- Location
- New York
- Pronouns
- He/Him
The Chaos Gods are literal gods fueled by the nightmares of untold trillions of sentient beings. They exist outside of time and space. I'm pretty sure they'd win that fight.
[HALP] me! (WORM quest)
- Thread starter Vhalidictes
- Start date
You mean the gods that have trouble with the canon factions wh40k. As much as the Chaos gods are insanely powerful by any metric, they still come up short against entities. Though that just means that Tzeench will have to carefully corrupt them mid cycle when they are at their weakest and then launch a coup. A bit like we are planning right now, this does run into the issue that Chaos tends to be pretty good at fucking themselves, so it would depend on if they are stealthy enough and are able to not fuck themselves for long enough that they are able to take over an entity. If they fail I doubt that they will get a chance to try again.
- Location
- Florida, USA
If your argument is that Entities are bigger and badder and would have less issues, I would like to direct your attention to what the Research topic says:
Yeah, so, the Entities had issues. Not so sure that just because we're creative we'll do that much better.
. . . I don't think Vhal is preparing a safety net for us. I think we're quite able to jump ourselves off a cliff if we want. After all, a series of incalculable events lead us to Panacea hiding in the Docks.
I think that it has more to do with them being more trouble than it was worth for the entities, also one thing to remember the reason they do these cycles are because they have no creativity so it stands to reason that between cycles they only do number crunching and maybe fight other entities. From that we can extrapolate that they learned of Psionics, the they tested it in a cycle or two, things got out of hand and they ended the experiment, blew up the planet and its alternates, then decided to not deal with this random element. Because their survival and subsequent growth shows that they can deal with things like the chaos gods when they are at their most vulnerable, though that does not help us since Scion giving a shit is basically a failure state for us too.
- Location
- New York
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Alright, after thinking about Amy's Odyessey and looking at all these funny and insightful ratings, I can only conclude that Vhal will indeed screw us in whatever way he finds most amusing. Memetic filtering coming soon.
- Location
- Poland
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Oh wait it was you who wrote Splinters?!
Damn I liked that story.
And it does make me think- we are kinda like that Taylor, aren't we? Just not pretending to be Taylor, and less divergent.
Which is a good thing. I can just hear [Romance] remarking that [Gaea] is cute and would be a good pairing with [Wisdom 3].
@Vhalidictes, I'm trying to sort the Shard addresses in my Shard Information post by which group the host is affiliated with, but I'm not sure which group certain parahumans are in for this quest, and I've read conflicting things about canon. Can you please clarify each of the following?:
*Is Triumph a Protectorate member or still in the Wards?
*Has Coil already recruited Chariot?
*Is Squealer part of the Merchants at this point?
Thanks for any information you can give.
*Is Triumph a Protectorate member or still in the Wards?
*Has Coil already recruited Chariot?
*Is Squealer part of the Merchants at this point?
Thanks for any information you can give.
- Location
- New York
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Vhal can you clarify how many research omakes you will allow? I think earlier you said there was a restriction. Something like one omake per chapter?
In the previous chapter Human Bio has 2 omake bonuses though, Focussed a third, so I'm not sure.
In the previous chapter Human Bio has 2 omake bonuses though, Focussed a third, so I'm not sure.
I think it was one omake per person per chapter.
- Location
- Florida, USA
One Omake per reader per chapter. So twenty of us could write Omakes iffen we wanted. Just don't want someone like me spamming six or twelve a chapter now that I know I can work on lowering the Research of ones we aren't even doing yet.
Vhalidictes
(Verified Demon)
- Location
- Las Vegas
Sorry, I haven't been following the thread too closely today because of work.
Triumph is still a Wards member at this time, IIRC.
EDIT: I just checked and I don't think canon is clear. My current understanding (for this Quest) is that he moved to the Protectorate some time in January 2011. He should still be a Ward currently.
Coil has already recruited Chariot.
Squealer is already a Merchant, although it's not clear how far back she joined.
Currently, it's one per Reader per turn/chapter. I might restrict this but that depends somewhat on participation and quality.
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- Location
- New York
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Thank you, I must have misunderstood.
Well if we all start cranking out research omakes every chapter that should speed things up considerably. I'll try for focussed after the update come out.
- Location
- Florida, USA
In order to keep identities secret, it makes the most sense to uplift to Protectorate at set times, either biannually or quarterly.
So really, having it happen around the New Year makes sense.
- Location
- New York
- Pronouns
- He/Him
I think in canon when Wards graduated they either held the event early or late to hide their birthdays.
Ok, I've finally finished my Shard Information post, though I'll need to update it quite a bit after the next chapter comes out. @Vhalidictes, Alexandria should be italicized, right? She isn't italicized in the Shard Addresses threadmark, but I'm pretty sure she's a Cauldron cape.
The post gives a general overview of the different Shards we contacted, and I didn't try to fit every single detail in there. If there's something anyone thinks should be added, please let me know. Also, I strongly suspect that there was a better way to organize the information about each Shard, but I'm not sure exactly how.
Also, I was thinking more about the third night's dream or lack of dream, and one possible compromise would be to send Taylor a dream that she isn't expected to act on.
For example, we could send her a dream about Piggot being upset about Valiant leaving the Wards since the heroes have so much trouble keeping even the current stalemate, and their requests for more capes have been refused. Someone would need to identify who Piggot is because Taylor is not likely to know her on sight. It might be a good idea to include how villains tend to retaliate for each win the heroes get in order to teach Taylor about escalation and planning for villain responses. Maybe Clockblocker messes up, or maybe not since that feels a bit cliched. The dream ends with Piggot verifying that "the probation Ward" is doing well according to the agent keeping an eye on her, and Piggot being thankful for small mercies.
While this theoretically teaches Taylor that authority isn't deliberately messing up or targeting her, who knows what she'll actually get out of it. Hopefully, she'll at least understand that the PRT and Protectorate were not trying to let Sophia get away with bullying. If she already figured out that Sophia is Shadow Stalker from the Emma dream, then it might improve her views on the PRT/Protectorate.
If anyone wants to write this up, feel free. I don't know when I'd get around to trying.
The post gives a general overview of the different Shards we contacted, and I didn't try to fit every single detail in there. If there's something anyone thinks should be added, please let me know. Also, I strongly suspect that there was a better way to organize the information about each Shard, but I'm not sure exactly how.
Also, I was thinking more about the third night's dream or lack of dream, and one possible compromise would be to send Taylor a dream that she isn't expected to act on.
For example, we could send her a dream about Piggot being upset about Valiant leaving the Wards since the heroes have so much trouble keeping even the current stalemate, and their requests for more capes have been refused. Someone would need to identify who Piggot is because Taylor is not likely to know her on sight. It might be a good idea to include how villains tend to retaliate for each win the heroes get in order to teach Taylor about escalation and planning for villain responses. Maybe Clockblocker messes up, or maybe not since that feels a bit cliched. The dream ends with Piggot verifying that "the probation Ward" is doing well according to the agent keeping an eye on her, and Piggot being thankful for small mercies.
While this theoretically teaches Taylor that authority isn't deliberately messing up or targeting her, who knows what she'll actually get out of it. Hopefully, she'll at least understand that the PRT and Protectorate were not trying to let Sophia get away with bullying. If she already figured out that Sophia is Shadow Stalker from the Emma dream, then it might improve her views on the PRT/Protectorate.
If anyone wants to write this up, feel free. I don't know when I'd get around to trying.
- Location
- New York
- Pronouns
- He/Him
That could work. Maybe next turn we spy on Veronica for a while and use her conversations with Piggot, Armsmaster, Sarah, and Carol as a base. They're the major hero leaders in the bay, they'll each have a different perspective when they talk to her about what happened.
- Location
- Florida, USA
We could add that Jury-Rig is probably frustrated with it's Host and trying to kill it, since it's working against specialization. Mostly I think because people don't realize methods of building are a specialization yet, thus why Kid Win is also having issues.
Also, you dream idea is a good one. In return for you doing that annoying Shard list, I will throw together a brief preliminary someone else can use as a base:
[] The Protectorate Dream
- Armsmaster walks down a hallway that fades into indistinct distances either way, and arrives before a door bearing a small sign:
- He enters, and nods at an indistinct blob that's probably secretary, who buzzes ahead that he's here for his meeting in the voice of Taylor's father's secretary even as the hero crosses the room, opening an inner door into the Director's office. Inside, seated at a desk in the middle of a hazy room is a stern looking woman with a bleached-blonde haircut, who probably matches the power-armor clad hero in weight. She's ridiculously wide, more so than anyone Taylor's ever seen. Armsmaster moves inside, and seats himself in a reinforced chair that settles under the weight of said armor.
- "Armsmaster," the woman intones in the voice of the angry Director of the local PRT from the Mouse Protector cartoon, not at all like what she sounds like on press conferences, "Things are going poorly. Not only have we lost one of our harder working Wards, but the brass still isn't willing to part with anyone else to help us. We're outnumbered and outgunned here, and all it takes is one Independent setting off this powder keg to start a full-bore gang war in the street we won't be able to put down."
- The Hero nods, face stoically set. He speaks in the tinny voice of his action figure, "We'll just have to try and train up the Independents more. New Wave's got a new member, and while we might not like it, the reactions on PHO have kicked up a lot of interest in them. At the very least, we might be able to work with them to reach out to Independents more. Few will probably like their unmasked policy, but if they can at least give them some training in restraint, and show the benefits of a team, they might be more willing to contact us. We can trust Brandish to give them good legal advice if they ask, which could negate a good number of fears that might have people of questionable backgrounds coming in."
- Director Piggot looks like she's sucking on a lemon as she digests what he says. Her nose twitches, and two cat ear roll up on top of her head. She grips her desk, cat-claws popping out to scratch the surface. Finally, she sighs. "Even if they could just act as a rally point to build another Independent Team, it'd be better than losing them to the gangs, or worse. You've seen the statistics for single heroes. They don't last long. Especially when they don't know how to de-escalate a situation and just keep making things worse, like with our probationary Ward. Still not a team player, always going off on her own. At least her civilian life isn't causing any problems. Her case worker complains about her grades and lack of focus on anything besides sports. That's not unexpected. Still, with how violent she was becoming dealing with criminals, it's good to she she's at least not a psychopath."
There. It's short, and pretty terrible, but it covers some bear bones.
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- Location
- New York
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Should we be showing Taylor things we have no idea are true? We don't know how Blackwell really feels. We don' t know Vhal is writing Piggot and Armsmaster. If we're gonna give her visions of current events then let's use what we know for sure. We have access to Valiants senses, we skip the big picture dream for now, write in to learn about Valiants meetings with New Wave and her old bosses, and then use that.
The dreams don't have to be in order, we can skip around. Leave Contessa and Eden for the very end. Next turn we show Eidolon as a normal person, turn after we use Valiants knowledge to accurately portray the heroes. Then show parahumans getting fucked over. Canary to the birdcage, Lisa's coercion, Rachel's trigger
Hell let's use Ash Beasts interlude from canon. He's a little starved uneducated orphan boy who has no idea what's going on around him. Complete ignorance, in his own world.
The dreams don't have to be in order, we can skip around. Leave Contessa and Eden for the very end. Next turn we show Eidolon as a normal person, turn after we use Valiants knowledge to accurately portray the heroes. Then show parahumans getting fucked over. Canary to the birdcage, Lisa's coercion, Rachel's trigger
Hell let's use Ash Beasts interlude from canon. He's a little starved uneducated orphan boy who has no idea what's going on around him. Complete ignorance, in his own world.
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- Location
- Florida, USA
I'd argue that giving her dreams that are only true information is probably worse. If you want to be that direct, just talk to her.
After all, if you're just after facts, what's the point with all the set-up? I'm trying to set it up as being something she could dream up herself. I would have preferred the Emma dream to not be so on-the-nose, perhaps be Merchants or something instead. Have enough information wrong to seem like something her subconscious could have dreamed up. At some point, if her dreams are that accurate, she'll realize what's up and think she has the shittiest power ever.
And we really don't want her to think she can't even Trigger right and got the crap end of the power pool.
After all, if you're just after facts, what's the point with all the set-up? I'm trying to set it up as being something she could dream up herself. I would have preferred the Emma dream to not be so on-the-nose, perhaps be Merchants or something instead. Have enough information wrong to seem like something her subconscious could have dreamed up. At some point, if her dreams are that accurate, she'll realize what's up and think she has the shittiest power ever.
And we really don't want her to think she can't even Trigger right and got the crap end of the power pool.
- Location
- New York
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Well in that case have the dream be more generic. She doesn't know who Piggot is, so make it a generic Director figure. Have Armsmaster be sharp but the rest of the dream be fuzzy and a little surreal. She's seen him on tv but she's imagining the rest.
- Location
- Florida, USA
I thought about that but figured Piggot would probably be in press conferences. She's likely been seen. She should probably be a caricature of herself, though. More overweight than in real life, almost cartoonish. Probably be best to describe the surroundings as hazy, yes. Give it an unrealistic quality. Maybe describe the secretary as an indistinct blob that was probably a secretary?
Also, it's not supposed to be a done deal, just a short bit to run with. If someone actually voted for that, as it is, I would be most upset. Just for you, though, I will edit it.
Edit: There, now with 100% more catgirl.
EditAgain: And now I want to rewrite it with Miss militia, who is also a catgirl. Why!? Just why.
Also, it's not supposed to be a done deal, just a short bit to run with. If someone actually voted for that, as it is, I would be most upset. Just for you, though, I will edit it.
Edit: There, now with 100% more catgirl.
EditAgain: And now I want to rewrite it with Miss militia, who is also a catgirl. Why!? Just why.
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TigerTitian
High Lord of the Antares
- Location
- USA
I would like to point out that, as with all research, Vhal doesn't actually say it's a bad idea. Sure, the entities didn't like it but isn't the same as saying it's dangerous. I don't like bitter things, bitter things aren't going to hurt me though.
It's fine to be afraid and cautious but we can't afford to let that fear paralyze us. If we always assume that the worst is going to happen we might as well just give up now.
Also, from my limited understanding of 40k, shouldn't we be early enough in the timeline that things shouldn't be too bad? I mean, if that timeline even applies here.
- Location
- New York
- Pronouns
- He/Him
It's not actually 40k Chaos Gods. The Immaterium as Warhammer understands it can only be accessed via researching the true multiverse. This will be Vhals own spin on cosmic horror. He might take some cues, but it won't be Khorne waiting for us when we look.
TigerTitian
High Lord of the Antares
- Location
- USA
Good point. It's part of why I mentioned my doubt as to if the timeline applied.
For all we know it could be literal heaven and utopia or actual hell itself.