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Hold my beer and watch this![Worm/Shardswap]

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The_Butcher said:
Naruto is the ONE manga I've dropped in disgust. I've read a lot of crap, just because I started reading it and wanted to tough it out to the end, but not Naruto.
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Eh, Naruto is a Shonen manga that tried to be Seinen in tone but came all the way back around to Shonen and the power of friendship there at the end. I don't mind the story as it is because it leaves a lot of room for fanfiction authors to fill in gaps or go off on their own. I think it does suffer from a bit of Big 3 Bloat though. Too many idea's going into one story until it just feeds off of itself until it finally finishes on a starved, malnourished ending.

The_Butcher said:
have you read the updated 3.2
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Some people don't constantly go back to reread the chapter they just read to find out if something has changed or not. I didn't really follow the thread that much since the discussion really wasn't that interesting to me. So I skipped most of that and read the story as it came out, like many people probably have. So if things were changed after the fact and you mentioned it somewhere in the thread, I probably didn't see it. Heck I didn't realize dragon was fully unchained until Coil picked the timeline that killed her. Then just recently I figured out where she likely got unchained when I went back to look for the Zion interlude and saw where Colin was hanging a "Fixed Dragon." under his "Don't confront the Bro" sign.

I realize that's my fault for not realizing that when I read it but it's not like every person is going to pick up on the little nuances you're putting in the story, which will cause posts like mine with the "Why didn't they just shoot him?" mentality, popping up because we either cant read between the lines, or the lines have been changed several times after the fact. Skimming through this thread a bit I've noticed that there are a lot of after-post edits to chapters that change things up or make things more clear which in some ways can cause more confusion, and while that's not a bad thing it really throws off people who are following the thread for the story rather than the witty banter between chapters.

I'm sorry but I don't often reread things like this to find nuances, especially when up until the last few chapters this felt more like crack than a serious, life or death story. I mean, I found this story through your sig, which doesn't really impress upon people the apparent seriousness of the fic. The sudden, dramatic shift in tone had me going "Whoa!" And filled me with suspense on what was going to happen next. It didn't make me think "Oh, maybe this entire story was actually serious and maybe I should go back and reread to see if there were any hidden nuances sprinkled through the story." I'm not going to fault you for adding them as hidden layers can make a story more memorable for some people but then there are people like me who missed things/just don't get it and will point out that fact.
 
CrunchySharpie said:
"Oh, maybe this entire story was actually serious and maybe I should go back and reread to see if there were any hidden nuances sprinkled through the story."
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That was exactly what the whole fic was aiming for.

The whole time I was writing this I was looking for good betas. Because I need them. This is a mystery story at heart, all in media res, all action. All edits I made were to clarify clues and make more explicit things which were harder to puzzle out than I thought, but were stuff you could have kinda sorta figured out.

Your suggestions won't make it in the story I think, because the important part was that there ARE possible explanations for what's happening. The story isn't illogical. The explanation doesn't need to be obvious and there doesn't have to be only a single possibility, how Skitter defeats the Bro Force and why they can't just shoot him is up to the reader, just as the Sleeper's power was in canon. That was the reason this back and forth started. You said yourself:"Did the Sleeper get QA?" Well, no, Sleeper's dead, the one who got QA is the new Sleeper.
 
The_Butcher said:
That was exactly what the whole fic was aiming for.
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Then you succeeded,

The_Butcher said:
.
Your suggestions won't make it in the story I think, because the important part was that there ARE possible explanations for what's happening. The story isn't illogical. The explanation doesn't need to be obvious and there doesn't have to be only a single possibility, how Skitter defeats the Bro Force and why they can't just shoot him is up to the reader, just as the Sleeper's power was in canon. That was the reason this back and forth started. You said yourself:"Did the Sleeper get QA?" Well, no, Sleeper's dead, the one who got QA is the new Sleeper.
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Fair enough, I suppose a bit of mystery is a nice relish to a, in my opinion, amazing story. I can respect a crunchy crack coating that hides a devilishly delectable and delicious mystery at it's heart. I was coming at this from a "Story ending is weird, wat do?" When all along it was "Story is Lisa bait, must get out cereal box decoder ring." Sorry if I came across as a bit of an ass. I've said this before and I'll say it again, I become something of dick when I'm tired and think a plot device is strange and wish to make that opinion known. Cheers on a finished story, you've gotten farther than my 12 or so attempts on other sites.
 
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Canon Epilogues: Mankind; Eliezer
  • Threadmarks
    • Hold My Beer and Watch This!

    Epilogue: Mankind.

    Or not. Geez, I don't think I've ever been so happy to see the Simurgh. "Thanks Eidolon."
    [Whut?]
    "Well, it was mostly my work but, yeah," that voice...
    [WHUT?]
    "D- Dragon was my friend. That's a really really cruel joke there."
    [Fri- Friend?]
    "Armsmaster stuck the Simurgh into a Broinator and downloaded me from the past. I wrote a thesis about the method in case we ever found a sufficiently powerful postcog. Your mother's going to be ready in a few weeks too."
    [It's Friend!]
    "Wha- what?" It- it couldn't be true. That's that's... "Dragon... Or whoever you are, that is just so... This is the real world, not some kind of cheesy science fiction sitcom!"
    [YAY! Sorry new friend, you'll have an accident soon, I have my better friend back!]
    "Excuse me, are you or are you not a real life superhero with a robot buddy? Did you or did you not jump over the Siberian and an office building in a car and fight a god in a kilometer high mecha? Am I or am I not a recursively self improving general freaking artificial intelligence? Can we or can we not see the goddamn future? Now take your fucking Happy ending or I'll force feed it to you!"
    [Oops, new friend was discovered by a twitchy security guard. Really tragic.]
    I couldn't help it. That was just so one hundred per cent Dragon, I started helplessly laughing. My new body came with perfect vision, but it would still be a few days until I managed to see anything with any clarity. Didn't matter, they were all happy tears.

    Epilogue: "Abbadon"
    Detecting other Entity. Warning, the Earths are still only fifty eight per cent Computronium, loss of life is still above eight per cent likely.
    Eliezer landed upon the empty iteration of the planet, ready to harvest the shards of that dumb broad he conned. Hehe, the thinker halves of the twinned Worms always fall for the whole "sexual reproduction" shtick he got from his home planet. Huh, there's a lot more survivors of the host species than he thought? That's pretty awesome, but means his initial plan failed. At least both halves are dead. And there's so many awesome shards in here, meaning lots of bait to kill all of the Worms that destroyed his home planet and that was when suddenly he couldn't see the future anymore and everything went to hell.
    [Nuh, I got this, Hold my Beer.]
    Well, at least there were still lots of copies of his out there hunting Worms. Maybe he could even befriend the... ouch, there goes his brai-
     
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    • I was wondering if you were gonna have them cheat death. I figured Dragon was actually dead though, despite back-ups, because Scion backed by PtV could plausibly be really freaking thorough in making sure he kills a threat and stays that way.

    No clue who Eliezer is supposed to be though, other than Abbadon.
     
    Taylor doesn't actually like coffee and the machine was substandard to fit a whole Gestalt. But Dragon made sure to add a lot of sentimental value to it, making it her first proper wrapped birthday gift delivered by hand since the Locker, something cheesily normal to contrast the Endslayer. "I gave you a kilometer tall physics defying War machine and this snazzy coffee maker."
     
    NemoMarx said:
    And was the only precog that worked on Eidolon, in story. The Simurgh and Contessa regularly failed to predict him, and Contessa had years of working with the guy to build up a mental model.
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    Yeah, I know. But Scion's what killed Dragon too.

    That's why I'm not sure what The_Butcher means by Dragon's resurrection being dependent on Eidolon's Precog-Blocking.
     
    HymnOfRagnarok said:
    Yeah, I know. But Scion's what killed Dragon too.

    That's why I'm not sure what The_Butcher means by Dragon's resurrection being dependent on Eidolon's Precog-Blocking.
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    They had a device which was supposed to absolutely and totally block all forms of pre-cog. They didn't use it during the fight, because it would have also blocked Coil's alternate-timeline simulation, and that run was supposed to be a practice run that Coil would drop. Dragon set up, as a backup plan, a copy for herself which was primed to active only when that precog blocker was activated, reasoning that that way, even if Scion PtVed his way to deleting her, he'd miss this one copy, because it only activates in futures where the blocker is on so he'd never foresee it.
     
    macdjord said:
    They had a device which was supposed to absolutely and totally block all forms of pre-cog. They didn't use it during the fight, because it would have also blocked Coil's alternate-timeline simulation, and that run was supposed to be a practice run that Coil would drop. Dragon set up, as a backup plan, a copy for herself which was primed to active only when that precog blocker was activated, reasoning that that way, even if Scion PtVed his way to deleting her, he'd miss this one copy, because it only activates in futures where the blocker is on so he'd never foresee it.
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    Not seeing why it'd have to activate for him to find and lance it. I mean it'd presumably still be a copy of her coding, but at this point I have to admit that my interest in reading between the lines has wained considerably. Seems like there's more subtext than actual text at this point. Like more of the plot has been relegated to behind the scenes.
     
    HymnOfRagnarok said:
    Not seeing why it'd have to activate for him to find and lance it. I mean it'd presumably still be a copy of her coding, but at this point I have to admit that my interest in reading between the lines has wained considerably. Seems like there's more subtext than actual text at this point. Like more of the plot has been relegated to behind the scenes.
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    If he used PTV, it would tell him 'do z to kill dragon completely'. But if his ptv is blocked on certain topics, it would miss those topics for it's plan. It'd depend a lot on the question asked, I imagine.
     
    HymnOfRagnarok said:
    Seems like there's more subtext than actual text at this point. Like more of the plot has been relegated to behind the scenes.
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    That was always the case. About "A copy of her coding." It's encrypted. Why wouldn't it be?

    @macdjord Yupp. Dragon used Scion's Failsafe Shard that Scion used as a trump card against enemy Entities(like Abbaddon, or maybe an Eden which had decided she didn't need him anymore.) to build a precog blocker that didn't work on the basis of "Shards are forbidden to use precog to predict me." but rather "It's physically impossible to retrieve information from this future."

    The coffee machine backup could ONLY activate if Dragon's precog blocker was online, therefore PtV couldn't account for the coffee machine.

    But Scion could track the signal from the precog blockers to the coffee machine as soon as he got his hands on Taylor's gloves, after he downloaded her brain.

    Taylor could ONLY subdue Eidolon if the part of Eidolon's power that predicted what powers he needs was disabled. Otherwise Eidolon would just have gotten one of the hundreds of anti-dudebro powers before Taylor showed up.

    The Simurgh could also only be subdued with precog down and the resurrection uses a Broinated Simurgh.
     
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    Terrabrand said:
    If he used PTV, it would tell him 'do z to kill dragon completely'. But if his ptv is blocked on certain topics, it would miss those topics for it's plan. It'd depend a lot on the question asked, I imagine.
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    Personally I'm still not clear on how the Precog Blocker can apparently shut the Entities out of their own precog.

    The_Butcher said:
    That was always the case.
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    I followed the early chapters about what's going on easy enough, even the Slaughterhouse Nine. We still got some good meaty chapters about stuff Taylor is doing, and figuring out why things were getting derailed by her. The recent chapters just felt straight up confusing, and a lot shorter.

    About "A copy of her coding." It's encrypted. Why wouldn't it be?
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    Seems kinda arbitrary for Scion to not be able to decrypt it, but I suppose that's true of all fiction.

    @macdjord Dragon used Scion's Failsafe Shard that Scion used as a trump card against enemy Entities(like Abbaddon, or maybe an Eden which had decided she didn't need him anymore.) to build a precog blocker that didn't work on the basis of "Shards are forbidden to use precog to predict me." but rather "It's physically impossible to retrieve information from this future."
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    For the record, by pulling this into existence I think it's fair to say you've added more than one point of divergence with the shard swap.
     
    It's not so much a point of divergence as it's a sequel.

    Some time after Zion died and thus stopped feeding the Failsafe Shard it was starving and went back in time to steal Taylor's power. Infiltration found out and thought "If that girl can kill Daddy, I'm sure she would make an excellent host."

    That is the Shardswap. That is the premise of this fic.

    Actually going to the past and changing things fucks up all precog. Dragon used that to design a disruptor that messed with the physical principles the Entities use to view the future.

    This ALSO fucked up the failsafes on Andrew Richter's power, making it possible for an unrestrained General Artificial Intelligence to go singularity.
     
    The_Butcher said:
    It's not so much a point of divergence as it's a sequel.

    Some time after Zion died and thus stopped feeding the Failsafe Shard it was starving and went back in time to steal Taylor's power. Infiltration found out and thought "If that girl can kill Daddy, I'm sure she would make an excellent host."

    That is the Shardswap. That is the premise of this fic.

    Actually going to the past and changing things fucks up all precog. Dragon used that to design a disruptor that messed with the physical principles the Entities use to view the future.

    This ALSO fucked up the failsafes on Andrew Richter's power, making it possible for an unrestrained General Artificial Intelligence to go singularity.
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    Hang on. One shard has the power to turn back time while it was starving, it's a Failsafe shard and designed by Scion to stop things like Eden turning on him or other Entities....and the shard has enough initiative to pull a Peggy Sue, but Scion was unable, unwilling, or unimaginative enough to use it to do things like send a message back in time to avert Eden's demise?

    I mean it's an interesting use of a divergence and I suppose it does address this fic's Sleeper power, but it does seem kinda convenient.
     
    1: Zion is unimaginative.
    2: Using it means erasing his current self from existence. The Zion that would send the message would be dead, therefore he made it so that the Shard would only activate if he was already dead. I mean, yes he could create a new timeline where he and Eden are alive, but that would not have been him, but rather his past self. Maybe that would have still been worthwhile, but 1 applies.
     
    HymnOfRagnarok said:
    Hang on. One shard has the power to turn back time while it was starving, it's a Failsafe shard and designed by Scion to stop things like Eden turning on him or other Entities....and the shard has enough initiative to pull a Peggy Sue, but Scion was unable, unwilling, or unimaginative enough to use it to do things like send a message back in time to avert Eden's demise?

    I mean it's an interesting use of a divergence and I suppose it does address this fic's Sleeper power, but it does seem kinda convenient.
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    The shard likely had a much larger reserve but also had a larger intake and power requirement. So Scion siphon's off some minor tectonic or some other power source, gravity maybe, to feed this shard, he dies, it rapidly approaches a point where "Hmm, I'm way more hungry than normal." That cut off sends it back a set time to a place where it's still being fed.

    Also Scion's an idiot, you can't fault him for being the Pinky of the Pinky and Brain Entity duo. Of course, there's likely a reason why this is the case, perhaps to prevent a paradox?

    Edit: Imp'd
     
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    I'm not trying to be insulting here, but I think the problem that this fic has is that when writing it you knew everything that was going on, but because you only decided to fill in the fun details too much context was lost for the fic to be understandable.

    The amount of explaining that you have to do now kind of proves that, and while I get that most of it was your intention anyway, it doesn't make me, or anyone else who doesn't understand it, enjoy it.

    The ending, even after reading through all your explanations, makes me think, "Meh. It was okay while I was reading it, but in hindsight it's a shitty fic."

    To be honest, I probably won't remember this fic at all in a few days time, simply because it makes too little sense to be memorable, apart from something that makes no sense. Perhaps if you had an appendix for each chapter that explains what the hell just happened, and some of the things going on behind the text, but right now...

    Meh.
     
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