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For all the comments about becoming used to Tornado/Hurricane/Landslides/etc, citizens of BB have us all beat. They've become used to living in what's essentially a war zone where near daily parahuman and/or nazi/asian incidents are the norm.

I can picture a normal BB family at an outdoor eatery in NYC while Legend and other protectorate members are fighting The Teeth nearby, and barely register there's a fight happening until it gets too close to their table. Then a member of The Teeth, who got a bit too close, gets clocked good and hard for a TKO by the dockworker *mother* who makes a comment about never forgetting what had been done in BB by Teeth just as she sits to resume her meal.

There's ready and able to deal with weird, then there's Broctonites who deal with weird before breakfast, bizarre before lunch and a teleporting serial suicide bomber after dinner. Jaded to the parahuman levels of BS just doesn't begin to cover it.

<<<obligatory story related comment>>>

Taylor's body makeover for her cape side persona is working out rather well. There will be some rather puzzled science types when it's finally revealed that not only is she a changer, but it's freeform to a great extent, and her natural body armor (carapace) is significantly better than anything available to the PRT AND Beardmasters power armor. If Dragon can reverse engineer it well enough to reproduce it, Taylor stands to make a fair amount of money from selling licenses to the patent.
 
japh said:
My preferred fanon is that she can control anything with a nervous system but no spinal cord. I guess the test would be to try a sea sponge or something similarly primitive.
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I tend to think 'animal, no spinal column, above a certain size.' She can do worms, but I've never heard of her controlling anything else without an exoskeleton with canon powers. The lower size limit is because she doesn't seem to register anything microscopic, like mites. No upper limit on her ability, but the shortage of eligible bugs above really big lobsters is usually the functional limitation.
 
PhoebusArtemis said:
Here's something that indicates otherwise.
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The wiki says otherwise again.


FaerieKnight79 said:
I've lived in Tornado Alley for most of my life. Do tornadoes worry me? You betcha. Do I take precautions? Absolutely, if one has actually been sighted. Do I run around like a headless chicken when the sirens go off or a Tornado Watch is announced? Nope.
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Yes, but that's not the point. The point is that your tornado alert shouldn't wake up or disturb people in Italy for no reason.


Assembler Maniac said:
For all the comments about becoming used to Tornado/Hurricane/Landslides/etc, citizens of BB have us all beat. They've become used to living in what's essentially a war zone where near daily parahuman and/or nazi/asian incidents are the norm.
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I would say a lot of that is fanon. All out cape fights are rare and everyone tries to avoid collateral damage (except perhaps Lung and Butcher) because no one wants to escalate. Ruling over a pile of rubble isn't profitable either. You also don't want to destroy businesses or make the city too dangerous for people (especially tourists) because if everyone leaves and stays away, then who are you going to sell drugs to? Who would buy the company of your prostitutes? Who'd you squeeze for protection money?

Gangs are parasites but killing the host would mean they'd have to move on to another city and those already have their own parasites.

Ideologically, the E88 and ABB style themselves as protectors of their people. It would look really bad if they destroyed their own neighbourhoods.

If Brockton Bay was so dangerous, then people wouldn't live there. Sure, a significant percentage might not be able to afford to move but at a certain point survival trumps money.

If the city was so dangerous, then kids wouldn't go to school by their own. Teenage girls and young women wouldn't walk around alone. And if we look at canon Worm, life in Brockton Bay is being depicted as fairly normal. The jaded acceptance of "oh yeah, this area is being ruled by a villain" sets in post-Leviathan and is something the people who left and now returned don't really understand.

A few years ago I wrote up a long analysis of certain crimes and alleged behaviour of gangs in BB and why that wouldn't be possible outside of a grimderp story, especially when canon shows basically nothing of it and fans just made everything so much worse in their fics... but that's taking things too far for this thread I guess.


japh said:
My preferred fanon is that she can control anything with a nervous system but no spinal cord. I guess the test would be to try a sea sponge or something similarly primitive.
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It's just an arbitrary selection based on what Taylor sees as "bug". The shard doesn't need to be scientific about it, it can purely go by looks. Technically it could control anything it wants, up to humans. The power expression is really just based on a teenage girl's "ick" factor. ;)
 
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japh said:
My preferred fanon is that she can control anything with a nervous system but no spinal cord. I guess the test would be to try a sea sponge or something similarly primitive.
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I am reminded of @Ack's One More Trigger, where 'Ladybug' described her ability in much that fashion during a news interview. The interviewer then asked if that meant she could control politicians. She replied that they had to have a brain for her to control them.
 
Daemion said:
Yes, but that's not the point. The point is that your tornado alert shouldn't wake up or disturb people in Italy for no reason.
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Said tornado alert also doesn't require a global response right now in order to try (in vain) to prevent yet another city from being destroyed by a hostile monster. Locals will get alerts on their phones, local radio stations will broadcast the alert, and local television will also broadcast it. The sirens are to ensure the warning gets out to people the other methods don't or can't reach.

The endbringer sirens have two purposes. The first is to warn people where the attack is occurring to evacuate right the fuck now to the nearest Endbringer shelter. The other is to rally defenders everywhere else right the fuck now to try fighting off the endbringer.

A tornado siren has one purpose, to warn those in hearing range to get to shelter because a tornado has been spotted. This means if a tornado has been spotted in Dubuque County, Iowa... people in Chicago Illinois have no need to be alerted. On the other hand, if Behemoth was attacking Dubuque County, Iowa, the alert would need to be given in places other then Dubuque County in order to rally defenders. And no assumptions can be made that everyone who needs to receive the alert has a working (and turned on) cell phone, radio (that's turned on and tuned into a local station), access to a working TV, or other means of getting the alert. Even worse, authorities have no contact information for a large percentage of the people who need to be alerted so they can rally for the Endbringer attack. Or do you really think Supervillains are going to hand out their contact information so they can be added to the phone notifications being sent out? Yes, you send out the alert via notifications on phones when you can, over the radio, and on TV as well. But you ALSO have the sirens so people without instant access to the other methods also get the alert.

This would also be why the Endbringer sirens would by necessity have to have two siren patterns. One distinctive one for "attack is local" and another distinctive one for "attack is elsewhere". That way people who hear the sirens know instantly which is the case and thus can take appropriate action.
 
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nathnathn said:
Too add to this their probably based on ww2 air raid sirens of which most were left in place to decay and only had parts removed if needed for construction projects.
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Plenty of them have been repurposed. In the Midwest, they're used for tornado warnings and in areas with volunteer fire companies, they're often used to alert firefighters to respond. In the latter case, they may be used in addition to pagers.

View: https://youtu.be/PjcIs8FGrUE?si=9rwLkH6MwboiJZf2
 
kuopiofi said:
You're getting into canon argument instead of this story, so you might want tp move it to canon thread.
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Maybe really loud bugs, which if scaled-up would be siren (or louder) levels, might be more relevant?

If Taylor could pull this off, 'shock and awe' attacks, with a visual and sonic element, might be quite feasible?
(Probably... best to leave the stink-bug side of things alone...)
 
kuopiofi said:
You're getting into canon argument instead of this story, so you might want tp move it to canon thread.
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I think you're missing a bit of context. In the last chapter Endbringer Alert sirens sounded in Brockton Bay, with the attack being in Canberra, Australia. This lead to someone complaining about how there shouldn't have been any sirens at all because all the alerts would be done via phones. I, along with others, then pointed out how warning sirens are actually used in the real world, and why they are still used. Next, the claim was made using alarm siren alerts in other locations is unrealistic due to it just "waking up and scaring" people. This lead to my pointing out the differences between using an alert siren for local tornado warnings in the wrong location and using alert sirens to rally defenders for a kaiju attack elsewhere are not the same thing.

None of this is arguing about canon. It's arguing about the actual purpose for and validity of the warning system that was shown to be used in this very story. In fact, here is the relevant part of the last chapter.

mp3.1415player said:
The next morning, she jolted away to a sound she recognized instantly. Everyone recognized that sound instantly.

Her father appeared at her door a moment later, his expression grim. He came into her room and both of them sat and listened to the Endbringer sirens blare the distinctive tone and pattern indicating someone, somewhere in the world, was having the worst, and likely last, day of their life.

When they fell silent, he had his arm around her. "I'm glad you didn't feel you needed to rush off and help," he whispered, his face sad but relieved.

"What could I do to an Endbringer, dad? I'm not a hero, I'm just learning about things." Taylor shrugged helplessly "My powers aren't useful for fighting those monsters. I'd just end up dead. Like so many others do."

She scowled. "Fucking Endbringers. I wish there was a way to stop the damned things."

"So do I Taylor. So do I. Everyone does."
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Assembler Maniac said:
For all the comments about becoming used to Tornado/Hurricane/Landslides/etc, citizens of BB have us all beat.
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Well yeah. That kicked off due to someone thinking that humans wouldn't be able to get used to the Endbringer sirens going off every three months. The example I brought up was Tornado sirens, which can be outright slept through.
Daemion said:
Yes, but that's not the point. The point is that your tornado alert shouldn't wake up or disturb people in Italy for no reason.
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I'd say that FaerieKnight79 covered all the points to this, so I'll just say that I agree with what was said in that reply.
 
TypoNinja said:
How nasty is ClF3?
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To point out an issue with the assessment in the story, ClF3 is the most powerful oxidizer that does not near instantly decompose above low cryogenic temperatures known to man. It is a far more powerful oxidizer then hydrogen peroxide. It is causes instant self ignition with virtually anything not protected by a layer of fluorine salts. It's reaction products are generally acidic, toxic, or both. The fires it causes will not stop until it is entirely consumed.

The thing is, while ClF3 is an extreme case, all of the above is also true of most reactive fluorine compounds to some degree or another. If there weren't traces of hydrogen peroxide breakdown products, one might think a pure (if stronger) reactive fluorine based compound was at play.

Fluorine is the single most powerful elemental oxidizer, full stop. Any chemicals made from it are either stable to the point of being virtually non-reactive, or make the fluorine loose it's, as one chemist put it, gentle and forgiving nature. In other words, fluorine chemistry is scary, no other oxidizers needed.
 
Jacen1 said:
To point out an issue with the assessment in the story, ClF3 is the most powerful oxidizer that does not near instantly decompose above low cryogenic temperatures known to man. It is a far more powerful oxidizer then hydrogen peroxide. It is causes instant self ignition with virtually anything not protected by a layer of fluorine salts. It's reaction products are generally acidic, toxic, or both. The fires it causes will not stop until it is entirely consumed.

The thing is, while ClF3 is an extreme case, all of the above is also true of most reactive fluorine compounds to some degree or another. If there weren't traces of hydrogen peroxide breakdown products, one might think a pure (if stronger) reactive fluorine based compound was at play.

Fluorine is the single most powerful elemental oxidizer, full stop. Any chemicals made from it are either stable to the point of being virtually non-reactive, or make the fluorine loose it's, as one chemist put it, gentle and forgiving nature. In other words, fluorine chemistry is scary, no other oxidizers needed.
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This is entirely true as far as it goes. But fluorine-based acids, as far as I'm generally aware, don't act as oxidisers as much as they act as dissolve-anything-while-killing-you solutions. Hydrofluoric acid doesn't make glass go whoomp in flames, it makes it go away with a fizz :)

Elemental fluorine, sure, that oxidizes far better than oxygen does, being much more reactive, and chlorine trifluoride is even worse, if you can imagine that. In the case of fluorosulfuric acid, adding the 90%+ H2O2 to it, and somehow stopping the mixture instantly exploding, gives you the best of both worlds! A superacid that eats almost anything and releases incredibly toxic gasses, pure oxygen in copious quantities, lots of heat to make sure they react nicely together and with whatever's left... And of course some cool biological neurotoxins on top of that just to make sure the point is well and truly rammed home should you encounter something the rest doesn't deal with :D

Taylor's superhornet venom is a touch over the top, it has to be admitted. There's a reason she's trying to find something that's a little less lethal...
 
Jacen1 said:
luorine chemistry is scary, no other oxidizers needed.
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Humans is chemistry. They'd be strongly recommended to respect chemistry, even if they don't understand it?

Might we wonder, just how good a chemist Taylor will be once she gets really thoroughly into her 'what can i get bugs (or their venom) to do?' studies?
 
mp3.1415player said:
This is entirely true as far as it goes. But fluorine-based acids, as far as I'm generally aware, don't act as oxidisers as much as they act as dissolve-anything-while-killing-you solutions. Hydrofluoric acid doesn't make glass go whoomp in flames, it makes it go away with a fizz :)

Elemental fluorine, sure, that oxidizes far better than oxygen does, being much more reactive, and chlorine trifluoride is even worse, if you can imagine that. In the case of fluorosulfuric acid, adding the 90%+ H2O2 to it, and somehow stopping the mixture instantly exploding, gives you the best of both worlds! A superacid that eats almost anything and releases incredibly toxic gasses, pure oxygen in copious quantities, lots of heat to make sure they react nicely together and with whatever's left... And of course some cool biological neurotoxins on top of that just to make sure the point is well and truly rammed home should you encounter something the rest doesn't deal with :D

Taylor's superhornet venom is a touch over the top, it has to be admitted. There's a reason she's trying to find something that's a little less lethal...
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I'm guessing the the fluorosulfuric acid is housed in some insanely complex organic molecules which are kept separate from H2O2 so they don't break apart until they are needed, that said molecules and their byproducts are themselves toxic is a bonus.
 
Mr_Rose said:
So she can probably kill Acid Bath too? I mean he's already Caged but yeah.
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Possibly its the ones that haven't been caught that she needs to be particularly concerned about? Like, say, 'The Lyer' ('lye' as in alkali...)

("Why is lye worse than acid?" "Acid doesn't turn you into soap.")
 
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I'm somewhat sad that Taylor hasn't looked further than venom for produced materials. Like, what do her bonuses do to other organically created compounds? There's the obvious one in various spider and worm silks, but what about the mulched up stuff+saliva compounds and various other materials bees and wasps make for their hives? Or the other various 'glues' produced by insects. Or hell, even how her powers would effect the shed 'hairs' of a trantula would be interesting. Or the 'scales' of a moth- though she hasn't yet acquired any of the later.

So many other cool possible material modifications...
 
Aojae said:
I'm somewhat sad that Taylor hasn't looked further than venom for produced materials. Like, what do her bonuses do to other organically created compounds? There's the obvious one in various spider and worm silks, but what about the mulched up stuff+saliva compounds and various other materials bees and wasps make for their hives? Or the other various 'glues' produced by insects. Or hell, even how her powers would effect the shed 'hairs' of a trantula would be interesting. Or the 'scales' of a moth- though she hasn't yet acquired any of the later.

So many other cool possible material modifications...
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Give the poor girl a chance! She doesn't have a helpful Greater Demon providing aid, and even her own power doesn't know how the fuck she's pulling all this off :)
 
Aojae said:
I'm somewhat sad that Taylor hasn't looked further than venom for produced materials. Like, what do her bonuses do to other organically created compounds? There's the obvious one in various spider and worm silks, but what about the mulched up stuff+saliva compounds and various other materials bees and wasps make for their hives? Or the other various 'glues' produced by insects. Or hell, even how her powers would effect the shed 'hairs' of a trantula would be interesting. Or the 'scales' of a moth- though she hasn't yet acquired any of the later.

So many other cool possible material modifications...
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She already started doing that with her armor. She just used limpet teeth to improve her armor. And she's been modifying the chemicals used in her gamer lights to increase brightness and variety of wavelength.
 
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