We Just Write
Blatantly Plural
- Location
- New England
- Pronouns
- Plural
They exist. It's just that most fantasy worlds don't have sufficiently ridiculous weaponry to be mentioned as being particularly problematic for a being on Net's scale.
(Worm CYOA V1) The Von Neumann Steamroller
- Thread starter We Just Write
- Start date
Wow. this is boring. An utter lack of anything interesting going on no matter how you fluff the scale just from how easy mode it is. Just Blah, blah, blah, charge, charge, charge, I win. It's not even a story.
We Just Write
Blatantly Plural
- Location
- New England
- Pronouns
- Plural
I'm seriously confused why you stuck around after the Author's Note at the start explicitly telling you that this would be a stomp fic, if that's your opinion. It's not like I was trying to hide it or anything.
Some stomp fics can at least be entertaining in HOW they go about it. This one you don't even try to make that entertaining. Just a blind rush to power up more and faster but in such a bland and heartless way it may as well be pointless.
We Just Write
Blatantly Plural
- Location
- New England
- Pronouns
- Plural
Yes, because that is the optimal strategy for Inspired Inventor.
This whole fic has basically been a thought experiment in the most effective way to deploy the V1 Worm CYOA to fix the setting with a minimum of risk. Viewed from that perspective, every single action I took makes perfect sense. Tinkers are squishy? Rebuild yourself less squishy. Need more resources to kill Scion but can't do that without alerting him? Go interstellar, where not a single faction in Worm can follow. Worried about collateral damage from a Golden Morning equivalent if you go around blatantly helping people? Keep your operations secret (aided greatly by Blank and being extrasolar) until you're able to sucker-punch Scion with a surprise attack.
The consequence of this level of planning is that it means that those factions still running around in the 'sandbox' have no idea that the main character even exists until it's too late for them to do anything about it. Anyway, I've got an epilogue to write; there's not really much else to say from Net's perspective.
- Location
- Turkey
I think you are mistaken my friend, the real reason curb stomp fics are loved is because of the ripples and consequences of the mc to the world around it, some authors get tons of powers and then act like they are struggling in a fight with the kaleidoscope or shaper where you can literally transform people's innards into mush with a thought.
I love this fic simply because the mc thought shit trough and didn't bitch about their circumstances for 20 chapters when they were made gods on earth, or re-hash canon.
Motile Mollusc
Bitten by a radioactive were-tilde
- Location
- Here
They meet someone else granted Inspired Inventor, and get completely destroyed by a bowl of tulips. (Extreme Flower Arranging can do surprising things with enough invested charges.)
The End?
- Location
- Earth
Ending: How it all began
We Just Write
Blatantly Plural
- Location
- New England
- Pronouns
- Plural
After a few more weeks of expanding throughout the multiverse and asymptotically approaching omnipotence, I had noted something rather troubling. Namely, I hadn't seen the slightest hint of whatever mysterious being gave me Inspired Inventor in the first place. I of course was extremely curious about exactly what happened that night, and seeing as I wasn't likely to find the ones responsible by continuing to simply expand as I was doing, that meant it was time to get creative.
To be more specific, I prepared a time machine with as much stealth tech built into it as I could. Firing the temporal probe back to the night before I was gifted Inspired Inventor, I waited with eager anticipation in the corner of my room as my past self slept.
But nobody came.
Waiting through the night, I was immensely disappointed by what was happening. This disappointment quickly turned to outright fear as my past self started to stir towards wakefulness, and my temporal instability sensors spiked off the scale.
It was immediately clear that if my past self woke before going into the CYOA, the resulting temporal paradox would retroactively undo everything I had worked for. Chronological stability projections indicated that using the Surreal Plane for this would only make matters worse, so clearly another path was required. Therefore, I immediately spun up an incredibly barebones pocket dimension with the Worm CYOA interface and dropped my past self into it.
Much to my relief, this drastically reduced the temporal instability readings to levels I could actually deal with. However, it also indicated that the reason I hadn't found the being responsible for Inspired Inventor is because it was the result of a stable time loop centered around me. Which meant I had to SOMEHOW figure out how Inspired Inventor and all my perks actually worked in order to impart it to my past self, despite its inner workings still evading my reverse-engineering efforts after upwards of twenty Charges and more processing power than an entire multiverse being thrown at that problem SPECIFICALLY.
Fortunately for me, my mastery of chronotech came in extremely handy here, meaning I didn't need to solve the problem immediately. Not only had I stopped time in the CYOA pocket dimension as soon as my past self arrived there, but since this whole mess involved time travel I really wasn't on an actual deadline. As long as I got around to closing the loop eventually, it would turn out OK.
First thing's first, let's get that Secret Base up and running. I was already MORE than capable of doing that, so I could just go ahead and build the thing. Blank was fairly easy to pull off along with Invictus; the former was just an extremely subtle metaphysical distortion to spoof Thinker scans, while the latter was a cognitive modification to shield the identity thread from hostile action. Inspiration was a bit harder, but could be replicated with a similar metaphysical distortion. That said, I still didn't have the slightest clue how to go about replicating Inspired Inventor.
Still, not quite being sure of what to do in this situation, I called up Dragon for her assistance in solving matters. As I opened the channel I asked "So Dragon, I've just discovered that I'm on the wrong end of a rather nasty time paradox, and my current methods to fix it just flat out are not working. I'm hoping you'll be able to offer some outside perspective on how my methods are flawed."
The digital Canadian woman nodded, before noting "I'm guessing the situation is at least somewhat stable, since it's a time travel problem. Care to describe the issue in a bit more detail, Net?"
I answered immediately "You know my ludicrously broken Tinker power, the one that lets me just get more and more areas of expertise over time? I need to duplicate that and give it to my past self, since apparently Inspired Inventor is the result of a stable time loop. I really don't want to find out how bad the paradox will be if I don't manage it."
Dragon synthesized a hum and said "Presumably you've already tried just outright replicating the power by itself and that hasn't worked. I think you forgot to account for something: Inspired Inventor is a polymorphic metaphysical construct. You don't need to duplicate it as it is now, you need to duplicate its initial state."
Groaning, I answered "Tried that, Blank got in the way. Turns out sufficiently advanced scanners count as Thinker powers as far as it's concerned, which makes sense given how the Shards used to work."
That's about when Dragon mentally dope-slapped me and straight-up told me "You said yourself that this is a stable time loop! Every other thing you've designed from scratch to meet a need, why should Inspired Inventor be any different? As long as it's capable of growing into the state you currently possess, the paradox should resolve with minimal grief."
Mere moments later, I was busily applying every single bit of knowledge I had to the task of inventing Inspired Inventor. I'd known ever since my first charge in Applied Metaphysics that it was a metaphysical distortion anchored to an identity thread, which was also very helpful. Aside from that, Inspired Inventor seemed to be anchored around a central 'core' that produced charges, along with the charges themselves.
Designing a charge was honestly the most difficult part. To get the end result I not only had to make a system that could extract raw information from just the physical and metaphysical laws it was used with, but also translate that information into practical knowledge and skills, before linking that into an identity thread in a fully assimilated manner. Putting this together was... really not all that hard, being completely honest with myself. I'd been doing more in-depth cognitive alterations to myself ever since I became a hive mind, and the information extractor component was literally just a metaphysical form of my current reality tensor scanners. Really, the most complicated part was arbitrarily limiting each Charge so that it wouldn't just be a 'here, have everything'.
Idly, I tested one of my new artificial charges on my current self to see if it would be compatible... and it worked. Wow, guess I'm on the right track, then. Next I needed to put together the core of Inspired Inventor, which would both produce charges at the directed rate and network between them to ensure proper synchronization of expertise. Now let's just add a whole lot of extra hardening and tolerances so that it can operate in damn near any metaphysical conditions, aaand done! Time paradox resolved, past self getting down to business with making their fabber, and I'm no longer about to get retconned out of existence.
Now, I wonder if I can make something better than Inspired Inventor?
To be more specific, I prepared a time machine with as much stealth tech built into it as I could. Firing the temporal probe back to the night before I was gifted Inspired Inventor, I waited with eager anticipation in the corner of my room as my past self slept.
But nobody came.
Waiting through the night, I was immensely disappointed by what was happening. This disappointment quickly turned to outright fear as my past self started to stir towards wakefulness, and my temporal instability sensors spiked off the scale.
It was immediately clear that if my past self woke before going into the CYOA, the resulting temporal paradox would retroactively undo everything I had worked for. Chronological stability projections indicated that using the Surreal Plane for this would only make matters worse, so clearly another path was required. Therefore, I immediately spun up an incredibly barebones pocket dimension with the Worm CYOA interface and dropped my past self into it.
Much to my relief, this drastically reduced the temporal instability readings to levels I could actually deal with. However, it also indicated that the reason I hadn't found the being responsible for Inspired Inventor is because it was the result of a stable time loop centered around me. Which meant I had to SOMEHOW figure out how Inspired Inventor and all my perks actually worked in order to impart it to my past self, despite its inner workings still evading my reverse-engineering efforts after upwards of twenty Charges and more processing power than an entire multiverse being thrown at that problem SPECIFICALLY.
Fortunately for me, my mastery of chronotech came in extremely handy here, meaning I didn't need to solve the problem immediately. Not only had I stopped time in the CYOA pocket dimension as soon as my past self arrived there, but since this whole mess involved time travel I really wasn't on an actual deadline. As long as I got around to closing the loop eventually, it would turn out OK.
First thing's first, let's get that Secret Base up and running. I was already MORE than capable of doing that, so I could just go ahead and build the thing. Blank was fairly easy to pull off along with Invictus; the former was just an extremely subtle metaphysical distortion to spoof Thinker scans, while the latter was a cognitive modification to shield the identity thread from hostile action. Inspiration was a bit harder, but could be replicated with a similar metaphysical distortion. That said, I still didn't have the slightest clue how to go about replicating Inspired Inventor.
Still, not quite being sure of what to do in this situation, I called up Dragon for her assistance in solving matters. As I opened the channel I asked "So Dragon, I've just discovered that I'm on the wrong end of a rather nasty time paradox, and my current methods to fix it just flat out are not working. I'm hoping you'll be able to offer some outside perspective on how my methods are flawed."
The digital Canadian woman nodded, before noting "I'm guessing the situation is at least somewhat stable, since it's a time travel problem. Care to describe the issue in a bit more detail, Net?"
I answered immediately "You know my ludicrously broken Tinker power, the one that lets me just get more and more areas of expertise over time? I need to duplicate that and give it to my past self, since apparently Inspired Inventor is the result of a stable time loop. I really don't want to find out how bad the paradox will be if I don't manage it."
Dragon synthesized a hum and said "Presumably you've already tried just outright replicating the power by itself and that hasn't worked. I think you forgot to account for something: Inspired Inventor is a polymorphic metaphysical construct. You don't need to duplicate it as it is now, you need to duplicate its initial state."
Groaning, I answered "Tried that, Blank got in the way. Turns out sufficiently advanced scanners count as Thinker powers as far as it's concerned, which makes sense given how the Shards used to work."
That's about when Dragon mentally dope-slapped me and straight-up told me "You said yourself that this is a stable time loop! Every other thing you've designed from scratch to meet a need, why should Inspired Inventor be any different? As long as it's capable of growing into the state you currently possess, the paradox should resolve with minimal grief."
Mere moments later, I was busily applying every single bit of knowledge I had to the task of inventing Inspired Inventor. I'd known ever since my first charge in Applied Metaphysics that it was a metaphysical distortion anchored to an identity thread, which was also very helpful. Aside from that, Inspired Inventor seemed to be anchored around a central 'core' that produced charges, along with the charges themselves.
Designing a charge was honestly the most difficult part. To get the end result I not only had to make a system that could extract raw information from just the physical and metaphysical laws it was used with, but also translate that information into practical knowledge and skills, before linking that into an identity thread in a fully assimilated manner. Putting this together was... really not all that hard, being completely honest with myself. I'd been doing more in-depth cognitive alterations to myself ever since I became a hive mind, and the information extractor component was literally just a metaphysical form of my current reality tensor scanners. Really, the most complicated part was arbitrarily limiting each Charge so that it wouldn't just be a 'here, have everything'.
Idly, I tested one of my new artificial charges on my current self to see if it would be compatible... and it worked. Wow, guess I'm on the right track, then. Next I needed to put together the core of Inspired Inventor, which would both produce charges at the directed rate and network between them to ensure proper synchronization of expertise. Now let's just add a whole lot of extra hardening and tolerances so that it can operate in damn near any metaphysical conditions, aaand done! Time paradox resolved, past self getting down to business with making their fabber, and I'm no longer about to get retconned out of existence.
Now, I wonder if I can make something better than Inspired Inventor?
The End
Alex Prior
We are Many
- Location
- A charming, foreign port
Of COURSE it's a Stable Fucking Time Loop.
Why should I expect anything different? Why should any of us? Is this even real? Are any of us? What is reality? What is love? (Baby don't hurt me)
Why should I expect anything different? Why should any of us? Is this even real? Are any of us? What is reality? What is love? (Baby don't hurt me)
always_confused
Perpetually unwanted
- Location
- SEA
Wait, so you were the ROB all along? 
EDIT: I should clarify I'm speaking in jest. I really enjoyed the fic.
EDIT: I should clarify I'm speaking in jest. I really enjoyed the fic.
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StrangerDanger51
Novice Writer
- Location
- New Zealand
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Sure, the power might have originally come from some rob, but as soon as the first IJW went to watch, they knew and didn't do it, knowing it would create a self-perpetuating time loop as IJW panics and kidnaps their old self.Like... what?
At least, that's my interpretation.
- Location
- Earth
Causal loops are always interesting.Like... what?
There's an analogous problem with weak memory models. Naive descriptions often allow "out-of-the-blue" values. (X=Y=0. Thread A writes X=Y. Thread B writes Y=X. Now X=Y=42. How? Thread A's read of Y read thread B's write of Y. Thread B's read of X read thread A's write of X. Where did 42 come from? Well, thread B got it from thread A... and thread A got it from thread B.)
The way you write is it purposeful?
Is it written like this because he a android?
yea the bootstrap paradoxLike... what?
DOCTOR: So there's this man. He has a time machine. Up and down history he goes, zip zip zip zip zip, getting into scrapes. Another thing he has is a passion for the works of Ludwig van Beethoven.
(Holds up a vinyl LP of Beethoven's 5th.)
And one day he thinks, what's the point of having a time machine if you don't get to meet your heroes? So off he goes to eighteenth century Germany. But he can't find Beethoven anywhere. No one's heard of him, not even his family have any idea who the time traveller is talking about.
(He swaps the LP for a plaster bust of Ludwig and walks down the stairs.)
Beethoven literally doesn't exist. This didn't happen, by the way. I've met Beethoven. Nice chap. Very intense. Loved an arm-wrestle. No, this is called the Bootstrap Paradox. Google it. The time traveller panics.
(The bust is put down on a pile of sheet music.)
He can't bear the thought of a world without the music of Beethoven. Luckily he'd brought all of his Beethoven sheet music for Ludwig to sign. So he copies out all the concertos, and the symphonies and he gets them published. He becomes Beethoven. And history continues with barely a feather ruffled. But my question is this. Who put those notes and phrases together? Who really composed Beethoven's Fifth?
(The Doctor has finished plugging in his electric guitar and plays - da da da dah! da da da dah! And now, back to our drama.)
(Holds up a vinyl LP of Beethoven's 5th.)
And one day he thinks, what's the point of having a time machine if you don't get to meet your heroes? So off he goes to eighteenth century Germany. But he can't find Beethoven anywhere. No one's heard of him, not even his family have any idea who the time traveller is talking about.
(He swaps the LP for a plaster bust of Ludwig and walks down the stairs.)
Beethoven literally doesn't exist. This didn't happen, by the way. I've met Beethoven. Nice chap. Very intense. Loved an arm-wrestle. No, this is called the Bootstrap Paradox. Google it. The time traveller panics.
(The bust is put down on a pile of sheet music.)
He can't bear the thought of a world without the music of Beethoven. Luckily he'd brought all of his Beethoven sheet music for Ludwig to sign. So he copies out all the concertos, and the symphonies and he gets them published. He becomes Beethoven. And history continues with barely a feather ruffled. But my question is this. Who put those notes and phrases together? Who really composed Beethoven's Fifth?
(The Doctor has finished plugging in his electric guitar and plays - da da da dah! da da da dah! And now, back to our drama.)
<iframe width="853" height="480" src="The Bootstrap Paradox(Doctor Who S09E04) - YouTube" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe>
Duburu
Simurgh Survivor
Over the years I actually thought up my thought on the Worm CYOA, and then re-examine it by its based, and then re-examine it against.
and finally actually come to the hidden conclusion of the weakness of Blank and other power beside the only 2 viable Choice really(Eidolon and PM)
It the wording of Blank that is the killer of SI if they ever try anything.
Blank doesn't stop you from showing up in people who doesnt target you, as in AOE effect on a massive scale still affect thing other than you. What I mean is that the problem with Inspired Tinker Tinkertech is that, its not part of you, it something that you make and make "real" and such would fall under the fallacy of being not covered by Blank.
But that is just the rule set forth by Blank.
and finally actually come to the hidden conclusion of the weakness of Blank and other power beside the only 2 viable Choice really(Eidolon and PM)
It the wording of Blank that is the killer of SI if they ever try anything.
Blank doesn't stop you from showing up in people who doesnt target you, as in AOE effect on a massive scale still affect thing other than you. What I mean is that the problem with Inspired Tinker Tinkertech is that, its not part of you, it something that you make and make "real" and such would fall under the fallacy of being not covered by Blank.
But that is just the rule set forth by Blank.
- Location
- Море песка, солнце огня и множество злых сарацин
...Huh. Now that I think of it, everyone seems to take Blank as much more wide-ranging than its wording would imply.
(Right up to describing a version of Blank that is pretty much what the wording says... and explicitly calling it weakened.)
Granted, part of it is because there aren't really any other options (in v1, at least) preventing Thinkers from reading the SI (though it is presumably doable with Power Manipulation, given some prep time); and certainly the implication is that Blank is what you need to avoid Contessa or Simurgh interrupts (or, at least, yet again, there don't seem to be any other options that would do that - not from the outset, anyway), though at least in those two cases it's not explicitly against the wording.
What I have seen people use - and it would make sense - is to have Blank mess with the prediction system of the Eidolon option.
This is irrelevant to my planned SI, as he doesn't take Eidolon (not sure why though... I came up with an excellent IC explanation several years ago, but no longer recall it; the OOC explanation is that I cannot model such a perfect prediction system well enough to describe its results), but for someone who does take both Eidolon and Blank (which probably isn't that rare), this might be quite relevant.
Fortunately, the Tattletale-involving scenes that I came up with were set sufficiently late that I could probably handwave the whole thing as a Thinker-spoofing power made with PM (which is actually a much better fit for those scenes, anyway).
Duburu
Simurgh Survivor
The thing is that people with blindspot usually simulate people similar to you to bypass the blindspot.
It not something that is accurate but it is good enough. And that is the problem about tech in general, they are stationary target that are able to be target seperate from the entity that created them.
It not something that is accurate but it is good enough. And that is the problem about tech in general, they are stationary target that are able to be target seperate from the entity that created them.
We Just Write
Blatantly Plural
- Location
- New England
- Pronouns
- Plural
Remember that Transhumanism factor. That no longer applies when you're capable of running your consciousness on every single widget you make. Plus, once you get extrasolar resources going literally none of the factions in Worm can take you out, and Blank's flaws become irrelevant.
silentshot
Convicted Serial Adventurer
- Location
- IRL
Good story.
Though as always, PM is better.
Conceptually, it allows you to hit people with powers that should be nigh-impossible to predict considering the energy source of the PM powers are absolutely beyond the scope of any possible sensory perception of anything else that can't contest with the power level of the ROB who gave it to you.
Also, it trumps everything and anything absolutely. A PM Time power will be absolutely dominant over any other similar competitive power that wasn't given by a ROB of the same level as the Work V1 CYOA. The case is the same for any and every possible power that one creates using PM.
Call it conceptual superiority or higher existential hierarchy or simply unknowable origin of the source of the OCP, Power Manipulation trumps everything and anything provided the user is versatile enough to expand its domain in every possible aspect.
Not even Eidolon beats it because as far as I can presume that power is similar to the one used by Eidolon himself and probably has the starting limitation of not having any power granting power (tinker power notwithstanding) unless one uses Shattered Limiter to break past that initial state. I mean c'mon. If Eidolon had the power to give the user even more powers then it would immediately activate upon the first time it comes online simply because it's the Obvious optimal choice! And that would break the game instantly in a second. 1 Slot for infinite power slots capacity, 2 slot for infinite power generation power, 3 slot for infinite power improvement in scope, potential, level, damage, etcetera as time goes on, 4 can be a power to accelerate time for you only by an enormously large factor and 5 can be a biological immortality power which maintains your body and mind's well-being even without the basic needs of a normal human.
Boom. Complete the Worm story in less than a minute.
Trillions and trillions and trillions and trillions and trillions and trillions and trillions and trillions and trillions and trillions and trillions and trillions and trillions of powers simultaneously get overcharged to the max untill one becomes the only being that could come close enough to be the second strongest after the source which gave the CYOA powers.
The above probably won't happen for Eidolon but Power Manipulation is a different beast.
All the other options require prep-time however small it is for Eidolon and Kaleidoscope. Kaleidoscope is the only power that could match and overcome Power Manipulation's trump aspects in the mid-range; in the final endgame both are more or less equal.
And also on a different note, PM nerfed or full power can do the jobs of the other powers and replicate their effects (EoM' psychic power I am not sure about).
Though as always, PM is better.
Conceptually, it allows you to hit people with powers that should be nigh-impossible to predict considering the energy source of the PM powers are absolutely beyond the scope of any possible sensory perception of anything else that can't contest with the power level of the ROB who gave it to you.
Also, it trumps everything and anything absolutely. A PM Time power will be absolutely dominant over any other similar competitive power that wasn't given by a ROB of the same level as the Work V1 CYOA. The case is the same for any and every possible power that one creates using PM.
Call it conceptual superiority or higher existential hierarchy or simply unknowable origin of the source of the OCP, Power Manipulation trumps everything and anything provided the user is versatile enough to expand its domain in every possible aspect.
Not even Eidolon beats it because as far as I can presume that power is similar to the one used by Eidolon himself and probably has the starting limitation of not having any power granting power (tinker power notwithstanding) unless one uses Shattered Limiter to break past that initial state. I mean c'mon. If Eidolon had the power to give the user even more powers then it would immediately activate upon the first time it comes online simply because it's the Obvious optimal choice! And that would break the game instantly in a second. 1 Slot for infinite power slots capacity, 2 slot for infinite power generation power, 3 slot for infinite power improvement in scope, potential, level, damage, etcetera as time goes on, 4 can be a power to accelerate time for you only by an enormously large factor and 5 can be a biological immortality power which maintains your body and mind's well-being even without the basic needs of a normal human.
Boom. Complete the Worm story in less than a minute.
Trillions and trillions and trillions and trillions and trillions and trillions and trillions and trillions and trillions and trillions and trillions and trillions and trillions of powers simultaneously get overcharged to the max untill one becomes the only being that could come close enough to be the second strongest after the source which gave the CYOA powers.
The above probably won't happen for Eidolon but Power Manipulation is a different beast.
All the other options require prep-time however small it is for Eidolon and Kaleidoscope. Kaleidoscope is the only power that could match and overcome Power Manipulation's trump aspects in the mid-range; in the final endgame both are more or less equal.
And also on a different note, PM nerfed or full power can do the jobs of the other powers and replicate their effects (EoM' psychic power I am not sure about).