Transposition, or: Ship Happens [Worm/Aoki Hagane no Arpeggio | Arpeggio of Blue Steel]

I was surprised that with all the images and comparisons people were throwing around to other series, and especially Gunnm, nobody brought up the topic of amnesia, even with brain damage being practically guaranteed.
Well, after you'd made a comment a while back about Lisa not having to deal with the Ship of Theseus problem, I pretty much guessed this is what would be happening.

Didn't bring it up because I remembered the salt about people wanting Lisa to live or die, and didn't want to start it back up again.
 
I can't wait to see the blue screening that will result from the ship graveyard going *poof*.
Really? That's what you are waiting for? You're not waiting for the blue screening from people figuring out that the Super Secret Tinker behind Relentless's gear has come out in the open because "zomg look at those ships they are building and they have Relentless's glyphs!" ?

Or, even better, how long is it going to take before Vista stops by to talk to the "only person" who treats her with respect? I mean this absolutely cannot be misinterpreted as Relentless getting ready to start her own super-powered team or anything.

On another note I'm starting to wonder if Ensou isn't actively trying to kill Datcord ..
 
Two months. Two. Months.

Just had to remind myself that I wouldn't be a stick figure for too much longer.
In those same two months Taylor could very likely be well on her way to converting the entirety of Mercury into nanomaterials and then into a starlifter.

Cue Leah: "Okay, Taylor, you're harvesting five hundred terajoules of energy from the Sun per hour; why are you still frowning?"
"Because I've still got another two weeks before I can be a B-cup."
"*sigh*"
Oh, I'm just waiting for Coils mercs to attempt a kidnapping.
Bwahahahaha.
Taylor's refusal to replace her house, Dad's car, and maybe most of his office with nanomaterial duplicates makes this still shockingly likely to succeed, at least for now.
 
Lisa very much did choose to be a petty thief and to tear people down for her amusement before Coil
Oh noes, teenage rebellion and living on the streets.
While she did choose it, it's not some grand insight in her character.
Roughly similar speeds there...
Funny thing is, AoBS humanity build submarine that can go 110 knots with supercavitaion, but VERY limited by fuel.
In other words, Fog Tech allows a battleship to approach the speed of a light aircraft while dealing with water pressure...
Somebody calced that there enough power for archiving escape velocity if she choose to go up.
That's anime. Manga is 100 knots above or below.
Cite? I can't find speed feats for manga.
EDIT, nevermind, Haruna listed as 100kn in her glossary entry.
 
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Not sure how extensive Cauldron's influence really is, and how invested they are in certain things being the way they are.

It's fairly extensive, though in generally subtle ways. For a glimpse of a non-PtV/Cauldron world, take a look at what Eden was pathing in the Eden/Contessa interlude - warlords everywhere, everything in African/South American territorial fragments, no central organization, etc. The tl;dr is that as sucky as everything is, the semblance of modern society exists solely due to Cauldron shenanigans.

The impending collapse of that semblance and the loss of what little cooperation there was is why Cauldron wanted Jack Slash to kick off the apocalypse - they had a better chance of pulling off a Hail Mary now than in 20 years.

Really, it's the kind of thing that nobody living in that situation would question because it all seemed to build up from other events. It takes an external perspective (or someone working from tabula rasa) to spot the fact that this isn't how things should've progressed. From that angle, Leah is absolutely the right (wrong) person in the right (wrong) situation to trace it back.

As for how much Cauldron cares - probably not that much. The sheer number of Cauldron capes mean they're a "secret" with hundreds or thousands of co-conspirators aware of various pieces. They just don't want it publicized.

Hell, I can just imagine them dropping off pamphlets to anyone who figures out the game: So You've Spotted the Great Conspiracy: Mitigating the Collapse of Modern Society
 
Cue Leah: "Okay, Taylor, you're harvesting five hundred terajoules of energy from the Sun per hour; why are you still frowning?"
"Because I've still got another two weeks before I can be a B-cup."
"*sigh*"
That timeline was set to look like it's just a sudden-but-plausible visit from the puberty fairy rather than actual physical capabilities, though. She could have had herself looking like a supermodel roughly a hundredth of a second after getting full control over her nanomaterial body, but she does still want to keep a separate civilian identity after all.
 
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Not sure how extensive Cauldron's influence really is, and how invested they are in certain things being the way they are. But that's because rule-of-thumb WoG seems to be to blame them for everything ever, and that's kind of ridiculous.

It doesn't have to be obvious for Tattletale to notice. Having Leah take a fresh look at things was a very nice explanation for suddenly putting things together.
 
I would expect Leah to quickly recover a few memories as her brain makes new connections to undamaged cells. Teenage brains tend to have high neuroplasticity. After the first week or two, that should taper off as the brain stops rapidly compensating for the damage.
 
She could have had herself looking like a supermodel roughly a hundredth of a second after getting full control over her nanomaterial body, but she does still want to keep a separate civilian identity after all.
Given that Lisa, was, if not vain, but definitely liked to look good, and now, without not only civilian identity, but any at all... Will she keep her body shape to old standard, or decide to... upgrade?
 
Good chapter! T'was fun! I do hope Tats/Leah does start to recover more of her memories as time goes on but it would be far from a deal breaker if she didn't. Leah is fine too!

As for... Well... Stealing the entire boat graveyard and port...

First? I want to see reactions. Then?

Then I want to see consequences.

Because this is going to put several large swarms of angry hornets in the headware of more than a few large and important movers and shakers, in Brockton and elsewhere.

So let's see what happens next~!
 
As for how much Cauldron cares - probably not that much. The sheer number of Cauldron capes mean they're a "secret" with hundreds or thousands of co-conspirators aware of various pieces. They just don't want it publicized.
There is no chance that there are "hundreds of thousands" of Cauldron capes: even if Doctor Mother made one every hour, twelve hours a day, 365 days a year, for two decades that'd be ~87,000 capes, and we know they don't even have a fraction of that because they spent a lot of their time on Case 53s, the Nemesis program, extreme vetting procedures, and generally sitting around twirling their mustaches.
 
[{(Only reason I'm typing this out is because the System deleted my Multiquote >_<. This would actually be shorter if that didn't happen T_T)}]
Huh, surprised how well that went, expected her to barely be able to walk let alone talk especially from memory loss and brain damage (everything is currently thrown off especially since humans need their imperfections to function after their minds have adapted to compensation, perfecting the body means rehabilitation). Although with her Hippocampus damaged that means Tattletale is effectively dead but since she has opinions of herself that depend on personal feelings that means the Amygdala (source of emotion and instinct) is still intact since the Hippocampus is both the source of consciousness and identity, if the memories get destroyed then the identity is as well.

This also raises some questions: she now neither needs to sleep nor can she get headaches since her body isn't only artificial but it would need to constantly repair ifself to not break while being used, doesn't this mean she can use her power constantly without pain and now not need to sleep? It would also raise questions regarding how that would affect her memories given sleep is required to transfer short term memories into long term memories (hence dreams which is this transference process).

Also I see Leah is a combination of Lisa and Sarah and she's investigating Cauldron ([CONTESSA INTERRUPT] give her an Omega Tramp Stamp and dump her in Kansas). I imagine she looks like a silver skeleton with black tubes and artificial muscles.
Tell me what you think?
[Joke]
[/Joke]
That's Death of the Endless. She's adorable.
 
There is no chance that there are "hundreds of thousands" of Cauldron capes: even if Doctor Mother made one every hour, twelve hours a day, 365 days a year, for two decades that'd be ~87,000 capes, and we know they don't even have a fraction of that because they spent a lot of their time on Case 53s, the Nemesis program, extreme vetting procedures, and generally sitting around twirling their mustaches.
Read again - it says hundreds or thousands, not hundreds of thousands.
 
Eheh, see what you did here.
Ok first of all: kinda called it. I said there was a chance that Lisa wouldn't be Lisa anymore. Second of all:
Was she even still Tattletale if she couldn't remember being her?
This is not your everyday transhumanism. This is... Advanced transhumanism. Lisa... Leah is, for all intents and purposes, a new biomechanical lifeform.
And this line simply broke my heart. I just can't help but hear her as a child watching the recording her mother did on Halloween when she dressed up as Wonder Woman or something. I know the tone is not that, but to me it is.

And so finally, after almost two years and 90k words, finally the title held true. Finally, ship happened.

Edit: reading other comments I can't help but think: why do y'all think the amnesia is just a coping mechanism? Do I need to remind you Lisa's brain went for an uncomfortable amount of time without oxygen and nutrients?
 
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The impending collapse of that semblance and the loss of what little cooperation there was is why Cauldron wanted Jack Slash to kick off the apocalypse - they had a better chance of pulling off a Hail Mary now than in 20 years.

Really, it's the kind of thing that nobody living in that situation would question because it all seemed to build up from other events. It takes an external perspective (or someone working from tabula rasa) to spot the fact that this isn't how things should've progressed. From that angle, Leah is absolutely the right (wrong) person in the right (wrong) situation to trace it back.

As for how much Cauldron cares - probably not that much. The sheer number of Cauldron capes mean they're a "secret" with hundreds or thousands of co-conspirators aware of various pieces. They just don't want it publicized.

Hell, I can just imagine them dropping off pamphlets to anyone who figures out the game: So You've Spotted the Great Conspiracy: Mitigating the Collapse of Modern Society

Because letting the S-class humans walk around without dropping tactical nukes on them somehow helps Cauldron get more capes.
RRRIIIIGGGGGHHHHHHTTTTTT.

The "Get Jack to trigger Scion" seems very much like a "oh shit, things changed in a way PTV did not originally path, ex post facto justification of letting the Nine run loose achieved, WOOT!" for Contessa.

Read again - it says hundreds or thousands, not hundreds of thousands.

And letting the S9 run around in a time when the path didn't involve them killed how many otherwise potentially useful capes?
Seriously, if they were trying to keep civilization afloat, they did it in a really quite inefficient way.
 
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