Have to say, @jcw3 , one thing I've absolutely loved these past updates is your phenomenal read on characters and how they bounce off of each other. Your portrayal of Taylor's emotional wounds and how Nami empathizes with them, and how Taylor completely failed to understand the Straw Hat's desire to destroy Baroque Works for threatening her, top notch.
On a separate note, I've read through some of the conversation, and I think a lot of people, like myself for a while, have a pretty substantial misunderstanding of what Taylor is capable of with her present combat abilities. I think I saw one guy claim Uber would beat her? Dang. So, allow for my thoughts and ramblings to shed some clarity on the matter.
Allow me to first preface this by saying: I no longer wear the fancy hat on this ship. My understandings of the setting are not ironclad, but will be backed up with references from the story. Okay, moving on.
Let's present a hypothetical scenario. We're a member of a Protectorate think tank, and we've just been handed a completely accurate and exhaustive dossier on every ability Factota is willing to admit to having (it appeared by magic). Our job: evaluate Factota's threat in a hypothetical combat scenario and provide appropriate countermeasures utilizing the resources of Protectorate Branch ENE.
Pour the coffee and pop the antacids, boys, this one's gonna be rough.
Physical Abilities
"Welcome to the PRT Think Tank, how tough are ya?"
The big question on the docket: what can Taylor do, physically? For this, I could point to any number of her most recent fights, but those can be slightly misleading, as they put her up against her rough physical equals (or definite physical superiors) in the Mayim world, and so even though technically very impressive, they might look a little underwhelming without proper context. So, let's go back to here, the last time Taylor worked out with Zoro, and the last time our physical capabilities ever increased. We engaged in a bout of one-upmanship that lead to both us and Zoro failing to complete one-finger vertical pushups while balancing boulders on our feet.
On the lower end of guessing Taylor's abilities, we can assume two basic things from this.
1. Taylor can perform vertical pushups while balancing a boulder with two fingers.
2. Taylor can perform one finger vertical pushups without balancing a boulder.
These abilities showcase very high physical strength. It means that, if a normal thug swung a haymaker at Taylor's face, she could catch it and stop it cold with her index finger. A serious flick would carry more energy than a sledgehammer blow. All of this is based off of human physical fitness, so however many times stronger a person's punch is from their flicks, that's how many times stronger Taylor's punch is.
Speed is likewise scaled from physical human abilities. Taylor's physical reaction speed is absurd, and her ground speed is more limited by her need to stay on the ground and not break what she's running on than any limits from her own body. However, our yardstick is now a problem for Taylor: since her abilities are just scaled-up human abilities, it means her durability is much lower than her strength or speed. So, how tough is Taylor? Hard to say, since she gets hit in fights so darn rarely. Let's assume a low Brute rating: a punch is ignored, a sledgehammer will bruise, and a bullet might cause injury worthy of concern, but this is far more nebulous.
"But Bookworm, you said this was the lower level of evaluating Taylor's abilities!"
Yeah. It is. Because the upper level we can extrapolate from that scene is "Well, Taylor kept up with Zoro's training and failed where he failed. So...Taylor is basically as strong as Zoro." Zoro, who trains his sword strikes with this. Zoro, who at the end of this arc was going to throw a building at someone. Taylor's raw physical capabilities are so good that she might have to hide what her true limits are to the PRT, as even an explanation of "my power lets me train beyond human limits" might not be enough to explain what she can really do. At worst, she's a solid Brute. At best, she's a very high Brute. This alone would make her a terror to fight, but it gets worse.
Combat Skills
Good news for most PRT combat analysis jobs: most Brutes aren't Combat Thinkers, and most Combat Thinkers aren't Brutes. Bad news for us: not Taylor! Imagine, if you will, a theoretically perfect human fighter. This fighter has the absolute human limits of ability in a combat style of their choice, combat reflexes, fighting instincts, awareness in battle and tactical acumen. This fighter is an absolute monster, has probably never actually existed in human history, and would get completely destroyed by Taylor even with normal human strength and speed. The best human martial artist possible has their specialty at 6, and maybe a few other styles at 4 or even 5. Taylor has Aikido 10. She has Shaolin Kung Fu and Boxing 9. She's possibly the best judoka in the world and she barely studied it.
And that's just direct combat styles. She has inhuman combat instincts, that make the best soldiers in the world look like drunk civilians. Her reflexes are tuned to the point where she can react to and deflect bullets. Her Perception is more acute than a human being's ever could be, and likewise she's better than any human tactician that ever lived in human history (before Scion).
Conclusion
What do the suits expect from us, a miracle? Factota has Brute abilities that outclass every hero in Protectorate ENE, and she might be stronger than Glory Girl. She has Combat Thinker abilities that outclass every other combatant in Brockton Bay as a baseline, and might be better than Armsmaster's combat algorithms. They want a comprehensive plan to neutralize her? Ambush her with combat foam sprayers and bring half the Protectorate ENE as a backup.
Yes, this is basically the same plan we gave them for Lung. No, we are not getting our bonus this quarter.
On a separate note, I've read through some of the conversation, and I think a lot of people, like myself for a while, have a pretty substantial misunderstanding of what Taylor is capable of with her present combat abilities. I think I saw one guy claim Uber would beat her? Dang. So, allow for my thoughts and ramblings to shed some clarity on the matter.
Allow me to first preface this by saying: I no longer wear the fancy hat on this ship. My understandings of the setting are not ironclad, but will be backed up with references from the story. Okay, moving on.
Let's present a hypothetical scenario. We're a member of a Protectorate think tank, and we've just been handed a completely accurate and exhaustive dossier on every ability Factota is willing to admit to having (it appeared by magic). Our job: evaluate Factota's threat in a hypothetical combat scenario and provide appropriate countermeasures utilizing the resources of Protectorate Branch ENE.
Pour the coffee and pop the antacids, boys, this one's gonna be rough.
Physical Abilities
"Welcome to the PRT Think Tank, how tough are ya?"
The big question on the docket: what can Taylor do, physically? For this, I could point to any number of her most recent fights, but those can be slightly misleading, as they put her up against her rough physical equals (or definite physical superiors) in the Mayim world, and so even though technically very impressive, they might look a little underwhelming without proper context. So, let's go back to here, the last time Taylor worked out with Zoro, and the last time our physical capabilities ever increased. We engaged in a bout of one-upmanship that lead to both us and Zoro failing to complete one-finger vertical pushups while balancing boulders on our feet.
On the lower end of guessing Taylor's abilities, we can assume two basic things from this.
1. Taylor can perform vertical pushups while balancing a boulder with two fingers.
2. Taylor can perform one finger vertical pushups without balancing a boulder.
These abilities showcase very high physical strength. It means that, if a normal thug swung a haymaker at Taylor's face, she could catch it and stop it cold with her index finger. A serious flick would carry more energy than a sledgehammer blow. All of this is based off of human physical fitness, so however many times stronger a person's punch is from their flicks, that's how many times stronger Taylor's punch is.
Speed is likewise scaled from physical human abilities. Taylor's physical reaction speed is absurd, and her ground speed is more limited by her need to stay on the ground and not break what she's running on than any limits from her own body. However, our yardstick is now a problem for Taylor: since her abilities are just scaled-up human abilities, it means her durability is much lower than her strength or speed. So, how tough is Taylor? Hard to say, since she gets hit in fights so darn rarely. Let's assume a low Brute rating: a punch is ignored, a sledgehammer will bruise, and a bullet might cause injury worthy of concern, but this is far more nebulous.
"But Bookworm, you said this was the lower level of evaluating Taylor's abilities!"
Yeah. It is. Because the upper level we can extrapolate from that scene is "Well, Taylor kept up with Zoro's training and failed where he failed. So...Taylor is basically as strong as Zoro." Zoro, who trains his sword strikes with this. Zoro, who at the end of this arc was going to throw a building at someone. Taylor's raw physical capabilities are so good that she might have to hide what her true limits are to the PRT, as even an explanation of "my power lets me train beyond human limits" might not be enough to explain what she can really do. At worst, she's a solid Brute. At best, she's a very high Brute. This alone would make her a terror to fight, but it gets worse.
Combat Skills
Good news for most PRT combat analysis jobs: most Brutes aren't Combat Thinkers, and most Combat Thinkers aren't Brutes. Bad news for us: not Taylor! Imagine, if you will, a theoretically perfect human fighter. This fighter has the absolute human limits of ability in a combat style of their choice, combat reflexes, fighting instincts, awareness in battle and tactical acumen. This fighter is an absolute monster, has probably never actually existed in human history, and would get completely destroyed by Taylor even with normal human strength and speed. The best human martial artist possible has their specialty at 6, and maybe a few other styles at 4 or even 5. Taylor has Aikido 10. She has Shaolin Kung Fu and Boxing 9. She's possibly the best judoka in the world and she barely studied it.
And that's just direct combat styles. She has inhuman combat instincts, that make the best soldiers in the world look like drunk civilians. Her reflexes are tuned to the point where she can react to and deflect bullets. Her Perception is more acute than a human being's ever could be, and likewise she's better than any human tactician that ever lived in human history (before Scion).
Conclusion
What do the suits expect from us, a miracle? Factota has Brute abilities that outclass every hero in Protectorate ENE, and she might be stronger than Glory Girl. She has Combat Thinker abilities that outclass every other combatant in Brockton Bay as a baseline, and might be better than Armsmaster's combat algorithms. They want a comprehensive plan to neutralize her? Ambush her with combat foam sprayers and bring half the Protectorate ENE as a backup.
Yes, this is basically the same plan we gave them for Lung. No, we are not getting our bonus this quarter.
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