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The Rising of the Shield Heroine

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Tale Swapper said:
Piggot might actually be more pushy, really; unlike proper Capes, a stable Empowered can be shuffled into the PRT, rather than having to join a Protectorate team.
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That is interesting as it opens up an array of options that are almost always closed to Taylor. Will something similar happen to those who are a part of her party like Aisha?

I get the feeling that Emily would push hard on Taylor to join the PRT in some official capacity, limited by her age, as Emily may see as Taylor as a specialized anti-parahuman tool. It would 'funny' if the Youth Guard was unable to anything in this situation because nobody believed that a under-eighteen year old would join the PRT to be anything more serious than a junior Firefighter or junior Police officer.

Once Emily finds out about that Taylor is forming a 'classic' D&D party with a mix of paras and not and simply fudge rules to allow Taylor to lead a mixed squad. Actually Emily may not even need to fudge the rules because nobody took the possible of what is happening Taylor and Piggot response to those happenings seriously.

I mean honestly, would people who work with Ward age parahumans regularly even consider the possibility that a fifteen year old girl running around with powers and not be a parahuman as being anything more than joke.
 
Tale Swapper said:
Taylor doesn't have a Corona Gemma. She did/does have a Corona Pollentia... which has been slowly withering since QA got borked into Allie. Anyone giving her a MRI would find a strangely small and dormant Corona, without any sign of active powers.

Heraldry, on the other hand, does have a 'false' Gemma and Pollentia, which allows her to interact with other powers and vice versa. It keeps her from standing out too much, though I might add that the info her 'false Corona' broadcasts is heavily edited and obfuscated.

Also, yeah, if Piggot or anyone else in the PRT ever found out about her lack of Pollentia, they would only care long enough to shuffle her into the 'Empowered Individual Box.' Piggot might actually be more pushy, really; unlike proper Capes, a stable Empowered can be shuffled into the PRT, rather than having to join a Protectorate team. Meanwhile, Cauldron would begin quietly investigating, to make certain there wasn't a third Entity running about.
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Wait, THAT means THAT Taylor is a hard counter for oír murderhobo moat hated?

Because Jack dependa on Broadcast to do 90% if his tricks and his power is too weak to bypass Heraldry def
 
Tale Swapper said:
Also, yeah, if Piggot or anyone else in the PRT ever found out about her lack of Pollentia, they would only care long enough to shuffle her into the 'Empowered Individual Box.' Piggot might actually be more pushy, really; unlike proper Capes, a stable Empowered can be shuffled into the PRT, rather than having to join a Protectorate team. Meanwhile, Cauldron would begin quietly investigating, to make certain there wasn't a third Entity running about.
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Why would Piggot believe that Taylor "isn't a proper cape" As people have already mentioned, not every cape has findable Coronas. She's a powered invidual in a world where powers only arrive one way, it would take a lot of secrets coming loose before people start believing different, not just a brain scan.
 
Bobot-Man said:
I mean honestly, would people who work with Ward age parahumans regularly even consider the possibility that a fifteen year old girl running around with powers and not be a parahuman as being anything more than joke.
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What you're suggesting is something similar to the situation in the Inturn series, but there is a major difference in the situations here. Inturn!Taylor was Very Obviously just a very talented normi and she still had to go through a battery of tests to prove that. Shield!Taylor very obviously has powers, and the source of those powers (the Holy Shield/Gamer system) is not so easily removed/disabled in a manner that would let her prove that she is an "empowered individual" rather than a "Parahuman". Piggot will try to make that argument all she wants, but the powers above her have the support of precident behind them that says it doesn't matter if she has a Corona-Polentia/Gemma that they can find or not. She has powers, therefore she is a "Parahuman".
 
Bobot-Man said:
Thank you for pointing that out.
I guess I thought that being a Parahuman was more than just being a human with powers.
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~Yes and no. If you want to get really technical on a scientific basis, then a Parahuman is only an individual who's powers are derived from a shard of an entity. The issue is that first off, only Cauldron is really aware of this distinction at this time, and secondly, precident and "good enough for government work" mentalities tend to overrule such pedantry in favor of simplification and blanket authority without an Overwhelming level of cases to prove the contrary. Taylor, and possibly Madison, are the only ones with powers that manifest through this manner currently, compared to the thousands of Parahumans currently running around.
 
Almech_Alfarion said:
If you want to get really technical on a scientific basis, then a Parahuman is only an individual who's powers are derived from a shard of an entity.
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Cauldron are not the people who came up with the word, and only people like them or bonesaw even know shards exist. The definition of Parahuman is not "person empowered by shard" it's "person with superpowers"
 
sunsunsunsunsun said:
Cauldron are not the people who came up with the word, and only people like them or bonesaw even know shards exist. The definition of Parahuman is not "person empowered by shard" it's "person with superpowers"
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True. But the lack of an active Pollentia (I might be mixing up which one is which) would probably at least tip people off to the fact that they aren't "normal" parahumans.
 
CapMorgan5569 said:
True. But the lack of an active Pollentia (I might be mixing up which one is which) would probably at least tip people off to the fact that they aren't "normal" parahumans.
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Not all capes have Coronas or Have Findable Coronas, they look different on everyone, and some people don't even look like people anymore. Is she Doing Cape shit? then she's a Parahuman unless and until she exposes both the existence of the shard network and Allie.
punster lv1 said:
Edit the scientists who study powers might care, but she wouldn't be the first parahuman whose corona they can't find and it has not stopped them from considering all superpowers have the same source before.
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sunsunsunsunsun said:
Cauldron are not the people who came up with the word, and only people like them or bonesaw even know shards exist. The definition of Parahuman is not "person empowered by shard" it's "person with superpowers"
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CapMorgan5569 said:
True. But the lack of an active Pollentia (I might be mixing up which one is which) would probably at least tip people off to the fact that they aren't "normal" parahumans.
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sunsunsunsunsun said:
Not all capes have Coronas or Have Findable Coronas, they look different on everyone, and some people don't even look like people anymore. Is she Doing Cape shit? then she's a Parahuman unless and until she exposes both the existence of the shard network and Allie.
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More or less my point, but the underlying mechanics still have to be taken into account when you start discussing the semantics of the differences between a "Shard Host" and other "Empowered" peoples. In the immediate term, it doesn't particularly matter because there aren't Enough people whose powers originate from a different source, and arguing the differences to try to swing some sort of alternate treatment or status is pedantic, but in the event that more, say, "Magic Users" start to show up, either because Taylor starts to teach her allies, some bleed-over effect from her Gamer abilities, or other means, then the difference becomes more important, because "Magic" may not necessarily be limited to the understanding or use of and by certain individuals, and can be taught. In that event, all of a sudden all of the laws put in place to exclude "Parahumans" from certain industries and lines of work due to the fact that their powers are unique to them hold a lot less water because now you have a bunch of people who were previously classified as "Parahumans", and indeed still have what can be considered "Paranormal" abilities to some degree or another, and some who even may be able to emulate the Shard-granted powers of certain Parahumans.

All of a sudden, the differences are a lot more important because they start throwing light on the problems with laws like NEPEA-5 and such, since suddenly you have a groundswell of regular people who are also "Parahumans", even though they could more accurately be classified as "Wizards".
 
Almech_Alfarion said:
exclude "Parahumans" from certain industries and lines of work due to the fact that their powers are unique to them hold a lot less water because now you have a bunch of people who were previously classified as "Parahumans", and indeed still have what can be considered "Paranormal" abilities to some degree or another, and some who even may be able to emulate the Shard-granted powers of certain Parahumans.
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That's not the justification at all? It's to prevent those with a "powered advanatge" from disrupting the economy (which is rank protectionism) but I really don't see how there are semantic differences between a "shard host" and a "wizard" aside from the potential of Z starting the apocalypse if he suddenly notices a bunch of wizards. Parahumans that empower normies exist. Parahumans that copy powers or power expressions that look very similar exist.
 
sunsunsunsunsun said:
Parahumans that empower normies exist. Parahumans that copy powers or power expressions that look very similar exist.
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It's not an issue of the existence of such powers. It's the existence of the Volume of individuals who can do so. The Incredibles put it best: "When Everyone's Super, No one will be."

The Shard-Hosts who can copy/grant powers either to themselves or other people are few and far between, are almost always extremely limited in some sense either in number or duration, and/or have some other secondary effect to their power that ends up getting them Birdcaged. I'm not talking about them though.

I'm talking about plain ole' regular people being able to read a book which can be printed by a regular publisher, without the input of powers or tinker-tech in any way, shape or form, and being able to use the information in that book to craft a spell that lets them absorb light to fire a kinetic beam like Purity, mutate and empower canines like Bitch, encase themselves in force-fields like Glory Girl, heal wounds like a White Mage and therefore displacing the indispensability of "Healing" Capes, or craft enchanted objects as an equal alternative to Tinker-Tech. This paradigm shift by itself would make the "powered advantage" arguments in more or less Every parahuman-centric law irrelevant.

But there's a problem. These feats would not be unique, but they are beyond the scope and understanding of modern Earth-Bet science, and by the heavy-handed notions of Earth-Bet law enacted as people scrambled to try and get a handle on the new paradigm when Zion first arrived, would result in anyone using them being classified, at least at first, as "Parahumans". That creates a Precedent, even if that precedent is flat-out wrong, and Precedent can be monumentally difficult to uproot once it sets in even after its shortfalls are realized and brought into the light.
 
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Okay, this has turned into a small but interesting argument. So let's try some worldbuilding, and see what people think.

Back when superheroes (or just Capes) were becoming a Thing, Cauldron stuck their oar into the American and European legal system to try and min-max the number of Capes out there for the final fight. One of the many things they did was to nail down the 'What Constitutes a Parahuman' rules; this basically boiled down to 'innate superpowers' (no loopholes for origin.) However, they faced serious opposition from one source; the US government. Or, to be more specific, the US Military, who were now contending with foreign Capes at home and abroad.

At the time, Cauldron expected the growth of Trigger Capes to be exponential; early statistics showed that the more Capes were about, the more triggers happened. And since there weren't too many cases of big Cape die-outs, they expected to see more and more Capes come into the world every year. To that end, although Cauldron made absolutely sure that actual Parahumans (individuals who underwent Trigger events or downed a Vial) had to turn to villainy or the Protectorate for honest work, they weren't nearly so stringent about 'Empowered Individuals;' folks whose mindsets were proven to be still human-normal, even if they'd been powered up by a Bio-Tinker, Trump, or beneficial Master. The US Military did their own research, and came to the conclusion that such individuals could be relied upon in combat settings where Capes would break, run, or get intensely belligerent.

What all this means is that if a person can legally document that they're not an actual Trigger Cape, any of their abilities and skills can still be used by Law Enforcement or the Military, if not the private sector. Thus, there is a legal precedent for individuals who are not 'real' Capes to not be available for Protectorate conscription. Granted, these laws have seen very little use, but there are a few 'future soldier' programs run by the Pentagon, and a small handful of Bonesaw and other bio-tinker creations which have been folded into special-response units of local law enforcement or the PRT.

Granted, for the purposes of this story, most of it is moot. Taylor is not a 'real' Cape, but is unlikely to advertise or even suggest this unless/until her position as a Cape is solidified in the eyes of the world anyway. Or the world has changed so much that she's not actually noticeable.
 
jmcdavid said:
Or Hermione gets the Legendary Shield during her time at Hogwarts.
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The Room of Requirement got a real workout that day.

Back to the world building post: So Cauldron could sell them vials as biological Tinker creations —the ones that would otherwise be mild case fifty threes.

Heh. Canary doing USO tours with a clone of Bob Hope.
 
Tale Swapper said:
What all this means is that if a person can legally document that they're not an actual Trigger Cape, any of their abilities and skills can still be used by Law Enforcement or the Military, if not the private sector. Thus, there is a legal precedent for individuals who are not 'real' Capes to not be available for Protectorate conscription. Granted, these laws have seen very little use, but there are a few 'future soldier' programs run by the Pentagon, and a small handful of Bonesaw and other bio-tinker creations which have been folded into special-response units of local law enforcement or the PRT.
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How would one go about Legally documenting not being a Trigger cape. The obvious fail test for this is if there are other Trigger capes around when you trigger, they all get dazed, so you could potentially have testimony, but that's got a pretty small range and only applies if someone triggers and immediately everyone notices it. There's potentially the case of "obvious bio-trigger creation, or empowered by a trump" but if Othala touches me and gives me invulnerability, and then I snort lightning out of my nose, it's pretty clear something else is up (because Othala's limit is one power per person at a time). By the same token, a cape like ... Newter, who's a big lizard who drugs people that touch his sweat, theoretically, a good enough bio-tinker could build a cape like him. How does one differentiate between Newter and Lizardlad, aside from the Omega tattoo, especially if the bio-tinker isn't around to provide testimony.
 
One thing to note is that, based on what Bonesaw mentions during her part of Worm and on what happened with Triumph, the Coronas are very likely to be much easier to find then most people give credit to. In particular, I'm pretty sure the vast majority of "unfindable" Coronas are comprised of Case 53s, especially the ones who don't have a standard body to search through.

Otherwise, there likely wouldn't be any sort of reliable test that could be used to prevent capes from entering sports.

There's also the fact that what made Bonesaw special when it comes to the Coronas wasn't that she could find Coronas that others couldn't; it was that she could figure out where a Parahuman's Coronas would be purely by observing their power in action, whereas practically everyone else needs to do a full MRI in order to learn where the Coronas are in any specific parahuman.
 
sunsunsunsunsun said:
How would one go about Legally documenting not being a Trigger cape. The obvious fail test for this is if there are other Trigger capes around when you trigger, they all get dazed, so you could potentially have testimony, but that's got a pretty small range and only applies if someone triggers and immediately everyone notices it. There's potentially the case of "obvious bio-trigger creation, or empowered by a trump" but if Othala touches me and gives me invulnerability, and then I snort lightning out of my nose, it's pretty clear something else is up (because Othala's limit is one power per person at a time). By the same token, a cape like ... Newter, who's a big lizard who drugs people that touch his sweat, theoretically, a good enough bio-tinker could build a cape like him. How does one differentiate between Newter and Lizardlad, aside from the Omega tattoo, especially if the bio-tinker isn't around to provide testimony.
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I... suppose the presence or absence of the Coronas? If I've osmosed my Worm Lore properly, the presence of a Corona Pollentia indicates potential to become a cape, while the presence of a Corona Gemma means you are a cape. If you've got powers but no Gemma, that means you aren't a trigger cape. If you've got powers but don't have either Corona, you definitely aren't a trigger cape. If you've got powers, a Gemma, but no Pollentia... well, some people would be very confused, but you definitely are a trigger cape.
 
Bezzerker said:
One thing to note is that, based on what Bonesaw mentions during her part of Worm and on what happened with Triumph, the Coronas are very likely to be much easier to find then most people give credit to. In particular, I'm pretty sure the vast majority of "unfindable" Coronas are comprised of Case 53s, especially the ones who don't have a standard body to search through.
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AmberSlime said:
I... suppose the presence or absence of the Coronas? If I've osmosed my Worm Lore properly, the presence of a Corona Pollentia indicates potential to become a cape, while the presence of a Corona Gemma means you are a cape. If you've got powers but no Gemma, that means you aren't a trigger cape. If you've got powers but don't have either Corona, you definitely aren't a trigger cape. If you've got powers, a Gemma, but no Pollentia... well, some people would be very confused, but you definitely are a trigger cape.
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The problem with that is that it's not enough to just notice the Pollentia
Torch 7.6 said:
But most of the time an unactivated corona is hard to tell apart from an activated one, and a surprising number of people have unactivated ones. Sometimes you look at them and the larger veins or structures suggest what the power is linked to."
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For someone who's obviously a parahuman, that wouldn't be an issue, they have powers, they have the brain structure, no dice. but That wouldn't really work for testing people for sports, unless you actually saw them using powers it could easily be a false positive.

Edit, also when it comes to "hard to find on c53s/mutated capes (theres no reason shards can't mutate people if they wanted, see Crawler/Animos(although he was a changer)) That's exactly the kind of thing that you would want this system for, because that's the most likely form for a bio-tinker creation to take.
 
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The Protectorate doesn't "conscript" anyone. What they do is offer membership in the Protectorate as an alternative to rotting in prison for some capes. That's what happened to Shadow Stalker in canon.

Unless that's different in your fic's timeline?
 
HatsuZ said:
The Protectorate doesn't "conscript" anyone. What they do is offer membership in the Protectorate as an alternative to rotting in prison for some capes. That's what happened to Shadow Stalker in canon.

Unless that's different in your fic's timeline?
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It's Lowercase c conscription. "you don't have to work for us, but using your powers working for anyone else is a crime." If you want to have a job as a cape, it's crime or the protectorate (at least in the US.)
 
HatsuZ said:
The Protectorate doesn't "conscript" anyone. What they do is offer membership in the Protectorate as an alternative to rotting in prison for some capes. That's what happened to Shadow Stalker in canon.

Unless that's different in your fic's timeline?
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From what I read, Conscript might not be quite the right word, true. Although there's some speculation/evidence that anyone triggering in the Military (Robin, AKA Velocity) essentially had his military contract handed over to the Protectorate after he triggered, the PRT doesn't conscript.

They do seem to amp up the pressure to join on any means necessary for any active cape that isn't explicitly a Villain, though we only see the manpower-strapped Brockton Bay branch. Conscription is my way of describing that process.
 
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