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Vespa

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If they did that, Danny could also be mistaken for a bio tinker and either getting killed or bringing Taylor's activities to light, resulting in her getting killed? Maybe it's better to not set Danny up with a talking glow spider as a secretary. That's the exact opposite of "low profile" after all.
 
"Some transformers and switch gear would need to be replaced, but those were mostly items the city kept in stock for backup reasons,"
Says something that entire categories of the larger scale grid level transformers notably have no spares maintained at all in RL.

"In reference to the laptop"
You would put a laptop in checked in luggage?
These days I wouldn't put any tech in checked in but even in the past when putting a PC tower in your luggage and it not breaking was reasonable I wouldn't of put a laptop in checked in.

""I won't infest anywhere, Dad," she replied indignantly. "I do not infest. I improve.""
For some reason this makes me think of legions "geth do no infiltrate" "intentionally" line.
 
nathnathn said:
"Some transformers and switch gear would need to be replaced, but those were mostly items the city kept in stock for backup reasons,"
Says something that entire categories of the larger scale grid level transformers notably have no spares maintained at all in RL.
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Methinks he isn't thinking about those, but the smaller substation transformers designed to handle individual or clusters of neighborhoods, rather than any of the ones that would be there to service the entire city.
 
jgkitarel said:
Methinks he isn't thinking about those, but the smaller substation transformers designed to handle individual or clusters of neighborhoods, rather than any of the ones that would be there to service the entire city.
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ISTR a figure of three years being quoted to replace all the blown kit if a coronal mass ejection (CME) like the Carrington Event (1859) hits the USA...

If canon Bakuda's big EMP bomb had hit the East Coast it was suggested it'd have similar effects to a CME.

Hmm. Could drider silk with conductive carbon in it act as power transmission cable? Some sort of bug act as a transformer???
(electrical, not 'Spiders In Disguise!')
 
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Aineko said:
Graphite in the correct orientation is pretty conductive, but still much less so that copper. Like, orders of magnitude less it looks like?
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You can (IRL) 3d print circuits using special conductive carbon filament (typically you need 2+ print heads, maybe plus a component pick-and-place system). Needs to be thicker than copper wire, of course. Filament with high silver content is a (expensive) alternative.

Aluminium has been used for power cables - needs to be thicker, but it's cheaper than copper. The properties of drider fibre seem a lot more impressive than simply scaled-up silk should be. Graphite drider silk might be quite a good conductor if that's what Taylor went for?

Maybe Taylor could drider-3d-print circuits, if that interested her???

EDIT:

We might be tempted to claim the shard (alien) tech-libraries include details on structuring carbon nanotubes to produce very good conductors. How good, difficult to say, but 'good enough for power cables' doesn't seem unreasonable?
 
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Ace Dreamer said:
Aluminium has been used for power cables - needs to be thicker, but it's cheaper than copper. The properties of drider fibre seem a lot more impressive than simply scaled-up silk should be. Graphite drider silk might be quite a good conductor if that's what Taylor went for?
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Graphite-filled drider silk would be a pretty awful conductor unless you invoke shard bullshit (at which point, well, the conductivity is due to shard bullshit, not due to graphite).

Optimally oriented pure graphite is 30 times less conductive than pure iron, which in turn is nearly four times less conductive than aluminium (which is slightly less conductive than gold, and two-thirds as conductive as copper).

A carbon-filled polymer (whether the filler is graphite or carbon black) is going to be worse than that.
 
With how crazy the HOUS's venom is, I don't think it's a stretch to say that the driders would be able to weave copper or some kind of organic superconductor into their thread.
 
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Ooooo, Taylor might be able to leverage her materials science along with browbeating QA a bit, and actually spin superconducting cable. That would let her make anything from hair diameter up to industrial power cables.

Armsmaster and Dragon would pay significant amounts of $$$$ to get as little as 100ft of it. And with Taylor able to spin 1000ft of the restraint cables, 100ft wouldn't be an issue.
 
*sighs*
And again people are advocating Taylor providing quite blatant evidence there is a biotinker in Brockton Bay. Something which likely to end up with Piggot signing a kill order as a reflexive action, if not getting the city added to the PRT Quarintine Location list. Why do people hate Taylor so much?

Yes, it might be possible. But providing clear evidence of a biotinker to the PRT or gangs is something Taylor is trying to AVOID doing.

EDIT:
I get it, I really do. People come up with a really neat idea for something Taylor can do. Then they come up with what sounds like an amusing way to use that neat idea. But people need to stop, take a step back, and think about what the consequences for their Amusing Use of a Neat Idea would be. This is a setting where Blasto, who's considered a joke, has a kill order just waiting for a signature for if he ever crosses a line (even accidentally). A setting where Amy Dallon is a well regarded healer, but got thrown in an inescapable prison for the crime of revealing she's not just a healer... even though said biotinkering was done to save lives.
 
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FaerieKnight79 said:
*sighs*
And again people are advocating Taylor providing quite blatant evidence there is a biotinker in Brockton Bay. Something which likely to end up with Piggot signing a kill order as a reflexive action, if not getting the city added to the PRT Quarintine Location list. Why do people hate Taylor so much?

Yes, it might be possible. But providing clear evidence of a biotinker to the PRT or gangs is something Taylor is trying to AVOID doing.

EDIT:
I get it, I really do. People come up with a really neat idea for something Taylor can do. Then they come up with what sounds like an amusing way to use that neat idea. But people need to stop, take a step back, and think about what the consequences for their Amusing Use of a Neat Idea would be. This is a setting where Blasto, who's considered a joke, has a kill order just waiting for a signature for if he ever crosses a line (even accidentally). A setting where Amy Dallon is a well regarded healer, but got thrown in an inescapable prison for the crime of revealing she's not just a healer... even though said biotinkering was done to save lives.
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Decent points all around, but that's assuming A. Piggot would go nuclear, and B. They'd be able to find Taylor in the first place.

She could easily designate random drop points throughout the city for Armsy/Dragon to pick up test materials without ANYONE ever seeing her.
 
Which still requires
A. revealing there's a bio tinker
and
B. contacting the Protectorate in a way that can likely be used to find her
and
C. Piggot to NOT go nuclear upon realizing there is a biotinker in the Bay despite being one of the few survivors of Elissburg and that trauma having already convinced her all parahumans are monsters just waiting to prove it to others.

A bio tinker is likely to be something which would get Piggot the resources to scour the city to find them. And that's assuming that the city doesn't get walled in or targeted with an ICBM or five, just to be sure. Especially now that the linchpin of Cauldron's idiotic social experiment is dead.
 
Assembler Maniac said:
Armsmaster and Dragon would pay significant amounts of $$$$ to get as little as 100ft of it. And with Taylor able to spin 1000ft of the restraint cables, 100ft wouldn't be an issue.
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Muggle industrial processes can also spin 1000s of feet if cable already. That does not lead to them automatically being able to create a hundred feet of superconducting cable with no issue.
Assembler Maniac said:
She could easily designate random drop points throughout the city for Armsy/Dragon to pick up test materials without ANYONE ever seeing her.
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Oh, so telling everyone there is a random anonymous biotinker in the city will cause no reaction at all? What are you smoking?
 
A couple reminders from this story.

mp3.1415player said:
"As to its origin we can only currently speculate," Armsmaster commented after no one else seemed to come up with anything. "It being the result of a Biotinker is plausible, but in my view less likely. The exhibited abilities, as Professor Brooks stated, strongly imply Parahuman powers are being utilized. While there have been cases of Biotinkered constructs having unusual abilities themselves, nothing on record has shown results that match what the evidence we so far have suggests. I can't rule it out but I'd put it as the less likely scenario for now."
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The E88 had mirrored this thought process rather closely. So the primary argument currently that Brockton Bay isn't host to a bio-tinker is the HOUS's size and capabilities.

mp3.1415player said:
"And if we do find where the bug is?" Alabaster asked. "What then?"

"If it's a Master, we make an offer they can't refuse," Max replied in a low voice. "Same with a Case 53. I'm sure we can come to an arrangement."

"If it's a Biotinker?"

"Burn them to the ground and salt the earth," he said immediately. "I do not want a repeat of Ellisburg. Not even a lunatic would."
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And this here gives ample reason for why Taylor is trying to not give clear evidence that there is a bio-tinker in the area. Not even Kaiser is willing to entertain the idea of one living in Brockton Bay. If he had any proof one exists, and suspected they are hiding in the Docks area, the docks would be collateral damage. And the PRT would be likely to help out.
 
Hmm. Would the PRT make a distinction between a 'Changer: YES!', and a Biotinker? Being able to learn from the abilities of living creatures, and add their distinctiveness to your own, isn't bio-Tinkering...

So, might Taylor be safe-ish as long as Kenta doesn't let on he saw a AGH and a JGH, at the same time? And's pretty sure they both speak?

(Taylor claiming becoming a parahuman made her into twins? Well, with Vespa, that sorta happened...)
 
Since Taylor is making new insects? Such as her glow spiders, drillipedes, and the like? The specifics of how she does it don't matter, she's a bio-tinker because creating new creatures that don't appear in nature is the end result.

EDIT:
Remember, the catagories (and PRT threat rating) isn't based on the mechanics of what you do, it's based on the end result how one faces it.
 
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PossiblyEnos said:
Assembler Maniac said:
Armsmaster and Dragon would pay significant amounts of $$$$ to get as little as 100ft of it. And with Taylor able to spin 1000ft of the restraint cables, 100ft wouldn't be an issue.
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Muggle industrial processes can also spin 1000s of feet if cable already. That does not lead to them automatically being able to create a hundred feet of superconducting cable with no issue.
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Except we already know that once Taylor figures out how to make a given type of 'silk', she can produce as much as she wants. It's only a matter of being able to source the necessary materials to make it, and I suspect some of those materials are shard created. Or at least she *thinks* they're created by her power, but we don't know WHAT power is making her able do pull of some of this stuff.

PossiblyEnos said:
Assembler Maniac said:
She could easily designate random drop points throughout the city for Armsy/Dragon to pick up test materials without ANYONE ever seeing her.
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Oh, so telling everyone there is a random anonymous biotinker in the city will cause no reaction at all? What are you smoking?
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It's not like she's gonna go announcing this to the world. If PRT/Guild wants test & use samples, they'll have to leave her a message. Just writing it out on a sheet of paper in Colin's office would be a good start. :)

And what part of any of this screams bio-tinker? For all the PRT knows, Taylor is an exceptionally gifted Mech Tinker specializing in insect/arachnid forms.
 
Assembler Maniac said:
Except we already know that once Taylor figures out how to make a given type of 'silk', she can produce as much as she wants. It's only a matter of being able to source the necessary materials to make it, and I suspect some of those materials are shard created. Or at least she *thinks* they're created by her power, but we don't know WHAT power is making her able do pull of some of this stuff.


It's not like she's gonna go announcing this to the world. If PRT/Guild wants test & use samples, they'll have to leave her a message. Just writing it out on a sheet of paper in Colin's office would be a good start. :)

And what part of any of this screams bio-tinker? For all the PRT knows, Taylor is an exceptionally gifted Mech Tinker specializing in insect/arachnid forms.
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What screams bio-tinker? Nothing, yet. Taylor has left no concrete evidence that bio-tinkering is potentially involved where anyone can find it. But custom biological materials used in the form of arachnid webbing would be definitive proof.

Note, there is no real evidence yet there is a bio-tinker out there. Or how to contact them. Why would Dragon or Armsmaster be leaving notes in an office be used to submit an order? Also, why would they order a theoretical material from a suspected bio-tinker instead of putting in the effort to find this bio-tinker they apparently must have evidence exists? Bio-tinkers in Worm have a really bad reputation. As in "pre-filled kill order just waiting for a signature" or "you're automatically guilty, no trial, have a one way trip to the birdcage even though you're a highly respected healer" level of bad reputation. The only thing worse would be admitting to being a human master.
 
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Did anyone argue against it? At all? "I accidentally mastered someone when they touched me after I told them not to" was, as far as I'm aware, a minor reason for her being jailed. The main reason was "OMG, she's actually a bio-tinker who healed her adoptive family (at the cost of breaking her no-brains rule), negated the prion plague Bonesaw created, and stopped Crawler!"
 
Which was very much the philosphy of Worm...

Save the day, get punished or killed for it, the true villains walk off smiling.

Very similar to HP, in fact :)
 
Ace Dreamer said:
So, might Taylor be safe-ish as long as Kenta doesn't let on he saw a AGH and a JGH, at the same time? And's pretty sure they both speak?
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He already did it, he wrote about it on PHO. Yes, no one believed him that there were 2 of them BUT at first no one believed that there was one. You remember that the girl who wrote that she was saved by a hornet was first ridiculed until video evidence was found. PHO is full of rumors, some talk about lizards, some about a cauldron conspiracy, some about stone-eating worms, some about demons, or aliens, some even say they heard about the existence of an honest politician. Not all of this is true.
 
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