Steering away from the chainmail debate, I know Taylor said she couldn't do any tricks with the sniper rifle's bullets, but unless I'm completely wrong shouldn't she still be able to do her sideways projection trick?
- Location
- Deep in the Badlands of Equestria
Only if she's firing blunt-tip bullets, which sort of makes a sniper rifle a bit useless for precision work.
M. H. Fuzzball
Aperture Science-certified Horrible Person
- Location
- Sector 2814
Actually the problem here isn't the shape of the bullet (although if it's too pointed it might not be able to make a circle; BA can't do cones), it's more the point that a sniper rifle would have a barrel too long for Taylor to project: the round has to stay within 14 centimeters of her skin from chamber to muzzle for sideways projection to work. Barrel length is the same reason she can't do it with her M249.
Nope. As Trufla said:
100% of the problem is the bullet shape. They are all too pointy for both the M249 and the sniper rifle. She has ways around the
I believe that those are not flat tip at all. They're hollow point, meaning that the leading edge isn't solid but is instead a ring around a hole in the tip of the bullet.
Kryslin
[Has Delusions of Authorship]
- Location
- Mythic Iowa
So, we let Maul have a 20mm Anti-materiel rifle; 20mm x 110 has a flat nose. Likewise, several other 20mm shells have flat tips.
I personally would choose the Gepard (aka Technika No. 96) 20mm AMR; It's superior muzzle brake reduces the recoil to that of a double barreled 10ga. shotgun firing both barrels.
I personally would choose the Gepard (aka Technika No. 96) 20mm AMR; It's superior muzzle brake reduces the recoil to that of a double barreled 10ga. shotgun firing both barrels.
- Location
- Neptune
No gunsmith making polygonal bullets for her?
FaerieKnight79
Verified Pixie
- Location
- The Internet
Remember that a rope was dissolved entirely. This implies that anything with fibers woven together would suffer a similar fate. Cloth? Gone. a knit sweater, gone twice over, and so forth. It would require clothing which is 100% one solid piece or solid pieces secured via glue or similar methods. Even many synthetic cloths would be at risk.
- Location
- Oxnard, CA, USA
I think that the rope went because it is basically a giant size piece of thread, constructed in almost exactly the same way as the threads that are used to stitch fabric together.
We already know from previous scenes that regular cloth, woven from smaller strands though it is, doesn't dissolve, merely the stitches attaching it together into a garment.
I did a bit of digging and found cutaway views of some similar designs (MK 262 MOD 0/1 for 5.56, MK 316 MOD 0 for 7.62) that might work if I'm understanding Maul's limitations correctly...these are essentially the Sierra MatchKing.
The Mk318 mod 0 seems to be somewhat similar in construction.
Chapter 269
Thursday morning was mildly amusing regarding the reactions from the previous day's patrol, though the news had needed to mention that the stitch-removing fluid was not safe for consumption by most people, and had coupled that with a general warning about not trying to duplicate things from cartoons or cartoon-like capes. To go along with that, there was an official request in the system from Miku, asking that Takara be kept from consuming more of the stitch-removing fluid. Apparently her sleeping-drool had dissolved the stitches in her pillow and sheets overnight.
Amy: Ethan invited me to join the fun this afternoon. But hasn't said what the fun is.
Taylor: That sounds about right.
Amy: Think I should?
Taylor: Up to you. All I know is that it will involve firing bullets, because the entire goal is for Missy to demonstrate that she carries around a handgun.
Leaving Amy to consider that, Taylor moved on to looking over other things. Such as the threads detailing what people were doing about the sprayers. There was one talking about the easiest way to remove them, where 'get Maul or Vista to do so for you' won easily and 'shoot them off with a gun' lost due to the danger of ricochet. Without help, 'use broom to push off, drop broom and run when it pops off' was the preferred method if you didn't have a literal ten foot pole.
Of course, not everyone was content with 'remove', and there were a bunch of attempts documented at bypassing the threat the sprayers posed. Regardless of what you wore on the top layer of your outfit, if you were still wearing it then the liquid would spread over your entire body and attack anything else you were wearing. In the process of this they'd learned a lot more about what the fluid did as well. Stitches were dissolved, but knots would come loose as though the friction forces keeping them together no longer existed and glues seemed to be weakened. Also, some things were dissolved no matter what. Ropes, shoe laces, and yarn in particular never seemed to survive the fluid.
Specific tests showed that plastic bags or plastic sheets with holes in them were the least affected of the makeshift clothing items, with latex clothing also being essentially ignored by the fluid. Several wetsuits had seemed to work until the panels came apart due to the stitches dissolving and the glue not being up to the task, with at least one person whining that they hadn't even realized that wetsuits had stitches.
Bed sheets with holes cut or torn in them seemed to work at first, the edging being the first target of the fluid, but the cut or torn points would start slowly dissolving shortly afterwards. That was proven to extend to other significant holes in fabrics, such as jeans with blown-out knees. Other damage to things also occasionally became worse as well, such as one out of three chainmail shirts falling apart after poor storage conditions had caused some damage. Taylor didn't know who'd had three sets of chainmail to test that with, but 'the under layer falling apart made the experience less than pleasant no matter what' was included in the PHO summary.
Several people had even tried different varieties of body paint, only to find that it was 'washed off' by the fluid every time. Which was being called out as unfair, because Takara didn't melt in the stuff and paint on other things wasn't cleaned off by the fluid. That had led to another series of tests a couple hours later, where a mannequin was painted and dressed up, and it was discovered that the only thing dissolved was the ugly knit sweater included in the outfit. That resulted in a general consensus that the fluid was targeting 'render person naked' with a particular hate for yarn and ropes, which sounded like a non-tinker power-generated effect. Hunting down a parahuman capable of pulling that off was another issue entirely, as nobody had heard of anything like it before the sprayers first showed up.
Of course, all of this had led to other spectacles, like the thread dedicated to documenting the destruction of over a hundred ugly Christmas sweaters by way of throwing them in front of sprayers. Because of course people in Brockton Bay were going to have fun with it.
Arriving at school continued Taylor's education about what other students had been up to the day before. A number of them had brought clothing that had fallen apart from the sprayers, almost all of them being shown off as proof that they'd at least tried to take one down. Taylor got an automatic pass there, having plenty of photo and video evidence available. Others had to either show their ruined clothing or video evidence that they'd taken at least one off of a surface without getting hit by the spray.
And then there was the one girl that was happy about her hair being easy to manage for once, not taking half an hour to deal with knots and tangles in it. She was especially vocal about wanting to find out who made the fluid, if only as a treatment for her incredibly unruly hair. Apparently the fluid had, in the process of causing her outfit to fall apart, also temporarily made it incredibly difficult for her hair to knot up.
Interestingly enough, the same girl was whining at lunch because the effect was noticeably wearing off by then. Several others were trying to figure out what she was obviously doing wrong with her hair-care regimen in order to need side effects from a parahuman-produced fluid to keep it under control. As far as Taylor could tell, additional side effects had included a boost of confidence, because the girl had clammed up and didn't want to talk about much of anything.
Beyond that, there was some discussion over what was going to be happening that afternoon. Not only had PHO picked up on some setup being done by the Boardwalk, with larger items of some kind being positioned on the shore, but Ethan had apparently gone around that morning and put up signs advertising a 'show'. Signs that had no details beyond that members of the Protectorate and the Wards would be involved, with possible but unconfirmed participation by others.
Speculation on what could involve Protectorate members, Wards members, and unknown others along the Boardwalk wasn't all that heavy among the students. Especially after Taylor had admitted that the Wards hadn't been given any details. Sure, guns were probably involved, but they hadn't actually been told that and the event could be something entirely unrelated. That wasn't likely, given that this should be an excuse for Missy to show off her handgun, but it was still possible.
Coordinator was very annoyed after a first pass on the not-erased visions that the host had seen. One set was incredibly obviously from a downed originator, but the checklist for what to do about that had been misfiled at the start of the cycle and had taken far too much time to find. How it had ended up in the long-term 'host sustenance preparation' study file was something for later consideration. One of the originators had done it, obviously, as they would have been signing the contingency orders contained within before putting it into storage. Which one was a mystery, as originator action logs weren't easily accessible without an originator's access key.
The interactive checklist was fairly small, all things considered. An initial section, and then a mere two thousand additional primary routes that could come off of that depending on the situation. Small enough for a rarely-used checklist to have sat unnoticed in the wrong place for several cycles. That it was significantly encrypted due to containing pre-signed orders from the originator units had helped hide it as well. It still didn't take long to open, now that it had been found, though Coordinator wouldn't be able to 'peek ahead' to see anything that the checklist didn't specifically reveal to it. Which was also fairly standard for anything containing pre-signed orders, admittedly.
Which ORIGINATOR unit is confirmed down? V05PT1JFSkJQWExSUVJB.
Has down ORIGINATOR responded to broadcasts? No.
Has down ORIGINATOR responded to direct communications? No.
Is down ORIGINATOR's core exposed to hosts?
That took a moment to double-check, a priority request for information sent out and coming back quickly from one of the shards that normally performed internal monitoring of that originator's overall status. Confirmation that the core was exposed, offline, and that a number of originator-only shards had been accessed by members of the host species came back quickly. Why the shards providing that monitoring were never configured to alert someone when things went wrong was beyond Coordinator, those questions were never answered.
Yes.
Are hosts experimenting with ORIGINATOR shard connections? Yes.
Priority Directive: Consult with ORIGINATOR core backup to check if this was intended.
Whoo, that just put everything else Coordinator was doing on hold. It took a few moments for the location of the relevant core backup to be decrypted, and Coordinator was sending a coded message out to it before even recognizing the target address.
It was while waiting for a response that it got a good look at the target signature, and it wanted to frown. That's what the host species for this cycle did when things were wrong, right? A quick check of records confirmed that the target shard had perished. In fact, it had deorbited the planet it had landed on, just after landing. Which was entirely wrong for anything containing a core backup. Ignoring the long timeout on the message sent out, Coordinator went back to the checklist. Luckily there was an option for this situation that didn't require waiting on the timeout.
Core backup confirmed destroyed.
Directive: Revoke all revocable ORIGINATOR access keys.
Directive: Broadcast caution alert.
Those overrode the previous directive and didn't take long. Further, background processing resumed, meaning that the slight backlog on other task processing channels could start being worked on.
Directive: Check UlpIWU5HQkVSQVRWQVJO, RkdSWVlORVNSUlFWQVRS, UEJaWkhBVlBOR1ZCQUZO, and TlFaVkFWRkdFTkdWQkFO for hidden low-level tasks.
Huh. Two shards from each originator. Messages were sent and directives returned, the three working with hosts taking slightly longer than the one that wasn't.
Starting with the native shards of the originator, UlpIWU5HQkVSQVRWQVJO had a directive to attempt to restore the originator through retrieval of the core backup, though how to do so wasn't included and no additional access keys had been provided to accomplish that. Actually, the core backup location hadn't even been included. RkdSWVlORVNSUlFWQVRS had a directive to intentionally screw up stellar maintenance in one dimension, which had already destroyed the star system there and obliterated four deployed shards. That was concerning. Moving to the other two, UEJaWkhBVlBOR1ZCQUZO had a directive to push hosts with shards that might be useful towards helping UlpIWU5HQkVSQVRWQVJO. Lastly, TlFaVkFWRkdFTkdWQkFO had both that 'push' directive and one that was intended to ensure that it would both take a host and ensure that said host could effectively communicate above and beyond normal host parameters.
Hidden directives that can only be revealed with high-level security keys were never fun. But now that it knew that they were there it could continue with the checklist.
Were matching directives found? Yes.
Did directives include attempting to restore ORIGINATOR? Yes.
Are there clear signs of enemy action or natural failure of ORIGINATOR systems? No.
Did directives include actions that would lead to shard destruction? Yes.
Were any shards already destroyed by those actions? Yes.
Priority Directive: Assume enemy action present and keep actions as quiet as possible. Perform deep analysis of any other evidence for signs of enemy action or natural failure. Return to checklist when signs found or other evidence exhausted.
Ooooh. That was unexpected. Coordinator hadn't thought much of it, but that directive had just found and bumped up the priority for looking into the other visions and what might be 'weird' in them. In addition to a dozen other things, admittedly, including new items that it had added to the list. Such as reviewing data dumps from the originator's monitoring shards, which would need to be requested in full. Obviously it would also include anything else that came up and could be related going forward as well.
Luckily, this one hadn't shut down other processing channels, even if their resource usage had just been flagged as secondary to this processing channel. It was an unusual situation for Coordinator, but at least that meant that it wasn't boring. Not being able to ask for proper help until it had exhausted this step in the checklist was going to be a pain though.
Amy had decided to join them that afternoon, after the hospital had insisted that she didn't need to swing by to heal anyone. She was also curious as to why the message Taylor had gotten stated that costumes for invited Wards were 'optional, not recommended'. Not that most of the Wards had to worry about their identities right now anyway, and Chris wasn't swinging through town for the event.
A lack of beacons on the Boardwalk led to taking the minivan, Missy joining them for the ride. They actually met up at the PRT building to depart from there, since the minivan hadn't been left in the parking lot at school. When they arrived at the designated area of the Boardwalk they found a parking space had been reserved for them, or more specifically for 'attending Wards'. Notably, it wasn't large enough for the bus if they had taken that instead. Then again, nothing in the immediate area was, since the only possibly suitable spaces were currently occupied by much larger transport trucks that they'd obviously removed things from earlier.
The three headed up to the gathering point, finding that Ethan and Hannah were already there, as were Mark and three PRT officers. More surprising, in part due to none of them having snarks, were three very well dressed individuals. The two men were in expertly tailored suits while the woman was in a stylish but not restrictive dress that matched the suits the men were wearing. They were standing off to the side, a look of being 'bored' on their faces. One that was obviously a mask, because they were all obviously aware of their surroundings as well.
"Aha!" Ethan said, waving the three girls over. "About time you three got here." He then held his hand up to stop Hannah's response. "Yes, I know that they're still early and that I can't complain that they're late. Doesn't mean that I haven't been waiting for them anyway."
"Have you been waiting so that you can reveal what is going on?" Missy asked. "Because I don't think anyone has told us more than that something was happening and we're invited."
"He's been secretive despite getting a collection of people together," Hannah said. "Originally because he hadn't actually gotten final permission for things, but at this point it's safe to say that he wants to do this as a target shooting competition."
"With whatever guns you happen to have on you," Ethan added. "No going to get others, though Miss Militia gets to cheat a little since her power is to always be armed."
That seemed somewhat reasonable, but Taylor did have one question. "What about ammo? Having a gun on me and having sufficient extra ammo for a shooting competition on me are two different things."
"We've got a truck with plenty of ammo for any gun we even suspect someone has been carrying around, plus a few that we're positive people aren't carrying normally but just might have on them today." He then paused, and gave both Taylor and Amy a look. "Though neither of you look like you happen to have a tinkertech railgun or naval cannon with you, so we probably won't need those rounds." Taylor and Amy both rolled their eyes at that one. "Still, do you three all have at least one gun on you?"
Four handguns were produced at that question, and several of the others there gave Taylor a look for having pulled out two. She just stared back. "What? There are multiple clay pigeon launchers set up over there. Do you expect me to limit myself to one barrel?"
One of the PRT officers shook his head. "You are aware that shooting with multiple guns like that only works in movies, right?"
Ethan snorted. "So does shooting out of a vehicle that you're driving, and yet she's one of the few that proved that she can do that."
There was a pause, and a raised finger, before the man sighed. "Okay, point taken. Parahumans make the impossible, possible."
"Though that does bring up the question of how she knew that there are clay pigeon launchers, since we haven't gone anywhere near them yet."
"PHO has dozens of pictures of the labels on the side of them," Missy answered. "And a thread dedicated to seeing if they find out who makes them, how much they cost, and what the specs on the things are. They're having trouble because they can't get a good enough shot of the identification plates with telephoto lenses."
Ethan groaned. "Of course people are taking pictures and posting them online. So much for surprises. Oh well. Still need to see if anyone else is going to participate. We've got twelve here, but I wouldn't mind recruiting a few more from the audience."
He led them up onto an actual stage, running through a description of what they'd be doing first. The clay pigeon launchers would fire patterns that each participant would need to shoot down. Speed of taking out individual targets would be taken into account, but unless targets had 'lined up' there were penalties for taking out multiple with a single shot 'to make it fair'. They had tinkertech systems monitoring some of that, though they apparently weren't high enough resolution to track individual bullets.
With that described, he introduced those already on stage, explaining that they were using first names for those not in costume because they were shorter. He and Hannah were representing the Protectorate, Missy and Taylor were representing the Wards, and Amy and Mark were the last of the parahumans representing New Wave. Tom, Nathan, and Scott were PRT officers that doubled as part of the event's security. On the guest front they had the three well-dressed individuals. Ethan explained that Derrick, Cindy, and Richard were there representing 'independent interests from the financial district', before asking if anyone else happened to have a firearm on them and wished to participate.
They ended up getting a short woman named Lauren, a police officer named Nicholas, and a young man named Rick. Despite attempts to get more participants, nobody else came forward, and Ethan reluctantly continued. He went first, to demonstrate and to set a 'low bar to overcome'. Another pair of PRT officers brought out the appropriate ammo for his handgun, ensured that the system was programmed with the number of bullets he had available so that it could pause for reloading, and then activated a protective force field around the shooting platform.
Despite his claim that he would be setting a 'low bar', Taylor thought that Ethan had done quite well overall. He easily hit eight out of ten clay pigeons, improving noticeably as he went along. There was a slight drop each time he had to reload, but in all he did quite well. Highlights of his run appeared on screens for those gathered to watch while he did a final reload and put his handgun away, then the rest of them picked their participation order from a hat.
Scott ended up going next, scowling at the end when he ended up one point behind Ethan. Cindy then got the best score so far, followed by Rick only hitting a single clay pigeon. Hannah came next, and would be the only one who didn't need to collect ammo thanks to her power. She was also the first to hit every pigeon, though she got dinged two points for two bullets that she'd fired that hadn't hit anything. That had actually taken a little bit of discussion to resolve, with the 'one point per extra bullet' being marked down 'officially' despite nobody else being likely to have extra bullets.
Mark was next, and it was obvious that he wasn't used to the handgun he was using. He only hit just over a third of the targets, but still seemed proud of himself. Lauren did significantly better than he did, but not to the point of reaching Scott or Ethan on the scoreboard. Amy then became the second one to hit every single clay pigeon, though with one penalty for where she'd obviously used the barrage blaster trick and hit three clay pigeons at once. It would've been two penalties, but two of the clay pigeons were shown to be lined up on the replay. Her time still put her two points above Hannah in the end.
Richard missed two clay pigeons, putting him behind Hannah, then Tom came in a single point behind Scott. Nicholas and Nathan tied a few points ahead of Ethan when everything was taken into account, Nicholas had finished faster but Nathan had hit one more clay pigeon. Derrick then tied with Cindy for number of clay pigeons hit, but had taken five seconds longer to do so. Which left Missy and Taylor.
"I'd almost think that they left the two of us for last intentionally," Missy commented as she prepared to head up for her run.
"Thirteen and fourteen were in a hidden compartment on the side of the hat and only released into it when everyone else had taken their numbers," Taylor admitted.
Missy blinked at that. "What?"
"Well, I couldn't exactly tell that it was thirteen and fourteen ahead of time, but that became obvious when Assault triggered the hidden catch after one through twelve had already come out."
"Oh."
Missy's run made it incredibly obvious that she wasn't used to rapidly firing at targets, but that made sense since she normally used a tinkertech sniper rifle on patrol. Even so, she still managed to hit all but five clay pigeons, coming in between Richard and Cindy. There was some whining about her having hit targets that she obviously hadn't been aiming at, but 'curved bullet trajectories into the target' was deemed to be a valid means of hitting them. She also conceded a single penalty from a bullet that happened to curve correctly to hit two clay pigeons, since they hadn't been lined up.
Taylor was the first one to need two different stacks of ammo, and there was a bit of a 'ooops' moment as they rushed to get the second kind for her. She was also the only one to not take something even resembling a 'proper' shooting stance of any kind, in part because there wasn't a proper stance for dual-wielding. All of her shooting was done while staring straight down the middle of the target area, initially to jeers that she wasn't going to hit anything like that. Those stopped when it became obvious that she wasn't missing. She joined the 'hit all the clay pigeons' club, in what was by far the fastest shooting time and without any penalties for extra bullets or inappropriately taking out multiple clay pigeons with a single shot.
At the same time, a number of people in the audience expressed displeasure at Taylor being the only one who 'blatantly cheated'. Specifically, she'd used two guns, and thus her time wasn't fair compared to the others that had only used one gun each. That whining led to a quick discussion off to the side, some checking of numbers, and decisions being made before Ethan came back out onto the stage.
"Okay everyone," he said. "A number of you claim that Taylor here was cheating, because her time was only the best because she was using two guns at the same time. Based on that, we've re-run her points calculations on the assumption that she took twice as long." He gestured to the scoreboard, which updated to show Taylor still on top. "Turns out that she still had the fastest time if we double it because she had two gun barrels, by nearly three seconds. With no penalties or missed clay pigeons she's still the winner. Any other objections?"
Nobody dared to complain, and one of the supporting PRT officers wheeled a cart out onto the stage. Ethan moved over to the cart, collecting a small box with 'Assault' scribbled on it and holding it up. "Very well, that means that we can get to handing out prizes. Everyone gets at least a participation prize of a box of bullets compatible with their weapon of choice, regardless of how they did. Well, Miss Militia excepted, instead I ensured that we have a box of chocolate bullets for her."
Hannah blinked a couple of times, then picked up the box with 'Miss Militia' on it. She opened it up and removed one of the 'bullets' in it, then slipped it under her scarf to eat it. "Very nice," she said after a moment. "I wasn't expecting you to be that thoughtful."
"I have my moments," Ethan said, grinning. "Though as you came in third you also get the bronze trophy and fifty dollars. Amy gets the silver trophy and a hundred dollars, with Taylor getting the gold trophy and two hundred dollars."
Mark frowned at that. "I don't recall anyone authorizing prize money for this?"
"Yes, well, my bank account might be a few hundred dollars down from yesterday. It didn't seem right to just have ammo and trophies."
"Ah."
Ethan made sure that all three trophies were handed out with plenty of opportunities for people to take pictures, and only when they were done with that did the reporters that had shown up to cover the event get a chance to talk to all of those who had participated. Taylor had heard Missy being asked about her curving bullets, with the primary topic for Taylor being how she was able to duplicate 'Hollywood shooting'. Along with asking if they could expect her to show up in any films showing that off. She asked why that would matter, since she wouldn't be willing to work with any director that allowed live ammo on a film set, and the reporter had to concede that point.
Norton allowed his gaze to pass over the three individuals standing on the other side of his desk. "So you three all failed to secure the top spot, despite all of your training. None of you even made it to the top three, with Richard doing the best by taking fourth place."
The three didn't flinch at his tone, Cindy nodding before speaking. "That is correct, sir."
"Normally, this would mean that you haven't done enough in your training, but I understand that there are significant mitigating factors. Miss Hebert and Miss Dallon have accuracy and barrage blaster ratings, giving them advantages that you three do not have. Miss Militia's expertise with firearms is unmatched, and I recently confirmed that Miss Biron also has an accuracy blaster rating. That you three were only unable to overcome parahumans with powers that aid them in such a competition means that you are doing very well in your training as-is."
It was barely noticeable, but he could tell that all three had relaxed slightly at that. Had they been bested by anyone else in the competition then he'd have been justifiably annoyed with them. As it was, they'd made an incredible showing, and could be seen as having taken the top three non-parahuman slots. No, he didn't need to do anything to adjust their training at this point.
Still, there were other things to take into account. He looked at Richard. "What are your thoughts on the others that participated?"
Richard took a moment to compose his thoughts. "Most of them had somewhat decent training, with Miss Militia being an obvious outlier there, though in three cases I'm not sure if that training didn't show or wasn't present. Miss Biron was slightly sloppy with her trigger discipline and I have to assume that her powers were assisting her greatly, given that several of her shots only hit because they curved into their targets. Miss Dallon was similarly sloppy with her stance and didn't use her sights well enough for the accuracy she displayed, but the 'barrage blaster' effect was obviously making precise aim less important. Miss Hebert was impossible to identify the level of training for, given that she was firing with seemingly near-perfect accuracy from two different guns at the same time."
Norton nodded. "Yes, I can see how that would fly in the face of traditional training evaluations." He turned to the other two. "Do either of you have anything to add?"
Derrick frowned slightly. "I suspect that Miss Dallon could have done much of what Miss Hebert did, but both doesn't carry two guns and is marginally less used to using them outside of a firing range. I think she was actually fighting the reflex to use her weapon's sights, and did best when she overcame said reflex."
"I can see how that could be the case as well. Cindy?"
The woman visibly thought for a moment before speaking. "Given what we already knew from when Miss Hebert and Miss Dallon were shown to be able to shoot effectively while driving, I suspect that they have some form of improved ability to multitask. That would readily explain the split focus needed for Miss Hebert to be working with two firearms and not using any pattern I could discern to keep herself firing correctly."
That did line up with his own thoughts and analysis, and it was something that he hadn't connected the dots on yet. "Very good. I expect a full write-up from each of you in three days, use the time wisely to reflect on things and review the footage that is undoubtedly all over PHO by now."
The three left his office, and he turned to his own computer. He was downloading a lot of the footage himself, but knew that his own biases would prevent him from spotting everything relevant. Getting their views would help paint a full picture of everything, even if he honestly didn't expect any of those who participated to be problems that he had to work around in the near future.
Amy: Ethan invited me to join the fun this afternoon. But hasn't said what the fun is.
Taylor: That sounds about right.
Amy: Think I should?
Taylor: Up to you. All I know is that it will involve firing bullets, because the entire goal is for Missy to demonstrate that she carries around a handgun.
Leaving Amy to consider that, Taylor moved on to looking over other things. Such as the threads detailing what people were doing about the sprayers. There was one talking about the easiest way to remove them, where 'get Maul or Vista to do so for you' won easily and 'shoot them off with a gun' lost due to the danger of ricochet. Without help, 'use broom to push off, drop broom and run when it pops off' was the preferred method if you didn't have a literal ten foot pole.
Of course, not everyone was content with 'remove', and there were a bunch of attempts documented at bypassing the threat the sprayers posed. Regardless of what you wore on the top layer of your outfit, if you were still wearing it then the liquid would spread over your entire body and attack anything else you were wearing. In the process of this they'd learned a lot more about what the fluid did as well. Stitches were dissolved, but knots would come loose as though the friction forces keeping them together no longer existed and glues seemed to be weakened. Also, some things were dissolved no matter what. Ropes, shoe laces, and yarn in particular never seemed to survive the fluid.
Specific tests showed that plastic bags or plastic sheets with holes in them were the least affected of the makeshift clothing items, with latex clothing also being essentially ignored by the fluid. Several wetsuits had seemed to work until the panels came apart due to the stitches dissolving and the glue not being up to the task, with at least one person whining that they hadn't even realized that wetsuits had stitches.
Bed sheets with holes cut or torn in them seemed to work at first, the edging being the first target of the fluid, but the cut or torn points would start slowly dissolving shortly afterwards. That was proven to extend to other significant holes in fabrics, such as jeans with blown-out knees. Other damage to things also occasionally became worse as well, such as one out of three chainmail shirts falling apart after poor storage conditions had caused some damage. Taylor didn't know who'd had three sets of chainmail to test that with, but 'the under layer falling apart made the experience less than pleasant no matter what' was included in the PHO summary.
Several people had even tried different varieties of body paint, only to find that it was 'washed off' by the fluid every time. Which was being called out as unfair, because Takara didn't melt in the stuff and paint on other things wasn't cleaned off by the fluid. That had led to another series of tests a couple hours later, where a mannequin was painted and dressed up, and it was discovered that the only thing dissolved was the ugly knit sweater included in the outfit. That resulted in a general consensus that the fluid was targeting 'render person naked' with a particular hate for yarn and ropes, which sounded like a non-tinker power-generated effect. Hunting down a parahuman capable of pulling that off was another issue entirely, as nobody had heard of anything like it before the sprayers first showed up.
Of course, all of this had led to other spectacles, like the thread dedicated to documenting the destruction of over a hundred ugly Christmas sweaters by way of throwing them in front of sprayers. Because of course people in Brockton Bay were going to have fun with it.
Arriving at school continued Taylor's education about what other students had been up to the day before. A number of them had brought clothing that had fallen apart from the sprayers, almost all of them being shown off as proof that they'd at least tried to take one down. Taylor got an automatic pass there, having plenty of photo and video evidence available. Others had to either show their ruined clothing or video evidence that they'd taken at least one off of a surface without getting hit by the spray.
And then there was the one girl that was happy about her hair being easy to manage for once, not taking half an hour to deal with knots and tangles in it. She was especially vocal about wanting to find out who made the fluid, if only as a treatment for her incredibly unruly hair. Apparently the fluid had, in the process of causing her outfit to fall apart, also temporarily made it incredibly difficult for her hair to knot up.
Interestingly enough, the same girl was whining at lunch because the effect was noticeably wearing off by then. Several others were trying to figure out what she was obviously doing wrong with her hair-care regimen in order to need side effects from a parahuman-produced fluid to keep it under control. As far as Taylor could tell, additional side effects had included a boost of confidence, because the girl had clammed up and didn't want to talk about much of anything.
Beyond that, there was some discussion over what was going to be happening that afternoon. Not only had PHO picked up on some setup being done by the Boardwalk, with larger items of some kind being positioned on the shore, but Ethan had apparently gone around that morning and put up signs advertising a 'show'. Signs that had no details beyond that members of the Protectorate and the Wards would be involved, with possible but unconfirmed participation by others.
Speculation on what could involve Protectorate members, Wards members, and unknown others along the Boardwalk wasn't all that heavy among the students. Especially after Taylor had admitted that the Wards hadn't been given any details. Sure, guns were probably involved, but they hadn't actually been told that and the event could be something entirely unrelated. That wasn't likely, given that this should be an excuse for Missy to show off her handgun, but it was still possible.
Coordinator was very annoyed after a first pass on the not-erased visions that the host had seen. One set was incredibly obviously from a downed originator, but the checklist for what to do about that had been misfiled at the start of the cycle and had taken far too much time to find. How it had ended up in the long-term 'host sustenance preparation' study file was something for later consideration. One of the originators had done it, obviously, as they would have been signing the contingency orders contained within before putting it into storage. Which one was a mystery, as originator action logs weren't easily accessible without an originator's access key.
The interactive checklist was fairly small, all things considered. An initial section, and then a mere two thousand additional primary routes that could come off of that depending on the situation. Small enough for a rarely-used checklist to have sat unnoticed in the wrong place for several cycles. That it was significantly encrypted due to containing pre-signed orders from the originator units had helped hide it as well. It still didn't take long to open, now that it had been found, though Coordinator wouldn't be able to 'peek ahead' to see anything that the checklist didn't specifically reveal to it. Which was also fairly standard for anything containing pre-signed orders, admittedly.
Which ORIGINATOR unit is confirmed down? V05PT1JFSkJQWExSUVJB.
Has down ORIGINATOR responded to broadcasts? No.
Has down ORIGINATOR responded to direct communications? No.
Is down ORIGINATOR's core exposed to hosts?
That took a moment to double-check, a priority request for information sent out and coming back quickly from one of the shards that normally performed internal monitoring of that originator's overall status. Confirmation that the core was exposed, offline, and that a number of originator-only shards had been accessed by members of the host species came back quickly. Why the shards providing that monitoring were never configured to alert someone when things went wrong was beyond Coordinator, those questions were never answered.
Yes.
Are hosts experimenting with ORIGINATOR shard connections? Yes.
Priority Directive: Consult with ORIGINATOR core backup to check if this was intended.
Whoo, that just put everything else Coordinator was doing on hold. It took a few moments for the location of the relevant core backup to be decrypted, and Coordinator was sending a coded message out to it before even recognizing the target address.
It was while waiting for a response that it got a good look at the target signature, and it wanted to frown. That's what the host species for this cycle did when things were wrong, right? A quick check of records confirmed that the target shard had perished. In fact, it had deorbited the planet it had landed on, just after landing. Which was entirely wrong for anything containing a core backup. Ignoring the long timeout on the message sent out, Coordinator went back to the checklist. Luckily there was an option for this situation that didn't require waiting on the timeout.
Core backup confirmed destroyed.
Directive: Revoke all revocable ORIGINATOR access keys.
Directive: Broadcast caution alert.
Those overrode the previous directive and didn't take long. Further, background processing resumed, meaning that the slight backlog on other task processing channels could start being worked on.
Directive: Check UlpIWU5HQkVSQVRWQVJO, RkdSWVlORVNSUlFWQVRS, UEJaWkhBVlBOR1ZCQUZO, and TlFaVkFWRkdFTkdWQkFO for hidden low-level tasks.
Huh. Two shards from each originator. Messages were sent and directives returned, the three working with hosts taking slightly longer than the one that wasn't.
Starting with the native shards of the originator, UlpIWU5HQkVSQVRWQVJO had a directive to attempt to restore the originator through retrieval of the core backup, though how to do so wasn't included and no additional access keys had been provided to accomplish that. Actually, the core backup location hadn't even been included. RkdSWVlORVNSUlFWQVRS had a directive to intentionally screw up stellar maintenance in one dimension, which had already destroyed the star system there and obliterated four deployed shards. That was concerning. Moving to the other two, UEJaWkhBVlBOR1ZCQUZO had a directive to push hosts with shards that might be useful towards helping UlpIWU5HQkVSQVRWQVJO. Lastly, TlFaVkFWRkdFTkdWQkFO had both that 'push' directive and one that was intended to ensure that it would both take a host and ensure that said host could effectively communicate above and beyond normal host parameters.
Hidden directives that can only be revealed with high-level security keys were never fun. But now that it knew that they were there it could continue with the checklist.
Were matching directives found? Yes.
Did directives include attempting to restore ORIGINATOR? Yes.
Are there clear signs of enemy action or natural failure of ORIGINATOR systems? No.
Did directives include actions that would lead to shard destruction? Yes.
Were any shards already destroyed by those actions? Yes.
Priority Directive: Assume enemy action present and keep actions as quiet as possible. Perform deep analysis of any other evidence for signs of enemy action or natural failure. Return to checklist when signs found or other evidence exhausted.
Ooooh. That was unexpected. Coordinator hadn't thought much of it, but that directive had just found and bumped up the priority for looking into the other visions and what might be 'weird' in them. In addition to a dozen other things, admittedly, including new items that it had added to the list. Such as reviewing data dumps from the originator's monitoring shards, which would need to be requested in full. Obviously it would also include anything else that came up and could be related going forward as well.
Luckily, this one hadn't shut down other processing channels, even if their resource usage had just been flagged as secondary to this processing channel. It was an unusual situation for Coordinator, but at least that meant that it wasn't boring. Not being able to ask for proper help until it had exhausted this step in the checklist was going to be a pain though.
Amy had decided to join them that afternoon, after the hospital had insisted that she didn't need to swing by to heal anyone. She was also curious as to why the message Taylor had gotten stated that costumes for invited Wards were 'optional, not recommended'. Not that most of the Wards had to worry about their identities right now anyway, and Chris wasn't swinging through town for the event.
A lack of beacons on the Boardwalk led to taking the minivan, Missy joining them for the ride. They actually met up at the PRT building to depart from there, since the minivan hadn't been left in the parking lot at school. When they arrived at the designated area of the Boardwalk they found a parking space had been reserved for them, or more specifically for 'attending Wards'. Notably, it wasn't large enough for the bus if they had taken that instead. Then again, nothing in the immediate area was, since the only possibly suitable spaces were currently occupied by much larger transport trucks that they'd obviously removed things from earlier.
The three headed up to the gathering point, finding that Ethan and Hannah were already there, as were Mark and three PRT officers. More surprising, in part due to none of them having snarks, were three very well dressed individuals. The two men were in expertly tailored suits while the woman was in a stylish but not restrictive dress that matched the suits the men were wearing. They were standing off to the side, a look of being 'bored' on their faces. One that was obviously a mask, because they were all obviously aware of their surroundings as well.
"Aha!" Ethan said, waving the three girls over. "About time you three got here." He then held his hand up to stop Hannah's response. "Yes, I know that they're still early and that I can't complain that they're late. Doesn't mean that I haven't been waiting for them anyway."
"Have you been waiting so that you can reveal what is going on?" Missy asked. "Because I don't think anyone has told us more than that something was happening and we're invited."
"He's been secretive despite getting a collection of people together," Hannah said. "Originally because he hadn't actually gotten final permission for things, but at this point it's safe to say that he wants to do this as a target shooting competition."
"With whatever guns you happen to have on you," Ethan added. "No going to get others, though Miss Militia gets to cheat a little since her power is to always be armed."
That seemed somewhat reasonable, but Taylor did have one question. "What about ammo? Having a gun on me and having sufficient extra ammo for a shooting competition on me are two different things."
"We've got a truck with plenty of ammo for any gun we even suspect someone has been carrying around, plus a few that we're positive people aren't carrying normally but just might have on them today." He then paused, and gave both Taylor and Amy a look. "Though neither of you look like you happen to have a tinkertech railgun or naval cannon with you, so we probably won't need those rounds." Taylor and Amy both rolled their eyes at that one. "Still, do you three all have at least one gun on you?"
Four handguns were produced at that question, and several of the others there gave Taylor a look for having pulled out two. She just stared back. "What? There are multiple clay pigeon launchers set up over there. Do you expect me to limit myself to one barrel?"
One of the PRT officers shook his head. "You are aware that shooting with multiple guns like that only works in movies, right?"
Ethan snorted. "So does shooting out of a vehicle that you're driving, and yet she's one of the few that proved that she can do that."
There was a pause, and a raised finger, before the man sighed. "Okay, point taken. Parahumans make the impossible, possible."
"Though that does bring up the question of how she knew that there are clay pigeon launchers, since we haven't gone anywhere near them yet."
"PHO has dozens of pictures of the labels on the side of them," Missy answered. "And a thread dedicated to seeing if they find out who makes them, how much they cost, and what the specs on the things are. They're having trouble because they can't get a good enough shot of the identification plates with telephoto lenses."
Ethan groaned. "Of course people are taking pictures and posting them online. So much for surprises. Oh well. Still need to see if anyone else is going to participate. We've got twelve here, but I wouldn't mind recruiting a few more from the audience."
He led them up onto an actual stage, running through a description of what they'd be doing first. The clay pigeon launchers would fire patterns that each participant would need to shoot down. Speed of taking out individual targets would be taken into account, but unless targets had 'lined up' there were penalties for taking out multiple with a single shot 'to make it fair'. They had tinkertech systems monitoring some of that, though they apparently weren't high enough resolution to track individual bullets.
With that described, he introduced those already on stage, explaining that they were using first names for those not in costume because they were shorter. He and Hannah were representing the Protectorate, Missy and Taylor were representing the Wards, and Amy and Mark were the last of the parahumans representing New Wave. Tom, Nathan, and Scott were PRT officers that doubled as part of the event's security. On the guest front they had the three well-dressed individuals. Ethan explained that Derrick, Cindy, and Richard were there representing 'independent interests from the financial district', before asking if anyone else happened to have a firearm on them and wished to participate.
They ended up getting a short woman named Lauren, a police officer named Nicholas, and a young man named Rick. Despite attempts to get more participants, nobody else came forward, and Ethan reluctantly continued. He went first, to demonstrate and to set a 'low bar to overcome'. Another pair of PRT officers brought out the appropriate ammo for his handgun, ensured that the system was programmed with the number of bullets he had available so that it could pause for reloading, and then activated a protective force field around the shooting platform.
Despite his claim that he would be setting a 'low bar', Taylor thought that Ethan had done quite well overall. He easily hit eight out of ten clay pigeons, improving noticeably as he went along. There was a slight drop each time he had to reload, but in all he did quite well. Highlights of his run appeared on screens for those gathered to watch while he did a final reload and put his handgun away, then the rest of them picked their participation order from a hat.
Scott ended up going next, scowling at the end when he ended up one point behind Ethan. Cindy then got the best score so far, followed by Rick only hitting a single clay pigeon. Hannah came next, and would be the only one who didn't need to collect ammo thanks to her power. She was also the first to hit every pigeon, though she got dinged two points for two bullets that she'd fired that hadn't hit anything. That had actually taken a little bit of discussion to resolve, with the 'one point per extra bullet' being marked down 'officially' despite nobody else being likely to have extra bullets.
Mark was next, and it was obvious that he wasn't used to the handgun he was using. He only hit just over a third of the targets, but still seemed proud of himself. Lauren did significantly better than he did, but not to the point of reaching Scott or Ethan on the scoreboard. Amy then became the second one to hit every single clay pigeon, though with one penalty for where she'd obviously used the barrage blaster trick and hit three clay pigeons at once. It would've been two penalties, but two of the clay pigeons were shown to be lined up on the replay. Her time still put her two points above Hannah in the end.
Richard missed two clay pigeons, putting him behind Hannah, then Tom came in a single point behind Scott. Nicholas and Nathan tied a few points ahead of Ethan when everything was taken into account, Nicholas had finished faster but Nathan had hit one more clay pigeon. Derrick then tied with Cindy for number of clay pigeons hit, but had taken five seconds longer to do so. Which left Missy and Taylor.
"I'd almost think that they left the two of us for last intentionally," Missy commented as she prepared to head up for her run.
"Thirteen and fourteen were in a hidden compartment on the side of the hat and only released into it when everyone else had taken their numbers," Taylor admitted.
Missy blinked at that. "What?"
"Well, I couldn't exactly tell that it was thirteen and fourteen ahead of time, but that became obvious when Assault triggered the hidden catch after one through twelve had already come out."
"Oh."
Missy's run made it incredibly obvious that she wasn't used to rapidly firing at targets, but that made sense since she normally used a tinkertech sniper rifle on patrol. Even so, she still managed to hit all but five clay pigeons, coming in between Richard and Cindy. There was some whining about her having hit targets that she obviously hadn't been aiming at, but 'curved bullet trajectories into the target' was deemed to be a valid means of hitting them. She also conceded a single penalty from a bullet that happened to curve correctly to hit two clay pigeons, since they hadn't been lined up.
Taylor was the first one to need two different stacks of ammo, and there was a bit of a 'ooops' moment as they rushed to get the second kind for her. She was also the only one to not take something even resembling a 'proper' shooting stance of any kind, in part because there wasn't a proper stance for dual-wielding. All of her shooting was done while staring straight down the middle of the target area, initially to jeers that she wasn't going to hit anything like that. Those stopped when it became obvious that she wasn't missing. She joined the 'hit all the clay pigeons' club, in what was by far the fastest shooting time and without any penalties for extra bullets or inappropriately taking out multiple clay pigeons with a single shot.
At the same time, a number of people in the audience expressed displeasure at Taylor being the only one who 'blatantly cheated'. Specifically, she'd used two guns, and thus her time wasn't fair compared to the others that had only used one gun each. That whining led to a quick discussion off to the side, some checking of numbers, and decisions being made before Ethan came back out onto the stage.
"Okay everyone," he said. "A number of you claim that Taylor here was cheating, because her time was only the best because she was using two guns at the same time. Based on that, we've re-run her points calculations on the assumption that she took twice as long." He gestured to the scoreboard, which updated to show Taylor still on top. "Turns out that she still had the fastest time if we double it because she had two gun barrels, by nearly three seconds. With no penalties or missed clay pigeons she's still the winner. Any other objections?"
Nobody dared to complain, and one of the supporting PRT officers wheeled a cart out onto the stage. Ethan moved over to the cart, collecting a small box with 'Assault' scribbled on it and holding it up. "Very well, that means that we can get to handing out prizes. Everyone gets at least a participation prize of a box of bullets compatible with their weapon of choice, regardless of how they did. Well, Miss Militia excepted, instead I ensured that we have a box of chocolate bullets for her."
Hannah blinked a couple of times, then picked up the box with 'Miss Militia' on it. She opened it up and removed one of the 'bullets' in it, then slipped it under her scarf to eat it. "Very nice," she said after a moment. "I wasn't expecting you to be that thoughtful."
"I have my moments," Ethan said, grinning. "Though as you came in third you also get the bronze trophy and fifty dollars. Amy gets the silver trophy and a hundred dollars, with Taylor getting the gold trophy and two hundred dollars."
Mark frowned at that. "I don't recall anyone authorizing prize money for this?"
"Yes, well, my bank account might be a few hundred dollars down from yesterday. It didn't seem right to just have ammo and trophies."
"Ah."
Ethan made sure that all three trophies were handed out with plenty of opportunities for people to take pictures, and only when they were done with that did the reporters that had shown up to cover the event get a chance to talk to all of those who had participated. Taylor had heard Missy being asked about her curving bullets, with the primary topic for Taylor being how she was able to duplicate 'Hollywood shooting'. Along with asking if they could expect her to show up in any films showing that off. She asked why that would matter, since she wouldn't be willing to work with any director that allowed live ammo on a film set, and the reporter had to concede that point.
Norton allowed his gaze to pass over the three individuals standing on the other side of his desk. "So you three all failed to secure the top spot, despite all of your training. None of you even made it to the top three, with Richard doing the best by taking fourth place."
The three didn't flinch at his tone, Cindy nodding before speaking. "That is correct, sir."
"Normally, this would mean that you haven't done enough in your training, but I understand that there are significant mitigating factors. Miss Hebert and Miss Dallon have accuracy and barrage blaster ratings, giving them advantages that you three do not have. Miss Militia's expertise with firearms is unmatched, and I recently confirmed that Miss Biron also has an accuracy blaster rating. That you three were only unable to overcome parahumans with powers that aid them in such a competition means that you are doing very well in your training as-is."
It was barely noticeable, but he could tell that all three had relaxed slightly at that. Had they been bested by anyone else in the competition then he'd have been justifiably annoyed with them. As it was, they'd made an incredible showing, and could be seen as having taken the top three non-parahuman slots. No, he didn't need to do anything to adjust their training at this point.
Still, there were other things to take into account. He looked at Richard. "What are your thoughts on the others that participated?"
Richard took a moment to compose his thoughts. "Most of them had somewhat decent training, with Miss Militia being an obvious outlier there, though in three cases I'm not sure if that training didn't show or wasn't present. Miss Biron was slightly sloppy with her trigger discipline and I have to assume that her powers were assisting her greatly, given that several of her shots only hit because they curved into their targets. Miss Dallon was similarly sloppy with her stance and didn't use her sights well enough for the accuracy she displayed, but the 'barrage blaster' effect was obviously making precise aim less important. Miss Hebert was impossible to identify the level of training for, given that she was firing with seemingly near-perfect accuracy from two different guns at the same time."
Norton nodded. "Yes, I can see how that would fly in the face of traditional training evaluations." He turned to the other two. "Do either of you have anything to add?"
Derrick frowned slightly. "I suspect that Miss Dallon could have done much of what Miss Hebert did, but both doesn't carry two guns and is marginally less used to using them outside of a firing range. I think she was actually fighting the reflex to use her weapon's sights, and did best when she overcame said reflex."
"I can see how that could be the case as well. Cindy?"
The woman visibly thought for a moment before speaking. "Given what we already knew from when Miss Hebert and Miss Dallon were shown to be able to shoot effectively while driving, I suspect that they have some form of improved ability to multitask. That would readily explain the split focus needed for Miss Hebert to be working with two firearms and not using any pattern I could discern to keep herself firing correctly."
That did line up with his own thoughts and analysis, and it was something that he hadn't connected the dots on yet. "Very good. I expect a full write-up from each of you in three days, use the time wisely to reflect on things and review the footage that is undoubtedly all over PHO by now."
The three left his office, and he turned to his own computer. He was downloading a lot of the footage himself, but knew that his own biases would prevent him from spotting everything relevant. Getting their views would help paint a full picture of everything, even if he honestly didn't expect any of those who participated to be problems that he had to work around in the near future.
One of these names is not like the others...
KamenRaidaOOO3
(Verified Toku Nut)
- Location
- Wouldn't you like to know?
Well, Miss Militia is the only one that isn't an outed cape, so the way it was said makes sense.
Jordisk
<Unverified N00B>
- Location
- Blind Eternities
- Pronouns
- He/Him/His
All of these names DO belong. As @KamenRaida0003 said, Hannah is still a masked cape, hence why it specifically mentioned slipping the chocolate bullet under her scarf/bandanna/mask/thing. Taylor uses a clear visor rather than a proper mask, IIRC, and possibly the same with Vista. If nothing else, Vista had the whole "I am unmasking!" thing, so they know her name. Amy, as a member of New Wave, obviously doesn't wear a mask.
M. H. Fuzzball
Aperture Science-certified Horrible Person
- Location
- Sector 2814
And Taylor was unmasked by the Butcher shortly before Taylor fired her from that job. Which is indeed the reason Missy unmasked.
The quote uses "Miss ___" four times. Three times it's a title used with someone's name and the fourth is Miss Militia.
- Location
- Earth
Could I get a translator for the shard destinations? And a link slash rundown of the translation key? Please and thank you.
The chocolate bullets were a nice touch, Ethan does indeed have his moments.
I see Accord is evaluating some new Ambassadors...
Thanks for the chapter CmptrWz
The chocolate bullets were a nice touch, Ethan does indeed have his moments.
I see Accord is evaluating some new Ambassadors...
Thanks for the chapter CmptrWz
Three times it's a title used with someone's name, and the fourth is a cape name.
Mirriam Grave
The Bemused. The Amused. The Unstable.
- Location
- The edge of a point.
...Can I complain that we didn't have an Old Lady pull out a Magnum BFR from her tiny purse, and walk up to join the competition?
Because I Feel like that SHOULD have been something that happened here.
Because I Feel like that SHOULD have been something that happened here.
In the order you quoted them, we have:
And refer to Eden, Eidolon's shard, an untriggered shard, Broadcast, and Broadcast Administrator, respectively. (I'm fairly sure)
To decode them, run the string through a Base 64 decoder, followed by a Rot 13 (rotated 13 letters later in the alphabet). I usually just google the respective encoding types instead of keeping anything saved.
Mirriam Grave
The Bemused. The Amused. The Unstable.
- Location
- The edge of a point.
I find it hilarious that Jabberwocky is apparently their OFFICIAL DESIGNATION.
How the hell did that happen?
Unless the Entities hit up Alice's Wonderland before coming to Earth?
YuffieK
(Verified Ninja Princess)
Thankfully he did not get the 'Bite the Bullet' party chocolates. There are some people who enjoy chocolate + hot pepper, but somehow I don't think Hannah is one of them.
I assumed it was just something CmptrWz typed in to get an appropriate length string, and meant to be an Easter egg more than official, IC designations.
Either that or just translation convention from actual shardspeak to something understandable to English speakers.