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Magical Girl Escalation Taylor (Worm/Nanoha)

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Oruzhiye said:
she needs to understand that Chevalier can't just decide which of the PRT's regulations he's following and do whatever he wants.
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So she runs away, tries to get emancipated, or otherwise change her legal guardian.... and goes a New Wave route with a new approving guardian? (Because Glory Girl and Panacea are right there, its evidently not illegal to include children.... oh and uhh, didn't see Protectorate throwing a fit over Cailleach, so while maaaybe they're just worringly bad at guessing ages more likely they don't mind children helping as long as its not their decision?).

She isn't obligated to be a Ward after all, she can leave when she likes. Meaning she isn't exactly obligated to follow their rules... only, because guardian , Hannah's rules.

landcollector said:
In terms of battlefied casualties, we seem to have chose well enough. Unfortunate that we kinda inflicted a noticeable dive in our relations with the Protectorate/PRT though. Might need to spend some updates trying to rebuild it.
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Mal-3 said:
I think all things being equal we're headed towards a point where our options are "throw Vista under the bus" or "accept that the Protectorate isn't going to like us much" and honestly? Vista's gonna win that roll.
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It is interesting in a way, that at a glance the AAR seems to indicate that bolstering Protectorate goodwill would've generally involved not just a personally more risky approach, but a tactically less sound one xD. Whether that should be viewed as "punishing doing the right thing" or "rewarding taking the harder path with the prize of their aid and support" is a philosophical question of many ages :p

Very sad though that Tattletale does seem to have been a prize of navigating the risky/bad-plan route... hard to really guess how we could've predicted that. I wonder if we'll loose out on the chance to help or recruit her now.... just because she was taken to PRT for detox help and not shuffled off to Tim in the heat of the moment?

Wonder how Tattletale would do sharing power with a Unison Device.... Wide Area Search seems like something she might enjoy, and UD allows for multi-channel thinking at a high mana cost right? Question is whether theres any other spells in a tree below WAS (in Nanoha setting, i mean, not necessarily Quest) that could give her some Final-Fantasy "Scan" type spell or otherwise try and emulate her Thinker power. Since its all Holmesian analysis and not actually Telepathy/Akashic-Record/etc it seems more likely plausible to me.... but basically thinking a Template (Infinite Enhancement?) and its parameter updates would do wonders for a drug addled Lisa. And having all the strength of her powers, with the ability to /turn it off/ (so she's not forced to learn all the worst about anyone she looks at) might be enough to buy her loyalty anyways xD
 
Geas said:
This went a hell of a lot better than it should have, but burning bridges with the PRT like this can only prove very, very problematic in the future. After all, for all of the corruption and inefficiency inherent within the organization, it's still a multinational organization with significant government support and legal authority with the backing of the United States and Canada.

Making an enemy of the PRT, deliberately or unintentionally, would be.. unwise, I feel. Especially given that one of the goals here is to build a rapport with the TSAB. That becomes a good deal more difficult if the PRT becomes unwilling to play ball.
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The PRT is the enemy. They are playing nice now, but trusting them? Never. Irregardless of how big their organization is.
 
While the issues were having with Chevalier might make things trickier in the future, he seems professional enough not to give us too much trouble about it. Though I don't doubt there are people in the PRT who are upset we went over their heads with this and they might not be so understanding. Still, I think we did pretty well with what we had. And as nasty as she was to us at the time, I'm glad Lisa made it out of there.
 
Coil needs to just go die in a fire.
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That sentiment is shared by everyone to different extents, especially all QMs since they have to deal with a indecisive snake that would fit perfectly as a worshipper of the Indecisive Mollusk*. Most deal with him by straight up killing him off in one or more ways.

*GRATUITOUS REFERENCES!:


Avengers
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I wonder if there is an evil Avengers...

Real World
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:rofl::lol:D I assume is a reference to both Coil's power and Bakuda's delusions?

and honestly the thought of using a Dimensional Barrier that way had never occurred to me
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ಠ.ಠ
How else did you expect us to use it? There is only two ways and one is unreliable and not that useful while the other is incredibly useful and incredibly reliable. One is fighting which has no guarantee of the opponents getting dragged in while the other is scouting which can be useful even if the opponents do get dragged in (which given the list of who does it's unlikely).

TL;DR:
There is only two ways to use Dimension Barrier and one isn't as reliable as the other.

functionally, a dimensional barrier is not too dissimilar from teleportation
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How? One is instant movement from Point A to Point B while the other is pulling a Doctor Haywire and going to Point B in a conventional way after creating a Mirrior World.

Doctor Haywire did Canonically have goggles to interact with alternate versions of himself as such it only makes sense that Coil's Shard could just Sim a more better version of that or Sim a more real version of itself for DB. Maybe even both.

so while Coil didn't get a perfect picture of what would happen when Taylor and co. popped out of Recursion Field, he did know that he was being attacked. It meant he could drop that timeline and get the hell out of Dodge.
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Actually I was more surprised his Sim of her wasn't more accurate given how long she has been active. I figured that not only would every Time Line update upon closing to account for powers and personality but any Shard that previous saw her would report her as being a more powerful version of Eidolon and Dauntless combined with Legend and account for growth.

TL;DR:
I'm actually surprised how short that chase was.

backed up by the Revengers (AKA the Evil Fantastic Four)
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...Oh, that's why there's no evil Avengers.

Coil would have revealed Tattletale and thrown her at your group before trying to shoot Vista through her. That would have ended the arc with the choice to kill him or let him be arrested. Vista would have survived without major injury thanks to her armored limb, but that wouldn't have been obvious at the time of the vote.
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Aw, wish we did this one, getting TattleFail shot would have been good...

As is, now there is some distrust where there wasn't before it was known that the PRT was housing a villain among their leadership.
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Boohoo, now they have experience with someone who doesn't treat reality like a game by having the power to treat reality like a game. Maybe this will make them more serious about screening people next time.
 
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Silently Watches said:
Hitting Coil's base first meant you would find Tattletale drugged up in his basement, and Samantha would have teleported her to Tim before reentering the fray. From there you would have had the chance to turn her over to the Protectorate for rehab and (eventual) recruitment or keeping her for yourself as Thinker fodder.
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Didn't we still get this one?

Edit: thinking about it, you're probably not counting it because Chevalier was the one who picked her up?
 
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Shadowcub said:
The PRT is the enemy. They are playing nice now, but trusting them? Never. Irregardless of how big their organization is.
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I never said anything about trusting the PRT. Personally, I'm of the opinion that one should only trust an organization to look out for it's own self interest.

I said that making an enemy of the Parahuman Response Team would be bad, because by extension, one becomes precariously close to being declared a villain, mentally unstable, an A or S-Class threat, hell possibly even an enemy of the state. We do have Taylor actively communicating with agents of a foreign government after all.

Whether any of us likes the PRT or not is immaterial, because when it comes to public perception, they control the narrative to an extent that cannot be matched.

So far, they've been playing nice. Hero, after all. That however, can change very, very quickly. They wouldn't even have to outright lie to do it, just omit certain details and reveal half-truths concerning "an underaged and powerful parahuman who may be showing signs of mental instability."

I'm talking about defamation of character here. Slander. And it would be very easy for the PRT to do that, and for all of the power Perfect Storm grants, it would be exceedingly difficult to fight both the PRT and the Protectorate if they really are the enemy as you believe.

At best, Child Services could suddenly become quite a problem. At worse? They imply significant doubt on the immunity to the Simurgh's song that Perfect Storm grants, and let public opinion and peer pressure do the rest at the implication of such a powerful young Parahuman like Calamity Witch being a Simurgh bomb waiting to go off.
 
The PRT becoming an enemy or hostile to us isn't something I can really see happening at this point. Behind the scenes, the head of the PRT, Rebecca Costa-Brown a.k.a. Alexandria, likes us and considers us a crucial asset because of our TSAB connections. As long as we don't do anything extremely villainous (and also out of character), we're pretty much safe from them taking any sort of major action against us. The likely end result of a souring of our relationship with the PRT is the more mid- and upper-mid-level people not being as willing to cooperate and work with us.

They might stop inviting us to their parties and sending us their newsletters, but they won't actually try to go after us.
 
landcollector said:
Well, to be honest recruiting her in that alternate reality would have been quite the hard sell anyway given how our previous meeting ended. >_>
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Not as much as you might think.

"Called me stupid" is much less important than "Got me out of a forced drug-addict haze". Lisa is going to be in a rather vulnerable and dare I say delicate position for the next little while. If you were ever going to get her fully on your side, this would have been the time.
Solusandra said:
Didn't we still get this one?

Edit: thinking about it, you're probably not counting it because Chevalier was the one who picked her up?
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Correct. Chevalier turns her over to Myrddin and the Chicago Protectorate, and after much rehab and therapy, she will feel somewhat obligated to join the Protectorate. Not least because by this point they sure as hell know everything about her real identity.
 
Eh, I'm fine with what we got being Lisa's ending. I think this is a fairly happy ending for her. She went through some serious shit, but she's on the road to recovery and will have a pretty good life.

Lisa doesn't need to be a major character in every Worm story.
 
MetaChthonia said:
So basically a more real version of Coil's own power?
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...no?

Coil's power's strengths are letting him be able to take the best of two options and letting him gather information without worrying much about consequences. He can use it to see what happens if he does a thing without actually doing a thing, and then decide whether or not that thing happens seemingly after he makes the choice and knows the consequences of his choice.

Taylor's dimensional barrier lets her avoid collateral damage, isolate opponents, avoid enemies while scouting, and transport herself, but doesn't let her see two possible outcomes of a choice and choose which one happens.

I'm don't see how they're similar.
 
Geas said:
At best, Child Services could suddenly become quite a problem. At worse? They imply significant doubt on the immunity to the Simurgh's song that Perfect Storm grants, and let public opinion and peer pressure do the rest at the implication of such a powerful young Parahuman like Calamity Witch being a Simurgh bomb waiting to go off.
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This can causally backfire, we would need to move the doubt to there tester...

Or we can just leave the dimension, there nothing stopping Taylor from leaving.
 
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Tassadar said:
This can causally backfire, we would need to move the doubt to there tester...

Or we can just leave the dimension, there nothing stopping Taylor from leaving.
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Not necessarily. Were it not for the (entirely reasonable) terror most of the world has concerning individuals that the Simurgh might have 'tampered' with, casting doubt on Taylor's accuser could work. The very accusation itself however, would be the sort of legal trickery (one of quite a few possible options) that could be used to gain a measure of control/authority over Taylor.

The latter would be running away, and in my humble opinion, would actually be even worse, because it makes it seem like she has something to hide.

13th Fleet said:
The PRT becoming an enemy or hostile to us isn't something I can really see happening at this point. Behind the scenes, the head of the PRT, Rebecca Costa-Brown a.k.a. Alexandria, likes us and considers us a crucial asset because of our TSAB connections. As long as we don't do anything extremely villainous (and also out of character), we're pretty much safe from them taking any sort of major action against us. The likely end result of a souring of our relationship with the PRT is the more mid- and upper-mid-level people not being as willing to cooperate and work with us.
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Said connections with the TSAB are only valuable until the PRT develops its own means of contacting the TSAB, either by developing the technology themselves to do so, or by making contact with the TSAB agents already exploring Earth Bet. And while the TSAB is less concerned with the age of their personnel in comparison to their capability, the PRT on the other hand (other than select individuals such as Rebecca).. not so much.

More so, as someone who's not actually a duly appointed representative of any government of Earth Bet, Taylor's influence isn't nearly as good as it could be in such matters. To put it more simply, while the TSAB is content to talk to her, the PRT as a whole would most assuredly not accept a kid brokering any type of agreement with a foreign military organization from another dimension on their behalf.

And Rebecca's control over the PRT isn't quite so absolute. Oh, I don't doubt that she has quite a lot of leverage over quite a lot of people that could have her removed from her position, but like any alphabet agency with its roots in the United States, there are checks and balances in place. If enough PRT directors fought her on it, she'd probably have to capitulate or risk censorship or dismissal if the attorney general, DOD and/or the Director of National Intelligence have to get involved. (I'll admit now that that's an assumption but from my understanding the Chief Directors of EVERY American government agency have to report to one or more of those three offices, and I doubt that the PRT would be any different. Dunno what the Canadian counterparts would be.)

In such a (highly theoretical) scenario, if multiple directors of the PRT came to think that 'Calamity Witch' needs to be brought to heel and Rebecca disagreed, those three offices would be the first to ask why, which would imply doubt in Rebecca's abilities as Chief Director.

I'm not a betting man, but I'd wager that Rebecca would let the Siberian carve out her other eye before letting anyone believe she couldn't do her job.
 
Geas said:
The very accusation itself however, would be the sort of legal trickery (one of quite a few possible options) that could be used to gain a measure of control/authority over Taylor.
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Going that route would not be wise for them. Sure, they might be able to legally force us into their ranks, but they can't make us do anything.

Geas said:
The latter would be running away, and in my humble opinion, would actually be even worse, because it makes it seem like she has something to hide
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I disagree. If they want to be complete assholes, why should we stay? The ties that bind us to Earth-Bet aren't that numerous you know.

Anyhow, I believe you're overstating the risks wrt the PRT.
 
Racoras said:
So she runs away, tries to get emancipated, or otherwise change her legal guardian.... and goes a New Wave route with a new approving guardian?
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She can't get emancipation without stable legal source of income and she can't get new guardian if her only grievance against the old one is "they don't let me fight villains as much as I want!"

Maybe Dragon can help? Vista is one of the most powerful parahumans the PRT has and has plenty of experience, after all. Maybe it's possible to claim she's some kind of the Guild's affiliate to distinguish her from other Wards?

Geas said:
More so, as someone who's not actually a duly appointed representative of any government of Earth Bet, Taylor's influence isn't nearly as good as it could be in such matters. To put it more simply, while the TSAB is content to talk to her, the PRT as a whole would most assuredly not accept a kid brokering any type of agreement with a foreign military organization from another dimension on their behalf.
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I doubt there will be any agreements.
The TSAB is talking with Taylor and may be inclined to accept some of her small requests because she's a powerful mage they hope to recruit. The moment a government organisation make a contact, the TSAB will suddenly remember they're not supposed to talk with fractured worlds and bug off.
 
Silently Watches said:
You chose to focus first on Bakuda. Because different characters offered the plans, lending your support to Vista means you get another (probably unnecessary at this point) boost in your reputation with her. It… doesn't do so great with the attitude between Taylor and Chevy. Nor did the conversation when you were waiting for Myrddin to show up.
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Hmmm. I've reviewed the 10.2-10.4 chapters (which covers the pre-Bakuda events), and I'm going to say.
1) I actually can see how we did not build greater rapport with Protectorate and PRT.
2) I do not think we've made it worse, though.
---In particular, the reason Chevalier and Dragon have objected to splitting up to hit multiple targets, is that they firmly believed it was imprudent due to Bakuda and Coil both having entrenched positions. They had a point.
---After making the choice on Bakuda, we've argued that it won't hurt, and it will cut off the supplier of bombs, if not the supply. Not a very strong argument, but for meta reasons I find this a better choice.
---Our tete-a-tete with Chevalier had us tell him the truth he doesn't want to hear - that Vista will be willing to act regardless of the hazards, and the best thing anyone could hope to do is support her in action. Which Calamity Witch is willing to do, even if it means disapproval of PRT.
---Still, he is going to accept in the end that letting Bakuda loose was the worse option of the three - because he was the one who found her surgical suite for implanting bombs in random people. Giving someone wicked enough to do that a cause enough to cut loose is a very dangerous option.

Even from a non-meta standpoint, we're attacking in the descending order of actual danger and the ascending order of knowledge on them.
Bakuda, who has "any effect bomb" and is therefore the least and the most predictable opponent - she will try and throw bombs at you. But you never know what they will do.
Coil, who has a base with who knows what assets squirreled away - and yet we know his civilian identity and that he will not have much warning.
Calvert, who is a government employee with all the background checks that implies, and with the lowest number of assets in his immediate possession.

...Is it actually typical of military/police operations to go from "hardest" to "easiest"? Because in nerd terms, that's kinda Sequence Breaking.
 
Faraway-R said:
...Is it actually typical of military/police operations to go from "hardest" to "easiest"? Because in nerd terms, that's kinda Sequence Breaking.
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I don't know about standard procedures, but it still makes the most sense in game-logic.

If this was a turn based RPG, then the first priority would be reducing incoming DPS as much as possible, and to do that taking Bakuda out is the most logical option.
 
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