Ship of Fools: A Taylor Varga Omake (Complete)
- Thread starter Derek M
- Start date
- Crossover
OstermanA
(Unverified Penguin)
- Location
- $PWD
Honestly, I would imagine that Dragon is more likely to put her cards on the table, rather than raise the stakes even more. Scion being the primary threat matches the data they already have well enough, and knowing that Cauldron has been working against an impossible task where the cost of failure is the utter annihilation of entire worlds, well, that puts "acceptable casualties" into a new tax bracket.
FaerieKnight79
Verified Pixie
- Location
- The Internet
Morals should never be an 'acceptable casualty'.
OstermanA
(Unverified Penguin)
- Location
- $PWD
What is war, but a partial or total suspension of morality?
William Stepp
Journeyman Builder
As long as you remember that the last person or persons to be dealt with is yourself and/or your group (if you did in fact totally suspend your morality and performed acts of evil for the Greater Good), I see no problem with this. If you become the abyss from staring into it for too long, to stop or destroy the abyss. You need to add yourself as a part to be stopped. Otherwise no, War doesn't mean a suspension of morality.
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OstermanA
(Unverified Penguin)
- Location
- $PWD
Well, yeah. Cauldron is a hilariously incompetent organization. Even in canon, none of the atrocities they commit actually serve to resolve the situation in anything except coincidence. I understand them, but that doesn't mean I agree.
Lycanthromancer
The Arcane Fuzz
- Location
- USA
I can't help but notice that Legend kept his promise to Alexandria. He didn't tell the Family. He gave a hypothetical to Dragon, knowing that she would tell the Family.
At last! a glimmer of competence!
Well done, Legend. Well done.
At last! a glimmer of competence!
Well done, Legend. Well done.
OstermanA
(Unverified Penguin)
- Location
- $PWD
Personally, I have long wondered if PtV deliberately had them exclude Legend because he would have insisted on sane solutions that reduced overall conflict.
I'm honestly pretty sure that PtV is actively malicious, as far as actually resolving the Scion situation.
Neruz
Rogue Spiderbanana
- Location
- The Land of Fire and Poison
The key word there is 'suspension', temporarily suspending morality out of necessity until such a time that it can be re-established in the future is one thing, especially when it is at the behest or with the agreement of the majority of the population. A small group of 'enlightened' people conspiring together to take morality out back and secretly shoot it in the head is not the same, especially when those conspirators are incompetent buffoons.
It is admittedly a thin and nebulous distinction, but it is there. And while it is rather uncomfortable to admit, competence buys a lot of forgiveness.
It is one thing to 'do what must be done' and succeed, it is quite another to fuck it up, repeatedly.
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- Location
- Omniverse #1345
PtV was very helpful for killing Eden. Problem is Eden sabotaged it before dying with admin-level lockdowns. I don't think PtV is intentionally giving them bad solutions, but rather that it isn't allowed to give them the good ones. And it is probably really frustrated by that.
Neruz
Rogue Spiderbanana
- Location
- The Land of Fire and Poison
It is also a Shard, and thus biased towards causing conflict where possible. PtV provides a solution, but there is actually no guarantee that it provides the best solution, especially if the requested path is poorly worded.
That said, PtV is implied to be an Abaddon Shard and possibly still connected to him, so it may be playing by different rules entirely.
There's also the likelihood that it never was meant to be distributed. Why would the Entities put the cause conflict clause into Shards they would keep to themselves exclusively? Or for that matter, would they not make the instigate conflict instinct a switch which needs to be flipped because any shard could potentially be one they use themselves, and not having an off switch for the whole 'cause conflict' thing would make them as dangerous to use for the Entities as to the host species.
Neruz
Rogue Spiderbanana
- Location
- The Land of Fire and Poison
Conflict (aka evolution via 'natural' selection) is explicitly the only methodology the Zion and Eden Entities understand, the conflict drive in Shards isn't an artificial construct programmed into them; it is an inherent consequence of their nature. Abaddon understood more advanced concepts; philosophy, psychology and imagination, but whether that means it lacks the natural drive for conflict or not is unknown.
Considering that the standard method of communication between Entities is to literally bash themselves into each other until pieces fragment off of them, and then pick up the pieces that came off the other Entity, I would guess that the conflict drive is still there. The Entities have always solved every problem by fighting it until they evolve a solution, even after they left their homeworld their methodology was still 'fight problem until solution presents itself', except that they switched to using parasitized proxies to fight instead of fighting it themselves.
Like, the entire Entity thought process can basically be summarized as:
Problem: We do not know how to create matter\energy and space\time.
Solution: Go and find someone who does.
The Entities were born of conflict, everything they have was developed through conflict, everything they are is the product of conflict. Conflict is in their very nature, it is their essence, their soul if you will. All that they do is done in the terms of conflict.
They are, metaphorically, stuck in a state of having only a hammer and therefore seeing all problems as nails.
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Wait, wasn't it Eden's original shard, which she was going to replace with a new improved version of the PtV she received from Abaddon?
Or I'm mixing something...
That doesn't seem to totally be the case in Taylor Varga. Given how the conflict drive either stops or goes wild when encountering Varga, it seems the Shards are capable of reigning in their conflict drives. In fact, based on how Lisa and Amy's Shards seem to be working, I'd say the driving methodology of Shards (literally pieces of the Entities) in Taylor Varga is gathering information and whatever provides the most information is what they'll encourage and they react negatively to things which act to limit their access to information (note how Lisa's Shard really, really wants to tell Lisa things [probably because it would get a ton of data from her knowing the whole situation] and is actively annoyed by the restrictions which prevent it from telling her and getting her take, but it doesn't have a violent reaction to it, just dislike). In the past the conflict drive may have been enough to gain more data, but seeing how quickly they adapted to not drive conflict when the chance for greater data gathering came up is very telling.
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JoshuaSweetvale
Insectovore
- Location
- NL, 65 Million Years Ago
Cauldron has basically become Eden.
"She came here to experiment with powers."
And now they're doing the exact same thing.
Everything from the PRT's provokery (Threat ratings; everything is conflict) to the persecution and demonization of for-profit capes ("rogue" really? As in "going rogue?") to the S9 and even clowns like Heartbreaker not getting sniped is their doing.
No really, Wildbow literally said part of Contessa's PTV is keeping anyone from succeeding in sniping a cape with a high-caliber sniper rifle. That's a good chunk of her job, implicitly to keep that idea from the public conciousness. The reason the PRT doesn't just shoot Heartbreaker might very well be because it'd set precedent so people are trained to not even think about it. That and the pretext he might have his own ziz-bombs but that's not a threat that can be resolved by stalling.
Cauldron Delenda Est
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- Location
- Bosnia
I actually think that prolonged contact with Varga is such a shocking or infectious event to shards that it forces an intelligent evolution of it, almost like awakening or unshackling the intelligent thinking part of it. Suddenly they can and will actively work to try to find loopholes around their code and permissions. Purposely try to give hints to information they otherwise work to hide. Perhaps thats what the teenager Shard looks like... Anyway! Inference engine and Shaper are now atypical shards capable of going against their programming and even capable of creativity! Shocking!
Neruz
Rogue Spiderbanana
- Location
- The Land of Fire and Poison
It is a bit unclear, in Interlude 26 Zion sees Eden shards as 'dead'. WoG is that that is because Eden shards have no active connection to Eden, due to Eden being brain-dead, and shards without an active connection to an Entity are interpreted as 'dead' by other Entities. When Zion examines Contessa he sees "a shard that wasn't its own, but wasn't dead", implying that Contessa's PtV Shard may still be linked to Abaddon. In Interlude 29 it is shown that Eden was still in the process of integrating that shard when she crashed, and Fortuna's visions suggest that the shard was lost in the crash: "It had crashed to earth, and something had broken free" and "It knew, because the power she was using was the same power it had used to glimpse the future".
Eden's original 'PtV' shard cluster was partially damaged in the communication with Abaddon and she didn't properly model the 'optimal future' until after that event; "An optimal future. It is an unwieldy future because it gave up a part of its ability to see the future to the other being. There are holes, because this entity does not fully understand the details of what happened, and because this entity's future-sight power is damaged."
Eden then shifted the Abaddon PtV shard into her precognition cluster in an attempt to shore up those holes; "In the doing, it alters one of the third entity's powers, replacing its own ability to find the optimal future."
But something went wrong, either Eden took too long to integrate the shard or it wasn't compatible with the rest of the cluster; "In that very instant, it recognizes that it has made a grave error. The simulated world and the glimpse of the optimal future are already gone from its grasp. Too late."
So Contessa's shard cannot be Eden's original precognition power, because she gave parts of that shard cluster to Abaddon, and if Contessa's shard was connected to Eden then Zion would see it as 'dead'. He does not, so it cannot be connected to Eden, but it is also not connected to Zion, so it must be connected to Abaddon, which means it must be the power that Eden altered to replace her own damaged precognition power, and that Eden failed to properly integrate the shard before crashing, leaving it connected to Abaddon.
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Jonn Wolfe
(Verified Sarcastic) (Not a Wolf)
- Location
- Beyond Sanity Since 1971
This. Or more specifically, Contessa.
My theory on the matter is that the amount of time for the deathblow to Eden's consciousness allowed Eden to do many many things. She was the Thinker, for crying out loud, and had access to Thinker abilities that would make "Thinker" capes look like complete idiots.
The phrase "It was like watching a car accident" goes into the adrenaline fuelled segue of perceivable "stretched time." Watching a recording of an accident takes about five seconds, and that's an overestimation, while witnessing in person seems like minutes have gone by.
Now, just how many shards/agents did Eden have that would allow such a thing to happen at will??? She could have had months or years of perceivable time, much like the Odyssey in SG1. Time to both shut down certain things in "Path to Victory," as well as possibly completely rewriting the entire shard, so that it's actual designation would have been changed to "Path to Pyrrhic Victory."
Cauldron experiments with powers.
Cauldron promotes conflict to create natural triggers.
Cauldron is promoting the Cycle.
Cauldron promotes conflict to create natural triggers.
Cauldron is promoting the Cycle.
It's my belief that Cauldron is Eden's last gasp to completely crush the species that killed her, either as a deterrent against the Entities Enemies, or as a newly found Emotional Fuck You. More likely both. I wonder how many hands in the Garden are flipping the bird?
This is why I hate Alexandria and Contessa. They depend on The Path far too much, and have completely compromised their principles and morals. Hell, Fortuna was a child when she got PtV. It wouldn't surprise me if Contessa is actually a backup of Eden's core mind in the Shard/Agent itself, running a Fortuna Meat Suit.
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mp3.1415player I just read your question about Bruce to myself with fresh eyes.
I saw what you did!lolrofl:
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John Wolfe, I've always said that Countessa is practically the avatar herself. How many destructive policies did she enact? She by herself causes planet wide conflict all by herself. I totally agree with you!
I saw what you did!
lolrofl:edit
John Wolfe, I've always said that Countessa is practically the avatar herself. How many destructive policies did she enact? She by herself causes planet wide conflict all by herself. I totally agree with you!
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Neruz
Rogue Spiderbanana
- Location
- The Land of Fire and Poison
Given that Wildbow has repeatedly chosen the absolute most existentially horrifying and grimdark possible explanation for powers at every available opportunity, this is entirely plausible.This. Or more specifically, Contessa.
My theory on the matter is that the amount of time for the deathblow to Eden's consciousness allowed Eden to do many many things. She was the Thinker, for crying out loud, and had access to Thinker abilities that would make "Thinker" capes look like complete idiots.
The phrase "It was like watching a car accident" goes into the adrenaline fuelled segue of perceivable "stretched time." Watching a recording of an accident takes about five seconds, and that's an overestimation, while witnessing in person seems like minutes have gone by.
Now, just how many shards/agents did Eden have that would allow such a thing to happen at will??? She could have had months or years of perceivable time, much like the Odyssey in SG1. Time to both shut down certain things in "Path to Victory," as well as possibly completely rewriting the entire shard, so that it's actual designation would have been changed to "Path to Pyrrhic Victory."
Cauldron experiments with powers.
Cauldron promotes conflict to create natural triggers.
Cauldron is promoting the Cycle.
It's my belief that Cauldron is Eden's last gasp to completely crush the species that killed her, either as a deterrent against the Entities Enemies, or as a newly found Emotional Fuck You. More likely both. I wonder how many hands in the Garden are flipping the bird?
This is why I hate Alexandria and Contessa. They depend on The Path far too much, and have completely compromised their principles and morals. Hell, Fortuna was a child when she got PtV. It wouldn't surprise me if Contessa is actually the Shard/Agent itself, running a Fortuna Meat Suit.
- Location
- Buffalo, NY, USA
Truly, a glowing recommendation for mob mentality and outrage culture.
First, PtV was not intended to be sent out, so never got the programming to cause conflict, the ONLY programming it's had done to it was the last-second lockouts Eden implemented.
Also, PtV is NOT an Abaddon Shard.
This.
I don't feel like digging up the relevant quotes from Worm atm, but essentially Eden was distracted inspecting/using the Abbadon precog Shard, and accidently sent PtV out; Eden's panic over accidently losing PtV, one of it's core Shards, was what caused the crash.
Neruz
Rogue Spiderbanana
- Location
- The Land of Fire and Poison
Um. No? I quoted the relevant parts of Interlude 29 above. Eden gave up part of her precognition cluster to Abaddon, causing it to function improperly, so she shifted\modified Abaddon's precognition shard into the cluster (or replaced the cluster with it), only something went wrong and before she could fix it she crashed. Exactly what went wrong is unclear, but Contessa's shard is definitely not an Eden shard; if it was an Eden shard then Scion would see it as 'dead', not 'alive'.
PtV also doesn't have 'holes' until Eden reprograms it, further reducing the likelihood that it is Eden's original precognition cluster.
Incidentally the implication both from the story and from WoG is that Eden and Zion used multiple shards in a cluster for their 'PtV Equivalent', whereas Abaddon had a single shard that was specialized for that particular function.