Successor (BTVS)

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[X] KILL Wilkins by attacking his ghost

I'm not wild about either option, not least because I'm sure Adam has figured some way of trying to backstab us the second Wilkins is no longer a threat to him, but Wilkins will absolutely bump us off given a moment of opportunity. If there was an option for "hit them both hard as you can and knock them down into the forever" I'd go for that, but it seems pretty clear the QM is not gonna let us wiggle out of it that easily.
 
Marlowe310811 said:
If there was an option for "hit them both hard as you can and knock them down into the forever" I'd go for that, but it seems pretty clear the QM is not gonna let us wiggle out of it that easily.
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The main issue is the force of the wind effect is going to knock Buffy back after she gets a good hit in, especially since she's currently using her hammer to drag herself forward against it. KILL is indicating two "vulnerable" spots: Adam's circuit and Wilkins in general (Adam as a whole has shown himself to be quite durable overall.) If she wanted, she could try to do something else besides attacking one of those, but she's pretty sure she can only do one thing with her opportunity.
 
DeAnno said:
The main issue is the force of the wind effect is going to knock Buffy back after she gets a good hit in, especially since she's currently using her hammer to drag herself forward against it. KILL is indicating two "vulnerable" spots: Adam's circuit and Wilkins in general (Adam as a whole has shown himself to be quite durable overall.) If she wanted, she could try to do something else besides attacking one of those, but she's pretty sure she can only do one thing with her opportunity.
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Is she in a position to break the runes now? Cause it's still a bad option, but it looks like those are all we have left
 
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If we choose to kill Wilkins, will we unconditionally leave the control of the artifact to Adam? I'd want to kill Wilkins and deny Adam the artifact, even if that means we have to destroy it. Wilkins has proved time and again he is just too dangerous to leave for later, and Adam is not a match for us when we can isolate him.

Also, Adam just saw Faith betray him for Wilkins, so it's fair to say they won't be a well-functioning team afterwards. With Wilkins however, we have to deal with not only him, but his faithful adopted daughter/minion Faith, who he might be able to empower with the artifact if he keeps control of it.
 
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Blueshift said:
Is she in a position to break the runes now? Cause it's still a bad option, but it looks like those are all we have left
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Right now Adam and the Mayor are doing their handshake pretty close to the stairway. If Buffy wanted to attack the infrastructure of the room, she could swing at the edge of the Stairway itself and get one good hit in on the ornate construction there, then she would get windblasted all the way back into the dome, at which point she could smash at all the runes she had in reach.

I want to emphasize that I neither endorse nor condemn this course of action. KILL is silent on the matter.

tinkerware said:
If we choose to kill Wilkins, will we unconditionally leave the control of the artifact to Adam?
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For what it's worth, Buffy still feels fully connected to it right now, it's just going wild and crazy.
 
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tinkerware said:
If we choose to kill Wilkins, will we unconditionally leave the control of the artifact to Adam? I'd want to kill Wilkins and deny Adam the artifact, even if that means we have to destroy it. Wilkins has proved time and again he is just too dangerous to leave for later, and Adam is not a match for us when we can isolate him.
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I think we can assume that after consuming part of artifact power Adam would not be easily beaten anymore.

tinkerware said:
Also, Adam just saw Faith betray him for Wilkins, so it's fair to say they won't be a well-functioning team afterwards. With Wilkins however, we have to deal with not only him, but his faithful adopted daughter/minion Faith, who he might be able to empower with the artifact if he keeps control of it.
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With Adam there is possibility that with his new power he would be able to corrupt Faith and make her obey him, or that Faith desire for revenge would easily overcome her reluctance to cooperate with Adam or that they would not work together at all and Faith will run away and try to have her revenge at more convenient opportunity while we are busy with Adam or with something else.
 
DeAnno said:
For what it's worth, Buffy still feels fully connected to it right now, it's just going wild and crazy.
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Alex Sol said:
I think we can assume that after consuming part of artifact power Adam would not be easily beaten anymore.
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Fiddlesticks, that would make Adam the immediate and larger threat. Thinking about this more, Wilkins must have needed Adam to take control of the artifact; he would have done it on his own already if he could. That means it's more likely that the artifact will remain connected to us if we take Adam out and end his attempt to control the artifact. Wilkins and Faith revert to long-term threats, though we could hold Faith at this point if we want to, barring a surprise from Wilkins.

Blueshift said:
Is she in a position to break the runes now? Cause it's still a bad option, but it looks like those are all we have left
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Removing the source of our Godling powers should be a last resort, I think. Buffy could be happier without those powers in the long term, but we should make that a conscious choice that we think about, not a hasty decision made in the heat of battle.
 
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tinkerware said:
Removing the source of our Godling powers should be a last resort, I think. Buffy could be happier without those powers in the long term, but we should make that a conscious choice that we think about, not a hasty decision made in the heat of battle.
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I mean, I'm pretty sure this is a last resort type situation. Will we even be able to hold on to those powers after we kill one of them, or will the other one just snatch it away from us?

I agree about the Wilkins vs. Adam threat assesment though. Adam is a very direct problem. That self knowledge thing doesn't seem like much at first glance, but it honestly gives him some pretty effective boosts. I don't think he could time things as well, use his corruption with nearly as much perfect efficiency without it.
 
[x] Smash the circuit attachment and KILL Adam

Punching out the glowy thing in the monster's chest in a life-or-death battle is more often the right choice than the wrong one in our experience, right?
 
Blueshift said:
I mean, I'm pretty sure this is a last resort type situation. Will we even be able to hold on to those powers after we kill one of them, or will the other one just snatch it away from us?
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Right, that's an important question, and is why I changed my mind from taking out Wilkins to taking out Adam. We still have the artifact connected to us, killing Adam would prevent him taking control of it, and if Wilkins could do it on his own he would have already done it.

Maybe Wilkins will want to destroy it himself to deny its use to us, but he's incorporeal and will need Faith's help. Also, we won't fall for their trick of getting in there for another time, so they'd have to do it now or never, and I feel good about our chances against Faith trying to destroy the runes with only a knife.
 
tinkerware said:
Maybe Wilkins will want to destroy it himself to deny its use to us, but he's incorporeal and will need Faith's help. Also, we won't fall for their trick of getting in there for another time, so they'd have to do it now or never, and I feel good about our chances against Faith trying to destroy the runes with only a knife.
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If we take out Adam, Wilkins can just possess the body without issue (we're only able to break his anti-posession circuit board right now, he's too durable for one hit to fully take him out). That being said, Adam's advanced knowledge, of his self, how to make cyborg minions, etc. Worries me a bit more than Wilkins at the moment. He's still a huge problem, but one that we might be able to deal with later, rather than right now.
 
Blueshift said:
If we take out Adam, Wilkins can just possess the body without issue (we're only able to break his anti-posession circuit board right now, he's too durable for one hit to fully take him out). That being said, Adam's advanced knowledge, of his self, how to make cyborg minions, etc. Worries me a bit more than Wilkins at the moment. He's still a huge problem, but one that we might be able to deal with later, rather than right now.
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Mostly correct, not sure that it was anti-posession circuit though. It seems to me like device for gathering Artefact power. Perhaps Wilkins was needed for initial calibration or to start transfer process, but not necessary anymore.
 
Alex Sol said:
Mostly correct, not sure that it was anti-posession circuit though. It seems to me like device for gathering Artefact power. Perhaps Wilkins was needed for initial calibration or to start transfer process, but not necessary anymore.
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It doesn't pop up when he starts absorbing the power, only once Wilkins tries to take over (though it does seem to speed up as the golden power is shifting)
 
DeAnno said:
"I expected this as well," A bizarre glowing circuit of metal and glass emerged from Adam's chest, and then he slowly rose to his feet as it started to channel golden light. The ordered storm became a chaos of currents and eddies.
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It directly stated here that his circuit channels golden light.

So Wilkins has his magic knowledge
Adam has his circuit.
Buffy still has her connection.

Not sure if it is good idea but in principle would Buffy be able to join their tag for power if she reaches them and put her hand on their handshake?
 
Right now Adam with his CORRUPT has the best chance of taking control of the relic, since stealing other people's magic effects is his major thing.

So I strongly suggest killing Adam first and then I hope that Wilkins can't instantly take over from him, since he lacks his Domain (propably).
 
[X] Smash the circuit attachment and KILL Adam

I may be a simple country lawyer, and by that I mean I am none of those things, but I can't help but want our dear old ex-mayor to survive even if he is a threat to the galaxy. Adam by comparison sucks objectively even if he has some cool traits.
 
Alex Sol said:
It directly stated here that his circuit channels golden light.
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Yes, that's immediately after Wilkins tries to betray him, it's not part of what he was trying originally. So I think the choice is between Adam in Adam's body with control of the artifact, or Wilkins in Adam's body with control of the artifact.

As an aside, I want to argue that after this choice, regardless of the outcome, any further outreach to Faith will likely be useless. Either her pseudo father figure will be alive, in which case she will not betray him to us under any circumstance, or we will have killed her father figure, again.

I also want to point out that if we allow Wilkins control of Adam's body, Cynthia will almost certainly betray us to him, so we will get a highly placed spy in our organization which will be nearly impossible to detect. We will probably not get choices to use out of character knowledge here - Buffy didn't even consider checking Cynthia in Panopticon.
 
Alex Sol said:
Not sure if it is good idea but in principle would Buffy be able to join their tag for power if she reaches them and put her hand on their handshake?
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That is interesting, I'd vote for it. I wanna see if we can cripple them both that way.
Could KILL kill the competitors' connections in said tug? Wiggle herself in and metaphysically murder their connections.
 
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hailcapital said:
Yes, that's immediately after Wilkins tries to betray him, it's not part of what he was trying originally. So I think the choice is between Adam in Adam's body with control of the artifact, or Wilkins in Adam's body with control of the artifact.
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Uh, that would be dark. Why are we out of chances to stop Adam taking control of the artifact, if we smash the circuit before he's able to finish whatever he's doing? Wilkins can't resume that, even if he possessed Adam's body.
 
tinkerware said:
Uh, that would be dark. Why are we out of chances to stop Adam taking control of the artifact, if we smash the circuit before he's able to finish whatever he's doing? Wilkins can't resume that, even if he possessed Adam's body.
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I don't think the circuit isn't necessary for him being able to take control of the artifact. He says that what's enabling it is him is "the intensity of our battle." I think that it was him using CORRUPT on us / the artifact enough while we were fighting.

DeAnno said:
Adam ignored him, still speaking to Buffy. "Mother thinks you're intelligent, but headstrong. Too willing to use brute force before considering all possible angles of approach. She was correct, and all went along the lines I expected."

"What are you doing?" She was trying to hold position, but the wind was just too much. Finally she jammed the bottom spike of her hammer into the floor to stabilize.

"What all good politicians do," Wilkins answered instead of Adam. "I made a deal."

"The intensity of our battle has allowed me to take control of the Artifact," Adam said. "Soon I will be linked to the remnants of the true cosmos. I have reason to believe it will be enlightening."
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I think that we are going to be able to eventually kill Wilkins or Adam, whichever walks away right now, and we might be able to take the artifact back from their corpse. But I'm pretty sure narratively we're in the bit where we get our face kicked in before we regroup and come back. Remember, the first time canon!Buffy fought canon!Adam, she lost. Losing this fight probably isn't game over. I think we are out of chances to not take an L right now though.

I guess it's possible that Wilkins in Adam is sufficiently bad that Wilkins in Adam wouldn't necessarily have control of the artifact though? I think it's possible that Wilkins wouldn't be able to resume what Adam started, but I think it's just as possible that he would.
 
Alex Sol said:
So Wilkins has his magic knowledge
Adam has his circuit.
Buffy still has her connection.

Not sure if it is good idea but in principle would Buffy be able to join their tag for power if she reaches them and put her hand on their handshake?
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DeAnno said:
I would allow you to try. You could physically do it, what happens mystically is anyone's guess.
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"You can certainly try" is somehow simultaneously very ominous and very tempting.

Are those who have already voted pretty committed to their choices, or would Taking a Third Option ("Handshake Protocol" or "Runic Remodeling") hold appeal?
 
[X] KILL Wilkins by attacking his ghost

I find the idea of an empowered Wilkins much scarier than an empowered Adam. Wilkins was able to bootstrap himself up into being the baddest bitch on the Hellmouth despite starting out as just a mortal sorcerer. Adam, on the other hand, is the supernatural equivalent of a trust fund kid who was born (well, made, I guess) with more power than most people can even conceive of. That makes me think that Wilkins can use all that power a hell of a lot more effectively than Adam can.
 
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