Hold It In (RWBY/Transistor)

[Dr. Granola]

He could have just had Penny put off the rendezvous for a few days or a week or two to give more time to do a background check.

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Snuck out.

He could have had her communicate with Transistor some more while he was watching the live feeds and fed her questions while backtracing the signal.

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Remember the sternum bit? She was a jamming every signal in a mile.

He didn't bother doing any of this. Instead, he decided to go Rambo/James Bond and ended up making himself look like an utter moron since he didn't bother doing basic fieldwork beforehand. /golfclap

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Snuck out + Walking signal jammer = OH SHIT DO SOMETHING with a dash of

As for how Ironwood acted: I could be mistaken and confusing canon with another quest I follow on here, but doesn't James also kind of fill a "father" role as far as Penny goes?

Or in other words, if that's correct and not just me getting confused with fanon, not only did he think we were possibly trying to kidnap a valuable experimental AI that was the first of its kind, he thought we were trying to kidnap his daughter.

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Combined with partially decrypted logs that only had enough to assume the absolute worst, he acted with what little info he had at the time. Doubt he wanted to do this either.

 

[Blue Dullahan]

Personally, I think that Ironwood acted like a fucking moron.

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But did he really? The situation was dealt with, and dealt with quickly.

He went in, assuming the worst.

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Good rule of thumb with espionage, always assume the worst.

He held a kid at gun point.

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Jaune's 17, plenty old to be involved in some seriously shady shit, and only "a kid" in the most rigudly legalistic sense. And "kids" make wonderful tools for espionage, specifically because of that assumption of sweetness and innocence people make when dealing with them.

And now he just found out he alienated someone who has technology 500 years ahead of anything he can produce.

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Except there's basically no way he could have known that part in advance. Remember, Jaune has told basically no one just how advanced the Transistor really is.

He could have just had Penny put off the rendezvous for a few days or a week or two to give more time to do a background check. He could have had her communicate with Transistor some more while he was watching the live feeds and fed her questions while backtracing the signal. He didn't bother doing any of this.

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Except he couldn't have done any of that. Because;

We only found out because she broke containment a few hours ago to come here to meet the damn thing.

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They only knew about this whole mess after their highly sensitive project snuck out to meet with someone or something, potentially working for Salem, the malevolent being bent on completely destroyig all of humanity.

 

[ADeshantis]

Remember, kids. Nobody thinks they're the bad guy. Ironwood had reasons. Roman and Neo have reasons. Even Cinder has reasons. Everyone thinks they're making the best choice they can make for their goals, people don't just wake up and go "I'm going to be a dick to the protagonist today."

 

[Dr. Granola]

people don't just wake up and go "I'm going to be a dick to the protagonist today."

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Except when they do, but that's a different issue entirely.

 

[Ashmaker]

Er... basically what you got. If you had resorted to violence and somehow managed to not kill anybody, chances are Ironwood would have killed you anyway and claimed self-defence. Not that he would have been wrong to.

You might be stronger than canon Jaune, but you don't get to join the Atlesian military, let alone its spec ops division, let alone lead that spec ops division alongside the rest of the damn military, by losing to a trainee Huntsman.

Would he have come out unscathed? Not if Blue had anything to say about it.

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@Prok, there really was no scenario where a fight broke out or Ironwood fired where Jaune survived? Not winning, just surviving.

All that matters is what the police see at the end of the day. Even ignoring the legal process for the moment, you think Ironwood can't hide a gun from cameras?

At the end of the day, he'd be grilled for being suspicious as all hell, but there wouldn't be enough concrete evidence to actually prove he provoked you into attacking him. That's all assuming the Transistor didn't turn him into a nuclear shadow on the wall, mind.

As far as the world would know, you suddenly snapped, tried to kill an Atlesian general, then your sword went berserk and blew up a train station to try and finish the job.

And it's not as if you'd be around to protest the ruling. In all probability, neither would Ironwood.

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How big of a scandal would it have been if the Transistor had sent the relevant recordings to various people, such as the Vale Council, the police, the Atlas Council, Ozpin, news organizations, etc. etc.?

Not saying we should do that, just wondering if you had any plans for your voters causing a diplomatic incident between Vale and Atlas.

just got an idea to for needling Ironwood in a way he can't be mad about: check for a security hole bounty program run by Atlas and set the transistor to find every hole in it. we then get his email from penny and send him a snarky version of the report while the professional one is sent to the bounty program.

we get to make fun of their programing skills and they can't be too mad since we're being helpful.

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Look, Ironwood was a jerk, but he wasn't doing it for no reason. Maybe we should just... De-escalate. Let it go and move on, make sure it doesn't happen again, and content ourselves with the knowledge that, as was stated earlier, our not-even-Beacon-student self has more advanced technology than the bleeding edge from anywhere between 5 to 10 times past the projected end of life as we know it.

Just knowing that will get his goat more than anything we could actually do to him.

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The real revenge will be Jaune unlocking the full power of the Transistor and the Process, so that Ironwood can have flashbacks remembering just how close he came to unleashing that power against himself by killing an innocent man over a misunderstanding.

 

[DreamerGhost]

He could have just had Penny put off the rendezvous for a few days or a week or two to give more time to do a background check. He could have had her communicate with Transistor some more while he was watching the live feeds and fed her questions while backtracing the signal. He didn't bother doing any of this. Instead, he decided to go Rambo/James Bond and ended up making himself look like an utter moron since he didn't bother doing basic fieldwork beforehand. /golfclap

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Penny walked out without sparing ten minutes to get herself fixed up. It is fair to assume that he couldn't put off the rendezvous because Penny wasn't listening to him by then.

 

[Spectral Waltz]

I'm actually betting that in a couple days James might come back to us with an offer of employment, and I would note that I will be quite tempted to take it if he does, if only just to see how badly that screws with canon. Jaune as penny's handler at the vital festival instead of Ciel anyone?

 

[Redshirt Army]

I'm actually betting that in a couple days James might come back to us with an offer of employment, and I would note that I will be quite tempted to take it if he does, if only just to see how badly that screws with canon. Jaune as penny's handler at the vital festival instead of Ciel anyone?

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I've had a scene of Jaune frantically rushing into the arena, desperately trying to use various Transistor bullshit to put Penny back together before her soul fades, glaring daggers at Pyrrha all the while, in mind for months.

 

[Blue Dullahan]

Except if Jaune is running cyber-security for Ironwood and his people, then the chances of that perfectly bad matchup drop through the floor.

 

[Spectral Waltz]

I've had a scene of Jaune frantically rushing into the arena, desperately trying to use various Transistor bullshit to put Penny back together before her soul fades, glaring daggers at Pyrrha all the while, in mind for months.

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Yeah except...

Except if Jaune is running cyber-security for Ironwood and his people, then the chances of that perfectly bad matchup drop through the floor.

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Hell I mean, given how far the virus spread Jaune being there at all means a good chance he'll find and do something about it before shit goes down, but if he's actively looking for stuff and/or running cybersecurity? That 'good chance' goes to 'pretty much guaranteed'.

 

[Blue Dullahan]

Actually, the Transistor has the chance to completely wreck Cinder's plan, depending on certain "What if?"s.
What if we encounter Neo beforehand? Would it recognize Neo through her disguise based on her vitals?
What about Emerald's illusions, can it sense through those?
On a lighter note, will it ID Blake as a passing Faunus? And if it does, will it respect her privacy or clue Jaune in?

 

[ADeshantis]

Funny thing, I actually thought Blake had cat ears right up until someone pointed out that she was wearing a bow. Then when she revealed the actual cat ears I just went and sat down for a bit because I got tricked twice by one trick.

 

[Captain Clever]

What if we encounter Neo beforehand? Would it recognize Neo through her disguise based on her vitals?

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Yes.

What about Emerald's illusions, can it sense through those?

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Yes.

On a lighter note, will it ID Blake as a passing Faunus? And if it does, will it respect her privacy or clue Jaune in?

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Yes and... huh, that depends. Would telling Jaune be more or less likely to encourage him to talk to he--

@Prok I ask this entirely seriously, but... does Jaune like faunus? Like-like, I mean. No seriously, it would put all new dimensions on the commentary around the Creme option.

 

[FeepingCreature]

For what it's worth, I consider myself a liberal. The benefit that I'm aiming at is that government officials think twice before holding kids at gunpoint without due process. (Heh. Process.)

Though in sum I'm on team Robodate, that's only because this is a world that I thankfully don't have to actually live in.

"What does it gain us to report this crime" is a sentiment that's associated with a breakdown of ordered society to me. IRL I'd report the assault simply because it's my duty as a citizen.

 

[ADeshantis]

We can't just be a normal citizen if we're essentially aiming for total world domination as our end game. We have to start playing the long game now.

 

[Ashmaker]

Actually, the Transistor has the chance to completely wreck Cinder's plan, depending on certain "What if?"s.
What if we encounter Neo beforehand? Would it recognize Neo through her disguise based on her vitals?
What about Emerald's illusions, can it sense through those?
On a lighter note, will it ID Blake as a passing Faunus? And if it does, will it respect her privacy or clue Jaune in?

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Yes to all of these, except the last one, which I'm uncertain about. It might respect her privacy.

You also missed one way the Transistor could screw over Cinder: what if it can detect her half of the Fall Maiden's power?

 

[PsyFarrow]

Yes to all of these, except the last one, which I'm uncertain about. It might respect her privacy.

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Considering how often we've been getting blindsided, I'd rather tell the Transistor to ignore everyone else's privacy and just not share that information if it isn't a threat.

It'd know Blake is a Faunus, but since she's clearly trying to hide it the Transistor wouldn't tell us.

 

[Blue Dullahan]

It'd know Blake is a Faunus, but since she's clearly trying to hide it the Transistor wouldn't tell us.

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Well, unless it decides to dig.
If it gets curious about why she's so fixated on hiding her Faunus-ness, it could go digging.
If it goes digging, it might find security imagery somewhere and get a positive ID on her using its utterly insane processing power.
And then it has to decide if Jaune has a dire need to know that the cute ninja girl is actually a former field agent of a terrorist organization.

 

[DreamerGhost]

Really, just a scan for weapons and Dust. It would be great.

 

[CaesriusPolybius]

You also missed one way the Transistor could screw over Cinder: what if it can detect her half of the Fall Maiden's power?

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I... doubt that. Maiden powers aren't just bullshit, they're bullshit of a never-before-categorized (in official documentation at least) variety. If it notices that she's conjuring up fire without dust and has sufficient time to scan maybe, but otherwise? We're probably as ignorant of the existence of Magic as everyone else not in on one or more of the various conspiracies.

EDIT: Now, if we got a chance to scan Amber...

 

[Warper6]

[X] Watch the tourney.

[X] Nah. Save your money. Gambling's a bad habit anyway.

Spoiler: Rant on morality

Remember, kids. Nobody thinks they're the bad guy. Ironwood had reasons. Roman and Neo have reasons. Even Cinder has reasons. Everyone thinks they're making the best choice they can make for their goals, people don't just wake up and go "I'm going to be a dick to the protagonist today."

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Not the best argument. Nihilism, the belief that nothing is good, is perfectly possible as a motivation. Or simply cowardice.

People can rationalize what they do after the fact, such as what likely occurred with Roman and Neo. They were scared, so they did what they had to to maximize their chance of survival. They wanted something, so they took it. If you tried to ask them to justify it, you'd get a whole bunch of half-assed logically inconsistent rationalizations. They aren't acting badly because they believe they are justified, they manufacture stupid beliefs to justify their behavior.

That isn't an indication of moral greyness, or equivalence.

It is possible to act morally, even with arguably bad morals, but there is no indication that that is what they are doing (In large part due to the complete lack of altruism, and that if anyone else acted the same they'd all be dead).

Then You have Nihilism. That's basically, I'm hurt, so I want to hurt/kill everyone else. Again, it falls into a self-justifying loop. Though it does tend to be more consistent. This is likely what Cinder has. She wants power, and is willing, and wants, to hurt and kill everyone else to get it.


Morality, according to my understanding of modern psychological/AI research, is essentially a series of axiomatic principles that allow for iterative gameplaying.
Simply put, morality is what lets you play games with other people, repeatedly, and over time. Society, Civilization, Friendship, Employer etc. being the Games. If your moral code means that literally everybody would be better off if you were dead barring truly bizarre and unpredictable edgecases are necessarily not actually morals. Just lies you tell yourself.

There is, interestingly enough, actually a line between Evil and ... not-Evil.

Anything that doesn't do that is just a person deluding themselves into believing that they matter while others do not.

 

[ADeshantis]

@Warper6 The main point is still valid: people aren't morally right all the time, but people don't just wake up one day and go "You know what, fuck this guy that I've never met. Fuck him. I'm gonna threaten his life."

Ironwood threatened us, yes, but that wasn't the end goal, it was a step along the way to his actual goal: protecting Penny. We also want to protect Penny. So people should stop planning ways to get back at him for following one of our goals in a way we disagree with when he has already been properly chastised and won't do it again.

 

[Warper6]

@Warper6 The main point is still valid: people aren't morally right all the time, but people don't just wake up one day and go "You know what, fuck this guy that I've never met. Fuck him. I'm gonna threaten his life."

Ironwood threatened us, yes, but that wasn't the end goal, it was a step along the way to his actual goal: protecting Penny. We also want to protect Penny. So people should stop planning ways to get back at him for following one of our goals in a way we disagree with when he has already been properly chastised and won't do it again.

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...Yes?
Yes they do.
All the time.
That's how a lot of crime happens. Or how resentful people hurt the people around them. People who just abandon morality all together are rare, but that's generally how you end up with school shooters, or other kinds of mass murderers. Nihilism is very dangerous . Like, have you ever felt bad, or envious, and then done something to hurt someone else, and when asked, realized you have no idea why you did it other than you felt bad? And then started to try to justify it? Happens all the time.

Which doesn't really apply to Ironwood here. He didn't threaten us out of a loss of self-control or out of a lack of moral fiber.
I agree with you about Ironwood.

But that doesn't really apply to everyone. And we should be ready for genuine malevolence, though attributing it to everyone who tries to hurt us would be foolish, if instinctual.

 

[mastigos]

You might be stronger than canon Jaune, but you don't get to join the Atlesian military, let alone its spec ops division, let alone lead that spec ops division alongside the rest of the damn military, by losing to a trainee Huntsman.

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I have to say ... this is a terrible immersion killing sentiment. It reeks of "power levels" bullshit where, regardless of the every hunter having their own special snowflake semblance, there's some kind of absolute scale of power such that a given person will always defeat those "lesser" than themselves. Every bit of world-building you've portrayed so far runs absolutely counter to that sentiment.

What I mean by that is that it should be completely possible for a novice barely trained idiot to be terrible at fighting in general yet nevertheless have a Semblence that hard-counters even a spec-ops division leader. For instance someone with a "seize control of machinery" power would be logical for a nefarious organization to send after Penny, and they could have lolnoped the gun and then turned Ironwood's cybernetics against him.

Or there's simple things like "air friction is now 1000 times stronger" which stops the bullet and kills Ironwood in multiple unpleasant ways while also immobilizing him.

Hell, the unstoppable force guy could conceivably tank the bullet purely by semblance without aura shield up and then start swinging. If Ironwood made the completely reasonable mistake of blocking/grappling instead of dodging, a simple scissoring motion could shear Ironwood in half as two limbs inexorably move towards eachother through the space formerly occupied by things like "organs" and "bones"

A serious hunter fight against an unknown should always be a risky proposition, regardless of skill. "Unkown" being the key word. Foreknowledge and preparation strongly counteract that factor ... though even then run the risk of encountering hitherto-unknown quirks. Especially since Ada demonstrates that semblences can be passively active with no aura cost so even catching someone with their aura down doesn't remove the risk.

That said, I'm arguing against the general sentiment, not that Jaune would have won. Jaune was in the perfect storm of bad circumstances (facing the wrong direction, danger-close, aura down, Penny jamming the Transitor ... somehow ... in ways that still don't make sense) and his Semblance isn't really an appropriate hard counter for "gun".

 

[ADeshantis]

Well, think about it this way: Aura just kind of lolnopes a lot of damaging effects, or that Juggernaut kid would probably have a way more tragic backstory and be in a prison cell. And you don't reach James's level without learning to deal with a lot of semblance-based bullshit. This is the man who can one-handed block an Alpha Beowulf because he just doesn't give a shit. It is inferred that he has a very solid Aura, since he didn't even flinch at taking a hit that we know puts a dent in most of the Beacon first years' Auras.