Redistribution of Power [SI/CYOA-ish]
- Thread starter sapient_cogbag
- Start date
- Location
- Planet Earth
Always bothers me when Tinkers(especially those with an Inspired Inventor like power) do not work towards self-enhancement. So they are no dependent on the power. Like, try towards Genetics, Kryptonian Genetics, Super Soldier Serums, etc... Make your physical body superior, without the need of powers to maintain it. Then improve your mind, through genetics, through cybernetics, psionics, magic, etc... Basically, keep improving yourself.
Not sure why MC did/does not just make something to change them into a woman, instead of just using hormone therapy. Or maybe a kind of Body Mod(like Jump-chain) so that they can design their desired body, exactly the way they want/need it.
Pretty sure that MC's Pocket Dimension, as it is, is just a step below MC being fully self-sufficient and self-perpetuating. I mean, open portals under unattended caches of drug money, under piles of useful tech/junk in junkyards or reclamation centers, build more raw material gatherers in remote locations around the world. Expand the inside of your pocket space, turning it into a proper base/home with ALL the needed facilities. Build things to GENERATE resources ex-nihilo or something. So you are fully self-sufficient. Water, Gas, Heat, Power, etc... Maybe even make a full-on Star Trek Replicator for all your food/drink needs...
MC should probly make a simple satellite. With all the dead-man switch/contingencies on it. So Contessa has even more trouble dealing with it.
Maybe make a spaceship/space station. So you have a base/home/workshop that is not the Pocket-space, or on earth bet. Not sure if this is one of those worlds/settings where peoples powers only work near earth, if so... maybe MC's does not?
I'd be trying to make a tinker specialty that works on my powers, then work on enhancing them. Like increasing the number of charges, or even turning it into a full-on inspired inventor, so MC does not have to keep forgetting/losing charges/specialties.
Definitely would try to hook myself up with the other CYOA Ver.1 powers. to some extent. if I could. Like, Alexandria, Psychokinesis, Power Manipulation, and Shaper. Sure it would like not be a quick process, but even a single step a day would eventually see the MC becoming very powerful/safe. Safe from Cauldron, Safe from pretty much anyone.
Not sure why MC did/does not just make something to change them into a woman, instead of just using hormone therapy. Or maybe a kind of Body Mod(like Jump-chain) so that they can design their desired body, exactly the way they want/need it.
Pretty sure that MC's Pocket Dimension, as it is, is just a step below MC being fully self-sufficient and self-perpetuating. I mean, open portals under unattended caches of drug money, under piles of useful tech/junk in junkyards or reclamation centers, build more raw material gatherers in remote locations around the world. Expand the inside of your pocket space, turning it into a proper base/home with ALL the needed facilities. Build things to GENERATE resources ex-nihilo or something. So you are fully self-sufficient. Water, Gas, Heat, Power, etc... Maybe even make a full-on Star Trek Replicator for all your food/drink needs...
MC should probly make a simple satellite. With all the dead-man switch/contingencies on it. So Contessa has even more trouble dealing with it.
Maybe make a spaceship/space station. So you have a base/home/workshop that is not the Pocket-space, or on earth bet. Not sure if this is one of those worlds/settings where peoples powers only work near earth, if so... maybe MC's does not?
I'd be trying to make a tinker specialty that works on my powers, then work on enhancing them. Like increasing the number of charges, or even turning it into a full-on inspired inventor, so MC does not have to keep forgetting/losing charges/specialties.
Definitely would try to hook myself up with the other CYOA Ver.1 powers. to some extent. if I could. Like, Alexandria, Psychokinesis, Power Manipulation, and Shaper. Sure it would like not be a quick process, but even a single step a day would eventually see the MC becoming very powerful/safe. Safe from Cauldron, Safe from pretty much anyone.
Recluse Connections - 2.5
- Pronouns
- Xe/Xem/They/Them
[disclaimer - Wildbow owns Worm, I do not own Worm]
In the early morning, I woke up, too warm but still comfy. As was my standard operating procedure (also known as procrastinating from actually doing stuff) I took a look at my PHO thread, which had gained at least 15 new pages overnight (and at least 6 of those were entirely full of Nazi apologists).
And then I saw the video. Kaiser's response. Now, while I'd experienced some pretty bad transphobia indirectly in my former world, this was... well it was totally mask-off, which I really should have been more prepared for given the state of Earth Bet (and more specifically, Brockton Bay). I was unashamed to admit that I was shook and deeply disturbed after watching it, and took a while to calm myself down.
A little ping for a private message from one Miss_Warper came through. Going to be honest, it was obviously Missy, but the information inside sent chills down my back. She reminded me of a very important fact. The Nazi scum here could get help from the Nazi scum abroad, which meant they'd probably bring in Masters and people able to detect pocket dimensions or other interversal rifts. Which was worrying as fuck. My heartbeat raced up at the thought of being sent into Conversion Therapy++++ in those fucking Gesselschaft torture camps. Curling up tightly under the covers, I took a few moments to try and calm myself down, especially after the visceral reminder of the dysphoria that that video had been. Jesus.
What I needed to do was shut off my links to Medhall, and so within a few minutes my infrastructure hijacking machines were retracted and I closed the portals myself. As much as I ever enjoyed hijacking Nazi gang property, it was... not worth the risk right now, I thought to myself, shuddering at the idea of the Gesselschaft camps again. Contemplating over targets that would be easiest and most acceptable, I decided to nab internet from the offices of Fortress Constructions - because, and I could not say this enough - fuck Coil, and a few minutes later I was once again hooked up to the internet and other utilities.
It was then that I looked upon the most beautiful hardware chip ever. The one that'd just finished being engraved in the rotations of bilayer graphene and stood before me in the chip production chamber. A wonderful piece of electronic machinery, capable of emulating the laptop I currently used to do my computing on a single one of it's 512 fucking cores, each capable of maximum clockspeeds as high as 20GHz, with almost 1GiB of high speed cache to counter the extremely slow RAM of Bet's tech level. I could even put it right in my current laptop and it'd adapt itself for the motherboard and then manage the other 511 cores appropriately. This absolute beast was a combination of highly adapted 2021 and near future chip technologies, the bullshit-level material properties of graphene, and the magic of tinkertech manufacturing devices. And so, I finished off the entire thing with the ceramic casing and carefully replaced the chip in my laptop with something that outstripped it's capabilities by about 3 orders of magnitude at 1/10th the energy cost.
I would never be short of computing power for a very long time, I felt, as I set the chip production machine to making another.
And once again I was alone with myself, and my thoughts. I'd spat on the Nazis and I'd keep having to do that, but how much longer until I couldn't cope with the loneliness? How much longer until I broke from complete lack of communication and depression. I needed friends - ideally I could cuddle them and get cuddled or petted because that was what I liked in life and it was my most effective form of emotional communication, but I'd take literally anything at this point. Hugging myself, I set my brain to solutions to the problem.
I needed someone capey enough to be able to keep up with my life being basically 100% parahuman bullshit, someone around my age of 21, someone who seemed like a decent enough person, and would not be bigoted towards both my transition and the more radical parts of my own morphological wants. They also couldn't work for any government organisation connected to the PRT or Protectorate or the police or military, for fairly obvious security and ideological reasons, and had to be comfortable with my neurodivergent behaviour. God, I'm so needy, hah! I thought to myself in amusement.
The Friend Problem was apparently the hardest I had yet come across. Not something I could solve by tinkering, at least not currently, but I supposed I could make a start. The biggest issue actually came with the transhumanism/morphology thing - the existence of people like Bonesaw and Nilbog had made people... extremely prejudiced to biological modification of almost any kind, more especially in the cape scene, which was the only place I'd find people capey-enough to deal with me. Transmedicalism had somewhat greater ideological support on Bet due to the generally more negative view of body modifications and increased pressure to justify access to them in any way, which was an odd and fairly depressing result.
Having friends was going to be difficult as fuck. In my world, I'd also had trouble making friends, but Earth Bet had a moderately less potent Internet cultural complexity, so I had to look even harder for appropriate communities. However, I was in luck, as PHO had a section focused on LGBT+ capes and LGBT+ issues around capes, which probably had a good community for me to try and find people! Perhaps I could make up for the current situation's worst aspect - the loss of my friends, the people I cared for the most - at least a little. Even as I began browsing the LGBT+ PHO forums, I felt pangs of loneliness, and worry for my friends, in my chest - and while I'd subconsciously already registered the idea, I firmly resolved myself to tear gaping holes in the fucking fabric of the multiverse back to my original world if it was the last goddamn thing I did.
Gritting my teeth in one of those intense surges of determination I occasionally got, I went to work on a temporary solution. Namely, being able to walk outside for more than 5 minutes without fear of being ganked by Ziz or Miss Fedora and her associates. I needed to talk to at least some people about all the ridiculous secrets I have because the psychological strain was draining, even with the deadswitches I'd set up. Putting all my charges in Precognition, I gained an intuitive/tinkertech-bullshit understanding of the mechanisms. More specifically, the way in which shards smoothed out the expected variations based on quantum mechanics (rather than the mere butterfly effect of classical mechanics). The ways to make precognition too computationally expensive for even the bullshit-level multidimensional space-whale fragments by the introduction of sufficient interactions predicated on individually random processes rather than bulk, statistical wavefunction collapse, despite their access to small pieces of information from possible futures in the form of the occasional tachyon. In fact, at the corner of my precognition specialty, I could feel some primitive blueprints to block microtelekinesis and inter-versal and multi-dimensional observation effects - and, although it strained the specialty a decent amount, it provided some evidence that shard precognition was also heavily dependent on unparalleled data collection, to really model all near-classical interactions as well as possible.
I wanted to build a precognition blocker. The problem was, I needed some pretty exotic matter for what I wanted to do, and this time the shard wouldn't bullshit it away for me like it had with my pocket dimensions - at least not with my available materials. Currently, what I had in mind was essentially a remote neural randomness injector, that would trigger electrical impulses that induce roughly 10% of the activation voltage of the average human neuron based on the the input of one of quadrillions of individual quantum-scale systems. Doing this remotely was easier than you might think once you considered the extra dimensions available to be moved through, with at least 61 more spacial axes (which behaved oddly compared to the standard 3D central universe in how they interacted with current physics models).
Precise use of another fundamental force that interacted with W-bosons (and sun-sourced neutrinos) would allow me to shift an appropriate number of specifically timed photons a single unit (the dimension was discrete) in axis #23 for an arbitrarily determined amount of time before they decayed back to solely be in the standard 3 dimensions (or 4D spacetime), triggering spontaneous reactions in neurotransmitters - the photons matched a very particular energy band - that would induce the desired effect in the neuron that got hit. There were more general dimension spreading techniques with much lower energy cost (see: Sting), but high precision displacement was needed - or at least, that was what I understood from the current blueprint.
Once I wrote down the blueprint for my precognition jammer/randomness injector, I set out to prevent multiversal observation by capes like the Clairvoyant and pushed 1 charge into multiversal mechanics, 1 into multidimensional mechanics, and 3 into stealth. In doing so the solution to the observation problem was obvious - merely increase the energy required to transition between universes in the local area enough that the echo particles made by photons (traveling while shifted in axis #54) could not be observed via the ultra low power form of portals that the Clairvoyant likely used to be able to watch over everywhere, in every universe. Luckily those "bleedthrough portals" (because they let various echo particles that exist, shifted in axis #54, bleed through universe boundaries) did not work in anything on a different level of the Worm multiverse, which actually meant that most shards probably couldn't see in my pocket dimension at all. Completing the blueprint was fairly simple - extrude matter properly in the direction of axis #10 and the gravitational disturbance would locally increase the interversal boundary energy wall for the particles along axis #54.
Doing the extrusion required very precise photon interaction, which was easy with tinkertech Shaker powers that let me produce blueprints for inducing those interactions in the device. The clairvoyant blocker was actually very simple to construct - the Shaker powers did all the work in converting simple glass into some hyper-precise photon interaction machine that continually pushed bits of air along axis #10, with even that minor of a gravitational disturbance being sufficient to blank out the entirety of Brockton Bay on about 1 microwatt of power. It was such a simple machine, in fact, that I made about 30 of them in an hour using extremely small amounts of resources - putting 3 in my own pocket dimension (just to be safe), implanting a couple inside my lower body with the biocompatibility and cybernetics specialties (it transferred bits of water, and used sugar from my bloodstream as an energy source), and carrying one in my small backpack I was going to wear when I went outside again.
Constructing the precog jammer was harder. The processing power required to coordinate quadrillions of lightbeams of particular wavelength using specific W-boson interactions was... pretty high. Essentially, I'd need pockets of very precisely structured matter to enable W-boson interactions when an electrical charge was run through, and I needed them en-masse, as well as the graphene equivalent of an ASIC to convert all the outputs from the quadrillions of quantum randomness sources into instructions for the photon pulses. Fortunately for me it took barely two hours and several high-precision metallic sheets and materials to add a piece of equipment - involving many lasers - to my chip manufacturing machine that could inject single atoms into fixed locations of the graphene bilayer hexagonal structures in bulk, enabling the creation of photon-shifter components amongst many other things. Because while doping was not required for basic computation, the usage of elements with different nuclear masses was required for the exotic interactions involved in pushing photons in direction #23, amongst many many other effects I could probably learn about and use with different specialties.
A little modification to my chip design program (on my laptop), and I had come up with a truly powerful blueprint format that would enable the documentation of arbitrary-scale precision insertion of atoms into a chip. And with that, I went to work, designing a System-on-a-Chip that would inject quantum randomness on a more classical scale across a wide area, blasting photon pulses throughout a roughly 5km radius that would induce enough randomness in decisions to make precog that could account for the quantum effects impossible. The chip itself was physically huge, enough to cover half of my laptop keyboard, and contained about 10 trillion nanoscale shifted-photon LEDs, each hooked up to a binary quantum system (some with varying probabilities), and an appropriate power supply. While an individual chip would definitively hinder precognition in the local area, several were needed to block it, and I wanted about 100 to be sure - luckily for me the actual quantity of materials involved in making these chips was extremely minimal and their uniformity enabled significantly parallelised manufacture compared to more complex designs. Each of the chips used about a single Watt of power, and would probably take about 30 minutes to produce.
So I set the chip fabricator going. spending the time browsing the PHO LGBT+ forums and making idle chatter. Apparently, I had a lot of fans on there, which was a strange feeling, but it made sense given my actions around the Nazi trash. The celebrity worship - while minor, given my repeated statements and reasoning on various threads that it was a very bad idea to centre any one person for your ideas - was still pretty uncomfortable, but I talked with some people and it was pretty nice. There were several minor dormant antifascist groups in Brockton that had been jolted into action by what essentially amounted to a mutual declaration of war between myself and the Empire 88 - I was worried about the risk of non-capes up against capes, but I decided that the best option was to provide maximal information along with the primary risks on stealthy actions (particularly Stormtiger and Cricket), which took a few minutes. While I was online, I also dumped some blueprints (translated to modern design languages like Verilog) of my highly modular and physically dense chip technology adjusted to run on silicon and doping based chips, all open-sourced.
Which got quite some traction, extremely fast, as soon as someone who knew what these designs meant got a look. Honestly, seeing technology you'd essentially designed in an afternoon via tinker powers cause an unmitigated internet riot was... rather fun. Chatting with Totally Not Vista was also surprisingly relaxing - while I'd been branded a villain, there was supposedly some pretty big internal PRT politics going into that decision (and the decision to treat me with more potent hostility and attempts at capture). The effects of the shit I did were already having wider impact - Director Piggot and the ENE branch were increasingly distrusting of the wider organisation, with Piggot's letter apparently causing the woman significant apprehension towards the Chief Director - and Vista suspected based on various things she'd overheard that the PRT was leaning toward bigotry about my transition and that was pressuring up threat responses and a desire to bring me in and stop it due to my growing status as a symbol of radical capes - some minor comparisons to Lustrum had been made but quickly dismissed. Of course, with this discussion, I reminded her that if she was caught talking to me she'd be in deep shit, but Vista probably already knew that so it was a bit pointless on my end.
A few more hours of mindless procrastination and loneliness later (and nibbling of convenience store pasties I had bought), and my brain was brimming with tinkertech ideas. One of the effects of my newly modified CPU fab was the ability to inject various elements at atomic precision into my CPU chips, and with appropriate configuration (and charges in "nanoscale exotic effects"), I figured out how to directly make the graphene bilayer spin inducing lasers (rather than via coordinated interference as I currently used in the tinkertech fabber). What this meant in practice was that I could make a chip capable of reprogramming my other graphene chips without involving the fabber setup I currently used at all - at least if those chips did not need any complex exotic effects via doping.
The consequences of this were absolutely huge. I could manufacture what essentially amounted to a perfectly reprogrammable FPGA of efficiency comparable to straight-up specifically crafted computing chips like graphics cards or ASICs, that I could use to design hardware and essentially have a perfectly mutable computing platform for any specialised functionality desired. The sheer possibilities were legitimately insane - perfect hardware algorithm implementations were in sight, perfect hardware parallelism, perfect network routing, perfect extra RAM, perfect second CPU, perfect combination of any of these, I was practically goddamn salivating, especially since the optimisation algorithms used in my world's modern CPUs had strong focus on identifying parallel operations anyway that I could probably just use those and essentially create a customised chip for each program I needed to run with high performance. I hadn't even built the bloody thing yet and I had already begun writing interface drivers and a program-to-optimised-hardware-configuration converter without even realising, I was that excited about this concept.
While I'd been procrastinating, there'd been enough time already to produce almost 20 of the precog blocker chips. The Simurgh was going to fucking sweat once I'd finished setting these up, and even without the full 100 of them it would at least theoretically be enough to block precog (I had chosen to make 100 to be absolutely sure, and I intended to leave about half in my pocket dimension just to be certain, as well as bring half with me in another device to Brockton).
I prepared to sleep, curling up in bed, as it was starting to get late with all my tinker bullshit that I'd done, and I mentally prepared myself to speak to Faultline's Crew about Case 53s, probably tomorrow or the day after. I wanted to give them the full story of powers and Case 53s, which meant I'd need evidence, which meant... Well, it meant that I needed to work on some more multiversal technology, because I was going to rip holes into the realities that shards inhabited. I needed to do this anyway, since I already had many ideas about the things I might be able to do with direct access to shards (especially my own), and it'd provide essentially irrefutable evidence to anyone I needed to inform of the true nature of powers. It was with that thought that I finally drifted off and dreamt of eldrich landscapes and long, white halls.
[end of chapter - nya~]
Progress is made on the Friend Problem, and on inter-universal stealth and anti-precognition defenses! (which are important parts of the solution to the Friend Problem).
In the early morning, I woke up, too warm but still comfy. As was my standard operating procedure (also known as procrastinating from actually doing stuff) I took a look at my PHO thread, which had gained at least 15 new pages overnight (and at least 6 of those were entirely full of Nazi apologists).
And then I saw the video. Kaiser's response. Now, while I'd experienced some pretty bad transphobia indirectly in my former world, this was... well it was totally mask-off, which I really should have been more prepared for given the state of Earth Bet (and more specifically, Brockton Bay). I was unashamed to admit that I was shook and deeply disturbed after watching it, and took a while to calm myself down.
A little ping for a private message from one Miss_Warper came through. Going to be honest, it was obviously Missy, but the information inside sent chills down my back. She reminded me of a very important fact. The Nazi scum here could get help from the Nazi scum abroad, which meant they'd probably bring in Masters and people able to detect pocket dimensions or other interversal rifts. Which was worrying as fuck. My heartbeat raced up at the thought of being sent into Conversion Therapy++++ in those fucking Gesselschaft torture camps. Curling up tightly under the covers, I took a few moments to try and calm myself down, especially after the visceral reminder of the dysphoria that that video had been. Jesus.
What I needed to do was shut off my links to Medhall, and so within a few minutes my infrastructure hijacking machines were retracted and I closed the portals myself. As much as I ever enjoyed hijacking Nazi gang property, it was... not worth the risk right now, I thought to myself, shuddering at the idea of the Gesselschaft camps again. Contemplating over targets that would be easiest and most acceptable, I decided to nab internet from the offices of Fortress Constructions - because, and I could not say this enough - fuck Coil, and a few minutes later I was once again hooked up to the internet and other utilities.
It was then that I looked upon the most beautiful hardware chip ever. The one that'd just finished being engraved in the rotations of bilayer graphene and stood before me in the chip production chamber. A wonderful piece of electronic machinery, capable of emulating the laptop I currently used to do my computing on a single one of it's 512 fucking cores, each capable of maximum clockspeeds as high as 20GHz, with almost 1GiB of high speed cache to counter the extremely slow RAM of Bet's tech level. I could even put it right in my current laptop and it'd adapt itself for the motherboard and then manage the other 511 cores appropriately. This absolute beast was a combination of highly adapted 2021 and near future chip technologies, the bullshit-level material properties of graphene, and the magic of tinkertech manufacturing devices. And so, I finished off the entire thing with the ceramic casing and carefully replaced the chip in my laptop with something that outstripped it's capabilities by about 3 orders of magnitude at 1/10th the energy cost.
I would never be short of computing power for a very long time, I felt, as I set the chip production machine to making another.
And once again I was alone with myself, and my thoughts. I'd spat on the Nazis and I'd keep having to do that, but how much longer until I couldn't cope with the loneliness? How much longer until I broke from complete lack of communication and depression. I needed friends - ideally I could cuddle them and get cuddled or petted because that was what I liked in life and it was my most effective form of emotional communication, but I'd take literally anything at this point. Hugging myself, I set my brain to solutions to the problem.
I needed someone capey enough to be able to keep up with my life being basically 100% parahuman bullshit, someone around my age of 21, someone who seemed like a decent enough person, and would not be bigoted towards both my transition and the more radical parts of my own morphological wants. They also couldn't work for any government organisation connected to the PRT or Protectorate or the police or military, for fairly obvious security and ideological reasons, and had to be comfortable with my neurodivergent behaviour. God, I'm so needy, hah! I thought to myself in amusement.
The Friend Problem was apparently the hardest I had yet come across. Not something I could solve by tinkering, at least not currently, but I supposed I could make a start. The biggest issue actually came with the transhumanism/morphology thing - the existence of people like Bonesaw and Nilbog had made people... extremely prejudiced to biological modification of almost any kind, more especially in the cape scene, which was the only place I'd find people capey-enough to deal with me. Transmedicalism had somewhat greater ideological support on Bet due to the generally more negative view of body modifications and increased pressure to justify access to them in any way, which was an odd and fairly depressing result.
Having friends was going to be difficult as fuck. In my world, I'd also had trouble making friends, but Earth Bet had a moderately less potent Internet cultural complexity, so I had to look even harder for appropriate communities. However, I was in luck, as PHO had a section focused on LGBT+ capes and LGBT+ issues around capes, which probably had a good community for me to try and find people! Perhaps I could make up for the current situation's worst aspect - the loss of my friends, the people I cared for the most - at least a little. Even as I began browsing the LGBT+ PHO forums, I felt pangs of loneliness, and worry for my friends, in my chest - and while I'd subconsciously already registered the idea, I firmly resolved myself to tear gaping holes in the fucking fabric of the multiverse back to my original world if it was the last goddamn thing I did.
Gritting my teeth in one of those intense surges of determination I occasionally got, I went to work on a temporary solution. Namely, being able to walk outside for more than 5 minutes without fear of being ganked by Ziz or Miss Fedora and her associates. I needed to talk to at least some people about all the ridiculous secrets I have because the psychological strain was draining, even with the deadswitches I'd set up. Putting all my charges in Precognition, I gained an intuitive/tinkertech-bullshit understanding of the mechanisms. More specifically, the way in which shards smoothed out the expected variations based on quantum mechanics (rather than the mere butterfly effect of classical mechanics). The ways to make precognition too computationally expensive for even the bullshit-level multidimensional space-whale fragments by the introduction of sufficient interactions predicated on individually random processes rather than bulk, statistical wavefunction collapse, despite their access to small pieces of information from possible futures in the form of the occasional tachyon. In fact, at the corner of my precognition specialty, I could feel some primitive blueprints to block microtelekinesis and inter-versal and multi-dimensional observation effects - and, although it strained the specialty a decent amount, it provided some evidence that shard precognition was also heavily dependent on unparalleled data collection, to really model all near-classical interactions as well as possible.
I wanted to build a precognition blocker. The problem was, I needed some pretty exotic matter for what I wanted to do, and this time the shard wouldn't bullshit it away for me like it had with my pocket dimensions - at least not with my available materials. Currently, what I had in mind was essentially a remote neural randomness injector, that would trigger electrical impulses that induce roughly 10% of the activation voltage of the average human neuron based on the the input of one of quadrillions of individual quantum-scale systems. Doing this remotely was easier than you might think once you considered the extra dimensions available to be moved through, with at least 61 more spacial axes (which behaved oddly compared to the standard 3D central universe in how they interacted with current physics models).
Precise use of another fundamental force that interacted with W-bosons (and sun-sourced neutrinos) would allow me to shift an appropriate number of specifically timed photons a single unit (the dimension was discrete) in axis #23 for an arbitrarily determined amount of time before they decayed back to solely be in the standard 3 dimensions (or 4D spacetime), triggering spontaneous reactions in neurotransmitters - the photons matched a very particular energy band - that would induce the desired effect in the neuron that got hit. There were more general dimension spreading techniques with much lower energy cost (see: Sting), but high precision displacement was needed - or at least, that was what I understood from the current blueprint.
Once I wrote down the blueprint for my precognition jammer/randomness injector, I set out to prevent multiversal observation by capes like the Clairvoyant and pushed 1 charge into multiversal mechanics, 1 into multidimensional mechanics, and 3 into stealth. In doing so the solution to the observation problem was obvious - merely increase the energy required to transition between universes in the local area enough that the echo particles made by photons (traveling while shifted in axis #54) could not be observed via the ultra low power form of portals that the Clairvoyant likely used to be able to watch over everywhere, in every universe. Luckily those "bleedthrough portals" (because they let various echo particles that exist, shifted in axis #54, bleed through universe boundaries) did not work in anything on a different level of the Worm multiverse, which actually meant that most shards probably couldn't see in my pocket dimension at all. Completing the blueprint was fairly simple - extrude matter properly in the direction of axis #10 and the gravitational disturbance would locally increase the interversal boundary energy wall for the particles along axis #54.
Doing the extrusion required very precise photon interaction, which was easy with tinkertech Shaker powers that let me produce blueprints for inducing those interactions in the device. The clairvoyant blocker was actually very simple to construct - the Shaker powers did all the work in converting simple glass into some hyper-precise photon interaction machine that continually pushed bits of air along axis #10, with even that minor of a gravitational disturbance being sufficient to blank out the entirety of Brockton Bay on about 1 microwatt of power. It was such a simple machine, in fact, that I made about 30 of them in an hour using extremely small amounts of resources - putting 3 in my own pocket dimension (just to be safe), implanting a couple inside my lower body with the biocompatibility and cybernetics specialties (it transferred bits of water, and used sugar from my bloodstream as an energy source), and carrying one in my small backpack I was going to wear when I went outside again.
Constructing the precog jammer was harder. The processing power required to coordinate quadrillions of lightbeams of particular wavelength using specific W-boson interactions was... pretty high. Essentially, I'd need pockets of very precisely structured matter to enable W-boson interactions when an electrical charge was run through, and I needed them en-masse, as well as the graphene equivalent of an ASIC to convert all the outputs from the quadrillions of quantum randomness sources into instructions for the photon pulses. Fortunately for me it took barely two hours and several high-precision metallic sheets and materials to add a piece of equipment - involving many lasers - to my chip manufacturing machine that could inject single atoms into fixed locations of the graphene bilayer hexagonal structures in bulk, enabling the creation of photon-shifter components amongst many other things. Because while doping was not required for basic computation, the usage of elements with different nuclear masses was required for the exotic interactions involved in pushing photons in direction #23, amongst many many other effects I could probably learn about and use with different specialties.
A little modification to my chip design program (on my laptop), and I had come up with a truly powerful blueprint format that would enable the documentation of arbitrary-scale precision insertion of atoms into a chip. And with that, I went to work, designing a System-on-a-Chip that would inject quantum randomness on a more classical scale across a wide area, blasting photon pulses throughout a roughly 5km radius that would induce enough randomness in decisions to make precog that could account for the quantum effects impossible. The chip itself was physically huge, enough to cover half of my laptop keyboard, and contained about 10 trillion nanoscale shifted-photon LEDs, each hooked up to a binary quantum system (some with varying probabilities), and an appropriate power supply. While an individual chip would definitively hinder precognition in the local area, several were needed to block it, and I wanted about 100 to be sure - luckily for me the actual quantity of materials involved in making these chips was extremely minimal and their uniformity enabled significantly parallelised manufacture compared to more complex designs. Each of the chips used about a single Watt of power, and would probably take about 30 minutes to produce.
So I set the chip fabricator going. spending the time browsing the PHO LGBT+ forums and making idle chatter. Apparently, I had a lot of fans on there, which was a strange feeling, but it made sense given my actions around the Nazi trash. The celebrity worship - while minor, given my repeated statements and reasoning on various threads that it was a very bad idea to centre any one person for your ideas - was still pretty uncomfortable, but I talked with some people and it was pretty nice. There were several minor dormant antifascist groups in Brockton that had been jolted into action by what essentially amounted to a mutual declaration of war between myself and the Empire 88 - I was worried about the risk of non-capes up against capes, but I decided that the best option was to provide maximal information along with the primary risks on stealthy actions (particularly Stormtiger and Cricket), which took a few minutes. While I was online, I also dumped some blueprints (translated to modern design languages like Verilog) of my highly modular and physically dense chip technology adjusted to run on silicon and doping based chips, all open-sourced.
Which got quite some traction, extremely fast, as soon as someone who knew what these designs meant got a look. Honestly, seeing technology you'd essentially designed in an afternoon via tinker powers cause an unmitigated internet riot was... rather fun. Chatting with Totally Not Vista was also surprisingly relaxing - while I'd been branded a villain, there was supposedly some pretty big internal PRT politics going into that decision (and the decision to treat me with more potent hostility and attempts at capture). The effects of the shit I did were already having wider impact - Director Piggot and the ENE branch were increasingly distrusting of the wider organisation, with Piggot's letter apparently causing the woman significant apprehension towards the Chief Director - and Vista suspected based on various things she'd overheard that the PRT was leaning toward bigotry about my transition and that was pressuring up threat responses and a desire to bring me in and stop it due to my growing status as a symbol of radical capes - some minor comparisons to Lustrum had been made but quickly dismissed. Of course, with this discussion, I reminded her that if she was caught talking to me she'd be in deep shit, but Vista probably already knew that so it was a bit pointless on my end.
A few more hours of mindless procrastination and loneliness later (and nibbling of convenience store pasties I had bought), and my brain was brimming with tinkertech ideas. One of the effects of my newly modified CPU fab was the ability to inject various elements at atomic precision into my CPU chips, and with appropriate configuration (and charges in "nanoscale exotic effects"), I figured out how to directly make the graphene bilayer spin inducing lasers (rather than via coordinated interference as I currently used in the tinkertech fabber). What this meant in practice was that I could make a chip capable of reprogramming my other graphene chips without involving the fabber setup I currently used at all - at least if those chips did not need any complex exotic effects via doping.
The consequences of this were absolutely huge. I could manufacture what essentially amounted to a perfectly reprogrammable FPGA of efficiency comparable to straight-up specifically crafted computing chips like graphics cards or ASICs, that I could use to design hardware and essentially have a perfectly mutable computing platform for any specialised functionality desired. The sheer possibilities were legitimately insane - perfect hardware algorithm implementations were in sight, perfect hardware parallelism, perfect network routing, perfect extra RAM, perfect second CPU, perfect combination of any of these, I was practically goddamn salivating, especially since the optimisation algorithms used in my world's modern CPUs had strong focus on identifying parallel operations anyway that I could probably just use those and essentially create a customised chip for each program I needed to run with high performance. I hadn't even built the bloody thing yet and I had already begun writing interface drivers and a program-to-optimised-hardware-configuration converter without even realising, I was that excited about this concept.
While I'd been procrastinating, there'd been enough time already to produce almost 20 of the precog blocker chips. The Simurgh was going to fucking sweat once I'd finished setting these up, and even without the full 100 of them it would at least theoretically be enough to block precog (I had chosen to make 100 to be absolutely sure, and I intended to leave about half in my pocket dimension just to be certain, as well as bring half with me in another device to Brockton).
I prepared to sleep, curling up in bed, as it was starting to get late with all my tinker bullshit that I'd done, and I mentally prepared myself to speak to Faultline's Crew about Case 53s, probably tomorrow or the day after. I wanted to give them the full story of powers and Case 53s, which meant I'd need evidence, which meant... Well, it meant that I needed to work on some more multiversal technology, because I was going to rip holes into the realities that shards inhabited. I needed to do this anyway, since I already had many ideas about the things I might be able to do with direct access to shards (especially my own), and it'd provide essentially irrefutable evidence to anyone I needed to inform of the true nature of powers. It was with that thought that I finally drifted off and dreamt of eldrich landscapes and long, white halls.
[end of chapter - nya~]
Progress is made on the Friend Problem, and on inter-universal stealth and anti-precognition defenses! (which are important parts of the solution to the Friend Problem).
Avangelion
Princess Astra
- Pronouns
- She/Her
It's just that in order to get anything done ze needed to deal with the minimums that can be done/started reasonably quick, so zeir dysphoria doesn't fuck up their mental state worse than it already does to the point of debilitation. Also the ever so annoying material and infrastructure startup costs (which yeah, ze've basically trying to deal with at the moment, though it's all a good start) means that working on that will need a safe place (which ze're making safer against precog and trackers and stuff) and
Seems to mostly be the plan so far? We'll see more expansion, I'll bet, since it's barely a few days, and the last few chapters are maybe a couple hours altogether. Building up takes time, but it'll get exponential real soon I'm betting.
Priorities- basics of survival and all that manufacturing infrastructure first, and I think ze plan on doing stuff to zeir shard in the first place anyways, tho I imagine ze'll need exotic materials to pull it off properly anyways
- Pronouns
- Zug
It's a pronoun thing
- Location
- Planet Earth
Comment was longer than I initially intended, so I threw it into a Spoiler to not crowd space.
Not a big fan of the angst(or at least the stress?) of MC freaking out about the E88... I mean. MC could just straight-up out the dude. Expose Medhall. Rob them all.... Maybe just Hack all their accounts and post their conversations to ruin them.
Feel like MC should setup one of their contingency info bombs with one of those jammers. So they(Contessa and others) cannot find it.
Not sure who you have planned for MC's new friend. I feel like it would be a REALLY bad idea to have it be a parahuman, as, anyone who spends enough time with the MC would potentially notice how their powers work, possibly even the negentropy... Though not sure who would be good if it was not a parahuman... Personally, if you do go for a parahuman, and feel the need for them to be in Brockton Bay(even though MC's reach is global(when it could easily be multiversal(hello Aleph))), I hope MC goes with Crystal Pelham(Or maybe Parian?). Feels like she(they?) would be a good match.
Now... this is honestly more just my paranoia speaking, but I wish MC would not share her tech with everyone. Or, at least, not for free. Especially not the best they can make. Like, if you are gonna share a computer chip, make it noticeably weaker/worse than what you yourself use. So your gear will always have that edge...
I get MC has some foreknowledge of the setting... But how much do they know? Like, enough to point people in the right directions to help take down the Gesselschaft? I mean, like, I think the leader(some old dude) possesses people, or empowers them?
MC could try working some societal change. Dump a TON of charges into psychology, medicine, biology/chemistry, maybe even sociology and stuff. Then MC can actually write out accurate, functional, reliable medical, philosophical, economical, etc... reports, essays, books, what have you. That way MC(and others) can point at those new resources, that information, and say without a doubt(likely after having them studied) that they are accurate. That, no, these people are not just sick, or broken, or misinformed, this is just another natural aspect of humanity. One that has ALWAYS been there, that just did not have its own name, or understanding. Like, there have ALWAYS been homosexuals, throughout history, the majority of history shows that society was fine with it, that problems only creep up when things like that are villified and the culture is shaped to villify them. Same with transgendered people. Studying history shows that people who feel/act in a manner similar to what we see today have been around FOREVER. It is a natural part of the human species/development. It is just more obvious/noticeable now due to how many more people there are today, combined with ease of communication and the internet. It shines a light on things that people would otherwise never experience or know about.
Completely unrelated to the chapter. but maybe MC can figure out a way to reprogram/hack into the Shard networks and start fixing/correcting/controlling them. I mean, without Eden I don't know what their cyber defense is like.
Would also be interesting if MC built high-power scanners and stuff to see if they can find evidence of aliens. Like, maybe everyone is just not using the right tech, or is not using the right methods. That, and would be interesting what the aliens(if there are any) have to say about the Entities.
MC still needs to get Ascalon... Maybe troll some people in a non-direct way. Like, hack into Blackwells accounts and expose her for embezzlement(though maybe do not do so in a way to tie it to yourself).
Pretty sure Faultlines group are Uber dangerous. I mean, they definitely deserve to know what happened to them and all... but I cannot remember what they did when they found out in canon. Ithink Shamrock joined them and they did something either involving Elle and her Dungeon/Reality-Warping or they jumped to a new reality...?
Might be a good idea to point fingers towards Bakuda and Lung. Maybe expose Lung(and the ABB) for their human trafficking. It is one thing to hear about it, and ignore it. Much more difficult to ignore when the proof of it is shoved in your face.
Feel like MC should setup one of their contingency info bombs with one of those jammers. So they(Contessa and others) cannot find it.
Not sure who you have planned for MC's new friend. I feel like it would be a REALLY bad idea to have it be a parahuman, as, anyone who spends enough time with the MC would potentially notice how their powers work, possibly even the negentropy... Though not sure who would be good if it was not a parahuman... Personally, if you do go for a parahuman, and feel the need for them to be in Brockton Bay(even though MC's reach is global(when it could easily be multiversal(hello Aleph))), I hope MC goes with Crystal Pelham(Or maybe Parian?). Feels like she(they?) would be a good match.
Now... this is honestly more just my paranoia speaking, but I wish MC would not share her tech with everyone. Or, at least, not for free. Especially not the best they can make. Like, if you are gonna share a computer chip, make it noticeably weaker/worse than what you yourself use. So your gear will always have that edge...
I get MC has some foreknowledge of the setting... But how much do they know? Like, enough to point people in the right directions to help take down the Gesselschaft? I mean, like, I think the leader(some old dude) possesses people, or empowers them?
MC could try working some societal change. Dump a TON of charges into psychology, medicine, biology/chemistry, maybe even sociology and stuff. Then MC can actually write out accurate, functional, reliable medical, philosophical, economical, etc... reports, essays, books, what have you. That way MC(and others) can point at those new resources, that information, and say without a doubt(likely after having them studied) that they are accurate. That, no, these people are not just sick, or broken, or misinformed, this is just another natural aspect of humanity. One that has ALWAYS been there, that just did not have its own name, or understanding. Like, there have ALWAYS been homosexuals, throughout history, the majority of history shows that society was fine with it, that problems only creep up when things like that are villified and the culture is shaped to villify them. Same with transgendered people. Studying history shows that people who feel/act in a manner similar to what we see today have been around FOREVER. It is a natural part of the human species/development. It is just more obvious/noticeable now due to how many more people there are today, combined with ease of communication and the internet. It shines a light on things that people would otherwise never experience or know about.
Completely unrelated to the chapter. but maybe MC can figure out a way to reprogram/hack into the Shard networks and start fixing/correcting/controlling them. I mean, without Eden I don't know what their cyber defense is like.
Would also be interesting if MC built high-power scanners and stuff to see if they can find evidence of aliens. Like, maybe everyone is just not using the right tech, or is not using the right methods. That, and would be interesting what the aliens(if there are any) have to say about the Entities.
MC still needs to get Ascalon... Maybe troll some people in a non-direct way. Like, hack into Blackwells accounts and expose her for embezzlement(though maybe do not do so in a way to tie it to yourself).
Pretty sure Faultlines group are Uber dangerous. I mean, they definitely deserve to know what happened to them and all... but I cannot remember what they did when they found out in canon. Ithink Shamrock joined them and they did something either involving Elle and her Dungeon/Reality-Warping or they jumped to a new reality...?
Might be a good idea to point fingers towards Bakuda and Lung. Maybe expose Lung(and the ABB) for their human trafficking. It is one thing to hear about it, and ignore it. Much more difficult to ignore when the proof of it is shoved in your face.
- Pronouns
- Xe/Xem/They/Them
The SI has not had time to do this yet, also minorities in Brockton Bay need more tools to defend themselves before something so blatant could be done.
Probably. But the SI isn't perfect ;p
The negentropy is purely present in the shard right now, so the primary risk is from Trump powers that engage in direct shard interfacing. The real problem is that trans_morphic has already been branded a villain by the PRT, but I won't rule it out. I haven't actually decided who the friend is going to be, but given the way I work with my friends the SI'd end up telling them their actual powers pretty soon. If you hadn't noticed yet, the SI really does not like keeping secrets, just like myself, because the SI is me nya.
As for multiversal, currently the primary restraint is power. With materials currently available, it would still cost a lot of power to traverse alternate universes like Aleph (rather than Bet-grounded pocket dimensions, I have a whole system for this dimensional travel shit in my head ;p). This might not be the case for much longer though, as indicated in the latest chapter.
Well, this fic is called "Redistribution of Power" for a reason. Distributing weaker hardware or otherwise trying to control stuff like this goes against pretty much everything I believe in and is not something I'd do (in fact this is one of the reasons I wrote this fic - pretty much every SI out there focuses on primarily becoming so powerful no-one can challenge them, and ultimately, controlling the technology the wider population has access to and basically making a friend-harem/group/etc. that dictates usage). (also on pronouns you should use they/them or my neopronouns, cus the SI is me nya)
The SI knows what any person who read Worm, Ward, and a shitton of fanfic would know (with the associated flaws in human memory). They do not actually know who constitutes Gesselschaft.
This fic is going to have significant societal change. It just hasn't gotten to that point yet
nya. This SI is also more directly tinkerish that Inspired Inventor charges (as well as obviously having the reallocatable charges rather than the ridiculously OP constant additions of Inspired Inventor, not that even this isn't ridiculously OP, I mean this SI took probably around 7 days to go from literal scraps and broken crude machinery to world-class graphene chip manufacture with embedded exotic effects and pocket dimensions lol nya).If you want to see stuff like this, you'll like where the fic is going. I have plans.
Yep. The SI is not so focused on Taylor at the moment (though they've sicced the PRT on Shadow Stalker but it was mentioned in the big chapter by Vista that she'd merely been transferred to Texas and rebranded - the SI doesn't know this yet however). As for Dragon, the SI of course wants to free her, it's just not their mind right at the moment so it hasn't gotten done.
A new trigger - Scrub - had a synergy with Labyrinth's power that let them open interdimensional portals, which they started selling access to (and selling the creation of nya). I don't remember what they did when they found out about the Case 53s. I believe they found out in the Echnida (evil clone girl) incident like many of the other capes did.
The MC is a bit more focused on the Empire right now but the human trafficking shit is going to come out sooner or later, and Lung is also feudalistic as hell too. The statement the SI made on Medhall did not just refer to the Empire (though it focused on them due to their explicit fascist ideology). This is also way earlier in time than Bakuda even becomes a factor.
Something you should know is that the SI (like myself) has pretty intense ADHD, which means even if they wrote this stuff down (which they haven't other than the infobombs of course), they'd tend to get distracted or forget a lot of their tasks they want to do when they go to do something nya, or focus intensely on one thing to the exclusion of all others (including, occasionally, basic survival needs like eating/toilet/sleep etc. for 15+ hour stretches of time, though not to the degree of being actually dangerous because biological needs do eventually poke through). Don't expect anything approaching perfect task management, organisation, or prioritisation from the SI because the SI is me and my executive function is absolutely, atrociously shite a decent fraction of the time nya.
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- Location
- Planet Earth
As a homosexual man I can sympathize with the messages you are trying to send in and with the story. I will also point out that I am not used to using gender-neutral terms(such as ze, zeir, Mx, etc...) Just know to use they/their(or hopefully remember to.). As you noticed I sometimes slip-up and use standard terms. like him/her. Not intentionally trying to be offensive or upsetting. Just that these new terms are kinda difficult to get into the habit of using without daily use. Kinda like a new language, you keep defaulting to using, and wanting to use, terms, idioms, and words that you are used to. Even when you know they are inaccurate. Without constant, frequent use, the mind has trouble adapting to it.
Definitely funny when dealing with people who do not know the different meanings of the identifying names they try to use. Like, someone using transsexual, instead of transgender. Happens to the best of them. Was at pride parade and some dude was talking to me and made an offhand comment about new HRT treatments for transvestite people. I was like... you know that transvestite means liking the CLOTHES of the opposing gender right?
Definitely funny when dealing with people who do not know the different meanings of the identifying names they try to use. Like, someone using transsexual, instead of transgender. Happens to the best of them. Was at pride parade and some dude was talking to me and made an offhand comment about new HRT treatments for transvestite people. I was like... you know that transvestite means liking the CLOTHES of the opposing gender right?
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Avangelion
Princess Astra
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Pretty much; apparently they/them is fine is what's said before, but I wanna get used to the neopronouns, especially since I figure that finding people who'd be okay with using them isn't exactly easy most of the time these days, and some of my close people did try some of them out for a while.
Generally I think they/them is the best default, and the easiest to get used to using. Any case, at least you're trying- just kinda- don't make a big deal, fix them/use the right ones, and move on and stuff. Anyone reasonable'd not mind much, I feel, tho some might be more precarious/sensitive for other reasons- and in those cases, hopefully they don't get too uncomfortable 😅.
Honestly the urge to hoard things can be pretty intense lmao- but otherwise I try my best to share, and once I've got what I want/need- which is pretty specific anyways lmao- it's much easier to give. It was maybe a few years ago when I first gave it a thought and stuff but at the time it was like, "at the speed of trust", and with the assumption that the tech I was working with couldn't be replicated anyways, so I think it kinda worked out with what I had- tho wider effects and actively trying for much wider effects wasn't something I much thought of at the time. Yeah, could have and been done better, though I think the parallel/dual power structure sorta built up into the place was on the right track, but I'm calling it hindsight and growth of the current me XD
Lmao, I feel some kinda AI or other kind of reminder list or program or something would help, tho that'd also mean actually remembering to get around to that XD
Like, a minder that reminds you ever so often about what you need done, and what you planned as steps to it; Goddess I'd have loved to have one of those
Recluse Connections - 2.6
- Pronouns
- Xe/Xem/They/Them
[disclaimer - Wildbow owns Worm, I do not own Worm]
Waking up, I was bouncing from one of those random burst of intense motivation you sometimes get. I had things to do and I damn well was going to do them! I had to make a multiverse portal generator - for the base-level Worm multiverse, not merely my pocket dimension - and for that, I needed several things.
The most important was targeting - I pushed 3 charges into multiversal tinkering, 1 into multidimensional phenomena, and one into integrated circuits. It didn't take long for me to identify a dimensional axis involved in combination with exotic gravitational phenomena to rip holes in spacetime - my scanner/targeter chip would need a small amount of magnesium for obscure interactions with that axis using electrons and carbon-magnesium nuclear interactions. This would essentially provide a relative location that, with an appropriately applied gravitational anomaly, would allow for Doormaker-style portals. My power provided a fantastic modular targeting circuit - the circuit itself was fairly crudely designed but it did the job and would let me indefinitely expand the area in which a portal would be targeted (rather than randomly attaching to some other alternative universe). Another 20 minutes and I had a scanner module blueprint that would detect anomalies in the same axis indicative of a nearby interuniversal interaction - this is what would let me find parahumans and their shards. The multiversal mechanics behind what anomalies in the given axis are associated to what multiverse - for each universe - meant I could save different identified locations and access them in a comparatively absolute manner (as opposed to merely "relative" locations between universes)
Reprogramming my chipfab - which had overnight finished making another 40 or so antiprecog chips - I set it to work constructing one of my targeter/scanner combination chips with little difficulty. The big problem for me now was creating a portal-generating gravitational anomaly. This would require a chip to coordinate the construction of a field of exotic matter and a decent sized power input to create and manage the portal (coordination of the portal with Earth's rotation).
Creating the negative mass required for some of the related gravitational phenomena would theoretically be difficult, but my tinker power eventually gave me some answers - some more multidimensional interactions would allow me to exploit the Casimir Effect in macro. I was also lucky that I was using graphene chips - which let me make bilayer superconductors - or the power going through the chip would most definitively scorch the bloody thing. I needed roughly half the output from my fusion reactor to power it as well, which currently meant I could only run the system for an hour or so at a time.
Queuing the second chip, I went to PHO and began looking for Faultline. Obviously, she couldn't just call herself that on the PHO boards (well, she could, but I didn't think she was the type to take the risk in the way I had), but she had to be accessible enough for people to find and ask for jobs if they were really looking for her Crew. It was with that that I began seriously searching over the US boards and more importantly user lists to see if there were any people that had usernames moderately related to their name - eventually I found several, and further analysis (for an hour or two) of their biases towards Case 53 topics and wide-area conversations and information gathering (as was natural for a mercenary team that travelled), lead me to believe that the user "NoFaultInvolved" was almost certainly Faultline or someone in communication with her team.
So, I opened up my private messages and got straight to the topic, despite my social anxieties making me hesitate...
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♦ Topic: C53 Info
In: Boards ► Private Messages ► NoFaultInvolved
trans_morphic (Original Poster) (Verified Cape)
Posted On Mar 8th 2011:
Hai, I have info on case 53s (and powers) and I figured you'd be interested. I've finally got some antiprecog stuff going on which means I can tell people without just getting very dead. Willing to arrange a meet, if you are who I think you are (honestly I coulda gone outside and asked but I... am anxious and stuff).
- nya~
And so, I had an arrangement with Faultline in about 10 hours, which was enough time for both of the required processing chips to be fabricated with several hours to spare. I needed preparations, so I took half an hour to wire sets of 30 anti-precognition chips up to a standard plug to the power system - it was pretty simple due to their very self-contained nature - and set to work constructing housings for my Scanner/Targeter/Doormaker devices. The scanner and targeter were simple enough (and for the sizes of portal I was interested in, that is, about maximal 5m diameter with my signature purple outline, small enough) that I could implant them just like my own pocket dimension generator. After eating some of that corner-shop pasta salad as a late lunch, I pushed my specialty fully to bioaugmentation and neural interfaces and I'd developed a housing for the scanner and targeter devices with an internal memory and naturally a low-power energy supply that could obtain electricity directly from glucose and oxygen in my bloodstream. It took very little effort to make one of those for my existing pocket dimension portal generator as well.
The real power hog was the gravitational anomaly generator. It, like the targeter, had a massive range limit (and had optional but default portal anchoring to Earth), but a massive power draw. The chip itself was large but not that bad - the real issue was power consumption (and thank fuck for superconducting components or heat would be the real problem). Like my pocket dimension access gun, I wanted it implanted (so I couldn't lose it), but it did need an external power source like my fusion reactor, and the interface for that would be much more complex to implant than the simple stuff I'd done so far - it had to have external access, after all, and that meant that keeping it uninfected and free of environmentally-induced conditions would be significantly more difficult.
As such, I pushed my specialty towards bio-reactive materials and environmental hardening, and with that my power provided a solution. I could take iron and meld it with silicon in a particular manner while tinkering and it'd have all the properties I needed for biological interfacing, and would, with appropriate connector structure, prevent water from passing into any internal circuitry or connecting the 3 power cable slots. It took about 3 hours but I constructed all the housing and peripheral components to the main technology, and set myself to working it into my body. The scanner and targeter comfortably fit into my upper arm, but the gravitational anomaly generator better fit in my leg, which provided space for my power cable slot - installing that system took almost an hour by itself - and then I had to apply my standard improv-material metallic bandages that I'd used for my other self surgeries. Gaining instinct for my interuniversal portal generator was going to be hard and I needed to get it to at least rudimentary function for my demonstration of the nature of powers to Faultline's Crew later that night.
It was with that thought that I moved the cable from my fusion reactor and hooked it into my leg (even despite the bandaging all around the edge), and enabled the fusion reactor at half output for the purposes of some experimentation and honing of new types of instinct.
The first thing I needed to practice was using my pocket dimension generator in concert with the interversal portal generators to create a direct portal from my pocket dimension to anywhere in the base-level multiverse. I used the scanner on the portal to Aleph and saved both it and Bet's universe coordinates to the internal memory system, and then I went to work practicing converting my internal instinctive understanding of coordinates from the pocket dimension gun to the relative coordinates used in the interuniversal generator system, so I could place the portals on top of each other and as a result fuse them together to produce a new, direct, portal. It took almost 30 tries but I eventually managed a direct portal to Aleph's Alaska. A little more experimentation and I had the dimensional address of my own shard. But, my fusion reactor needed time to cool off for the demonstration with Faultline - in about 1 hour at this point - and so I reluctantly disconnected the reactor and watched as the nice purple-encircled, swirling holes in reality slammed shut.
Frankly, my anxiety was building, and I took the time to tensely wash myself, and pace around my homely pocket dimension. The precog jammer housing was filled with the thin black rectangles that were my chips, I had all the equipment I needed implanted and unlosable, and I had nibbled some more delicious pasta. One of the precog jammer machines was continuously running inside my lab (with about 30 chips), and the other I was currently fidgeting with in my hands as a result of anxiety. I decided, then, I could put my external one fairly central to the Bay, in the Fosberg Gallery - so I took 10 minutes to do that before returning to my fearful pacing.
Five minutes before the meeting time, I braced myself mentally, and used my internal pocket dimension gun to rip a hole near the Palanquin, readying myself and desperately hoping Contessa or the Triumvirate didn't just kill me right here, right now, despite all my countermeasures.
[end of chapter - nya~]
Waking up, I was bouncing from one of those random burst of intense motivation you sometimes get. I had things to do and I damn well was going to do them! I had to make a multiverse portal generator - for the base-level Worm multiverse, not merely my pocket dimension - and for that, I needed several things.
The most important was targeting - I pushed 3 charges into multiversal tinkering, 1 into multidimensional phenomena, and one into integrated circuits. It didn't take long for me to identify a dimensional axis involved in combination with exotic gravitational phenomena to rip holes in spacetime - my scanner/targeter chip would need a small amount of magnesium for obscure interactions with that axis using electrons and carbon-magnesium nuclear interactions. This would essentially provide a relative location that, with an appropriately applied gravitational anomaly, would allow for Doormaker-style portals. My power provided a fantastic modular targeting circuit - the circuit itself was fairly crudely designed but it did the job and would let me indefinitely expand the area in which a portal would be targeted (rather than randomly attaching to some other alternative universe). Another 20 minutes and I had a scanner module blueprint that would detect anomalies in the same axis indicative of a nearby interuniversal interaction - this is what would let me find parahumans and their shards. The multiversal mechanics behind what anomalies in the given axis are associated to what multiverse - for each universe - meant I could save different identified locations and access them in a comparatively absolute manner (as opposed to merely "relative" locations between universes)
Reprogramming my chipfab - which had overnight finished making another 40 or so antiprecog chips - I set it to work constructing one of my targeter/scanner combination chips with little difficulty. The big problem for me now was creating a portal-generating gravitational anomaly. This would require a chip to coordinate the construction of a field of exotic matter and a decent sized power input to create and manage the portal (coordination of the portal with Earth's rotation).
Creating the negative mass required for some of the related gravitational phenomena would theoretically be difficult, but my tinker power eventually gave me some answers - some more multidimensional interactions would allow me to exploit the Casimir Effect in macro. I was also lucky that I was using graphene chips - which let me make bilayer superconductors - or the power going through the chip would most definitively scorch the bloody thing. I needed roughly half the output from my fusion reactor to power it as well, which currently meant I could only run the system for an hour or so at a time.
Queuing the second chip, I went to PHO and began looking for Faultline. Obviously, she couldn't just call herself that on the PHO boards (well, she could, but I didn't think she was the type to take the risk in the way I had), but she had to be accessible enough for people to find and ask for jobs if they were really looking for her Crew. It was with that that I began seriously searching over the US boards and more importantly user lists to see if there were any people that had usernames moderately related to their name - eventually I found several, and further analysis (for an hour or two) of their biases towards Case 53 topics and wide-area conversations and information gathering (as was natural for a mercenary team that travelled), lead me to believe that the user "NoFaultInvolved" was almost certainly Faultline or someone in communication with her team.
So, I opened up my private messages and got straight to the topic, despite my social anxieties making me hesitate...
■
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■
♦ Topic: C53 Info
In: Boards ► Private Messages ► NoFaultInvolved
trans_morphic (Original Poster) (Verified Cape)
Posted On Mar 8th 2011:
Hai, I have info on case 53s (and powers) and I figured you'd be interested. I've finally got some antiprecog stuff going on which means I can tell people without just getting very dead. Willing to arrange a meet, if you are who I think you are (honestly I coulda gone outside and asked but I... am anxious and stuff).
- nya~
(Showing page 1 of 1)
►NoFaultInvolved
Replied On Mar 8th 2011:
I am who you think I am, and if you legitimately have solid information, we'd like to hear it.
We can discuss prices now, if you prefer.
►trans_morphic (Original Poster) (Verified Cape)
Replied On Mar 8th 2011:
Well I'd happily tell you for free (you've seen how I handle information, namely spreading it as far as possible), which makes me ridiculously happy, but if I understand you'd prefer something without favours being owed (even implicitly or unintentionally).
To be honest just having someone to share this information with in the first place would be a huge burden off of me, having world-ending information is extremely distressing. Even just letting me talk about it to a group for whom it is relevant and I know will be responsible with it is a huge favour to me.
This would be knowing and expecting that the information I tell you is likely to come out publicly as soon as the world has the ability to not get, well, obliterated on the release of it, of course. As for when that happens, expect mass social unrest with some of the things I want to do to precipitate it.
If you need a monetary price, though, and insist on paying for stuff, I'd take $2000 in cash (for essentially feeding myself for the forseeable future). I do not work with the Number Man, for reasons related to the information I want to give to you. I'm aware I'm probably significantly undervaluing the information, but I generally do not value money that much other than for the fact I need it to live - I have other motivations.
- nya~
►NoFaultInvolved
Replied On Mar 8th 2011:
$2000 is an acceptable amount. It will be provided in cash after the information is given.
We can meet later today at the nightclub at 10PM, if that is ok with yourself, and there are no additional requirements.
►trans_morphic (Original Poster) (Verified Cape)
Replied On Mar 8th 2011:
That seems ok to me, though I do have several things you should be aware of.
Firstly, the Gesellschaft and E88 want me alive or dead. I'm sure you already know this but i'd really appreciate if you checked a little around the nightclub before I come to visit.
Secondly, the information in question is dangerous enough that it requires me to employ active anti-thinker and anti-precognition measures, so you should be aware that until I get redundant devices scattered around the Bay, there is significant risk if you even try to communicate the information (especially about case 53s).
Thirdly, some of the information I give you may be censored by your power itself. Be prepared for occasional periods of disorientation or forgetfulness due to power censorship. There is a better chance that your Case 53 members remember what I tell you about several things, but you can also probably figure out some mental workarounds as well, and if you are appropriately paranoid I would suggest employing whatever M/S codes and stuff your team uses or similar protocols.
The anti-observation devices I use actually consume minuscule amounts of power and are trivial for me to make, so I can give you one easily (this should preserve moderate precognition immunity for a period even if active anti-precognition wears off). I have at least one of these implanted though, and I've left several throughout Brockton, so you're probably safe regardless.
- nya~
►NoFaultInvolved
Replied On Mar 8th 2011:
Thanks for the warnings. I will be sure to run some extra patrols around. The keyword for the bouncer is Amyoka, at 10pm as per our agreement.
See you then.
End of Page. 1■
And so, I had an arrangement with Faultline in about 10 hours, which was enough time for both of the required processing chips to be fabricated with several hours to spare. I needed preparations, so I took half an hour to wire sets of 30 anti-precognition chips up to a standard plug to the power system - it was pretty simple due to their very self-contained nature - and set to work constructing housings for my Scanner/Targeter/Doormaker devices. The scanner and targeter were simple enough (and for the sizes of portal I was interested in, that is, about maximal 5m diameter with my signature purple outline, small enough) that I could implant them just like my own pocket dimension generator. After eating some of that corner-shop pasta salad as a late lunch, I pushed my specialty fully to bioaugmentation and neural interfaces and I'd developed a housing for the scanner and targeter devices with an internal memory and naturally a low-power energy supply that could obtain electricity directly from glucose and oxygen in my bloodstream. It took very little effort to make one of those for my existing pocket dimension portal generator as well.
The real power hog was the gravitational anomaly generator. It, like the targeter, had a massive range limit (and had optional but default portal anchoring to Earth), but a massive power draw. The chip itself was large but not that bad - the real issue was power consumption (and thank fuck for superconducting components or heat would be the real problem). Like my pocket dimension access gun, I wanted it implanted (so I couldn't lose it), but it did need an external power source like my fusion reactor, and the interface for that would be much more complex to implant than the simple stuff I'd done so far - it had to have external access, after all, and that meant that keeping it uninfected and free of environmentally-induced conditions would be significantly more difficult.
As such, I pushed my specialty towards bio-reactive materials and environmental hardening, and with that my power provided a solution. I could take iron and meld it with silicon in a particular manner while tinkering and it'd have all the properties I needed for biological interfacing, and would, with appropriate connector structure, prevent water from passing into any internal circuitry or connecting the 3 power cable slots. It took about 3 hours but I constructed all the housing and peripheral components to the main technology, and set myself to working it into my body. The scanner and targeter comfortably fit into my upper arm, but the gravitational anomaly generator better fit in my leg, which provided space for my power cable slot - installing that system took almost an hour by itself - and then I had to apply my standard improv-material metallic bandages that I'd used for my other self surgeries. Gaining instinct for my interuniversal portal generator was going to be hard and I needed to get it to at least rudimentary function for my demonstration of the nature of powers to Faultline's Crew later that night.
It was with that thought that I moved the cable from my fusion reactor and hooked it into my leg (even despite the bandaging all around the edge), and enabled the fusion reactor at half output for the purposes of some experimentation and honing of new types of instinct.
The first thing I needed to practice was using my pocket dimension generator in concert with the interversal portal generators to create a direct portal from my pocket dimension to anywhere in the base-level multiverse. I used the scanner on the portal to Aleph and saved both it and Bet's universe coordinates to the internal memory system, and then I went to work practicing converting my internal instinctive understanding of coordinates from the pocket dimension gun to the relative coordinates used in the interuniversal generator system, so I could place the portals on top of each other and as a result fuse them together to produce a new, direct, portal. It took almost 30 tries but I eventually managed a direct portal to Aleph's Alaska. A little more experimentation and I had the dimensional address of my own shard. But, my fusion reactor needed time to cool off for the demonstration with Faultline - in about 1 hour at this point - and so I reluctantly disconnected the reactor and watched as the nice purple-encircled, swirling holes in reality slammed shut.
Frankly, my anxiety was building, and I took the time to tensely wash myself, and pace around my homely pocket dimension. The precog jammer housing was filled with the thin black rectangles that were my chips, I had all the equipment I needed implanted and unlosable, and I had nibbled some more delicious pasta. One of the precog jammer machines was continuously running inside my lab (with about 30 chips), and the other I was currently fidgeting with in my hands as a result of anxiety. I decided, then, I could put my external one fairly central to the Bay, in the Fosberg Gallery - so I took 10 minutes to do that before returning to my fearful pacing.
Five minutes before the meeting time, I braced myself mentally, and used my internal pocket dimension gun to rip a hole near the Palanquin, readying myself and desperately hoping Contessa or the Triumvirate didn't just kill me right here, right now, despite all my countermeasures.
[end of chapter - nya~]
- Location
- Colorado
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Read up to the end of page two and just need to vent... A-hem... FUCK ALEXANDREA, GOOD FOR NOTHING TERF.
ahem... Anyways, really fun story! I mean, the transphobia is less so but considering most of the transphobes are gonna get their asses kicked I'm able to stand it. Excited to finish catching up sometime soon!
ahem... Anyways, really fun story! I mean, the transphobia is less so but considering most of the transphobes are gonna get their asses kicked I'm able to stand it. Excited to finish catching up sometime soon!
Recluse Connections - 2.x - Interlude [Multi Perspective]
- Pronouns
- Xe/Xem/They/Them
[disclaimer - Wildbow owns Worm, I do not own Worm]
Above the Palanquin - Faultline Perspective
Faultline had been looking for information for almost 3 years at this point. Scraps of data and rumors of vials, mostly, all pointing to the existence of a shadowy organisation. The shared stories of her Case 53 teammates, dumped with no memories into the streets with a strange marking. She'd paid (with the funding of her Crew), something on the order of $500,000 just to scratch out this much information on the topic.
People who claimed to know more disappeared with disturbing regularity. To be honest, she was skeptical of trans_morphic for the fact they were still alive despite claiming to know more than anyone else she'd ever been in contact with, but she seriously doubted they were intentionally dishonest and the chaos they'd already caused in the PRT - rumoured in the underworld to be from some kind of information leak - meant she was far less skeptical than she would have been of their claims earlier. So she was willing to take a chance. They were asking for a pittance compared to what she'd already spent on the topic, and they'd made it pretty clear they didn't even care about the money all that much.
Their distrust of the Number Man gave her pause though. If the Number Man was involved, it implied some seriously concerning things about the level of power this organisation actually held. Number Man managed the finances of the entire criminal underworld, essentially, and she strongly suspected he had a significant hand in regulating the legitimate economy as well. It only made sense given both the rumors and the lack of total economic collapse from the Endbringers, which anyone with an understanding of economics would have predicted happening years earlier without some kind of intervention.
She'd been going over M/S protocols with Newter and Gregor and Labyrinth extensively in the past day. She was also deeply worried about the idea of her power messing with her head to such a degree that it might be required. Of course, she understood from her own reading on parahumans (in her attempts to bend her way around the Manton Limit) that they had a natural tendency for conflict, but she hadn't really internalised the fact that her power might be disrupting her thought processes more openly. Having it stated in such a direct manner was extremely concerning on a visceral level and her teammates seemed just as worried as her even through their usual ways of handling stress - Newter was talking rapidly about everything and anything to Gregor and they were both pacing intently, and Labyrinth was clearly struggling to hold back the tide of her power with flickers of expansion and shadows of medieval medical equipment flashing in and out of existence on the floor.
Of course, as the minute hand drew closer, she prepared herself for the meeting, gathering up the money she had gotten in cash and placing it in a briefcase. It wasn't very much, all things considered, for what they would hopefully be getting, but it didn't mean she would be careless with counting. She was a mercenary who stuck to the deals she made and she had no desire for her team to lose that reputation.
Just as she finished, there was a knock on the door, and she knew it was time.
Cauldron Perspective
It didn't take long for Contessa to notice a problem. Her Paths were fragmenting.
This wasn't like Eidolon, or Scion, or the Endbringers. Those were artificial blindspots and she could work her ways around them. Even Mantebellum, the power nullifier, lacked anything toward the same effect.
Brockton Bay was a true blindspot. She knew it the moment it started, and for maybe the fourth time in her life, Contessa was genuinely scared. Every Path even tangentially involving Brockton Bay had started continuously shifting and changing , and in Brockton Bay her Paths simply shattered into a thousand quintillion different pieces that were continually breaking apart further, completely incoherent to her ability to plan until her power ceased attempting anything entirely. More concerning, just before this event her power had been pointing her towards another interference with Faultline's Crew related to Cauldron's secrets and ensuring they didn't find out too soon.
It was pretty obvious to her that trans_morphic was responsible. They'd always caused shifts in her path very occasionally, and they clearly were aware of the presence of Cauldron (as well as the Entities) from their very unsubtle allusions on PHO. Unfortunately, every Path she had for stopping the near leak ended catastrophically or required hours of work to undo various countermeasures trans_morphic had clearly put in place - and now that they had definite access to Path-disrupting technology amongst other things she knew that there could be any number of other hidden countermeasures she could not see with the Path to Victory.
The other issue, of course, was the destabilisation within the Protectorate and PRT that trans_morphic had induced so far. Her lack of agreement with Alexandria's transphobic attitudes did not stop her from exploiting that view to get a closer eye (and hopefully capture) on trans_morphic, but it was causing friction between the Protectorate (most especially the Wards) and the PRT across America. The ENE branch being the most prominent example, with Director Piggot pulling away from the larger organisation despite the wishes of her underlings and Alexandria as Chief Director. Legend's own souring attitude towards Alexandria and to a degree to the more passive Eidolon was another - the rift within the Triumvirate was going to have to be resolved soon.
trans_morphic was becoming a problem. A couple days earlier and there was no issue, but right now? She needed to deal with them. Not kill them, no - they seemed far too useful for that, as indicated by the precognition blockers alone they were probably one of the rare few capable of genuinely affecting the Entities in some way or another - but permanent capture and control by Cauldron looked necessary, at this point.
After a 3 minute discussion with Doctor Mother, it was decided. She picked up the metaphorical interuniversal phone to Alexandria and Eidolon, and gave orders aimed directly at the people in the Palanquin. Known place, known time, rough capabilities - the Triumvirate would almost certainly succeed.
In 5 minutes, they'd be there and it'd be over.
Somewhere in Cryptographically Secure Cyberspace
Welcome, actuallyZandra@03a7:79a1::0362 to #bb-opno88 on ene-cryptchat (03c6:192d::a237)
antifbob: oh hi
antifbob: so basically
antifbob: we've got a sound activated camera inside the E88 warehs now.
antifbob: was fucking scary, had to hide behnd a box
antifbob: literally saw fucking Kaiser
antifbob: he left after 2 min tho
actuallyZandra: please keep safe like holy shit that's... dangerous as fuck.
actuallyZandra: I'm glad you're ok
actuallyZandra: But this is fucking big
antifbob: ye i dn't think weve ever had a direct like in e88 ops before
antifbob: @xx_smash_xx has been looking at the vids
actuallyZandra: yeah they should be here soon I think
actuallyZandra: i talked to them a couple days ago when they were just getting started
xx_smash_xx@03c4:23a1::7d6e joined #bb-opno88 on ene-cryptchat (03c6:192d::a237)
xx_smash_xx: holy shit
xx_smash_xx: folks you have no idea what the FUCK i found
xx_smash_xx: it's insane. we hit the jackpot with this @actuallyZandra @antifbob!
actuallyZandra: well tell us then silly ;p
antifbob: yeah i think getting the vids archived wth all of us to stop potential loss is a gd idea, before we discuss it
xx_smash_xx: sure
xx_smash_xx is hosting a file e88-footage.tar.gz, download [y/n]? y
actuallyZandra: thanks
antifbob: thx, lets discuss that shit then
xx_smash_xx: so, the vids from last night
xx_smash_xx: starts with a massive shipment, right?
xx_smash_xx: then at 03:47 we see Kaiser come into view
xx_smash_xx: talking about "the arrangement" with Hookwolf (i think) and a cape i'm pretty sure is gesellschaft
actuallyZandra: yeah that looks like hookwolf to me
actuallyZandra: and i think iirc that the other guy is "Thunderstruck"
actuallyZandra: some kind of electrokinetic with more control in metals. I think? not sure i remember right
xx_smash_xx: probably less relevant rn, so carrying on
xx_smash_xx: this guy comes on as the medhall shipment - actually full of fucking AKs and pistols - which gets hauled in by these toughs
xx_smash_xx: Kaiser is talking to him more
xx_smash_xx: stuff about controlled finding and removal of moles for a capture of a fake e88 shipment in the future
xx_smash_xx: then, by chance, he looks straight at the camera
antifbob: is that who i think it is?
xx_smash_xx: oh yes
actuallyZandra: oh FUCK no
xx_smash_xx: chief of BBPD
xx_smash_xx: you can even see his badge peeking out under the overclothes
actuallyZandra: this is
actuallyZandra: the cops have been playing a shell game with the goddamn e88 all this time?
actuallyZandra: fucking hell
antifbob: i say we smash 'em lol
actuallyZandra: i mean i get that but we need to figure out the best way to handle this info i think
actuallyZandra: personally i think we should release straight to the press
xx_smash_xx: problem is E88 backlash i think
xx_smash_xx: they're already going hardball on trans_morphic
xx_smash_xx: not sure what would happen if this straight up got dumped right now
antifbob: i mean i'd definitely prefer to just release it too
antifbob: meming about smashing is fun ;p
antifbob: tho rn we've got to figure how to deal with this
antifbob: this level of infiltration + the existing conservative nature of police institutions
antifbob: how much of the police are straight up empire?
actuallyZandra: i mean there's def a lot of sympathisers
actuallyZandra: gotta love sketchy transphobic harassment from cops :/
actuallyZandra: tho the level of actual empire membership is not something we can know rn
xx_smash_xx: yeah
xx_smash_xx: this is quite a difficult situation
xx_smash_xx: obviously the ideal is just releasing the whole footage to the press/internet
xx_smash_xx: but this is.... yeah
actuallyZandra: it has to come out at somepoint
antifbob: i think we all agree there
xx_smash_xx: yeah
xx_smash_xx: i think
xx_smash_xx: maybe we anon tip the PRT director
xx_smash_xx: go direct to the top
antifbob: if they're compromised too...
xx_smash_xx: yeah, i know
xx_smash_xx: but i'm not sure it could be worse than what already is the case
xx_smash_xx: don't think any of us trust the authorities but antifascist networks are really weak here
xx_smash_xx: and it's not like anyone who isn't e88 owns that warehouse that we could get to kick them out or interfere
xx_smash_xx: if we did they'd probably just go straight into medhall instead or a different warehouse
actuallyZandra: honestly? you're probably right
actuallyZandra: we don't have the manpower or any capes to deal with this
actuallyZandra: not right now
antifbob: i think we tip the director
antifbob: then if nothing happens in a week or there's an indication of PRT compromise
antifbob: we release the vids fucking EVERYWHERE
antifbob: no stopping that info
antifbob: cus this can't keep on
actuallyZandra: that honestly seems like the best idea right now
xx_smash_xx: i think it's a good idea
xx_smash_xx: makes sure it can't just get buried
xx_smash_xx: actually i'll rent some servers for a couple weeks
xx_smash_xx: load the videos and if there's no interaction they get posted everywhere
xx_smash_xx: especially if the PRT is compromised and sets thinkers on us
actuallyZandra: both of us should do that too i think
antifbob: ill def do that
antifbob: but just... fucking hell
antifbob: this could start a war
antifbob: like genuinely holy fucking shit
actuallyZandra: yeah im not gonna sleep well tonight.
xx_smash_xx: i think its gonna take a bit to properly sink in
xx_smash_xx: anyway i'm going to sleep
antifbob: sleep well
actuallyZandra: niiight~
actuallyZandra@03a7:79a1::0362 left the chat
[end of chapter - nya~]
So, I should explain the delay
Essentially, the way i work on any project is my interest waxes and wanes over time. Sometimes I'll go weeks without doing anything on them at all, and sometimes I'll go full bore for days on them nya.
If this story goes dark for a week or two, it does not mean it's dead. Even like more than a few months.
As for what else I was doing? Well I was programming a lot (I've been writing a proactively memory loading static site server/generator) and also sorting out more legal ID shit for transition
I also graduated! With a not too bad grade despite how appalling this last year was for me as a consequence of ADHD meshing horrifically badly with structured education and some other stuff.
Above the Palanquin - Faultline Perspective
Faultline had been looking for information for almost 3 years at this point. Scraps of data and rumors of vials, mostly, all pointing to the existence of a shadowy organisation. The shared stories of her Case 53 teammates, dumped with no memories into the streets with a strange marking. She'd paid (with the funding of her Crew), something on the order of $500,000 just to scratch out this much information on the topic.
People who claimed to know more disappeared with disturbing regularity. To be honest, she was skeptical of trans_morphic for the fact they were still alive despite claiming to know more than anyone else she'd ever been in contact with, but she seriously doubted they were intentionally dishonest and the chaos they'd already caused in the PRT - rumoured in the underworld to be from some kind of information leak - meant she was far less skeptical than she would have been of their claims earlier. So she was willing to take a chance. They were asking for a pittance compared to what she'd already spent on the topic, and they'd made it pretty clear they didn't even care about the money all that much.
Their distrust of the Number Man gave her pause though. If the Number Man was involved, it implied some seriously concerning things about the level of power this organisation actually held. Number Man managed the finances of the entire criminal underworld, essentially, and she strongly suspected he had a significant hand in regulating the legitimate economy as well. It only made sense given both the rumors and the lack of total economic collapse from the Endbringers, which anyone with an understanding of economics would have predicted happening years earlier without some kind of intervention.
She'd been going over M/S protocols with Newter and Gregor and Labyrinth extensively in the past day. She was also deeply worried about the idea of her power messing with her head to such a degree that it might be required. Of course, she understood from her own reading on parahumans (in her attempts to bend her way around the Manton Limit) that they had a natural tendency for conflict, but she hadn't really internalised the fact that her power might be disrupting her thought processes more openly. Having it stated in such a direct manner was extremely concerning on a visceral level and her teammates seemed just as worried as her even through their usual ways of handling stress - Newter was talking rapidly about everything and anything to Gregor and they were both pacing intently, and Labyrinth was clearly struggling to hold back the tide of her power with flickers of expansion and shadows of medieval medical equipment flashing in and out of existence on the floor.
Of course, as the minute hand drew closer, she prepared herself for the meeting, gathering up the money she had gotten in cash and placing it in a briefcase. It wasn't very much, all things considered, for what they would hopefully be getting, but it didn't mean she would be careless with counting. She was a mercenary who stuck to the deals she made and she had no desire for her team to lose that reputation.
Just as she finished, there was a knock on the door, and she knew it was time.
Cauldron Perspective
It didn't take long for Contessa to notice a problem. Her Paths were fragmenting.
This wasn't like Eidolon, or Scion, or the Endbringers. Those were artificial blindspots and she could work her ways around them. Even Mantebellum, the power nullifier, lacked anything toward the same effect.
Brockton Bay was a true blindspot. She knew it the moment it started, and for maybe the fourth time in her life, Contessa was genuinely scared. Every Path even tangentially involving Brockton Bay had started continuously shifting and changing , and in Brockton Bay her Paths simply shattered into a thousand quintillion different pieces that were continually breaking apart further, completely incoherent to her ability to plan until her power ceased attempting anything entirely. More concerning, just before this event her power had been pointing her towards another interference with Faultline's Crew related to Cauldron's secrets and ensuring they didn't find out too soon.
It was pretty obvious to her that trans_morphic was responsible. They'd always caused shifts in her path very occasionally, and they clearly were aware of the presence of Cauldron (as well as the Entities) from their very unsubtle allusions on PHO. Unfortunately, every Path she had for stopping the near leak ended catastrophically or required hours of work to undo various countermeasures trans_morphic had clearly put in place - and now that they had definite access to Path-disrupting technology amongst other things she knew that there could be any number of other hidden countermeasures she could not see with the Path to Victory.
The other issue, of course, was the destabilisation within the Protectorate and PRT that trans_morphic had induced so far. Her lack of agreement with Alexandria's transphobic attitudes did not stop her from exploiting that view to get a closer eye (and hopefully capture) on trans_morphic, but it was causing friction between the Protectorate (most especially the Wards) and the PRT across America. The ENE branch being the most prominent example, with Director Piggot pulling away from the larger organisation despite the wishes of her underlings and Alexandria as Chief Director. Legend's own souring attitude towards Alexandria and to a degree to the more passive Eidolon was another - the rift within the Triumvirate was going to have to be resolved soon.
trans_morphic was becoming a problem. A couple days earlier and there was no issue, but right now? She needed to deal with them. Not kill them, no - they seemed far too useful for that, as indicated by the precognition blockers alone they were probably one of the rare few capable of genuinely affecting the Entities in some way or another - but permanent capture and control by Cauldron looked necessary, at this point.
After a 3 minute discussion with Doctor Mother, it was decided. She picked up the metaphorical interuniversal phone to Alexandria and Eidolon, and gave orders aimed directly at the people in the Palanquin. Known place, known time, rough capabilities - the Triumvirate would almost certainly succeed.
In 5 minutes, they'd be there and it'd be over.
Somewhere in Cryptographically Secure Cyberspace
Welcome, actuallyZandra@03a7:79a1::0362 to #bb-opno88 on ene-cryptchat (03c6:192d::a237)
antifbob: oh hi
antifbob: so basically
antifbob: we've got a sound activated camera inside the E88 warehs now.
antifbob: was fucking scary, had to hide behnd a box
antifbob: literally saw fucking Kaiser
antifbob: he left after 2 min tho
actuallyZandra: please keep safe like holy shit that's... dangerous as fuck.
actuallyZandra: I'm glad you're ok
actuallyZandra: But this is fucking big
antifbob: ye i dn't think weve ever had a direct like in e88 ops before
antifbob: @xx_smash_xx has been looking at the vids
actuallyZandra: yeah they should be here soon I think
actuallyZandra: i talked to them a couple days ago when they were just getting started
xx_smash_xx@03c4:23a1::7d6e joined #bb-opno88 on ene-cryptchat (03c6:192d::a237)
xx_smash_xx: holy shit
xx_smash_xx: folks you have no idea what the FUCK i found
xx_smash_xx: it's insane. we hit the jackpot with this @actuallyZandra @antifbob!
actuallyZandra: well tell us then silly ;p
antifbob: yeah i think getting the vids archived wth all of us to stop potential loss is a gd idea, before we discuss it
xx_smash_xx: sure
xx_smash_xx is hosting a file e88-footage.tar.gz, download [y/n]? y
actuallyZandra: thanks
antifbob: thx, lets discuss that shit then
xx_smash_xx: so, the vids from last night
xx_smash_xx: starts with a massive shipment, right?
xx_smash_xx: then at 03:47 we see Kaiser come into view
xx_smash_xx: talking about "the arrangement" with Hookwolf (i think) and a cape i'm pretty sure is gesellschaft
actuallyZandra: yeah that looks like hookwolf to me
actuallyZandra: and i think iirc that the other guy is "Thunderstruck"
actuallyZandra: some kind of electrokinetic with more control in metals. I think? not sure i remember right
xx_smash_xx: probably less relevant rn, so carrying on
xx_smash_xx: this guy comes on as the medhall shipment - actually full of fucking AKs and pistols - which gets hauled in by these toughs
xx_smash_xx: Kaiser is talking to him more
xx_smash_xx: stuff about controlled finding and removal of moles for a capture of a fake e88 shipment in the future
xx_smash_xx: then, by chance, he looks straight at the camera
antifbob: is that who i think it is?
xx_smash_xx: oh yes
actuallyZandra: oh FUCK no
xx_smash_xx: chief of BBPD
xx_smash_xx: you can even see his badge peeking out under the overclothes
actuallyZandra: this is
actuallyZandra: the cops have been playing a shell game with the goddamn e88 all this time?
actuallyZandra: fucking hell
antifbob: i say we smash 'em lol
actuallyZandra: i mean i get that but we need to figure out the best way to handle this info i think
actuallyZandra: personally i think we should release straight to the press
xx_smash_xx: problem is E88 backlash i think
xx_smash_xx: they're already going hardball on trans_morphic
xx_smash_xx: not sure what would happen if this straight up got dumped right now
antifbob: i mean i'd definitely prefer to just release it too
antifbob: meming about smashing is fun ;p
antifbob: tho rn we've got to figure how to deal with this
antifbob: this level of infiltration + the existing conservative nature of police institutions
antifbob: how much of the police are straight up empire?
actuallyZandra: i mean there's def a lot of sympathisers
actuallyZandra: gotta love sketchy transphobic harassment from cops :/
actuallyZandra: tho the level of actual empire membership is not something we can know rn
xx_smash_xx: yeah
xx_smash_xx: this is quite a difficult situation
xx_smash_xx: obviously the ideal is just releasing the whole footage to the press/internet
xx_smash_xx: but this is.... yeah
actuallyZandra: it has to come out at somepoint
antifbob: i think we all agree there
xx_smash_xx: yeah
xx_smash_xx: i think
xx_smash_xx: maybe we anon tip the PRT director
xx_smash_xx: go direct to the top
antifbob: if they're compromised too...
xx_smash_xx: yeah, i know
xx_smash_xx: but i'm not sure it could be worse than what already is the case
xx_smash_xx: don't think any of us trust the authorities but antifascist networks are really weak here
xx_smash_xx: and it's not like anyone who isn't e88 owns that warehouse that we could get to kick them out or interfere
xx_smash_xx: if we did they'd probably just go straight into medhall instead or a different warehouse
actuallyZandra: honestly? you're probably right
actuallyZandra: we don't have the manpower or any capes to deal with this
actuallyZandra: not right now
antifbob: i think we tip the director
antifbob: then if nothing happens in a week or there's an indication of PRT compromise
antifbob: we release the vids fucking EVERYWHERE
antifbob: no stopping that info
antifbob: cus this can't keep on
actuallyZandra: that honestly seems like the best idea right now
xx_smash_xx: i think it's a good idea
xx_smash_xx: makes sure it can't just get buried
xx_smash_xx: actually i'll rent some servers for a couple weeks
xx_smash_xx: load the videos and if there's no interaction they get posted everywhere
xx_smash_xx: especially if the PRT is compromised and sets thinkers on us
actuallyZandra: both of us should do that too i think
antifbob: ill def do that
antifbob: but just... fucking hell
antifbob: this could start a war
antifbob: like genuinely holy fucking shit
actuallyZandra: yeah im not gonna sleep well tonight.
xx_smash_xx: i think its gonna take a bit to properly sink in
xx_smash_xx: anyway i'm going to sleep
antifbob: sleep well
actuallyZandra: niiight~
actuallyZandra@03a7:79a1::0362 left the chat
[end of chapter - nya~]
So, I should explain the delay
Essentially, the way i work on any project is my interest waxes and wanes over time. Sometimes I'll go weeks without doing anything on them at all, and sometimes I'll go full bore for days on them nya.
If this story goes dark for a week or two, it does not mean it's dead. Even like more than a few months.
As for what else I was doing? Well I was programming a lot (I've been writing a proactively memory loading static site server/generator) and also sorting out more legal ID shit for transition
I also graduated! With a not too bad grade despite how appalling this last year was for me as a consequence of ADHD meshing horrifically badly with structured education and some other stuff.
- Pronouns
- Xe/Xem/They/Them
Writing Alexandria in this fic gives me the exact same feeling lol
feels honestly pretty gross but frankly I'm toning down the transphobia I've seen IRL for this fic from various groups that are completely mainstream (unlike the Nazis in BB nyaa). Which is a bloody depressing thought >.<
Avangelion
Princess Astra
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Blepr- kinda took a bit, but definitely still watching out for this lmao
Congrats on graduating, stay safe and healthy XD
Fuck TERFs, but fun stuff to see on the BB Antifa too at least- ripples and waves all around like with Cauldron
'Till next update and stuff XD
Congrats on graduating, stay safe and healthy XD
Fuck TERFs, but fun stuff to see on the BB Antifa too at least- ripples and waves all around like with Cauldron
'Till next update and stuff XD
Recluse Connections - 2.7
- Pronouns
- Xe/Xem/They/Them
[cw: a couple instances of misgendering of SI and Alexandria being a transphobe nya]
[disclaimer - Wildbow owns Worm, I do not own Worm]
I continued pacing, peeking at the time on my laptop. This'd be the first real life social interaction I'd had in... over a week at this point. And it would be about highly dangerous knowledge of arguably the most powerful group in the local multiverse and the eldritch thing they were preparing to fight.
As the clock ticked to 21:57, I tore open a hole in reality just outside the Palanquin. It was tall and had the common trappings of a nightclub - bright colours, neon lights, the sound of heavy bass beats from within. The structure itself sturdier than buildings I was used to, coming from a world with fewer city destroying terror machines and parahumans with a tendency to fight. It's two floors were oddly intimidating despite the small stature of the building in absolute terms, I noted, as I looked to the obvious entrance with a sturdy pair of bouncers who made me anxious by their stature.
Nervously dashing over to them, I rushed out the codeword "Amyoka", eyes still examining the random interesting things around me. With an affirmative nod, the larger of the two bouncers led me inside - where I got a glimpse of a clearly thriving bar with a fantastic mix of cocktails and other alcohol, and some exceptionally pulsating electronic music that matched my personal tastes surprisingly well - and then up sturdy, mildly worn stairs to the quieter areas of the nightclub and bar, overseeing the floor below in a darker environment (which was also easy on my eyes, sensory issues were one of the reasons my signature colour was a near-black dark purple, after all, and this part of the club matched that sufficiently well to be extremely comforting to me).
It took another few seconds of me taking in the upper floor and we reached an almost industrial-style thick metal door, which was presumably where Faultline's Crew were currently situated. Heart beating wildly from meeting a social group, especially with people who were technically speaking dangerous to me (though I trusted them not to fuck me over), the bouncer knocked and a professional looking woman with a rugged metal mask and a false ponytail (I remembered that bit!) opened the extremely heavy looking door with mildly terrifying ease. She waved the way in where the other 3 of her teammates were stood behind her, and invited me to enter.
Gregor the Snail and Newter were of similar height (Newter I could tell was holding back the urge to word vomit in the same way I occasionally did when tense), Labyrinth was shorter and had an extremely glazed look to her eyes (I guessed she was having a bad day, given the way her power seemed to be flickering around the place and struggling to break free), and Faultline looked stoic and professional (which was entirely what I expected). I glanced behind me to find the door closed (it was surprisingly quiet enough that I didn't notice it, but it was also expected), and Faultline took the initiative which was extremely convenient for me given that I'd started physically shaking from anxiety at this conversation - which I needed to do for my own long term mental health and just because it was shitty not to get Case 53s clued in on the issue - but that didn't stop my brain grinding itself to a halt in cycles of terror.
"So. We should probably begin, trans_morphic. What information can you give us related to Case 53s?", she said with a surprisingly reassuring cadence. I guess my paralysing state of fear was pretty obvious, as was my complete... lack of formality. Which I was completely unashamed of, but I knew people could be pretty judgemental to that sort of thing. Faultine seemed good about that so far in our interaction which helped me relax from "completely paralysing terror" to "mostly paralysing terror", and, continuing to twist and generally stim with my clothes and hands, I began.
"So, basically there's a lot to get through, the source of powers, the organisation responsible for case 53s, the reason that organisation makes case 53s, the true number of case 53s. The organisation is named Cauldron, but don't say that name, they have a cape that can see all alternate earths and pass the sight on and a cape that makes portals to anywhere they can see - Doormaker and Clairvoyant . I have got precognition and Clairvoyant blocking tech up right now in Brockton, but without it they have a cape who's power is literally Path to Victory. Thinker: Run. Do not fuck with her or you will die without precog blockers", I said rapidly, not breathing properly.
Despite Faultline's professionalism, she visibly paled. I mean I guess she knew the people responsible were some degree of powerful, but honestly Cauldron in general was fucking terrifying with a bit of thought. They could be anywhere, anytime, and kill you anyhow. Frankly I still did not feel even the slightest bit safe.
"Well, fuck.", was Newter's response, as his tail twitched from what I presumed was worry. Succinct and accurate.
"This is indeed a rather concerning piece of information, if true.", was Gregor's response, which was less succinct but just as accurate.
"So yeah basically do not spread that around. They will absolutely know and are willing to kill to preserve secrecy. Also the Triumvirate are involved, though Legend does not know any of the sinister Case 53 stuff. Also! Alexandria is the Chief-Director. This shit is one of the reasons I live out of a fucking pocket dimension. heh"
The response I got was a chorus of frustrated realisation from the two Case 53s, and Faultline's solemn nod. "Well that would explain why the PRT makes almost no progress on solving the Case 53 mystery", was her vindicated reply, and Gregor and Newter both seemed pretty angry at this. Given the way the PRT and Protectorate presented themselves as an ideal place for Case 53 capes to be safe, protected, and welcomed, that absolutely made sense. I found it extremely disgusting and deceptive myself, though obviously most people in the Protectorate were unaware of Cauldron's existence or if they were, did not know of their Case 53 experiments.
Gregor continued though, interrupting our contemplation (and my continued nervous stimming and fidgeting and usual pacing) with a question to me. "Well, this is all well and good. But, you have yet to present evidence, although I am inclined to believe you, and you did say you would elaborate on the actual nature of Case 53s and the reasons for being.... made how we are."
I started speaking in anxious rapidity again, looking behind me for a second - "Oh, sorry, yeah. To do that though, I need to start by the nature of powers and of Cau-".
That was the time I turned to a loud crash as Alexandria and Eidolon hurled themselves through the wall - and the green-clad "hero" grabbed me around the neck. They stood there and I was... extremely afraid. I'd gone beyond mental shutdown and now adrenaline was racing through my shitty body and I felt time seem to slow down, my thoughts running like a steam train. I was getting really dissociative really fast and... I guessed my pupils were probably wide enough to consume my iris entirely. These two could have killed me right now if they really wanted.
Faultline's Crew were honestly terrifyingly quick in reaction speed. Within an instant, they were grouped up and ready to fight, dancing around the room in a dangerous, martial manner. Gregor and Newter looked like they were ready to explode at the two Triumvirate members despite the perilous situation - Newter in particular using his preternatural balance to continuously jump around the accelerating death trap of a maze that was appearing around us as Labyrinth let loose on her dimension-shaking power. Luckily for me, I knew that despite Eidolon holding me around the neck, Cauldron lacked Clairvoyant viewing of this place (and hence lacked Door capabilities). As long as Alexandria didn't grab me...
This did not stop the screaming terror that had completely consumed my mental state. I was in a genuine life/death situation and I really did not feel good about that. Dissociation was not a healthy response but it would probably be what saved my life or freedom (because it seems Cauldron did want me alive or I'd definitely be dead already) if I managed it, at this point. Being controlled by Cauldron was almost a fate worse than death for me, in a way, though it was pretty close if I thought about it. I could get Slugged, or abandoned in a blank white cell (have you seen what environments like that do to someone with ADHD), alone and isolated. Turned into a tool. Any number of other horrifying things racing through my mind rather than productive action. Maybe I'd end up like Dinah in the original timeline, or lobotomized and just used as a shell of my power (though I got the oddest sense my shard would not let that happen so easily).
My internal musings were interrupted because Alexandria apparently decided... monologuing was a good idea? I mean I wasn't going to complain but it was definitely strange. She had a cruel smirk as she began.
"Well, it seems that Faultline has discovered that there are limits to what she is allowed to learn. Do not investigate this further or you will share a similar fate to trans_morphic here", Alexandria stated with satisfaction, while waving deliberately at my near-paralysed self. All deliberate of course, because of her perfect control of reactions, and emphasized by pinning Faultline to the wall by the throat for several seconds. I at this point was getting leaky eyes from the sheer stress, and yet somehow Faultline still remained professional as fuck, with merely a low grunt of exertion as she dropped from the deadly Thinker-Brute's titanium grip. Gregor and Newter looked on with what I could guess was near murderous rage - despite their normally friendly or polite demeanor, and fuck knows how far Labyrinth's power reached at this point with her emotional state. I'd have been unsurprised if she'd covered half of Brockton.
<transphobia>Alexandria continued, this time clearly directed at me. "I'll be making sure he," (oh boy, I winced to myself, Alexandria is a fucking transphobe), "gets treatment for his mental illness. He also won't be using that unsafe tinkertech implant when clearly medically unfit for making any gender identity decisions, so at least, Faultline, take comfort that your associate here will be in good hands for his illness".
Faultline, ever the professional, merely gritted her teeth in response to that. Somehow I didn't think she was in line with Alexandria on this one.
"Eidolon, take him properly. I think our point has been made.", was Alexandria's line as Eidolon activated some kind of master power that seized my voluntary muscles and pushed them around like a puppet, as he started to fly. Flying would be fun if I wasn't also a captive, so instead I felt a deep, horrific stress instead. But at some point I'd been smart enough to come up with an idea in all the panic that I was still feeling. Frankly I was exhausted, this amount of stress was not good at all, life and death situations involving 2 of the strongest parahumans on Earth Bet were also really shit, and my ability to even be coherent was fraying. Yes, I was getting tired and probably slightly delirious, but as I was lifting from the Palanquin, I felt water leak from my eyes while I began my targeting.
Locked down muscles were insufficient to stop my imitation of Doormaker, after all, and I spent all my remaining mental energy using my instincts for a target that would take me but not the flier I was being carried by. Faultline's Crew were comparitively easy, just a circle around where they were all standing, still in the Palanquin. I had severe doubts they'd stay alive if my precognition blockers managed to get cut off or even if I just left them. Racing forward, the air streaking tears and sweat down my exhausted face and coherent thinking at a minimum, I slammed open the portal.
A slight mis-aim, a few millimetres too low. I felt a horrible, screaming pain on the back of my head and a wet sensation - as myself, Eidolon's arms (but not the rest of Eidolon), and Faultline's Crew all came rushing into my pocket dimension. I slammed into my bed with a sickening crack, seeing double, and just about managed to close all the portals before blacking out completely.
[end of chapter - nyaaa~]
So! the first confrontation
On another unrelated note, fuck Alexandria and also painful ear infections ;-; nya
[disclaimer - Wildbow owns Worm, I do not own Worm]
I continued pacing, peeking at the time on my laptop. This'd be the first real life social interaction I'd had in... over a week at this point. And it would be about highly dangerous knowledge of arguably the most powerful group in the local multiverse and the eldritch thing they were preparing to fight.
As the clock ticked to 21:57, I tore open a hole in reality just outside the Palanquin. It was tall and had the common trappings of a nightclub - bright colours, neon lights, the sound of heavy bass beats from within. The structure itself sturdier than buildings I was used to, coming from a world with fewer city destroying terror machines and parahumans with a tendency to fight. It's two floors were oddly intimidating despite the small stature of the building in absolute terms, I noted, as I looked to the obvious entrance with a sturdy pair of bouncers who made me anxious by their stature.
Nervously dashing over to them, I rushed out the codeword "Amyoka", eyes still examining the random interesting things around me. With an affirmative nod, the larger of the two bouncers led me inside - where I got a glimpse of a clearly thriving bar with a fantastic mix of cocktails and other alcohol, and some exceptionally pulsating electronic music that matched my personal tastes surprisingly well - and then up sturdy, mildly worn stairs to the quieter areas of the nightclub and bar, overseeing the floor below in a darker environment (which was also easy on my eyes, sensory issues were one of the reasons my signature colour was a near-black dark purple, after all, and this part of the club matched that sufficiently well to be extremely comforting to me).
It took another few seconds of me taking in the upper floor and we reached an almost industrial-style thick metal door, which was presumably where Faultline's Crew were currently situated. Heart beating wildly from meeting a social group, especially with people who were technically speaking dangerous to me (though I trusted them not to fuck me over), the bouncer knocked and a professional looking woman with a rugged metal mask and a false ponytail (I remembered that bit!) opened the extremely heavy looking door with mildly terrifying ease. She waved the way in where the other 3 of her teammates were stood behind her, and invited me to enter.
Gregor the Snail and Newter were of similar height (Newter I could tell was holding back the urge to word vomit in the same way I occasionally did when tense), Labyrinth was shorter and had an extremely glazed look to her eyes (I guessed she was having a bad day, given the way her power seemed to be flickering around the place and struggling to break free), and Faultline looked stoic and professional (which was entirely what I expected). I glanced behind me to find the door closed (it was surprisingly quiet enough that I didn't notice it, but it was also expected), and Faultline took the initiative which was extremely convenient for me given that I'd started physically shaking from anxiety at this conversation - which I needed to do for my own long term mental health and just because it was shitty not to get Case 53s clued in on the issue - but that didn't stop my brain grinding itself to a halt in cycles of terror.
"So. We should probably begin, trans_morphic. What information can you give us related to Case 53s?", she said with a surprisingly reassuring cadence. I guess my paralysing state of fear was pretty obvious, as was my complete... lack of formality. Which I was completely unashamed of, but I knew people could be pretty judgemental to that sort of thing. Faultine seemed good about that so far in our interaction which helped me relax from "completely paralysing terror" to "mostly paralysing terror", and, continuing to twist and generally stim with my clothes and hands, I began.
"So, basically there's a lot to get through, the source of powers, the organisation responsible for case 53s, the reason that organisation makes case 53s, the true number of case 53s. The organisation is named Cauldron, but don't say that name, they have a cape that can see all alternate earths and pass the sight on and a cape that makes portals to anywhere they can see - Doormaker and Clairvoyant . I have got precognition and Clairvoyant blocking tech up right now in Brockton, but without it they have a cape who's power is literally Path to Victory. Thinker: Run. Do not fuck with her or you will die without precog blockers", I said rapidly, not breathing properly.
Despite Faultline's professionalism, she visibly paled. I mean I guess she knew the people responsible were some degree of powerful, but honestly Cauldron in general was fucking terrifying with a bit of thought. They could be anywhere, anytime, and kill you anyhow. Frankly I still did not feel even the slightest bit safe.
"Well, fuck.", was Newter's response, as his tail twitched from what I presumed was worry. Succinct and accurate.
"This is indeed a rather concerning piece of information, if true.", was Gregor's response, which was less succinct but just as accurate.
"So yeah basically do not spread that around. They will absolutely know and are willing to kill to preserve secrecy. Also the Triumvirate are involved, though Legend does not know any of the sinister Case 53 stuff. Also! Alexandria is the Chief-Director. This shit is one of the reasons I live out of a fucking pocket dimension. heh"
The response I got was a chorus of frustrated realisation from the two Case 53s, and Faultline's solemn nod. "Well that would explain why the PRT makes almost no progress on solving the Case 53 mystery", was her vindicated reply, and Gregor and Newter both seemed pretty angry at this. Given the way the PRT and Protectorate presented themselves as an ideal place for Case 53 capes to be safe, protected, and welcomed, that absolutely made sense. I found it extremely disgusting and deceptive myself, though obviously most people in the Protectorate were unaware of Cauldron's existence or if they were, did not know of their Case 53 experiments.
Gregor continued though, interrupting our contemplation (and my continued nervous stimming and fidgeting and usual pacing) with a question to me. "Well, this is all well and good. But, you have yet to present evidence, although I am inclined to believe you, and you did say you would elaborate on the actual nature of Case 53s and the reasons for being.... made how we are."
I started speaking in anxious rapidity again, looking behind me for a second - "Oh, sorry, yeah. To do that though, I need to start by the nature of powers and of Cau-".
That was the time I turned to a loud crash as Alexandria and Eidolon hurled themselves through the wall - and the green-clad "hero" grabbed me around the neck. They stood there and I was... extremely afraid. I'd gone beyond mental shutdown and now adrenaline was racing through my shitty body and I felt time seem to slow down, my thoughts running like a steam train. I was getting really dissociative really fast and... I guessed my pupils were probably wide enough to consume my iris entirely. These two could have killed me right now if they really wanted.
Faultline's Crew were honestly terrifyingly quick in reaction speed. Within an instant, they were grouped up and ready to fight, dancing around the room in a dangerous, martial manner. Gregor and Newter looked like they were ready to explode at the two Triumvirate members despite the perilous situation - Newter in particular using his preternatural balance to continuously jump around the accelerating death trap of a maze that was appearing around us as Labyrinth let loose on her dimension-shaking power. Luckily for me, I knew that despite Eidolon holding me around the neck, Cauldron lacked Clairvoyant viewing of this place (and hence lacked Door capabilities). As long as Alexandria didn't grab me...
This did not stop the screaming terror that had completely consumed my mental state. I was in a genuine life/death situation and I really did not feel good about that. Dissociation was not a healthy response but it would probably be what saved my life or freedom (because it seems Cauldron did want me alive or I'd definitely be dead already) if I managed it, at this point. Being controlled by Cauldron was almost a fate worse than death for me, in a way, though it was pretty close if I thought about it. I could get Slugged, or abandoned in a blank white cell (have you seen what environments like that do to someone with ADHD), alone and isolated. Turned into a tool. Any number of other horrifying things racing through my mind rather than productive action. Maybe I'd end up like Dinah in the original timeline, or lobotomized and just used as a shell of my power (though I got the oddest sense my shard would not let that happen so easily).
My internal musings were interrupted because Alexandria apparently decided... monologuing was a good idea? I mean I wasn't going to complain but it was definitely strange. She had a cruel smirk as she began.
"Well, it seems that Faultline has discovered that there are limits to what she is allowed to learn. Do not investigate this further or you will share a similar fate to trans_morphic here", Alexandria stated with satisfaction, while waving deliberately at my near-paralysed self. All deliberate of course, because of her perfect control of reactions, and emphasized by pinning Faultline to the wall by the throat for several seconds. I at this point was getting leaky eyes from the sheer stress, and yet somehow Faultline still remained professional as fuck, with merely a low grunt of exertion as she dropped from the deadly Thinker-Brute's titanium grip. Gregor and Newter looked on with what I could guess was near murderous rage - despite their normally friendly or polite demeanor, and fuck knows how far Labyrinth's power reached at this point with her emotional state. I'd have been unsurprised if she'd covered half of Brockton.
<transphobia>Alexandria continued, this time clearly directed at me. "I'll be making sure he," (oh boy, I winced to myself, Alexandria is a fucking transphobe), "gets treatment for his mental illness. He also won't be using that unsafe tinkertech implant when clearly medically unfit for making any gender identity decisions, so at least, Faultline, take comfort that your associate here will be in good hands for his illness".
Faultline, ever the professional, merely gritted her teeth in response to that. Somehow I didn't think she was in line with Alexandria on this one.
"Eidolon, take him properly. I think our point has been made.", was Alexandria's line as Eidolon activated some kind of master power that seized my voluntary muscles and pushed them around like a puppet, as he started to fly. Flying would be fun if I wasn't also a captive, so instead I felt a deep, horrific stress instead. But at some point I'd been smart enough to come up with an idea in all the panic that I was still feeling. Frankly I was exhausted, this amount of stress was not good at all, life and death situations involving 2 of the strongest parahumans on Earth Bet were also really shit, and my ability to even be coherent was fraying. Yes, I was getting tired and probably slightly delirious, but as I was lifting from the Palanquin, I felt water leak from my eyes while I began my targeting.
Locked down muscles were insufficient to stop my imitation of Doormaker, after all, and I spent all my remaining mental energy using my instincts for a target that would take me but not the flier I was being carried by. Faultline's Crew were comparitively easy, just a circle around where they were all standing, still in the Palanquin. I had severe doubts they'd stay alive if my precognition blockers managed to get cut off or even if I just left them. Racing forward, the air streaking tears and sweat down my exhausted face and coherent thinking at a minimum, I slammed open the portal.
A slight mis-aim, a few millimetres too low. I felt a horrible, screaming pain on the back of my head and a wet sensation - as myself, Eidolon's arms (but not the rest of Eidolon), and Faultline's Crew all came rushing into my pocket dimension. I slammed into my bed with a sickening crack, seeing double, and just about managed to close all the portals before blacking out completely.
[end of chapter - nyaaa~]
So! the first confrontation
On another unrelated note, fuck Alexandria and also painful ear infections ;-; nya
Avangelion
Princess Astra
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Jeez- fuck Alexandria here >_< (couldn't even read it myself too long)
And oof on the ear infection 😅
Confrontations just suck 😖
Hope the aftermath goes at least marginally better,
And oof on the ear infection 😅
Confrontations just suck 😖
Hope the aftermath goes at least marginally better,
- Pronouns
- Xe/Xem/They/Them
Yeah I put a CW on it for a reason, writing those sections is unfortunately important for the visceral understanding of what the SI is experiencing and pervasive attitudes to trans people in this part of the multiverse and also for the cis readers to see the kind of rhetorical bullshit trans people deal with constantly IRL as well ;-;, but most trans people already get the gist of the kind of shit because we put up with it IRL anyway >.<. Alexandria is a really shitty transphobic person in this fic nya (even ignoring all the rest of Cauldron stuff), to the point that it interferes with her strategies (e.g. monologuing instead of doing shit quickly, and making her enhance the PRT/Protectorate/Wards conflict on the subject a-la Semi;Colon (which is a great fic btw nya)).
And I finally, FINALLY had the bright idea of actually taking some paracetamol which has turned the ear infection from "So painful I am holding back screaming constantly" to "uncomfortable but bearable". Honestly I get these things every summer and I HATE them nya. Still can't sleep though.
And yeah there's going to be recovery, and Faultline & Co. are going to get alllll the information~
Hmm idk if Alexandreia is really transphobic herself, she tried the same thing on skitter for her goal, the idea that she would care about what you would think of yourself as is related to her world view wouldn't matter to Rebecca as hers is "defeat scion", honestly I think she only said that to try to get one of her goals completed or is following contessas path, and she would do a 180 flip and help or agree with you if it helped out cauldron complete there goals more then it is to go against you like with legend, alexandria doesn't care about anything else then trying to stop scion and save the world at any means necessary, so Rebbeca wouldn't say those things without meaning that would help her complete her goal, really sad if you think about it, shewouldn't hesitate to kill herself if it helped out defeating scion or improve cauldron.
Avangelion
Princess Astra
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Pretty sure it's a minor AU thing? Iunno really, but frankly it's not entirely a dealbreaker for me, and TBF prejudice and bigotry isn't exactly rational; there are definitely gay transphobes and transphobes okay with gay people IRL.
Definitely glad you put a CW, and better with the ear infection thing, hope you can get some rest 😅. I'm not out publicly and it's already horrifying what casual transphobia you can see in the open >_<
This is good, but I can't help thinking Eidolon would make a better antagonist than Alexandria, give him a whole toxic masculinity angle with his whole worthy opponents "I'm the best hero look at me" thing