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Contractual Villainy

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Personally I kinda always saw the idea of the Wards being effectively unarmored as proof of the PRT claim to keep wards out of conflict as best they could.
See, there's enough of them still alive to have a Wards team, even given the canonically lethal threat environment that is Brockton Bay.
If wards under fire wasn't rare and a drop everything emergency, there would be a lot fewer of them, given anything less than full body power armor.
It also explains why Piggot was apocalyptic after the bank heist. Those wards simply shouldn't have been there. Not as first line combatants, and certainly not completely with out support by competent command.
Yes, the wards screwed up tactically, and got a minor reprimand, but the true screw the pooch elements were with the protectorate and PRT tac squads that should have been onsite holding scene command.
 
Aganippe said:
Yes, the wards screwed up tactically, and got a minor reprimand, but the true screw the pooch elements were with the protectorate and PRT tac squads that should have been onsite holding scene command.
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Coil arranged things so that the Protectorate were unavailable, but you're right about the PRT. The only possible reason for even bringing the Wards out was someone deciding that the only way to deal with the Undersiders was with parahumans on their side, even if it was the Wards.
 
Aganippe said:
Personally I kinda always saw the idea of the Wards being effectively unarmored as proof of the PRT claim to keep wards out of conflict as best they could.
See, there's enough of them still alive to have a Wards team, even given the canonically lethal threat environment that is Brockton Bay.
If wards under fire wasn't rare and a drop everything emergency, there would be a lot fewer of them, given anything less than full body power armor.
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An armored Ward, however, is a Ward who can survive longer if shit goes sideways unexpectedly. It's personal protection equipment, not full combat armor. Unless the Ward is a Tinker who can build armor of course.
 
rdmcmains said:
Coil arranged things so that the Protectorate were unavailable, but you're right about the PRT. The only possible reason for even bringing the Wards out was someone deciding that the only way to deal with the Undersiders was with parahumans on their side, even if it was the Wards.
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Yes, absolutely, Coil was the ( hidden) root cause, but from the POV of the director's chair, the incident was a rotating cluster starting from before the job was ever raised for dispatch.
First, and most important, you never schedule a no cover gap, such that none can respond. Yet this is what the local protectorate team did. Not only was there no one holding the fort (out of a critical minimum of two), they were too far away to break off and respond degraded. Massive, massive no no.
It should have been a delegate and train the trainer model situation
Second, dispatch were either unable to raise a response squad, or squad response was degraded, and no secondary response was raised, nor was command notified of unable to raise response.
This is it's own huge no no.
I can guarantee that there will be a fail of ascertain response plan in the dispatch centre that will give two ( possibly three) attempts to raise a squad leader with an acceptable time to site, followed by, in order, shift lieutenant, shift captain, assistant director, director.
That is, if you can't get an acceptable responce out of anyone else, you have standing orders to ring Piggot's office direct line, followed by her personal phone, irrespective of the time to report unable to contact.
I can promise that if no one else was gonna stop up, the iron lady would herself, and the may whatever god you believe in save you if you were in that call chain and decided not to bother.
The wards had training not to engage without authorization from either scene or general command. They shouldn't have gone in. But you don't lay a screw up of that magnitude at the feet of a bunch of cadets.


Sandy River DL said:
An armored Ward, however, is a Ward who can survive longer if shit goes sideways unexpectedly. It's personal protection equipment, not full combat armor. Unless the Ward is a Tinker who can build armor of course.
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Armor and PPE are different things, with different purposes, and are trained differently.
Notably PPE is for unexpected exposure, that is, "sure it could maybe happen, but this <barrier, shield, system, seperation> is supposed to deal with it first. we wear it in case it didn't work completely"
Vrs armor is expected to be challenged eventually, and is designed to buy a few moments in order to gtfo.
In both cases, either getting challenged are major near miss events, but the mindset around them, instilled by training is wildly different.

And yeah tinkers making their own armor is a separate discussion

Edit: punctuation
 
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Aganippe said:
First, and most important, you never schedule a no cover gap, such that none can respond. Yet this is what the local protectorate team did. Not only was there no one holding the fort (out of a critical minimum of two), they were too far away to break off and respond degraded. Massive, massive no no.
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Don't they do that twice in Worm? Like, the Bank job, and then the charity event where every single Protectorate and Ward was at one location. Who is doing these schedules?
 
serra2 said:
Don't they do that twice in Worm? Like, the Bank job, and then the charity event where every single Protectorate and Ward was at one location. Who is doing these schedules?
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Technically not quite, the second was a nil active cover, but in theory every hero at the event could be tasked regardless.
That event is still poor planning, but not disastrous.
But yes, it does show a pattern of flaws in the scheduling of the Protectorate ENE branch
 
Speaking of Coil, I can see his attempts to leverage Taylor failing spectacularly. Since his information uses the PRT as its main source he's liable to try and threaten Danny and/or Emma to get her to comply . . . with potentially hilarious results. Attempts to capture her will fail due to the medically triggered teleport failsafe, she has no leverage in her civilian identity, and Coil represents the ultimate in abuse of authority.
 
MultipleChoice said:
Speaking of Coil, I can see his attempts to leverage Taylor failing spectacularly. Since his information uses the PRT as its main source he's liable to try and threaten Danny and/or Emma to get her to comply . . . with potentially hilarious results. Attempts to capture her will fail due to the medically triggered teleport failsafe, she has no leverage in her civilian identity, and Coil represents the ultimate in abuse of authority.
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And any attempts through the Undersiders would result in dropped time lines as she and Lisa vanish. Which leaves him without any of his usual options for recruitment and the only things that'd actually work, playing nice, are ones that are more or less antithetical to him.

Which, Amusingly, leaves Coil as a major antagonist who never actually is noticed by Taylor. Right up until it's least convenient for him...
 
MultipleChoice said:
Speaking of Coil, I can see his attempts to leverage Taylor failing spectacularly. Since his information uses the PRT as its main source he's liable to try and threaten Danny and/or Emma to get her to comply . . . with potentially hilarious results. Attempts to capture her will fail due to the medically triggered teleport failsafe, she has no leverage in her civilian identity, and Coil represents the ultimate in abuse of authority.
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That still requires the PRT to figure that out, which seems like it won't happen for a while yet. Once it does happen, Coil may feel that the situation works better as a scandal to wield against the PRT, even if he can't recruit Taylor.
 
Ragnarokasgard67 said:
So why is Taylor worshipping a Skyrim Goddess?
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Because Earth Bet is sorely lacking in culture that isn't cape-based and it not only allows me to flesh things out, but also have some fun with phraseology on Taylor's part. Though admittedly the latter is what got it started. And why specifically a goddess from The Elder Scrolls? Because I felt like it.
 
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serra2 said:
Like, I went off a while back over the whole "Forgot to get food for Taylor for like a week" thing, but "Danny the HR guy for a failing industry" has a pretty good excuse. I have definitely had periods in my early life where going without food for a few days due to either no money or just no time to get food, particularly when in a shit situation. But the me of now, with a very comfortable salary, and plenty of free time and support, doing the same would be way more questionable, and I don't have any dependents waiting on me.

It seems to me that Danny feels much more fulfilled being Legion than being Danny, and just gradually stopped really focusing on that part of his life up until Taylor ran away. Which raises the fairly dark question, of how long it took for Danny to realize Taylor was gone?
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How can he not have time to get food? The major grocery stores in the Chicagoland area where I live are open from 6am until at least 10pm, with Jewel and the now defunct (but open in 2011) Dominick's being open 6am-midnight. Walmart is the same, and they sell food as well, with a few Walmarts also being full-blown general stores with produce and bakery departments.
So that means that there is only an 8 hour period when the grocery stores are not open, 6 hours in the case of Jewel. I think Aldi's opens at 9 and closes at 8, leaving a 13-hour period when it is not open.
Back in 2018 I had a temp job to help upgrade Jewels computers, so I know the "6am to midnight, seven days a week" is company wide, or at least everything in the Chicagoland metropolitan area considering I visited 1/5 of all the stores.

So he'd have to be leaving for work at 6am and going home after 9pm in order to not have time for grocery shopping before or after work.

Idle.Entity said:
Actually starting out on a blank canvas virgin Earth with that sort of power must be making her shard dance in glee. It's the closest thing they can get to actually starting with two rocks and a stick they can. That it let's Taylor speed up the development to build the civilization within a lifetime makes it great too.
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How did the pilgrims of the Mayfly do it centuries ago with only a single boatload of colonists and supplies?
What about the pioneers who settled in the West with only about 15 covered wagon loads of supplies? (If MECC's Oregon Trail was to be believed a typical wagon train was about 15 wagons. I apologize if the Apple II version of MECC's Oregon Trail is a bad source.).

Taylor's main problem is a lack of resources to take with her to get started, and only having one person for labor. If she had a few dozen people and a boatload of proper supplies along with books on how to use them she could have a viable independent self-sustaining colony within a year. Granted, it would probably be only 18th century technology, 19th century at best but it would be a sustainable colony.

Colonizing this new Earth isn't that different from colonizing America when a ship took months to cross the ocean and overland travel took just as long.
 
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Sandy River DL said:
I think people are letting metaknowledge from Taylor's side and Emma's narration tint things. So far, Emma's only shown herself to be very 'tough on crime' and not caught up on PRT/Protectorate rules, along with being a bit too quick to blast. Which is not atypical, for the latter two points, for a freshly recruited Blaster. And a black-and-white worldview is hardly an indicator of being secretly evil. It's not like she was spouting off the predator-prey nonsense in front of the Wards or being abrasive like Sophia.
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Hm. Interesting point... well, I guess we'll see how things go! I expect I'll continue enjoying the story, in any case. :)

Bit confused as to why Missy calling in after saying that she was going to call Lisa's info in got taken as her being connected to some other faction.
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Well, like I said, she was explicitly noted as having memorized the number, and she opened with some kind of alphanumeric identification and/or authorization code. I think I assumed that, if this wasn't part of something she was doing covertly, she'd just have hit a button for a saved number and identified herself as Vista, or the like.

And of course we went with your offered possibility of giving it to Void. You didn't provide any other handle to attribute it to :p
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Oh, I know, I know; I just thought maybe you'd think of something better, or adapt the wording, or something. And like I said, I still laughed. :D
(And I got some potentially useful data from examining my feelings on the matter.)

Actually, the line operator knows exactly who the report is coming from. That is, after all, the point of authentication codes.
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Oh, they even known that MS9B74E83 is Vista? Yeah, I seem to have drastically misread that bit, sorry.
 
SlickRCBD said:
So he'd have to be leaving for work at 6am and going home after 9pm in order to not have time for grocery shopping before or after work.
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Your main false assumption here is that he is, in fact, leaving work at all, rather than just staying at it. WOG is that he has been on duty pretty much 24/7 since the beginning of December, so Taylor has not seen him for a MONTH.
 
SlickRCBD said:
How did the pilgrims of the Mayfly do it centuries ago with only a single boatload of colonists and supplies?
What about the pioneers who settled in the West with only about 15 covered wagon loads of supplies? (If Oregon Trail was to be believed a typical wagon train was about 15 wagons).
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Well, er, that is to say... they managed it more often than not by relying on the generosity of and/or outright stealing from the people who were already there. So... not exactly a workable comparison? Or at least I kinda hope not?
 
Mal-3 said:
Well, er, that is to say... they managed it more often than not by relying on the generosity of and/or outright stealing from the people who were already there. So... not exactly a workable comparison? Or at least I kinda hope not?
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Well, it is workable if the Americas are uninhibited, can only be accessed by secret means, the colonists are supplying themselves off piracy, and... wait, no, no it's not a workable comparison.
 
They also needed, like, a whole lot of bodies. Those early colonies were a meat grinder.

Also Sandy, I don't know if it was intentional, but you have a colony/civilization rebuilder superpower, provided by a shard named [OVERSEER]......

Are they Vault-Tec approved?
 
serra2 said:
Also Sandy, I don't know if it was intentional, but you have a colony/civilization rebuilder superpower, provided by a shard named [OVERSEER]......

Are they Vault-Tec approved?
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I was originally going to call the Shard [WORLD BUILDER], but decided that was a bit too one the nose. And as a bud of [ADMINISTRATOR], [OVERSEER] felt like a good alternative, as they are related concepts.
Sleeping1 said:
So seeing Kyne as a legitimate deity in this fic, I have to ask: Did Todd Howard choose to found a New Age cult over going into game dev?
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Maybe, or maybe he had a divine revelation in a dream from inter-reality leakage made possible by the Entities mucking about. YOU DECIDE! Because I'm not going to.
 
SlickRCBD said:
Taylor's main problem is a lack of resources to take with her to get started, and only having one person for labor. If she had a few dozen people and a boatload of proper supplies along with books on how to use them she could have a viable independent self-sustaining colony within a year. Granted, it would probably be only 18th century technology, 19th century at best but it would be a sustainable colony.
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The key difference is that Taylor can shortcut a lot of building by accessing a world with an advanced industry. The colonies had to wait months to get processed supplies before they built their infrastructure, Taylor can pop in and walk down to the local shops and take it. So like the original colonists she can mooch off already established people.

Her main issue there is how much she can take at a time, not getting caught with dimensional tech, and not getting caught in general. She's being careful what she takes at the moment for her tech and also needing to get basic supplies for herself until she can be self-sufficient.

She did mention starting with stone tools and using Earth Bet stuff to let her jump to Iron-Age, so she has plans to get around starting from scratch. It'll be difficult, but doable. Still, since she plans to switch to developing infrastructure and sourcing supplies from her own Earth rather than forever relying on Earth-Bet, it's close enough to get her Shard a lot of juicy [DATA] while also speed-running some development. A balance between literally starting from scratch and being able to get regular shipments and support from colonizers.

Also, Taylor has a shit ton of tinker bull in her head. If her specialty is to straight up build a civilization from scratch that includes a lot. Early humans had to find what was edible, what killed you, and where was safe. Then how to farm (planting, cultivating to make new food, soil quality, water, weather, etc.), architecture, animals (identification, hunting, husbandry, extermination), just so many things. And she has it all so she can skip the trial and error phase.

Her just dropping into the new planet without surveys for dangerous wildlife, local land conditions, and local plants and such was stupid, but she kind of had to. She almost died in a blizzard after all.

As for labor, she is a Tinker. She isn't going to be building a modern city by hand, but tinkers are able to shortcut a ridiculous amount of things with sub-par materials, they're really really ridiculous. But yes, she'll need more hands on deck eventually. But, considering she had a QA bud called Overseer, she likely has something power-wise to help her recruit/ manage people. She already has one parahuman on board and a second already setting up things to escape with her if things go downhill. It doesn't seem like a Master power, more Thinker, but it'll do.

Even if not there are people who would jump on a chance to escape Earth Bet. The place has a bunch of terrible things happening and Endbringers. Being a brand new settler but not having to worry about an Endbringer coming to wreck your everything every three months would be a mighty draw. She just needs time there and to be able to recruit on the sly until she's built up enough to be open about it.

The biggest issue is her tinker shards. Are the shards Overseer got from the Cauldron vial jailbroken or not? If she has to do a bunch of maintenance on her stuff it'll bottleneck development and give the new settlement a very devestating weakpoint. Then, what is all included in her civilization specialty? Like, there's a test to see if something is edible or not without just going straight to eating it. Is that included? Or did she not think to do it? Not having that could screw her over. Can she build a scanner to tell if food is safe?
 
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