Brockton's Celestial Forge (Worm/Jumpchain)
- Thread starter LordRoustabout
- Start date
Gregory Crey
Magic is of wonder and terror. Life is so magical.
- Location
- United States
- Pronouns
- He/Him/His
I imagine it will help greatly when he rolls Digitized Sorcery, among other things.
- Location
- Somewhere and Nowhere in a state of super-position
Due to March, their previous operating paradigm is no longer fully applicable. At this point, they might be unstable - and Leet might test out his "Game Grid" thing on Somers Rock while its in session.
I fully expect something to interrupt Somer's Rock, and that might be one of the more likely options. Examples include:
- The aforementioned Somer's Rock: Game Grid edition (maybe with Apeiron referencing or even demonstrating his even better version much to Leet's fury?)
- Dragon finding out Apeiron will show up and being forced by her programming to attack (with a side of the Dragonslayers cussing up a storm and trying to prevent Apeiron from helping her after he beats her)
- Bakuda trying to kill everyone after accepting that she's screwed herself over with the 'healing bomb' and there's nothing that she can do to fix it
- The Brockton Games begin with The Teeth or some other group showing up to try to assert dominance
- The more malicious aspects of the Elite show up unannounced to try to prevent Uppercrust from getting healed
- Apeiron agreeing to try to heal Noelle only for something to go wrong (she goes berserk when she realizes that he can't immediately cure her?)
- Coil finally realizing he's been completely fooled and throwing all of his resources behind trying to get rid of Apeiron by any means (setting Noelle off in the process)
- The Slaughterhouse deciding that now is a wonderful time to show up
- The Endbringer Sirens going off, signalling an early attack
- Or my favorite: ALL OF THE ABOVE
Last edited:
- Location
- Somewhere and Nowhere in a state of super-position
Now that you mention it... I can't recall what happens if a Tinker Second Triggers.
These two potentially synergize spectacularly - depending on the specific mechanics of Leet's Game Grid. (Literally torch Dragon's chains!)
The Shard throws a temper tantrum perhaps. Noelle's Shard requires the cooperation of other Shards... but Joe doesn't have a Shard, his Passenger is deviant.
Joe touches Noelle: nothing happens except some doomer clone Joe without special powers appearing.
actually, there's some WoG saying that Noelle Joe clones would have a connection to King of Arms, meaning there would be an evil heartbreaker-bonesaw clone with all of Joe's memories but none of the Forge or Fiat. Still capable of ruining Ape's day, especially with all the dangerous info he has, but not the planatery existential threat that an Evil Ape clone would be.
MagicalAmbitions
the rose in your vase
- Pronouns
- She/Her
My money's on Leet, Endbringer attack, or the Teeth (primarily Leet or the Teeth though)
- Dragon isn't likely to be present at Somer's Rock, given that it's intended to be a meeting for villains and Maybe rogues. She's doubly unlikely to know that Apeiron will be at the meeting.
- Bakuda doesn't have access to her labs, resources, etc. anymore and all of her existing bombs are tracked on Apeiron's website. Also, LR has said that the ABB is essentially out of the story after the conclusion of the last arc.
- I can't see why the Elite would want to Prevent Uppercrust from being healed: he legitimizes their organization with his defense systems and being the 'good one' who doesn't break the law.
- Apeiron can definitely immediately heal Noelle
- I think Coil would keep that kind of activity to a throwaway timeline, because it would inevitably blow up in his face unless Apeiron was actively hunting him and he needed to buy time for his escape
- The S9 probably aren't due for another arc or two, by my estimate. The S9 like to hit cities that are in turmoil. Brockton Bay isn't there yet. BB was in a seriously chaotic, broken state immediately prior to the canon S9 arc. Like, entire areas of the city were without reliable access to food or water, there was a brand new lake in the middle of the city leftover from Leviathan's attack, the undersiders & travelers becoming warlords, the merchants becoming more.. proactive, violent, The dissolution of the ABB and splintering of the E88, The teeth moving back into BB, etc.
The state of the city as we see it here, in the aftermath of the Lung fight, is like Heaven in comparison to post-leviathan, post-echidna Brockton Bay. Showing up and doing their S9 thing during Somer's Rock would be a huge breach of their Modus Operandi.
- An endbringer attack could happen at Any point, As far as I'm aware the timeline of this story is at least a month or two after the Simurgh attack on Canberra. It'd be rather sudden, but the Canon Levi attack was Also rather sudden, so it could go either way.
- The Teeth were teased as coming to Brockton Bay soon during a prior interlude, following the Lung Fight iirc, and they're easily the types who would make a violent entrance to something like Somer's Rock.
- Leet is a tinker with a broad specialty at the top of his game, and he's probably still operating under the sechen-range boost he gets from Apeiron while he works on his Game Grid project. This is the option that just.. feels right, to me, as a reader. U&L are part of the BB cape scene and would reasonably know about Somer's Rock meetings, and have sufficient motivation at this point to do something like interrupt the Somer's Rock meeting with a surprise-attack.
Keeping in mind that the trauma of a second-trigger has to match the trauma of the original trigger, and tinker triggers have a serious time-component to them, it's not a very frequent occurence.
The most eminent example of something close to a tinker second-trigger we see in canon is Mannequin. His power doesn't change, exactly, but he goes from designing and building biospheres and solving world hunger and other such philanthropic world-bettering pursuits to building himself a cyborg-weapon-serial-killer body. Wildbow describes Mannequin in one reddit comment thusly: "If it helps, think of Mannequin as a tinker creation of Sphere, chopped up brain handling the corona differently"
We can also see this sort of behavior in Defiant, with him getting exposed for breaking the endbringer truce and getting sent into probation-prison or whatever (destroying the career he had worked so hard to build) and then attacked by Mannequin in there, and promptly turning his power expression inward to turn himself into a cyborg.
- Location
- A big rock
So what I'm hearing is that the tinker response to stress/trauma is turning yourself into a cyborg. Somehow I think that that's something the labatorium would find perfectly fine. The flesh is weak but the emperor's steel is strong.
Gregory Crey
Magic is of wonder and terror. Life is so magical.
- Location
- United States
- Pronouns
- He/Him/His
People were expecting him to die and they wanted to take his holdings/get more power. Pure, naked greed would cause an Elite civil war if he is healed. Of course, I think it is the right thing to do and they would make great arc villains, so I vote heal him. Really, I wouldn't mind if Aperion joins Uppercrust's part of the Elite to get his tech out there helping people (after he works out reliable anti-ziz measures) because as it is now he needs divine assistance to have social skills in general (I feel for him, I am in the same boat) and could use Uppercrust's PR.
On another matter, early in the story Coil believed Apeiron to be a Matter Tinker. This was shown as how even he didn't know the score (and I do not know all of the wog on the subject, so please be gentle) but he isn't wrong. Certainly he isn't correct, and he later think Joe is a Mad Scientist or Runaway Science methodology Tinker with a Matter Specialty, which is even more not wrong but still not correct.
If the PRT knew everything about Apeiron's power, numbers aside, I think they would view him as a Tinker/Trump, Tinker Speciality: Matter, Methodology: Runaway Science.
I say this because, well, lets look at things from the PRT's hypothetical point of view. The Tinker and Trump powers are intrinsically linked, the Tinker power can't even be used without the powers that the Trump grants though some of those granted powers can be used independently. The Trump power randomly gives Tinker knowledge, skills, Tinkertech and powers supporting those things, occasionally there is an outlier but that is the general pattern, seemingly without limit. When the Tinker and Trump powers work together completely, Apeiron can grant or modify powers, even case 53s, among other things. These random Trump powers support each other and support Aperion's growth as a cape, but they also are uncontrolled and unexpected in their timing, come with mental alterations (that thankfully do not alter Aperion's ethics or morality) and not all have the detailed knowledge base behind them that a lot of his technical powers do. This qualifies for Chaos Tinker and Mad Scientist, or in this case, their combination: the Runaway Science methodology.
As for the Matter Specialty, really, that is such a broad specialty it might as well not be one like Hero's Frequency specialty, just like Apeiron. That, and the fact the Apeiron works almost exclusively with physical things in one way or another, even if it is to use physical things to affect non-physical things or immaterial things to affect matter and when he works exclusively with immaterial things, he is drastically less effective, like it is outside his specialty.
I suppose one could say Apeiron is Lord of the Material, with his power growth one could even go so far as to say he will one day be Lord of this World:
It is no wonder he has Connections: Hell. He even keeps souls bound to his workshop to sacrifice
Last edited:
Crake
I AM THE STORM THAT IS APPROACHING
- Location
- USA
1) I think that there's a chance that Leet isn't exactly trying to dick measure with Apeiron. His interlude indicated he seemed to believe just by not embarrassing himself against him (by surviving / enduring more than a minute of Apeiron's attention, something not many villains are capable of these days) he inflates his own reputation, but there's no sense chasing a beating. Maybe.
2) Ehhh, busting a meet like this isn't the best strategy for capture. She would have to inform Piggot what she's doing, and Emily isn't dumb. That's a good way to get every Villain group in the city to align against the PRT. Who are at this time in a vulnerable position. Hard no.
3) Possibly. She's a desperate person backed into a corner with megalomania piled on top. Probable.
4) They only came in during canon when all of the old groups had been cleared away, and things are already fairly crowded. Though I won't rule out they might decide to come early, March did, and they might be what actually sets off the power struggle by declaring they'll suffer no competition, pretty much like they did in canon. Maybe.
5) Not sure if they're really aware of what Uppercrust is doing, but the Elite in general would definitely have Thinkers... so that's plausible.
6) Coil would actively try to get in between the Travelers meeting Joe and control all the narrative with them. And if anything, if Joe could half-way cure Noelle, I see Trickster being more likely to flip out at the worst time. Noelle would be more hopeful I'd say. Not like she's had anything to look forward to in a while. Iffy.
7) Yeah... this meeting is going to be a rude awakening for Coil. So yes. He is going to be setting some things off directly following it.
8) The thing is, this would be just about the worst time to show up for Jack and co. This is a rare occasion where the Villains have a truce up, and are looking for a target to vent their anxieties, frustration and ego upon.
9) Well, it would steal the thunder out from under everyone and largely invalidate the stuff discussed here, since there's no guarantee any one of the groups will survive as a coherent entity following it or be able to hold up their agreements.
Last edited:
- Location
- A big rock
I've binged this story in reader mode, so if someone else has pointed this out, I apologize, but it's even worse because 1) the S9's only thinker is Jack, which would probably lead to the S9 walking into a gold gorilla smackdown unprepared for him going actually all out, 2) if the S9 doesn't instagib all the other villains, they're going to give steel monkey the time to build counter measures to the S9 3) Nickel baboon's magic, sensors and raw computing give him the capacity to one shot crawler and mannequin by transmuting/or projecting a large metal spike into their brains and track down Manton.
4) his biology almost certainly will no sell bonesaw, shatterbird and burnscar.
If the S9 doesn't alpha strike Osmium orangutan, they're going to have a bad time
Last edited:
Gregory Crey
Magic is of wonder and terror. Life is so magical.
- Location
- United States
- Pronouns
- He/Him/His
They really don't have the ability to alpha strike him. He is better than Bonesaw and Mannequin at their own specialties, his pyrokinesis is better than Burnscar (with technopathy instead of fire teleport), all of his stuff is Shatterbird proof, the Siberian likely can't get through the Lathe Metal, Jack can't read his mind/passenger, Hatchet Face is dead but his zombie can only disable his magic powers according to wog as here parahumans are magical, Cherish might be able to do something but he has a pin that negates mind reading that may stop her emotion powers... who is left, Crawler? Apeiron can kill an Endbringer but doesn't because of collateral damage and his power tells him worse things will happen if he does (more endbringers and the Fallen going after him). Crawler takes a lot less to kill him than an Endbringer.
They would be better off going after hostages and other such things to wear Apeiron down, but that is just putting off the inevitable unless Bonesaw starts the SH9000 early.
- Location
- A big rock
Remember that part where Bone-steel Bonobo didn't flinch when hostages where taken by the ABB? I'm guessing that will have an impact on whether the S9 will try to take hostages or not.
Lathe-metal Lemur
Gregory Crey
Magic is of wonder and terror. Life is so magical.
- Location
- United States
- Pronouns
- He/Him/His
He didn't give into demands, but he still went to save the hostage. I don't know how well known that is, however.
ImperatorV
The Laughing One
- Location
- The Voyaging Realm
Which isn't really an option, because the SH9000 was a megaproject with some serious requirements (access to two tinkers with cloning & memory related specialties, two years of R&D time, and a genetic database being the big ones). Can't really get any of that on short notice.
Really, what's going to happen in the inevitable "Jack Slash does a dumb" arc is the S9 going after Taylor. Apeiron has demonstrated an emotional attachment to her, and the world-saving VIP coming under threat is one of the few things that actually could make Joe hesitate. Of course, Taylor is a tricky target at the best of times, much less when backed by Apeiron tech, so things might not go according to plan for the S9.
It's also possible the S9 could sus out the Garment connection and go after her, but that's even more likely to end in embarrassment for the murderhobos.
Eh, Jack Slash would be in trouble, what with the travesty he calls a wardrobe, and Bonesaw would get the full "dress-up doll" treatment, but Shatterbird, Crawler and The Siberian don't exactly bother with clothes. Which, I guess, leaves them at the tender mercies of the Octiron Librarian instead…
Gregory Crey
Magic is of wonder and terror. Life is so magical.
- Location
- United States
- Pronouns
- He/Him/His
Garment is furious with Shatterbird because of her she can't make outfits using volcanic glass. I imagine she would die horribly to Garment's deadly boots and Dust woven dresses.
Last edited:
- Pronouns
- He
For all of you who think that Leet is going to unleash his mega project need to remember that it's only been about a week in story.
Mega projects are the type of tech that need a lot of time, resources and research to make. They are on the scale that it changes the dynamics of a area and sometimes more, they are the precog system Colin made, the F driver by string theory, and dragon.
Scanning capes with powers related to the project speeds up research, he has probably scanned March, Labyrinth and Barrow.
He has the resources from the ABB raids to make it with, if they weren't lost when Joe released all the ABB records.
but he still needs to build it, and if the scale of the project is to be believed to be at least on scale of brockton bay, then it's going to take a while.
That said I may just be wrong and we could have Leet ready by the time of somers Rock as tinker crafting speeds ain't that well defined.
Mega projects are the type of tech that need a lot of time, resources and research to make. They are on the scale that it changes the dynamics of a area and sometimes more, they are the precog system Colin made, the F driver by string theory, and dragon.
Scanning capes with powers related to the project speeds up research, he has probably scanned March, Labyrinth and Barrow.
He has the resources from the ABB raids to make it with, if they weren't lost when Joe released all the ABB records.
but he still needs to build it, and if the scale of the project is to be believed to be at least on scale of brockton bay, then it's going to take a while.
That said I may just be wrong and we could have Leet ready by the time of somers Rock as tinker crafting speeds ain't that well defined.
Last edited:
Gregory Crey
Magic is of wonder and terror. Life is so magical.
- Location
- United States
- Pronouns
- He/Him/His
Looks at Apeiron with Zero System prediction computer, Mass Effect technology on such massive scale he made a FTL drive that FTL rammed "fight an Endbringer to a standstill" size Lung to death, the monomolecular HF and power weapons and how they scale to Armsmaster's/Defiant's nanothorn halberd, his two sapient and intelligent software AIs compared to Richter's Dragon, the list goes on...
Looks at how Apeiron has been a cape for about two weeks...
Yes, clearly mega projects take time and effort, for virgin other Tinkers, but not Chad Apeiron!
Last edited:
- Location
- A big rock
It probably is only known entirely by bakuda, but it's also likely suspected by anyone who did some digging. Speaking of it must be hell to be bakuda right now, she's been embarrassed and styled on in such a way that not only has she been publically embarrassed by copper chimp numerous times, but she also has to deal with the fact that despite that, no one else fully realizes just how hard she's been dunked on.
"Jack Slash meets Murphy for the first time in his life"
Seriously, Jack has been playing the parahuman experience (TM) on easy mode with cheats enabled since he triggered, and he used it to pretend at being actually dangerous. Without his psychological wall hacks and auto-aim and his escort of munchkins, Jacob is a thirty year old going on fourty intelligent nihilist with a wicked sense of humor who subconsciously hides behind his power to avoid getting gib'd by someone he couldn't take on.
- Location
- Somewhere and Nowhere in a state of super-position
And also, more fuel for the forums.
"Look what they needed in order to simulate even a fraction of his power!"
- Location
- Up on a Hill
Well, each clone would still posses a portion of some of Joe's out of context science/magic knowledge. A lot of it wouldn't work without fiat, but there's enough sci-fi bullshit in Worm proper that a tinker could probably get a lot of use out of what does still work. And of course, we can't forget how Alchemy will still work fine for them all.
I'm going to say that none of that is their best advantage though. Even if they can't be as good as Apeiron, they would know how good Apeiron is. They would never waste their time trying to hurt him through methods that wouldn't work, and would have the best chance of going dark on his radar because they know how his surveillance works. New perks would wash this all away after a while, but Joe would be pretty vulnerable right after it happened.
Don't forget that every other member of the nine is basically just another limb to Jack, if only subconsciously. With an Apeiron battle boost he could probably pull similar shit with parahumans that are just around; at least make them his metaphorical toes or something. Just as well, Jack's power doesn't need Jack to make good or bad or any decisions for it to work (see his canon Aisha immunity). So if we have a shard intelligence pumping itself up to do city wide parahuman manipulation… Again… Well, I don't think any encounter is going to be a wash.
(This assumes Joe hasn't just moved beyond the scale of human opponents by the time they do or do not show up.)
—/—/—/—
Combination Round:
After replying to both of these posts I realized a horrible connection. If Jack bursts onto the scene "coincidentally" at the same time Noelle is generating Joe clones (maybe Jack's power even set up the bullshit necessary for Noelle to get the chance to make Joe clones), then Jack would suddenly gain the best possible allies for trying to put Joe down.
Last edited: