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Contractual Villainy

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Is there a strong tidal working near her beach? If so, tidal buoys could be an option, I would also put solar panels and solar boilers on the roofs of the buildings (it's tropical FFS). But yes, storing energy is a necessity
 
For energy storage, gravity batteries are actually fairly simple (just a weight and winch I think?) and she is on a large outcropping so it would be fairly simple to put the weight off a cliff edge.
 
Regarding the discussion of energy sources, I remembered this website and thought that some people here might find it interesting and/or useful:
www.lowtechmagazine.com

LOW←TECH MAGAZINE

This is a solar-powered website, which means it sometimes goes offline
www.lowtechmagazine.com www.lowtechmagazine.com
 
I deleted those posts because I have nothing solid to contribute on that, I read Worm so long ago that I can't even tell you what comment or where I read it from, and honestly have no desire to actually rake mud. I honestly don't know what I was thinking at the time to comment on things I vaguely remember reading, especially since my memory is unreliable.
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Thanks for calling me out on that, can we let bygones be bygones?

Seriously not wanting to upset anyone now or in the past
 
So, another thought:

Crystalia was able to tell Bumblebee to rob a museum for art. Will Zenith be able to tell Hausōs the same? How will that fit into Taylor's 'theme'? Someone who has basically said they are homeless won't really have a need for art, nor would they likely have the connections to fence it.

What limits will Zenith have to order around Hausōs?
 
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niteflier said:
So, another thought:

Crystalia was able to tell Bumblebee to rob a museum for art. Will Zenith be able to tell Hausōs the same? How will that fit into Taylor's 'theme'? Someone who has basically said they are homeless won't really have a need for art, nor would they likely have the connections to fence it.

What limits will Zenith have to order around Hausōs?
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Zenith is able to get away with less. Hausōs is more valuable than Bumblebee for Cauldron. On the other hand Hausōs is more likely to engage in real villain behavior than Bumblebee.
 
niteflier said:
Crystalia was able to tell Bumblebee to rob a museum for art. Will Zenith be able to tell Hausōs the same? How will that fit into Taylor's 'theme'? Someone who has basically said they are homeless won't really have a need for art, nor would they likely have the connections to fence it.
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Stricking back at the rich and decadent. "You guys took our homes and jobs, and laughed all the way to the bank, now it's time for us to take it back, one piece at a time."

Basically, this song line

But we've been sweating while you slept so calm
In the safety of your home
We've been pulling out the nails that hold up
Everything you've known
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Like Bumblebee, Hausōs will be twisting orders as far as she can. To use an example from earlier outlines, if instructed to rob Bay Central Bank in mid-April, she'd steal the scene from the Undersiders and make off with her Amy.
 
Pseudonymous said:
Given her access to a river, for household scale use with flowing hydro is a better option by orders of magnitude. Aside from hydro being technologically trivial compared to solar, it has the benefit of more or less constant output 24/7 (Barring regional hydrological variation).
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Still gonna have to hit a supply story. I still don't like that volcano in the background.
 
Shadowcub said:
Still gonna have to hit a supply story. I still don't like that volcano in the background.
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The nearest volcano to Taylor's base is around sixty or seventy miles to her west. This is roughly twice the distance between Mount Baker and Bellingham, WA. And it's a shield volcano erupting in Hawaiian to Strombolian style, so not that dangerous at that distance.

As for the one that's erupting? It's far enough away that it'd have to collapse to hurt her, and she has barrier islands between her and it, which would take the brunt of any tsumani.
 
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The Beachsiders
  • Apocrypha

    • Omake: The Beachsiders

    "You know, I think this the most focused I've ever seen Alec" Brian's voice rumbled into Emily's ear like an unexpected but pleasant warm breeze,​
    pushing a tiny shiver through her form before she settled then glanced back to where he stood with the faintest of relaxed smiles on a stress-lined face, gaze laxly turned toward a scene some dozen yards away on stunningly sparkling amethyst sand. Emily shifted a little on her seat to take in the same sight with a fresh appreciation, having mostly been sea-gazing before.

    Lisa lay out on a towel across the glittering sand those dozen yards distant with a mojito in one hand, other arm slid through her silky mass of blonde hair​
    to cradle a half-dozing head while mirrored goggle-shades hid lidded eyes that watched the sky with perfect contentment. The formerly forced villain seemed entirely placid as she basked, enabling Alec's shenanigans with barely a twitch of thought.
    Alec in contrast was indeed focused on task, both he and Aisha conspiring like twin goblins as they sorted shades of purple sand into loose swathes of hue​
    across a shared white blanket, probably stolen from some unnamable store in the mall. Bands of mauve were culled out of navy tones and rich royal brightness, Aisha's smirk a match for her conspirator's own as he gently applied a cotton ball of thin lotion to strips of Lisa's leg before dusting over with a makeup brush of sand. Bit by bit the blonde girl's costume was being recreated with glittering gemstone sand, both of the gremlins responsible taking turns to apply their sorted 'paint' while Lisa sipped her drink and let them borrow her 'canvas' in the name of harmless art.

    Emily observed their game of paint-the-Lisa for a few long moments before giving Brian a tiny shrug and turning back to stare out at the alien but familiar sea,​
    trying to make out the dots of Rachel's dog-led marathon on the other side of amethyst beach's long curve. "I think this definitely is the most relaxed I've ever seen Lisa... Maybe Alec's borrowing some of her mojo?" The names still felt a tiny bit foreign to Emily despite their now blossoming friendship, their cape-names twice as familiar despite their collective abandonment of Earth Bet's hangups.

    Brian gave a rolling shrug while he came to sit on a small dune's crest near Emily's chosen bask, the former leader's own gaze tracing out to see the same sea​
    with a faint huff of amusement. "I think he can keep it if he is... I've never seen Lisa this chilled out, and I don't miss the old tension."
    The stress lines on his face reasserted themselves for just a passing moment as thoughts rolled back in time to his finding out why Lisa had always seemed so tense around the undersider's own loft, how she'd tremble minutely with suppressed fear at some hidden tone in their former boss's phonecalls. The expression passed quickly enough as hints of shadow-fog emerged around Brian's shoulders for that same moment, one of his hands coming up to massage his forehead before he turned it into a stroke back along to cradle the crown, while the undersider laid back on his claimed mini-dune.
    "You feeling relaxed yourself? Taylor working you to the bone still?" Brian asked after a moment of looking across the purple sand to the glittering surf.

    Emily let herself just snicker at her friend's teasing tone, wiggling her fingers demonstratively after laying back and wiggling herself back to a more comfortable​
    horizontal pose. She did think over the question for just a breath's span before answering with a minimum of snark, "not quite to the bone, not since we've started expanding the labour-pool with drones and new refugees..." She found herself unable to generate much sarcasm with so much warmth and relaxation melting in, the pyro-projector almost ironically overheating as she watched the twin artists begin their work up Lisa's belly. A lazy movement of Emily's arm brought her hand to grasp her own drink for sipping, a minty soda-mix wetting her throat and letting it breathe a bit easier. She let the silence run until after another few waves had broken, glancing to see Brian finally fully relaxing onto the sand. "Not needing a drink yourself, or maybe a towel to lie on?"

    Brian gave a loose shrug as he pondered his response with one arm behind his head and the other across his cultivated abs, eventually letting pride in suffering​
    fall away in favour of chuckling as he lifted his ab-hand as if to catch something. "Toss me your spare towel?"

    Emily simply snerked as she hooked her sole spare roll before she twisted to catapult it across in a flat arc, not truly aiming and thusly being rewarded with a​
    thwud as the fabric hit Brian's shoulder and face like a comfy rainbow-striped log, unfurling a bit while it rolled off and the undersider pfeh'd out the purple sand he'd been spray-fed. Emily of course giggled loosely between apologies, her customary tomato-blush returning in humour and embarrassment, one hand on her mouth while her other still held that drink.

    "I guess I'm glad I didn't ask for the drinks cooler" Brian snorted out a last bit of grit while he groused with mock irritation, though it soon faded to a snicker with​
    a smile while he slid the towel under his frame with a little wriggle and lifting maneuver. He laid back again then while Emily sipped her drink and cooled her blush with more sea-gazing, both relaxing teens content there to let silence stretch out in a warm and lazy peace. Meanwhile Lisa became a living statue under the gremlin pair's powders, painted as an amethyst facsimile of her Tattletale self. She made sure to take a selfie with Alec and Aisha before finally surrendering to a sun-soaked sleep.

    Across the bay Rachel and Taylor appeared as distant dots surrounded by a swarm of happy hounds, both of them considered lunatics by the collective of​
    other beachsiders for their twinned dedication to jogging, on a day marked out for rest and relaxation.

    As promised long ago.
     
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  • Apocrypha
    • What's this? Did my muse hiccup in its hibernation to give me 99 words but a story ain't one? XD

    ----------

    Taylor gazed back at the beach, seeing Undersiders, now Beachsiders, her friends, her people, enjoying themselves, and felt a warm fuzzy feeling in her chest.

    "Fun isn't something one considers when building a new world. But this," she chuckles briefly, "does put a smile on my face."

    "What are you laughing about?" Rachel gruffly asks, continuing to jog steadily beside her with her dogs.

    On second thought, she can't help but wonder if that fuzzy feeling in her chest is because jogging in loose sand is surprisingly hard on the body, her legs are certainly feeling the burn already.
     
    serra2 said:
    Stricking back at the rich and decadent. "You guys took our homes and jobs, and laughed all the way to the bank, now it's time for us to take it back, one piece at a time."
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    There's always getting Biblical.
    "Your gold and silver are corroded, and their corrosion will be a witness against you and will eat your flesh like fire. You have heaped up treasure in the last days. Indeed the wages of the laborers who mowed your fields, which you kept back by fraud, cry out; and the cries of the reapers have reached the ears of the Lord of Sabaoth. You have lived on the earth in pleasure and luxury; you have fattened your hearts as in a day of slaughter. You have condemned, you have murdered the just; he does not resist you."
     
    Pseudonymous said:
    There's always getting Biblical.
    "Your gold and silver are corroded, and their corrosion will be a witness against you and will eat your flesh like fire. You have heaped up treasure in the last days. Indeed the wages of the laborers who mowed your fields, which you kept back by fraud, cry out; and the cries of the reapers have reached the ears of the Lord of Sabaoth. You have lived on the earth in pleasure and luxury; you have fattened your hearts as in a day of slaughter. You have condemned, you have murdered the just; he does not resist you."
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    As much as this is fitting to Taylor's cape persona's grievances, and as great as a quote it is, it's also not something this particular Taylor's likely to know. Also rather likely to attract the ire of my interpretation of Haven if they got wind of it.

    Might use it for one of the other ideas we've got kicking around though.
     
    Sandy River DL said:
    As much as this is fitting to Taylor's cape persona's grievances, and as great as a quote it is, it's also not something this particular Taylor's likely to know. Also rather likely to attract the ire of my interpretation of Haven if they got wind of it.
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    Weird. You'd think a Christian group wouldn't have much problems with someone quoting the bible. Do they follow an explicitly pro-capatalist doctrine like the prosperity gospel people or are they just very sectarian?
     
    VillaininGlasses said:
    Weird. You'd think a Christian group wouldn't have much problems with someone quoting the bible. Do they follow an explicitly pro-capatalist doctrine like the prosperity gospel people or are they just very sectarian?
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    Given the available information on them, they're likely exactly that. Haven is explicitly called a corporate team, that is one sponsored by one or more businesses, utilize RL fundamentalist rhetoric, and are a loudly religious organization in the US South. If they weren't the type to be using the Left Behind books as a guide, I'd bee surprised.
     
    Sandy River DL said:
    *Snip*
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    That's some arrogation you have going there. To counter your first point, imagine, you have this disaster. It is coming every three months. You pray and pray. The whole world pray to whichever higher beings out there. Perhaps, your god would save you. But no, times passed, millions had died, psychotic murderers roam the land, there is no sign of divine. At this point, you realize, there is no god. Only golden man rescuing cats.


    Hestia&theCourt said:
    *Snip*
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    Why do they include reply section underneath? Surely, that is for something right? I wonder....
     
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    AnantaAtman said:
    That's some arrogation you have going there. To counter your first point, imagine, you have this disaster. It is coming every three months. You pray and pray. The whole world pray to whichever higher beings out there. Perhaps, your god would save you. But no, times passed, millions had died, psychotic murderers roam the land, there is no sign of divine. At this point, you realize, there is no god. Only golden man rescuing cats.
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    Which, historical and as seen via studies, has very little to do with why people leave religion. Like, if anything such things drive them closer to religion, as people seek out community and local leadership/therapy in trying times.

    Second, these are not world-wide disasters, but localized ones. Like, the vast majority of people on the planet have probably never seen an Endbringer, let alone any of those other threats (because WB had to rewrite the background once he decided to write Ward), and things are mostly okay right up until GM.
     
    AnantaAtman said:
    That's some arrogation you have going there. To counter your first point, imagine, you have this disaster. It is coming every three months. You pray and pray. The whole world pray to whichever higher beings out there. Perhaps, your god would save you. But no, times passed, millions had died, psychotic murderers roam the land, there is no sign of divine. At this point, you realize, there is no god. Only golden man rescuing cats.
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    Arrogance is assuming everyone would have one singular, proper, reaction to this kind of crisis. Some people would look at the Endbringers and say 'this is proof that there is no god'. Others would say 'no, this is proof we're following the wrong god(s)'. Some would, as in Worm Canon, worship the three unstoppable beings either in the hope that venerating them would end the attacks or because they think doing so would spare them. Scion worshipers would be a thing. You'd even have people pulling out lists of various dead or near dead religions and picking one that looks interesting for the novelty of it and the faintest shred of hope.

    And then there's all the Doomsday Theology types who pop up at the slightest provocation. These guys would be everywhere on Bet, even with the fact that the average person either wouldn't realize or internalize that the world is dying. Hell, it wouldn't surprise me if Jack Slash's parents were of this group, in some form or other.

    'Basically everyone abandons religion in favor of apathetic nihilism' is overly reductionist and, frankly, unrealistic. Which is why it's unsurprising that it's the position Wildbow took.
     
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    Since this debate is apparently still ongoing, I'll link to a video from GMSkeptic discussing the topic.
    The main takeaway is that religiosity increases during adverse and unpredictable conditions, and decreases in safer, more predictable conditions.
    EDIT: The video also makes a second point of actions speaking louder than words, which is arguably a more important takeaway in general, but less important for this specific argument.
     
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    They do actually have gods in Worm. They are called Heroes, as it doesn't always have to be a deity that is worshipped. People only need something they can believe in. And in such a setting, Heroes would fill that role perfectly.
     
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    Sandy River DL said:
    Like Bumblebee, Hausōs will be twisting orders as far as she can. To use an example from earlier outlines, if instructed to rob Bay Central Bank in mid-April, she'd steal the scene from the Undersiders and make off with her Amy.
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    That would actually be hilarious, if she shows up and steals "the most beautiful and valuable thing here", that being Panacea, then takes her off on a date.
    New Wave goes to rescue her, only to find the two of them at a nice Italian restaurant sharing a bowl of spaghetti in a scene reminiscent of Lady and the Tramp.

    Although on second thought, maybe Taylor could save that for Rachel/Bitch.
     
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