Remove ads

Magical Girl Escalation Taylor (Worm/Nanoha)

Reader mode
Valdimarian said:
I mean, if the TSAB respects Kill Orders they could knock butcher!Lung out, go to the space between universes, and just... let him go into the Aether.
Kind of hard to jump to another Parahuman when you're not on the same plane as one (or on a plane yourself).

Alternatively if they've managed to knock him out Taylor can take him to a world with no / nearly no Parahumans and pop him there.


(Weird side note about powers and the "Lunar orbit" limit? Simurgh came from the OTHER SIDE of the Moon, so either the Endbringers have a larger limit, or Lunar Orbit is an approximation including the opposite side of the moon.)
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

We know that the TSAB has explored a couple of uninhabited worlds in the local cluster of realities, which contains 15 or 16(as I recall) habitable worlds. A willingness to kill Nidhogg in cold blood* seems a bit out of character, but would give her more options.

Also, I don't recall canon ever saying how far shards can jump. It does say that Legend believes he could fly to Mars safely, but had never had reason to try. The Simurg most likely formed on Earth Bet, flew up past the moon, then, when she was fully developed, she flew back to Earth Bert. She was just too small to be noticed on that first trip, and was deliberately drawing attention when she came to the Earth. This says nothing at all about how far shards can travel or even how far people with shards can fly, as she shouldn't have many of the restrictions parahumans have. Since why that is the case is a rather huge plot point, I'm being vague intentionally for anybody who, like me, started from this story and only then read the original.

*Since he isn't attacking people right now.
 
Wyrd said:
We know that the TSAB has explored a couple of uninhabited worlds in the local cluster of realities, which contains 15 or 16(as I recall) habitable worlds. A willingness to kill Nidhogg in cold blood* seems a bit out of character, but would give her more options.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
It was more of a thought experiment of "Optimal way to do it" than real thought about killing him, and as I said, it requires them to honor a Kill Order as a valid government order / thing that needs to happen.

Teleporting him to a Humanless world and leaving him there to either sort out the voices or die of old age (like what happened in Unnatural Disaster) would be just as effective at neutralizing without technically killing him.
Kind of like Superman, stuffing someone in the Phantom Zone isn't killing them, they're just stuck outside our reality for the foreseeable future.
 
Wyrd said:
We know that the TSAB has explored a couple of uninhabited worlds in the local cluster of realities, which contains 15 or 16(as I recall) habitable worlds. A willingness to kill Nidhogg in cold blood* seems a bit out of character, but would give her more options.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
It not... Taylor willing to kill people, just look at the E88.
 
Last edited:
Tassadar said:
It not... Taylor willing to kill people, just look at the E88.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
That's why the "in cold blood" part matters. Taking out somebody who is actively hurting people is a very different thing from hunting down somebody who is avoiding contact with any humans for now. Taylor has a temper in canon, and that seems a bit stronger with this quest's version of her, but it would still seem out of character to hunt him down.
 
landcollector said:
Her spatial translocation ability doesn't quite work like that.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
It takes her a minute to prepare and cast the spell, true, but if Nidhogg can't hurt her, she has that time. At his current size, he has lost a tremendous amount of flexibility in exchange for strength, size, and toughness. Samantha is resistant enough to his powers that I think she could hold on long enough to complete the spell. If she doesn't think she can do it(i.e. SW says no), then there's still the option of getting assistance from a Protectorate hero or twelve who can subdue him long enough to allow Sam or CW to warp him somewhere he'd be harmless.

After all, they can't put him in the Birdcage now. They wouldn't be able to get him inside it now that he's stuck this large all the time. Exile to an uninhabited world is the kindest and most effective way to get rid of him as a threat, while allowing for him to be brought back some day when we're facing enemies who can survive a Ragnarok. Don't say they aren't out there, as SW wouldn't give us the spell without somebody/thing planned for us to use it on, or so I suspect. One possible intent for the spell is for us to use it, make the world see us as a threat, and have to deal with that whole mess.
 
landcollector said:
Read the ability description again. She has to know the coordinates, and I don't think "that random planet somewhere in that sector of sky" is nearly precise enough to work.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
hamof said:
We'd have to use dimensional transfer to start searching through the "adjacent" Earths, which is explicitly something we can do and @Silently Watches is very disappointed that we aren't.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

I figured "find a specific planet to send him to" was an obvious part of the plan, to the point that I didn't consider explaining it to be necessary, any more than determining Nidhogg's exact location is a necessary step. We should talk to the TSAB about those other worlds near us that I think they mentioned to us. Exploring other Earths is certainly something I'd like to see us do. SW wanting us to go there may be good, may be bad, but is most likely going to be entertaining as observers, maybe not so fun for the characters.
 
Wyrd said:
I figured "find a specific planet to send him to" was an obvious part of the plan, to the point that I didn't consider explaining it to be necessary, any more than determining Nidhogg's exact location is a necessary step. We should talk to the TSAB about those other worlds near us that I think they mentioned to us. Exploring other Earths is certainly something I'd like to see us do. SW wanting us to go there may be good, may be bad, but is most likely going to be entertaining as observers, maybe not so fun for the characters.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

I already have two worlds basically planned out.
 
Silently Watches said:
What I recall from canon is that every Butcher has been a cape, at least partly because the only people powerful enough and crazy enough to take on the Butcher and be able to kill it

As for the degradation, my understanding is that the powers are diminished from the original, but not that they suffer further degradation each time the shard jumps ship. Then again, it's been a while since I've sat down and reread the parts of Worm dealing with the Butcher.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
One of them was a police sniper, IIRC(but as you said, we're both long away from the original reading of the Butcher and so what is useful for your narrative is what really counts). As for the latter...
No One said:
I mean, 2-3 useful powers sounds right, but I don't think that was because they weren't capes, just because they didn't just didn't have useful powers (at least once you jumped to the next Butcher), or were just passives that couldn't be separated e.g. Brutes/dangers sense. (An unpowered person ganking the Butcher while they slept does sound familiar, but that A: Might've been a cape and my memory's just terrible, or B: might've been fanfic).
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Look at the number of Brutes on the list. Even if all of them suffered a 70% reduction in power, that many Brutes stacked lineraly would have the Butcher completely invulnerable to conventional weapons with the stacked strength and durability. But if they each suffered a halving in effective power before being summed with the others in the pool, you'd get what we see in canon of the Butcher: pretty tough, but definitely killable without exotics.

Seems like the simplest solution(and from the shard perspective, the most power efficient option) is to have compounding power degradation
Wyrd said:
That's why the "in cold blood" part matters. Taking out somebody who is actively hurting people is a very different thing from hunting down somebody who is avoiding contact with any humans for now. Taylor has a temper in canon, and that seems a bit stronger with this quest's version of her, but it would still seem out of character to hunt him down.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
More that Taylor is good at compartmentalization. Once she unpersons someone they tend to get killed without any qualms.
 
Wyrd said:
The thing that occurs to me as the best way to take out Nidhogg is for Samantha to land on his back and teleport the both of them to an uninhabited planet.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Firstly, note Samantha doesn't have Dimensional Transfer spell. She can't teleport to other worlds herself.

Secondly, our teleportation spells are really not suited to forcibly teleport somebody. I'm pretty sure a mage and passengers should stand still for several second to be teleported. I doubt Nidhogg will agree to do it.
 
Shaseyu said:
Firstly, note Samantha doesn't have Dimensional Transfer spell. She can't teleport to other worlds herself.

Secondly, our teleportation spells are really not suited to forcibly teleport somebody. I'm pretty sure a mage and passengers should stand still for several second to be teleported. I doubt Nidhogg will agree to do it.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

While it is unlikely to ever come up, I wonder if Nidhogg ages. If we drop him off on a currently uninhabited world, are future settlers going to face the mysterious dragon god who rules the wilderness? I know there's no point in it happening in the game as anything other than an omake, but I found it fun to think about, so I shaared the idea.

As for forcibly teleporting him, I wasn't sure if Samantha could cross dimensions. With CW being so much squishier, getting help to subdue him just long enough for CW to be able to move him remains a far more viable option than having her close enough to grab him, since that puts her in far more danger than Sam's much tankier build.
 
Silently Watches said:
Magical and magic-like transformations. So yes to Lung, no to Crawler. Also no to anything Blasto or Panacea do.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

I was digging through the full version of the story to fill in the gaps in my knowledge from the discussion when I saw this. Is this spell still available at any point? Reversing Nidhogg's transformation seems immensely useful in the short term and possibly long term, should we wish to market ourselves to the Protectorate as somebody who can take down Changers and Breakers safely, with minimal collateral damage. While we aren't worried about funding our operation as things stand, mostly because we seem to be unconcerned with that aspect of the story, we could earn a mint, on top of getting the kind of reputation somebody Alexandria is considering as part of the next Triumvirate would need to develop. I don't see it on the character sheets at all, though, so I worry that you discarded it at some point as having perhaps too much potential. I'd still want to learn Shell Barrier first so we can keep allies alive, but this seems really useful.

landcollector said:
All you have to do is check the character sheets in the Opening Post.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

It's more that I didn't think to check her spell and compare it to CW's.
 
Wyrd said:
Is this spell still available at any point?
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Struggle Bind is available to the Infinite Enhancement template, the Guardian Beast of the Tome, Boost Devices, or A+-ranked mages with a Device. Now, it is important to note that the de-transforming effect only lasts as long as the spell is held in place. If you used it on Nidhogg, for example, he'd change back to a human when he was bound, but as soon as that was removed he would just change back into a dragon.
Wyrd said:
It's more that I didn't think to check her spell and compare it to CW's.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Well, their Spatial Translocation spells are similar. The issue is more that Samantha doesn't have Dimensional Transfer, which is the spell to cross dimensions. Spatial Translocation will never jump from one dimension to another.
 
Silently Watches said:
Struggle Bind is available to the Infinite Enhancement template, the Guardian Beast of the Tome, Boost Devices, or A+-ranked mages with a Device. Now, it is important to note that the de-transforming effect only lasts as long as the spell is held in place. If you used it on Nidhogg, for example, he'd change back to a human when he was bound, but as soon as that was removed he would just change back into a dragon.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

Disabling his power for even thirty seconds could be enough to restrain him with more persistent means that even resuming his transformed state would not break. Since it requires a guardian beast we don't yet have, here's hoping Standstill and/or Maclibuin gain access to it.

Reading up on her, or the little canon there is regarding Standstill, I would not be at all surprised if she decided to take up a Device later. Her power is practically useless; seeing what Maclibuin can now/soon do might cause her to reconsider. It wouldn't be soon, of course, but I'm always looking to long term character growth. I'll be plotting the growth of one of my characters through level twenty when they're currently level two, in a campaign I don't expect to last past level ten. I acknowledge, though, that this speculation won't come to anything soon, regardless of what we pick from our immediately upcoming options.

Edit: Rereading the prior comment, I realize I misread who could get it. Maclibuin CAN learn it, since he has the right template, it's just a matter of whether he chooses to do so. We need one more mage in the group, though, so we can have all four templates present. OCD demands it.
 
Last edited:
Wyrd said:
Disabling his power for even thirty seconds could be enough to restrain him with more persistent means that even resuming his transformed state would not break
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
I'm curious what means you think those are.
Wyrd said:
Edit: Rereading the prior comment, I realize I misread who could get it. Maclibuin CAN learn it, since he has the right template, it's just a matter of whether he chooses to do so. We need one more mage in the group, though, so we can have all four templates present. OCD demands it.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Maclibuin does not have the Infinite Enhancement template. He does not have any template. He has a Boost Device. He can't learn a new spell because for this quest, giving a non-template Device to someone means they can learn a certain number of skills based on their Linker Core rank, and once those are all picked out that's it. If you want a character to get Struggle Bind, you need to give someone the actual template, plan for a new mage to have this skill at the outset, or create a Guardian Beast of the Tome.
 
Hello everyone!
Coming in from FF.net, where I binge-read the transcript of this story, and I decided to join this quest, if you'll have me.

That said, I haven't had the time to do a comprehensive archive dive on this thread yet, so I ask that you bear with me if I ask questions which have already been answered. To that end, I'm working on some fanart as an offering to appease the fury of the thread.

Meantime, here go my potentially dumb questions:

- Have we asked the TSAB if they can fix Danny? Seems worth a shot, at least.

- There has been talk of ganking Nidhogg or Nilbog. Could we gank Heartbreaker instead/first? He's not S-ranked, and we cannot release Thermonuclear Overkill on him, but he's one of the biggest assholes around, and our power pretty much no-sells his. We could do a joint Op with Dragon so we don't step on the Guild's toes. It's not that I want to try and make allies of the Heartbroken, a miniature army of capes and potential mages, not at all. Doing good is it's own reward.

- Do we know Typhon's backstory, and how he got the Travellers?

- Whatever happened to Dinah Alcott? Is she dead? Did she even trigger? Is she a ziz-bomb?
 
Lab_Accident said:
- Have we asked the TSAB if they can fix Danny? Seems worth a shot, at least.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Not the sort of thing a battleship is kitted out for, and they can't get home yet.
If given full access to Mid-childa's facilities, it could potentially be treated to the point where he can form new memories again, though depending on how things happened, the lost memories could be physically destroyed beyond the shard backup.
Lab_Accident said:
- There has been talk of ganking Nidhogg or Nilbog. Could we gank Heartbreaker instead/first? He's not S-ranked, and we cannot release Thermonuclear Overkill on him, but he's one of the biggest assholes around, and our power pretty much no-sells his. We could do a joint Op with Dragon so we don't step on the Guild's toes. It's not that I want to try and make allies of the Heartbroken, a miniature army of capes and potential mages, not at all. Doing good is it's own reward.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

The PRT is fully capable of ganking Heartbreaker themselves. However, Heartbreaker's set things up such that his death or disappearance would unleash an outbreak of sleeper yanderes who lost their love interest...and objectively speaking he's doing horrible things to a very very small group of people with little interest outside of that. So basically killing or capturing him is more costly than leaving him be.
 
Reader mode
You must login or register to reply here.
Remove ads
Back
Top