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Demons and Angels

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Ship of Fools: A Taylor Varga Omake (Complete) Demons and Angels Seven Days to Skitter
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Interesting that the symbiont can hide from people with medical nanotech good enough to suppress magical, and likely shard, powers... The original one was almost certainly quad-helix, like a lot of Amy's work. Which, with advanced biotech might well have been spotted.

It seems likely Ianthe could have done a 'stealth' redesign, but that would have likely been quite a major research effort... Finding lots of different sorts of detection magic/psionics/tech/etc., and making sure they can be evaded, would have been fun...
 
A Greg hypersensitive to causing offence. If I didn't know that this was a mirror world I would now.
 
I doubt the symbiote actually shows as extra organ be it stealthy or not, its more likely to be showing as additional bacteria,microbes,virii in the body that enhance their immune systems.
 
Ace Dreamer said:
Interesting that the symbiont can hide from people with medical nanotech good enough to suppress magical, and likely shard, powers... The original one was almost certainly quad-helix, like a lot of Amy's work. Which, with advanced biotech might well have been spotted.

It seems likely Ianthe could have done a 'stealth' redesign, but that would have likely been quite a major research effort... Finding lots of different sorts of detection magic/psionics/tech/etc., and making sure they can be evaded, would have been fun...
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Perhaps not as hard as you might think? The original story canon has the symbiote spreading throughout the entire body once it is installed -- which is important because you don't want to lose your healing because the arm where you installed your healer gets cut off. She also would have implicitly wanted it to be hard to detect, including by powers and tinker tech, because it was some time before anybody not closely associated with her and Taylor got to know about the full-powered symbiote (and because of exactly the prisoner scenario depicted -- you don't want somebody like Bonesaw to be able to easily neutralize the symbiote). Add in exposure to all sorts of other technologies, magics, and capabilities from the cross-dimensional adventuring, and increasing stealth amounts to tweaking the design over time. At least, that's how I'm thinking of it.
 
Someone is not going to like The Family showing up and sticking their snout all up in their business are they. I hope whatever Sophia and Tom gave Metis won't be something to push the lizards from gently showing them where they messed to stomping a mudhole in them
 
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honestly, up until the point that Col. Andrews was chewing Maj. Kwan's ass, i thought that was SERE training
 
kyro232 said:
Someone is not going to like The Family showing up and sticking their snout all up in their business are they. I hope whatever Sophia and Tom gave Metis won't be something to push the lizards from gently showing them where they messed to stomping a mudhole in them
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Hey Imperial Family? we'd like to introduce you to Biggest Brother, who will be singing for you"
 
Derek M said:
Perhaps not as hard as you might think? The original story canon has the symbiote spreading throughout the entire body once it is installed -- which is important because you don't want to lose your healing because the arm where you installed your healer gets cut off. She also would have implicitly wanted it to be hard to detect, including by powers and tinker tech, because it was some time before anybody not closely associated with her and Taylor got to know about the full-powered symbiote (and because of exactly the prisoner scenario depicted -- you don't want somebody like Bonesaw to be able to easily neutralize the symbiote). Add in exposure to all sorts of other technologies, magics, and capabilities from the cross-dimensional adventuring, and increasing stealth amounts to tweaking the design over time. At least, that's how I'm thinking of it.
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Hmm. Getting the symbiont to work at all, be stable, be independent of any shards (Shaper or other) was an immense work of creative design. There is an incredible amount of information in there, a highly specialized AI, some dirty tricks involving energy management, metabolic stasis, all sorts of stuff. All of this done biologically, which is effectively 'wet' nanotech. There isn't any Varga space-folding to do hidden bits, as far as I know, either.

Making it resistant or invisible to powers or tinker tech? Shaper is allegedly the best biotech shard, Bonesaw got splatted along with the rest of Slaughterhouse Nine, bar Crawler - there are likely other specialized biotech shards, but the symbiont is the product of shard-work, not Tinker-tech backed by a shard. So, you could reasonably expect a shard to trump a symbiont in a one-on-one conflict. Shaper using Varga-biology as inspiration is very, very, impressive, but is likely limited in what a symbiont can do.

Using 'dry' nanotech calculations suggest a diamondoid robot the size of a pencil could unfold to roughly human size and exert human levels of strength. If a symbiont uses graphene and diamondoid fibres to rapidly expand through a body, maybe conveying materials along carbon nanotubes, and dismantles these structures when not required, while scattering healing nodes about the lymphatic system, and in bone marrow, with a really good self-destruct system when not connected to the symbiont communication net, that'd make some sense. But, nanotech creates waste heat, which the symbiont will need to manage, without a shard to use dimensional trickery to dump this elsewhere.

Hiding a comprehensive healing system as well as ensuring it works properly? You could argue this is a really tricky job, but, Ianthe is very, very, skilled.
 
Derek M said:
Ariadne began moving toward the exit. "Oh, and do me a favor? Can you let Metis know I'll be by to pick up Newell this evening?"
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rdmcmains said:
LUCY!?!?!?!?!?
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Looks like it! Though you were quicker than me, it took me until they were in Metis' office to realize who Ariadne was.

Derek M said:
"Oh, Ariadne said to tell you that she would be by to pick up Newell this evening. Is Newell a member of the family?"

Metis actually chuckled at the question. "Only an honorary member. Newell is Ariadne's iguana. I was feeding him for her while she was away from the ship."
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And I love this little mention:
Derek M said:
As they approached the door, it opened and a figure stepped out. It was dressed in a black cloak and seemed to be hovering a few inches off the floor. The head turned to stare directly at Sophia and she was taken aback to see that the hood of the cloak appeared to be completely empty. After a very uncomfortable few seconds, the cloak turned away and headed off down the corridor without a sound.
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If there is a war, I hope Cloak gets to have a little fun!
 
matrix3 said:
Looks like it! Though you were quicker than me, it took me until they were in Metis' office to realize who Ariadne was.
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My first guess that there was a Taylor of the Skitter flavour in the lizard suit, as Ariadne was confused in my head with Arachne (they both start with 'Ar'...), but it quickly became clear it was Lucy. Who maybe is into mazes? :)
 
Hmm, thinking more on the symbiote and how it blends into the body and/or works.

Perhaps it internalizes itself inside the subjects cells? Rather than augment the person, augment the cells with improved mantince and networking features, along with potential more exotic capabilities as needed.
There is no symbiote to detect anymore, because everything is a symbiote. A detailed examination of some of their cells might show some extra organic structures, but a simple "dissolve if in a cluster smaller than XX size" command could frustrate even that.
And being integrated on the level of individual cells would also somewhat explain how well it works. got a wound? just prompt nearby cells of the right type to devide faster on an individual basis, while fixing the intrnal cellualr strain of the faster division rate. ageing? tune up individual cells. illness and nanites? every cell can actively defend itself. drugged? oh look, the receptors they would have effected are now actively refusing to interact with them, and/or hearding them towards waste disposal.
 
Lovely update. For a while I thought Tom and Sophia were stuck in a VR scenario thinking they had escaped (still possible, but the old and new stand-ins of Cloak and Ariadne make that less likely, though still not impossible if the kidnappers have more intel on Family members than Tom and Sophia.)
In any case, thank you and looking forward to more.
 
That reminds me - are they ever going to let poor Levi out of his box on good behavior?
 
I think the only thing more terrifying than getting the Family angry at you would be to turn around and finding Ms. Aoyama standing behind you.
 
Shandrakor said:
Agreed, I was wondering if this was counter interrogation as well.

As for the war I wonder if full Varga is going to visit and explain the facts of life.
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The Family has so many ways of wrecking things...

Just one example:

Step one, analyse their society.
Step two, plant one-shot trees and food trees in deprived places while launching some flashy 'revenge' attacks.
Step three, sit back and watch their Empire fall apart?

The Family is capable of thinking about a post-scarcity economy, something that calls itself a 'Empire' is almost certainly controlling their people via limiting things like health cover and food...

Mapping the general planar structure of the 'Infinite Worlds', though, would be an immense task, but would likely entertain some for a very long time...

I continue to appreciate the fun ways this story develops!
 
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podlizurko said:
@Derek M - considering how much time has passed, has mirrorverse Amy recovered and are we going to see the mirrorverse again?
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Has she recovered? She may have gotten to the point where she's not disassociating from reality as a daily coping mechanism. Given that her experiences were pretty equivalent to one of Jack Slash's more inventive S9 recruitment drives in canon Worm, that by itself might be a struggle.

She will also certainly have some rather extreme PTSD, but her triggers may have some unexpected twists to them. It may be difficult for her to voluntarily choose to use her powers again, even if the Nox can shut down the stupid conflict drive inherent to how agents function. I can also say from my own experiences that PTSD triggers can sneak up on you in unexpected ways, even years after you think you've worked through most of it. Quite honestly, I don't know if I want to go places where an in-depth exploration of that kind of trauma might take me. I'm satisfied that her reaction to her father conveyed the depth of just how messed up she is inside. It's particularly poignant when compared to Ianthe/Amy from the TV verse.

The negative feedback I've gotten from my stories also tends to come in whenever things start to look dark. I got it with Ship of Fools when I did a chapter that was a bit of a parody of when fanfics suddenly get really dark. People weren't willing to wait to see the family shut the introduced villains down in a way that was (to borrow a phrase), "ridiculously easy...barely an inconvenience." I also got it in Demons and Angels when I was setting the stage for the mirror universe. I mean, I get it -- people who read Taylor Varga and my spin-off fics don't tend to be the same people who read Worm because they loved the angst, misery, and horror. These stories are a mix of crack fic and fix fic with an OP protagonist where most of the tension comes from seeing what happens next rather than wondering if our fair heroine is going to *gasp* die a terrible fate. (For that to happen to Taylor, something would probably have to happen that would wipe out a good chunk of reality in at least one universe.) I'm not sure most of my readers want too much darkness.

Finally....just like I said in the last chapter that I didn't feel I could do justice to issues of race relations and prejudice beyond trying to be respectful in passing, I also don't think I could tackle mirror Amy's recovery in a way that would satisfy my standards. There's plenty of fiction that treats such things as simplistic plot devices without any real respect for the issues at hand and I wouldn't want to contribute to that.
 
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