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Firebird, a Worm AU/Xover?

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Honestly, I still don't get how he captured her. Maybe it was explained since the chapter was published and I missed it but Taylor has been using her Precog regulary to check the future. She had two run ins with Cricket and survived her first meeting with Hookwolf barely through danger sense. Why has she not taken a second after the Battle to check if there will be danger during the meeting. For that matter, if I remember correctly, Taylor apparently keeps her Precog running permantly to look for threats. I don't get why it wasn't useful during the Escape attempt but her also missing the bombs just breaks my SOD.

If however her Precog is not as instinctive as it seemed a while and can be forgotten about then it also requires acitve effort to use. Maybe more then her TK, but are you willing to bet your life on it?

There are three ways to hold an unwilling precog telepath.
1st. Requires the TK do be unable to shut down airflows. Put him or her into a closed environment that you can influence and control. For Taylors demonstrated level of power that is Space. She got a few minutes to think she can hardcounter everything else.
2nd. Get leverage through loved ones. Thing is, if you ever slip up, even days or years later your Precog will know and kill you.
3rd. Hardcounter her, either through power blocking or throughtly drugging her out of her mind.

Second is the most likely, anything else makes Taylor either useless or is so cost intensive as to be outside Coils means.
Under water she could just rip a hole into any containment and keep the water away from her. Any drugs have to be admistered, either in Gas or liquid form. Precoging where these are should be well withhin Taylors abilites.

Sorry, if it comes across as attacking a great story, however the kidnapping and Taylors Damsel in Distress routine are just plain and simple SOD breaking.
 
Franklymydear said:
What's Maternal Instinct? All I get when I search is a KP fic.
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It's a Worm quest with a fairly well-written romance between Taylor (the PC) and Sundancer/Marissa/Mars.
Featuring: Siberian!Taylor, Alive!OP!Alcoholic!Hero, Smart!Lung, and a S9 that builds an Endbringer so they can watch it fight another Endbringer!
@ltmauve has the correct link.
 
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Serran said:
Why has she not taken a second after the Battle to check if there will be danger during the meeting. For that matter, if I remember correctly, Taylor apparently keeps her Precog running permantly to look for threats. I don't get why it wasn't useful during the Escape attempt but her also missing the bombs just breaks my SOD.
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She saw the bombs with her normal vision. She wasn't looking up or looking for bombs because she had no reason to think there were any. And it's precog. Not PTV. Even earlier, she's looking for danger to herself, in her immediate area, not something that is hours away from happening. Even when she concluded that Coil might know where she was, based on Lisa's words, short-range checks would only show her the conversation playing out. Precognition gets way too much assumed power. And during the escape attempt... well, you can't see, barely able to hear and are coughing up a storm/can't breath. None of these things are conducive to keeping calm and plotting out a perfect escape route. She had enough seconds to see that shit was about to get real and then bam... everything exploded in her face. She has some incredibly strong powers but she's still a 15 year old girl aside from that, not a hyper-competent all knowing badass.

And anyway. Been over this before, but if you had precognition, no one's going to keep it running all the time. Do you know how boring that would get? You've got it always on, which means you've got it set to show you everything ahead say... there's a three minute gap... so you see something happening and three minutes later, you actually do it...

I await a huge number of pages on precog debating now. Ugh.
 
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chibipoe said:
She saw the bombs with her normal vision. She wasn't looking up or looking for bombs because she had no reason to think there were any. And it's precog. Not PTV. Even earlier, she's looking for danger to herself, in her immediate area, not something that is hours away from happening. Even when she concluded that Coil might know where she was, based on Lisa's words, short-range checks would only show her the conversation playing out. Precognition gets way too much assumed power. And during the escape attempt... well, you can't see, barely able to hear and are coughing up a storm/can't breath. None of these things are conducive to keeping calm and plotting out a perfect escape route. She had enough seconds to see that shit was about to get real and then bam... everything exploded in her face. She has some incredibly strong powers but she's still a 15 year old girl aside from that, not a hyper-competent all knowing badass.

And anyway. Been over this before, but if you had precognition, no one's going to keep it running all the time. Do you know how boring that would get? You've got it always on, which means you've got it set to show you everything ahead say... there's a three minute gap... so you see something happening and three minutes later, you actually do it...

I await a huge number of pages on precog debating now. Ugh.
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I'm wondering is how many chapters you're going to drag this out before she delves into his mind and procedures just read his mind like a mental wood chipper. After all physical things like drugs won't affect her mind when it goes on to the astral plane.
 
chibipoe said:
And anyway. Been over this before, but if you had precognition, no one's going to keep it running all the time. Do you know how boring that would get? You've got it always on, which means you've got it set to show you everything ahead say... there's a three minute gap... so you see something happening and three minutes later, you actually do it...
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No, that'd be silly from a narrative standpoint, and annoying from a writing one.

But if she's just been told she's exposed in her civilian ID, and Lisa's an unknown quantity/factor who isn't entirely forthcoming with information on the specifics of just how much she's put Taylor at risk, or even may have been followed (since Coil has already tried kidnapping Taylor once, and Lisa admits to having been there), it feels like it kicks in a mite bit conveniently late.

Agree/Ditto on the 'much higher risk for a 'possible' equivalent reward' in that Coil doesn't have the same levers as he has on Dinah, much less that Sirin's a ward, and at the least, GG will eventually clue the PRT into looking for her, and as has been demonstrated, the PRT 'needs' to make sure to find out what happened, if nothing else, because Danny made it their responsibility. Coil could try and blame the Empire and say she's dead, but without a body and known strong TK, having a convenient corpse nearby or what have you won't necessarily work.

Also this isn't Dinah, the unknown super-thinker, it's a known (if reluctant) Ward. Correct dosing, if he takes that route, is super-important. Dinah was not a flight risk due to not having extra abilities. Taylor, on the other hand....But I just now read the post that those types of thoughts will be addressed soon, so I'll wait and sit on that one for now.
 
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chibipoe said:
She saw the bombs with her normal vision. She wasn't looking up or looking for bombs because she had no reason to think there were any. And it's precog. Not PTV. Even earlier, she's looking for danger to herself, in her immediate area, not something that is hours away from happening. Even when she concluded that Coil might know where she was, based on Lisa's words, short-range checks would only show her the conversation playing out. Precognition gets way too much assumed power. And during the escape attempt... well, you can't see, barely able to hear and are coughing up a storm/can't breath. None of these things are conducive to keeping calm and plotting out a perfect escape route. She had enough seconds to see that shit was about to get real and then bam... everything exploded in her face. She has some incredibly strong powers but she's still a 15 year old girl aside from that, not a hyper-competent all knowing badass.

And anyway. Been over this before, but if you had precognition, no one's going to keep it running all the time. Do you know how boring that would get? You've got it always on, which means you've got it set to show you everything ahead say... there's a three minute gap... so you see something happening and three minutes later, you actually do it...

I await a huge number of pages on precog debating now. Ugh.
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The capture is still SOD breaking, not saying she has Precog on all the time but considering she was in a fight earlier (so realistically, as a 15 year old she'd be on an adrenaline high) and is meeting Lisa, whom she considers a potential enemy, has just found out Coil knows who she is and likely knows where she lives, she'd be paranoid as hell and having precog on constantly (looking to see if Lisa's 'Boss' would attack, as Lisa is currently there and betraying him), so she should have seen the bombs go off at least half a minute before hand, and not only spotting them a few seconds before with her normal vision.

If she's looking for danger towards herself I'd have thought bombs where she is currently standing would count. After all she isn't looking for specific threats, just a general 'in the next minute will something unexpected and dangerous happen'.

Otherwise you're saying she wasn't using precog at all, which is stupid considering she's with someone she at least views as sort-of hostile, and has just learnt Coil knows who she is and potentially where she lives.

Actually she should have seen the bombs much earlier if she's using precog, as it's shown her precog can see quite far into the future considering she played out conversations with Danny over the wards thing, that tells me that her precog can see at the very least ten minutes into the future, and more likely a lot more.

Not saying it's PtV and automatically provides her with a way to win and/or escape, but she at least should have seen it coming and been a fairer fight against the Travelers. It's fully possible she might lose so they end result would be the same (Taylor captured). But it's still SOD breaking that considering the situation Taylor wouldn't be using precog and see the attack coming.

I mean even if Taylor only saw like 10 seconds before, which wouldn't really change anything, the fact that she didn't see it at all is the main SOD breaking thing, even if the precog can't do anything about it (IIRC Dinah in canon saw 'somebody' coming after her, she just wasn't able to stop it), it's still almost impossible to get the drop on them, especially if they are as paranoid and as tense as Taylor.

Whilst precog isn't as powerful as some people make it out to be, after all knowing is only part of the battle, it's dead useful as a 'danger sense'. If you're paranoid and feeling threatened, i.e. Taylor when Lisa tells her about the library, you subconsciously look for threats, escape etc, so for a precog that would mean subconsciously looking a short while into the future ('Danger Sense') to see if that THREAT became actively HOSTILE, so even if she specifically focused on Lisa and therefor didn't see the bombs directly she'd at least see Lisa react to the bombs, which would clue her in that something else was happening.
 
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Wolfman217 said:
If she's looking for danger towards herself I'd have thought bombs where she is currently standing would count
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*sigh* Because 'bombs where I am currently' is something you would reasonably suspect to look for in a place that you primarily feel safe and secure. Gods, she isn't paranoid and looking for bombs under the bed and before anyone says: But reasonable danger! If you're looking for bombs in the place you sleep... that isn't reasonable. Reasonable danger is going to be people attacking her. And anyway. If she did look ahead, she'd see the bombs going off if she looked forward enough, but she isn't going to magically find the bombs because hey, why would she be looking for them in the first place? He's used men and tranqs in her own experience of interacting with his troops... not bombs.
 
chibipoe said:
*sigh* Because 'bombs where I am currently' is something you would reasonably suspect to look for in a place that you primarily feel safe and secure. Gods, she isn't paranoid and looking for bombs under the bed and before anyone says: But reasonable danger! If you're looking for bombs in the place you sleep... that isn't reasonable. Reasonable danger is going to be people attacking her. And anyway. If she did look ahead, she'd see the bombs going off if she looked forward enough, but she isn't going to magically find the bombs because hey, why would she be looking for them in the first place? He's used men and tranqs in her own experience of interacting with his troops... not bombs.
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You forget this is SV where anything but constant paranoid power uses is considered having the idiot ball.
 
chibipoe said:
*sigh* Because 'bombs where I am currently' is something you would reasonably suspect to look for in a place that you primarily feel safe and secure. Gods, she isn't paranoid and looking for bombs under the bed and before anyone says: But reasonable danger! If you're looking for bombs in the place you sleep... that isn't reasonable. Reasonable danger is going to be people attacking her. And anyway. If she did look ahead, she'd see the bombs going off if she looked forward enough, but she isn't going to magically find the bombs because hey, why would she be looking for them in the first place? He's used men and tranqs in her own experience of interacting with his troops... not bombs.
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You're trying to argue against people who believe that all heroes have the Batman mentality of hyper-competence and paranoia, and that any argument otherwise is "SoD breaking". Having been through similar arguments (HP wizarding world vs. Muggle world), I recommend not bothering.

And Imp'd by VolantRedX
 
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chibipoe said:
*sigh* Because 'bombs where I am currently' is something you would reasonably suspect to look for in a place that you primarily feel safe and secure. Gods, she isn't paranoid and looking for bombs under the bed and before anyone says: But reasonable danger! If you're looking for bombs in the place you sleep... that isn't reasonable. Reasonable danger is going to be people attacking her. And anyway. If she did look ahead, she'd see the bombs going off if she looked forward enough, but she isn't going to magically find the bombs because hey, why would she be looking for them in the first place? He's used men and tranqs in her own experience of interacting with his troops... not bombs.
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Granted, an IED is a pretty stupid way to try and take someone alive. They must've been either poorly or very well made, because high explosives going off in the exact same room is usually a major recipe for dead. Which presumably he gamed with his power so she'd manage a shield. It just seems kind of absurd when they could've Trickster'd her off the street and done the mad minute from there.

In short, he went with "this plan is so insane they'll never expect it" and it worked out.
 
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Sixtyforty said:
Granted, an IED is a pretty stupid way to try and take someone alive. They must've been either poorly or very well made, because high explosives going off in the exact same room is usually a major recipe for dead. Which presumably he gamed with his power so she'd manage a shield. It just seems kind of absurd when they could've Trickster'd her off the street and done the mad minute from there.

In short, he went with "this plan is so insane they'll never expect it" and it worked out.
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Don't forget that this is Coil. He may be trying that in the other timeline just to see which one succeeds, and is keeping this one because it still nets him all capes captured instead of a fight between Travellers and Hanabi/Rockshow while Trickster is tied up w/ Taylor.
 
Sixtyforty said:
Granted, an IED is a pretty stupid way to try and take someone alive. They must've been either poorly or very well made, because high explosives going off in the exact same room is usually a major recipe for dead. Which presumably he gamed with his power so she'd manage a shield. It just seems kind of absurd when they could've Trickster'd her off the street and done the mad minute from there.

In short, he went with "this plan is so insane they'll never expect it" and it worked out.
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They were more flashbang and concussion grenades then explosives.
 
Thank you very, very much. I enjoyed the chapter a lot and it went into some directions I definitely couldn't imagine.

I have to say that Piggot seems a lot less confrontational to me in this chapter than she was during her meeting with Taylor in chapter 2.6. Also, her thoughts in chapter 3.2 seemed to indicate to me that she needed a mistake from Taylor before bringing her in forcibly. This means that I misread your Piggot , that she's toning it down for Glenn, that Taylor's take down of Cricket wasn't enough to count as a reason/excuse (perhaps the Wards might not see it as sufficient) or some combination of this.

chibipoe said:
Piggot snorted and smiled hollowly. "Quite likely. The man is nearly in a state of walking catatonia. He refuses to budge. We have been considering other options given his current state…"

"And a legal separation won't worsen the situation?" he asked, catching on instantly.

"Daniel Hebert is barely able to care for himself, let alone a headstrong, teenage girl who can break him in two with her mind," she said with a note of disgust. "She's already cut herself off from him, and as far as we can tell, she has not contacted him since. While I do not relish the idea of placing more of her welfare into our hands, it is impossible for us to do a worse job than he is currently."
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chibipoe said:
"After that," he took a deep breath, "I've got some feelers out on the situation with her father, but I'm going to see about arranging a meeting with Sirin myself. We need a resolution with her father or for her to put the request in to fully break from him. She's hostile to both us and him because she sees us as a combined enemy. That needs to change."
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If I'm reading this correctly Piggot was/is busy considering making Taylor a ward of the PRT. (If that's the right term.) And once she introduced the idea Glenn got behind it?

chibipoe said:
He sighed. "The fact is, there aren't any quick and dirty solutions. The girl's power is formidable, one that makes her difficult to contain without risking severe injuries to our agents and property. Beating the crap out of members of the Empire isn't going to get you permission for sedating her indefinitely."
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Please tell me that Piggot didn't ask permission to keep Taylor sedated long term. I know I'm rather pessimistic about the PRT but just the possibility that that would be allowed... No, don't bother. Sometimes I am that much of a pessimist.

chibipoe said:
"Our avenue of connection isn't the Wards," he said. "It's Assault and Battery. She has quite an amicable relationship with them."

"Which is likely to sour the moment they try and convince her to come in," Piggot said.

"Emily, you're looking at it with a hammer when the tool needed is a scalpel, or a screwdriver if you will. We simply have to turn things in the proper direction."

"Deception isn't going to work, either," she told him. "You don't actually read the reports I send you, do you? She has a thinker power, some sort of advanced intuition. She will know if someone's trying to play her."

He waved a hand. "I'm aware. Which is why we'll proceed delicately. The two of them have a favorable association with her. We want to encourage that. The rest will fall in. Interactions with her are to be limited to those two and whichever Wards she gets along with best. They're not to be told anything, simply given their assignments."
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But what about when Taylor asks why she keeps on meeting Assault, Battery, Flechette and Vista. And it gets out that it's orders. On the other hand, this is likely the best option Glenn has to build good will.

chibipoe said:
The world spun on its axis and I staggered, suddenly on the ground. I felt a moment of panic as I realised Lisa, Catherine and Minako weren't nearby, throwing out with my powers toward where I thought they were to stop them from falling. Just as abruptly, one of them wasn't there, replaced by something else and I felt the other two jerk as if they'd been hit by something just before I dropped them onto the ground as lightly as I could.
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Reading this I get the feeling that Coil is planning for Lisa to wake in a locked room next to Taylor, never to be distracted by physical freedom, so that she can concentrate on work assigned to her by him. And Grue gets the phone calls from now on.

Now that he has Taylor, how can Coil control/contain Taylor based on what he knows without access to a tinker or master. Drugs (as shown with Dinah), collar and/or manacles that can deliver electric shocks, drugs and/or explode, an implanted poison capsule (as in the book "I, Lucifer") or a special cell. (Can also be a combination of these.)

Lastly for those people who think that the risk Coil knows he is taking is greater than the possible rewards, consider this. Coil knows that Taylor has used her precognition to find stores that won't give her problems for buying scratchcards, has winning scratchcards available that she can buy and won't give her problems when she cashes in the winning scratchcards. From what he knows her precognition is a major ability, definitely worth a (as far as he knows) reasonable amount of risk.
 
chibipoe said:
*sigh* Because 'bombs where I am currently' is something you would reasonably suspect to look for in a place that you primarily feel safe and secure. Gods, she isn't paranoid and looking for bombs under the bed and before anyone says: But reasonable danger! If you're looking for bombs in the place you sleep... that isn't reasonable. Reasonable danger is going to be people attacking her. And anyway. If she did look ahead, she'd see the bombs going off if she looked forward enough, but she isn't going to magically find the bombs because hey, why would she be looking for them in the first place? He's used men and tranqs in her own experience of interacting with his troops... not bombs.
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Again, Not saying bombs specifically, but I would have though a general scan, (as you've said looking for 'reasonable danger') bombs would count, that's how precog works, she sees the future, not makes guesses based off info she knows, so even if she's not looking for danger at all (which she would be as she's just found out Coil know her fucking identity) and just looking how the conversation with Lisa would go she would still see that bombs were about to go off. The point is Taylor using her precog for any reason whatsoever during that meeting would allow her to see an explosion, not necessarily where the bombs are, what the bombs are, how many bombs there are, but she'd still see bad shit was about to go down.

Now your just not reading what I've said, did I not specifically say that its fully possible that knowing about them would do jack shit to change the outcome, that the main SOD breaking thing was that she didn't see an explosion happening right where she is at all. She does not have to literally check specifically for bombs to see if there are bombs near her , if she did her precog would be almost useless as it would never be able to predict things she doesn't already know about. She does not have to think 'bombs' to predict bombs going off, all she has to do is look into the future for any reason and she'd see an explosion.
 
Wolfman217 said:
Again, Not saying bombs specifically, but I would have though a general scan, (as you've said looking for 'reasonable danger') bombs would count, that's how precog works, she sees the future, not makes guesses based off info she knows, so even if she's not looking for danger at all (which she would be as she's just found out Coil know her fucking identity) and just looking how the conversation with Lisa would go she would still see that bombs were about to go off. The point is Taylor using her precog for any reason whatsoever during that meeting would allow her to see an explosion, not necessarily where the bombs are, what the bombs are, how many bombs there are, but she'd still see bad shit was about to go down.

Now your just not reading what I've said, did I not specifically say that its fully possible that knowing about them would do jack shit to change the outcome, that the main SOD breaking thing was that she didn't see an explosion happening right where she is at all. She does not have to literally check specifically for bombs to see if there are bombs near her , if she did her precog would be almost useless as it would never be able to predict things she doesn't already know about. She does not have to think 'bombs' to predict bombs going off, all she has to do is look into the future for any reason and she'd see an explosion.
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Why would she be scanning the future?
 
VolantRedX said:
Why would she be scanning the future?
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Hey, look, we can make pithy statements about other posters to try and get likes or maybe you can read his post where he explains his reasoning already.
Wolfman217 said:
The capture is still SOD breaking, not saying she has Precog on all the time but considering she was in a fight earlier (so realistically, as a 15 year old she'd be on an adrenaline high) and is meeting Lisa, whom she considers a potential enemy, has just found out Coil knows who she is and likely knows where she lives, she'd be paranoid as hell and having precog on constantly (looking to see if Lisa's 'Boss' would attack, as Lisa is currently there and betraying him), so she should have seen the bombs go off at least half a minute before hand, and not only spotting them a few seconds before with her normal vision.
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VolantRedX said:
You forget this is SV where anything but constant paranoid power uses is considered having the idiot ball.
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I'm sorry but I personally wouldn't consider looking for danger as a relfex when I've just found out a supervillain knows my identity and where I live to be overly paranoid, especially if I was I precog. Not having at least a cursory glance is being an idiot.

It's like would you consider somebody who hears a car coming along a road and doesn't think it might be wise to look up to see where that car is to be an idiot.

In that example Taylor is about to cross a road and she hears a car coming and doesn't think to look if it's going to hit her.

If you hear about a threat to yourself it is human nature to look out for said threat.
 
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