I never quite grasped why his powers were "fading." Was this something he was failing to understand about them, some internal self-doubt crippling them, or literally his powers losing juice?
The last one, IIRC. I think it was something like his power-output was getting lower. As in, he could, say, mimic a beam that Legend might make, but the amount of energy contained in that beam was getting lower and lower over time.
Regardless, "worthy opponents" aren't "overwhelmingly powerful compared to you." Even if they were "worthy" of the powers he had when he first gained them, the fact that his powers were fading meant they were way over the top by the time the story's going on. His shard isn't generating "worthy" opponents by any interpretation, if it is in fact creating them. Which is why I still question the assertion that it was about worthy opponents, and not something else.
Given that worth is typically subjective, and that it was Scion talking, I'm not putting a huge amout of stock in his phrasing. The basic meaning seems to be Eidolon's Shard created them as a challenge for him to overcome. And probably for other, secondary reasons, but the original impetus seems to have come from Eidolon and a desire to become stronger/fight challenging foes.
Because the Endbringers were winning in canon. They were doing more damage than strictly needed to be scary and monstrous. Hell, the golden Morning got triggered early exactly because waiting would cost more than it would gain as estimated by people with really good powers for estimating that.
...And? Humans are among the most resilient and adaptable creatures on the planet. The survival of the species doesn't require everything be happy fun times. It just requires enough people to maintain a sufficiently genetically diverse population for survival. I've said before I think that the Endbringers are basically riding the edge of pushing humanity into extinction, without any actual intent of crossing that line. If you're going to convince people, you have to play the part properly.
The way I see it Eidolon's power focused on one of Eidolon's needs, his want for 'worthy opponents' to fight. An opponent is not merely a scary training dummy, it is something that has goals that you can't live with. I think his shard never cared for his belief that 'humanity should continue existing' other than that it provided a good basis for motivating Eidolon to truly consider the Endbringers enemies.
And I'm pretty sure that's false. Humanity is all the Shards have left for survival and reproduction. They likely know Scion's inevitably going to slide from crippling depression into outright omnicidal destruction, and I don't think any of the Shards, be they his, Abaddon's, or Eden's, actually want that. If only because he seems to not give a damn about destroying Shards, too. Eventually, with nothing left to destroy, he'd end up destroying them, and thus, himself.
And even if you still believe that there was a contingency to prevent the Endbringers from exterminating humanity you need to remember that there was more humanity out there than just Earth Bet. Eidolon knew it, his shard knew it and the Simurgh was also perfectly well aware. For the purposes of the Endbringer/Eidolon thing Earth Bet was entirely expendable.
Yeah, but I doubt Eidolon would survive it's destruction. Conflict the Shards might desire, sure, but the death of their host is often not something they actively try and do (unless you're Leet). Eidolon's a pretty nice host for Selector/the High Priest. Not something to simply toss aside at a whim. Plus, it'd take
forever to get a new world into the correct state of disorder optimal for Shard improvement.
And no, I don't believe there's a 'contingency'. You're missing my point entirely. What I'm saying is that the Endbringers, as destructive as they were, were pulling their punches. In that they didn't wreck cities anywhere near as much as they might have, nor killed as many people as they might have. The reasons for this are probably complicated, but I think a lot of it is simply that death is a side-effect of their goals, and not their main purpose.
They clearly don't care if they kill individuals, but Behemoth could rendered cities completely uninhabitable, Leviathan could have wiped cities off the face of the earth entirely, and the Simurgh could have made a doomsday weapon and blown up the planet. And don't even get me started on Khonsu and the Twins.
As for the Endbringers being too tough for him to kill... That actually makes sense when you think on it. If he could destroy them they wouldn't keep being opponents. It also explains why the Endbringers were so much more powerful defensively than offensively. If the would swat him like a bug with their enormous powers that wouldn't do, but being unkillable so he could fight them over and over would.
Thing is, they still could have swatted his dumb ass like a bug. We've covered this before. There's tons of ways they could have wiped out humanity, Eidolon included, if that was their only goal and purpose. Instead, they made a spectical of their attacks, and ran off after taking a certain amount of damage. An amount probably nowhere near enough to actually threaten their Cores, might I add. So clear that wasn't their main goal.
It's not "Eidolon couldn't kill them" that makes me object to the notion that they're "worthy opponents" to him. It's that he can't deal with them, EVEN WITH EXTENSIVE BACKUP. He isn't pivotal in the fights with them, generally speaking. He isn't the one who stretches and finds the solution. He isn't the one whose arrival everybody hopes for. He isn't even singularly special in their encounters.
That Eidolon sucks isn't their problem, nor his Shard's. He wanted opponents that were a challenge, and he got them. In spades. You're really hung up on the precise phrasing Scion used, when that may not actually be indicative of the thought process behind the actions of his Shard.
Thus forcing him to truly fight with all he's got every time. If they were a match for him on his own, but only just, they'd get stomped when everyone else showed up. They are about giving Eidolon something to fight that is truly something he needs everything he's got for, not stroking his ego. He wants his powers back, not good PR.
Yep. They're meant to make him push his limits and creativity to the utmost to achieve his goals. Which is perfectly in-line with typical Shard motivation. If some people die in the process, well, that's the price of refinement of Capes. You're going to lose some who can't take the heat of the forge.
Except "needed worthy opponents" and "get his powers back" clearly aren't correlated. If anything, "needed his powers back" should have given him what is a common Administrator power for Taylor in these stories: control of the Endbringers.
It wouldn't take him curbstomping them by himself. Or even "just barely" winning by himself. What it takes is Eidolon being the pivotal figure in the Endbringer fights. The guy that everybody is hoping will show up. The guy who, when he shows up, turns the tide. Or the guy who is having to figure out the puzzle of this Endbringer attack, so he can find the right power combo to beat it. And, when he does, he is, again, the pivotal figure.
It's the fact that he's just one of many and it could just as easily be said to be Legend or Alexandria who "needs the challenge" for the level of role they all play in the fights that makes it feel so off to me.
Again, you're really hung up about the precise phrasing of Scion's statement. Eidolon's ego is not their concern, their concern is getting him to use his powers properly and creatively. Hell, they may have been trying to throw him hints with all the dead bodies. After all, he can use other people's Shards to recharge his batteries. And if they're dead, they don't need the Shards anymore.
...Well, that's an amusing mental image.
Behemoth: *throws a dead Cape at Eidolon* <TAKE THE BLOODY HINT ALREADY AND ABSORB THEIR POWER, YOU THICK WANKER!>
(Why is Behemoth British? I dunno. Just seems right, in this case.)
