Three sections to this post. First, general responses. Second, stuff about Lisa. Third, stuff about Taylor's tinkering.
First.
Just started reading this. So far I like the premise, because it does not veer too far away from plausible and I like your characterization so far.
Thanks.
The progression of plot as an effect on a character over time is one area I've considered rather interesting in storytelling. How much should a character change based on their personality and the plot?
Second.
He might run himself in circles trying to figure out if someone grabbed Tattletale on purpose, or if they were going after any random blonde girl, and it was just coincidence.
How she didn't realize what was happening at the time will probably bother him as well, cause that implies a Stranger, or some other way around her power.
A purposeful attack, Lisa should have seen coming. What if she just walked down the wrong alley, startled somebody, and got shot? Her body gets looted and then dumped somewhere, and voila, she's vanished. Coil had to work to catch her. If her disappearance is a random mugging gone wrong, it offends him that she could just have up and died after all the work he did.
Two explanations come to mind for her living as a pickpocket: 1) Lying low: Similar to Regent, she hid her abilities as much as possible. Banks and insurances in Worm employ thinkers, people on the street do not. 2) She only took as much money as she wanted for something. Feel like staying in a fancy hotel? Spend a couple hours getting thousands of dollars. Just want lunch and new clothes? Shoplifting and pickpocketing.
I like both of these. I'd say a mix of them are true in this story. Regardless, Lisa wasn't doing very well though. She didn't have enough money squirreled away to just hop on a plane and start over in a different city after Coil picked her up.
As this is an off the cuff answer, I'm going to stop here, as if I tried to give more details, I might have to change them if it comes up in story.
Third.
Also, polymer tinker is stupidly strong, since polymers can be organic and inorganic. I know she doesn't consider herself a biotinker, but she is honestly in that grey zone of 'what is alive?' since her creations think primitive thoughts, eat, and poop. If she creates a mom blob that can create other blobs, can you say exponential growth?
Could you clarify this for me? She is closer to a biotinker than Armsmaster, as you say. She also has already created units that expel chemicals/gases to affect humans. The rebreather already needs to ensure a certain concentration of certain human-affecting gases to work. What would be the rough cut-off-point for her?
My current theory is that she only very roughly knows which chemicals affect humans in which way, but if she finds a formula/description of a chemical online, then she can use that as part of her design. Information on breathable gases is easily found, but but stuff that quickly knocks people out is kept somewhat secret for obvious reasons.
So, both of these quotes overlap a bit, and have complex answers. I hope it is best to respond to both by topic, rather than responding sequentially and individually.
In Worm canon, Tinkers build tinkertech. In my
interpretation of Worm canon, there are three subtypes of Tinker: Category, Method, and Quirk.
Armsmaster and Kid Win are Method Tinkers. They can build nearly anything, but only within a particular method of tinkering. They can readily incorporate the work of other Tinkers, but not duplicate their exact work.
Taylor and Squealer are Category Tinkers. They are the best at their topic, but also limited to their topic. Everything Squealer builds
must be in the form of a vehicle. Everything Taylor builds
must be based on a polymer.
Leet and String Theory are Quirk Tinkers. They can build anything, without restriction. What matters is
how they build it. I believe Fanon String Theory holds that she must complete any project that she starts within a particular time frame, as determined by her power. Once a project starts, failure to complete has nasty consequences. As another example, Leet's quirk is that he cannot build any particular instance of tinkertech more than once, without risk of explosion.
Within my story, Armsmaster can learn to biotinker, as long as he gets access to one, or puts in the significant effort to develop those skills on his own.
Taylor cannot biotinker, as biology is composed of more than polymers. Proteins, for example, are just outside of her limitations. Proteins are assembled chains of animo acids. They are not repeating chains. Proteins require that they be non-repeating in order to fold into the unique shapes necessary for human biological function. Taylor can make stuff that binds or sorts a particular protein, but she gets no Tinker insight into the design or function of proteins themselves. In contrast, the extracellular matrix is a carbohydrate polymer. That is something she can work with, to a limited extent. The base structure is a polymer, but there's a lot of localized irregularity and other modifications done by cells. She can't use her Tinker abilities to figure out the localized and extra information from the extracellular matrix, and she can't assemble more than a blank slate of the stuff, but the base polymer is within her expertise.
For affecting biology, she gets no Tinker insight. For disassembling or modifying polymers, even those part of biological structures, she can work with that, but not get Tinker insight into all of the repercussions of those modifications.
For affecting biology, such as using breathable gases, she can often just make them if she can find the compound description and synthesis process. This is normal chemistry, and something she is studying in school. While she has a lot to learn, in the end, it's not trying to Tinker outside her Category. However, all normal sedatives that I'm aware of, are very dangerous when released in unmanaged doses. Minimal effect or death are usually common outcomes. Both of those are unacceptable to Taylor and Danny when considering using them as an attack vector.
Self-replicating tinkertech. This is a tricky one. I almost considered it as its own category of Tinker.
Maybe I'm wrong, but as near as I can tell, there are no actual self replicating Tinkers in canon Worm. A couple of lines in Worm about the Eagleton robot army is the closest it gets. Nilbog is a Striker, not a Tinker. Same for Panacea. There are huge worries that Bonesaw might do this, but she never actually confirms that she can.
A better rule of thumb, in my opinion, is that there is no self-maintaining tinkertech. A Tinker can build a device that builds tinkertech. Nearly all Tinkers do that. Armsmaster is implied to have a variety of tinkertech tools that he uses to build more tinkertech.
Self-maintaining tinkertech is therefore the thing that is banned. Tinkertech machines building different tinkertech is fine. What can't happen is a closed cycle.
The fundamental limit on the production of tinkertech is the lower bound between the ability of the Tinker to build and the Shard provided understanding of what can be built. Armsmaster approaches the human limitations in canon, modifying himself for reduced biological limitations and more effective interfaces for his tinkering. On the other side, Kid Win put great effort into tinkering, but to minimal effect, arguably because his shard refused to provide him with insight because Kid Win wasn't tinkering in the way his shard wanted him to tinker.
Lastly, for this section. Scuba gear requires no biological tinkering. Simply look up the mixture of gases needed. Tinkering was used to figure out how to provide them using polymers though.
I hope that clarifies things.
Should I threadmark this part as informational?
