for maintaining it.
5) MC's criminal under-utilization of the Super Science Household power.
Peeping on your neighbors is a household activity. Boom - Mad Science spy system capable of covering the whole BB right from his home because all of its citizens can be tentatively designated as "neighbors"; maybe even Shards can be included into "neighbors" category because they are, only in a different space.
Knowing weather forecast is a household characteristic - boom, Mad Science weather station capable of predicting weather with 100% accuracy; no more "maybe I-Field will dissipate due to rain, or maybe not" musings.
Connecting to and expanding your WiFi is a household task - boom, a Mad Science signal repeater with untraceable connection from his Workshop Dimension to the Mad Science router in his rented flat; it'll allow him to close The Door and still remain connected.
Cleaning dust is a household activity - boom, a device to clean the Dust from any area.
Watching news is a household activity; boom - a Mad Science TV that can inform you about anything "newsworthy" in the world, in the country and in your local area using a tech-based omniscience (a planned gathering of Supervillains is certainly newsworthy even if no actual news company will ever know of it; arrival of the Coastal Shields tinker, or one of the most destructive Villains in your town are also newsworthy; coming of the Golden Man itself is definitely a newsworthy event).
It's a bit of a rant and I don't demand (or expect for that reason, because this is my rant on things I found mildly irritating) any answers.
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MagicalAmbitions
the rose in your vase
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Nothing about the workings of Shards powers has been changed. They are still clarketech science powers. The Celestial Forge perks treat parahuman powers as if they were magic, and parahumans as if they were wizards, because the Celestial Forge does not come from this universe. The Celestial Forge looks at parahumans and parahuman powers and says, from an audience perspective: "science-flavored wizards and magic. cool."
- Location
- Odessa
It is not magic. It is Treated as magic in scope of interactions with Forge, and only Forge. By themselves shard-powers are still aren't magic, just treated as such (because Jump-chan said so).
That's the tech that runs on the power and logic of 'pantsu' (to the point where I wasn't able to watch more than couple episodes).
Consider it fiat backed to not play with pants at all for the sake of everybody's sanity.
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- Location
- Somewhere, Maybe
Heythere! Glad to see someone new to the story! I spotted some things in your post that I thought I could help you with, so here goes:
I think this one is more explained that the CELESTIAL FORGE treats Shard powers as "magic" for purposes of shard-Forge interactions is all. Nothign about the Shards themselves has changed.
{Pre-Post Edit: Yeah, @MagicalAmbitions has this right.}
This ties partly into Joe's neurotic family life, and how his low self-esteem issues are hamstringing him. It's part of what makes him so interesting as a character, he's got a form of Imposter Syndrome, where he -believes- he can't meaningfully affect things, so he doesn't plan to do so, but when forced into a situation where he -has- to act, he pulls it off brilliantly, and he's left afterwards thinking that he couldn't really have done all that, or that it wasn't as awesome as we know it to be, and everyone else seems to think it is. ^^ He's not just modest, but honestly thinks, deep down where he hasn't examined it yet, that he -can't- do anything other than screw up. His family have basically conditioned him to believe that. That's why he's going to therapy (and still dreading it).
Yes, the Strike Witches crap is very arbitrary. I'm wondering myself why he hasn't thought of the idea of "pants on the outside, boots on the inside", but that's probably just because he's stuck with Garment for fashion advice, and -she- very much likes the idea of ultratight pants. ^^
He's mentioned as being able to control those things due to Efficiency yes, but they're still Fiat-Backed, so they can be minimized, but not eliminated, and they take conscious control to minimize, so Joe can only do so much at a time.
I'm not certain one way or the other about this one, so I shall defer to others' opinions.
That actually sounds plausible, and god would I love to have that. >.> Where I live, the weather is notoriously unpredictable, especially in the spring.
He actually did this one, that's how he made that untracable call to Weld, even with Dragon attempting to backtrace his cellphone.
I think this one was included in the former one, either way he somehow called Weld from inside his Workshop, though I don't know if the door was -closed- or not.
Remember: Washu tech tends to be into rather spectacular self-disassembly events if you use it for things outside its scope. I'd think he'd rather not try to hoover up the Dust with something that doubles as a pee-wee sized nuclear bomb if you misuse it.
I actutally think this could work, but I would have a feeling that it would only be usable 'in the home'. on the other hand, Survey would be GLUED to the fucking thing. ^^
Thank you for your interest, and I hope I've been informative. ^^
- Location
- Not here. Maybe on SB.
"Given the demonstrated Speed by 1 Life Fibers fueled Apeiron, 1 Motoroid and 5 Drones to effectively dismantle a greater Portion of at most a half of thousand of ABB Members and maybe a little more than thousand of conscripts both motivated to the extreme by Neck-Bombs (and I really doubt numbers were that high because Bakuda didn't had time to make that many bombs to implant with her other projects), equipped with whatever cheap shit ABB had in the storages and occasional tinkertech bombs, who receive a plan made by a high-tier Thinker, but weren't received any guidance in the field"
FTFY.
No. I just explaining their reasons.
That's not about what they can do against Apeiron, The Enigmatic Artificer. That's about what they can do in that situation. They'd of fucking course prefer to hire damn Eidolon, of better yet entire Triumvirate and Three Blasphemies to boot, but guess what? They can't.
So they do what they can.
Door cannot be closed while he's inside. Well, it may be closed, but not locked, more accurately.