The most generous view of Cauldron is that they were right. There's a decent argument to be made for that too. The Worm scenario in game theory terms is a zero-sum game: If Zion wins, all of humanity dies. If humanity wins, Zion dies. The optimal strategy in a zero-sum game is to minimize your maximum loss. Cauldron thought it was hopeless, but didn't want to be there at the end having not even tried. Every new power was hope. Making new capes likely improved the odds more than other things they could do, and it's not their fault that that requires trauma - it's the hand they were dealt.
Article:
"We have a parahuman that sees the path to victory. The alternative to traveling this path, to walking it as it grows cloudier and narrower every day, is to stand by while each and every person on this planet dies a grisly and violent death."
As a reader with hindsight it looks like they could have done things differently, but one could argue they did the best they could. I think Cauldron epitomized the tagline of doing the wrong things for the right reasons. Doing evil things doesn't necessarily make you evil. It's a bit more complicated than that. And Fortuna literally devoted her entire life from childhood to saving humanity. Normally the ends don't necessarily justify the means, but when the extinction of all humanity is on the line you can justify things you never could otherwise. I think a goal of the scenario is to take an extreme case of the utilitarian approach.
Article:
"We were guinea pigs," I said. "For what? So you could be in charge?"
"Not us. Never us," the Doctor said. "There's a lot you don't understand."
[...]
"We'll go down in history as the villains," Doctor Mother said. There wasn't a trace of doubt or hesitation in her voice. "But it's worth it if it means saving everyone."
They believed it was the lesser evil/necessary, and were willing to face the consequences if it meant saving humanity:
Article:
"I understand," the Doctor replied. She sounded a little impatient. "Then damn me. Curse me. Tell me I will go to hell for what I did. At the end of this, I will face any and all punishment that I'm due, alive or dead. For now, we see our way through this."
Consider also:
Dinah said there was a 100% chance Taylor would be there at the end, implying she was crucial to the PtV path. Did producing capes finally pay off?
It's implied Canary was railroaded into the Birdcage by Cauldron.
Canary was arrested about a year before the story started.
Wildbow really likes to play with names. Canary went to the Birdcage.
She wasn't part of the story again (aside from a reminder she exists) until when Khepri was being trapped with her by Marquis and she provided the means for Khepri to escape and save the world.
I don't think I'm saying anything new to the fandom by asserting that Cauldron suffers a bit from their portrayal, possibly due to the shared universe and early drafts. Everything about the Case 53s and the early Faultline's Crew story screams "Cauldron is just evil." There's a lot of actions there where they're just shitty assholes and we can at best excuse it with "they did what they had to do" if we take the later Taylor-centric, final Worm story that everything is to defeat Scion.
The contention of the Mind is "No, you really didn't."
It's one of the biggest conflicts to drive this fic: a different idea of what science is. The Entities and Cauldron both adopt scientific framing for their actions. The contention of the Culture (and yes, a little of me) is "Nope, that's some dumbass pseudoscience."
The biggest issue with bias in science isn't necessarily data collection (plenty there, though), but in how you frame your hypothesis, and which hypotheses you test. The Mind will be livid about that.
I feel like I addressed this though. PtV said the alternative was worse (and before the Culture showed up, it probably was), and trauma is needed to drive the generation of capes.
I'm all for better science literacy, and think it's an under-rated virtue. Consider the game-theory argument at the top of my post though. They actually pursued the best strategy they could, PtV seems to agree, and it seems to have paid off in canon.
You could argue that the evil stuff they got up to wasn't necessary, but PtV said otherwise, and the whole scenario is designed to be an extreme case of utilitarian ends justifying the means. Which means there were counter-balancing reasons for their actions even if we didn't see them.
I feel like I addressed this though. PtV said the alternative was worse (and before the Culture showed up, it probably was), and trauma is need to drive the generation of capes.
I think the broader point is that all of the Watsonian explanations we get later in the story for why Cauldron does what they do read like after-the-fact rationalizations for Doylist choices the author made earlier in the story that stopped fitting together as the story evolved or the author changed course.
Like, when we first learn things about Cauldron they're very much a standard Sinister Conspiracy of Ambiguous Intent: they protect monsters, they turn people into monsters, they blackmail otherwise good people into doing dirty deeds for them, they've infiltrated the highest levels of the superhuman government, etc. All very classic stuff. It's not until much later in the story that we start to get the what-we-did-was-for-the-greater-good and we-must-destroy-Scion-whatever-the-cost lines. The swerve doesn't come off as an epic twist because Cauldron has been doing terrible things in the background for a while and there doesn't read like there's a motivation beyond "the secret masters of the world playing with their toys." It just feels dissonant, the gap between Cauldron-the-sinister-conspiracy-that-rules-the-world and Cauldron-the-well-meaning-conspiracy-doing-its-best is just too great to be not effectively bridged within the text. Using "well Path to Victory" isn't a good explanation, and using "well Wildbow never bothered to reconcile this shit and hoped in vain nobody would notice" isn't a satisfying explanation.
But it's what we've got. 😐
EDIT: On slightly futher reflection I retract and amend previous statements. The gap between the portrayals of Cauldron is not "too great to be effectively bridged" as that is something that could be done. In this case, it simply wasn't.
Right, the entire assertion that their cruelties were required is circular reasoning in-universe, based on assuming PtV is reliable - and that it was the only reliable game plan.
I like textual analysis with context: not taking WoG as equal to text, but as an expression of authorial intent equal to other expressions of intent (like the early draft versions). We don't get anything in Worm on Cauldron attempting new methods or updating their priors at any point. Their modus operandi and their stated goal remain the same the entire time.
"We had to do this, because it worked, so we had to do it." That is one ethical viewpoint, but far from the only one.
Anyway, I've been real productive this week so I'm gonna post a second chapter shortly that will hopefully clarify a bit of the (very intentional!) conflict between Culture and Cauldron.
submission from localAgency "ˈkɑnˌtækt", ref:Contact, localLang English, archive in Marain-16 Special Circumstances classification for duration of event
Contact Log, Sunday, January 23rd: Day 0
I smiled at the cameras, clamping down on the incipient terror and keeping it to mere anxiety. I was acting, I could tell myself. I had a script, I was going to fill a role. It was no more improvisation than crushing Hookwolf had been. And he was a giant knife Nazi.
"Good morning, everyone. I know a lot of you are here on the recommendations and trust of others, and I'd like to thank you for coming. I think you're going to be glad you did." I spoke at a calm, regulated pace, and let Isk-Berniav serve as microphone and directional speaker, projecting the sound from me directly to each listener. That and the visible field generator behind my stage were providing some significant tweaks to the normal sounds of the area. An absolute necessity, given the sixty eight workers, two cranes, excavator, three telehandlers, and pile borer at work on the office site behind us. All permitted and authorized, of course. But loud. The PRT had found out about it, but there was so much you could do with a 'self-sufficient mixed use construction' that they didn't know about yet.
I pointed two fingers down, lifted off a couple centimeters, earning a few murmurs, but nothing exceptional. It wasn't like I was wearing a business suit or anything. You expect heroics from people in spandex (not that I'd ever show my ass in spandex, for a lot of reasons). And the orbiting knife missiles helped with contextual cues, too. "I'm Taylor Hebert. My callsign is Orbital, but I'm just as official with either name, so use what you're comfortable with. I'm a Brockton Bay native, but I hope to speak to more than just our city." I flicked my hand and the holographic drone (Earth style drone, not much more than a dumb robot on wheels, with a better interface and a hologram projector that nobody on Earth had made without Tinker powers) scuttled across the stage and projected the phonetic Marain symbol we'd picked (Contact didn't start with the same sound in Marain, but I'd argued that would just help us differentiate things in later phases). "Contact is a new organization with global plans and a deceptively simple mission statement: to integrate parahumans fully into human society. To give people who receive powers chances besides the mask, and to give people without powers the safety and stability that equality requires. Our first move on that front was demonstrated last night."
The drone replaced the still image with huge video clips of the shield protecting First Baptist Church from the firebombs and Hookwolf's blades. It was from my point of view. I didn't need a suite to tell me using any of our other recordings would make it look a little too staged. "Acting on intelligence shared by Contact members, we provided a Mark I personal shield and Mark II structural shield to members of First Baptist Church. You can see the results." I cut to the fight footage. "I stepped in not because our shield was unable to hold him back, but to ensure a white supremacist mass murderer wouldn't walk free, just because he has a parahuman power that he thinks sets him above others." That line had been revised several times to focus on the problems with power discrepancies, and not to make it seem like we blamed the PRT for allowing parahuman criminals to repeatedly escape. Some of us did blame them, but it wouldn't be smart to throw that out now.
I had a visual filter to deal with the camera flashes, but I still knew they were there. At least the Brockton Herald only had two photographers. The three from the New York Times were a bit more surprising, but I had been informed by the Mind when we heard they'd be coming. Still, that had been about a 23% chance. Surprising. I could have given them flawless lighting conditions, either with or without sandbagging, but I didn't want to be too indulgent of the press just yet. Their angle was attention (and the prestige and profits that came with it), which wasn't quite the same as what we wanted.
"Our immediate local plan is to repeat this step, over and over. We have 150 Mark I shields and 33 Mark IIs right now. Factory space in Brockton Bay has been bought and hiring for manufacture has begun. We're expecting to employ upwards of 2,000 people within the month." I tilted my head to Armsmaster and flashed his helmet a polite smile. I had a Biohuman Emulation suite set to Neutral - no fluctuations of temperature, perfectly cycled breathing, no micro-expressions, and just for Gallant there next to him, my bioemotional substrate was running a simulation of calm, confident optimism. Wasn't it nice to communicate with friends? "Protectorate and PRT members are welcome to accept shields on the same terms as anyone else."
I acknowledged a question with a wave, letting Jeanine Abaroa from CBS ask, "Orbital, what terms are those? Are you saying you won't sell to the PRT?"
"Contact isn't just a manufacturer, and we're not selling these shields. Construction is one of our functions, but our core design is a mutual assistance organization. Membership is open to anyone willing to meet our standards - aiding each other. Whether you'll share information about parahuman and mundane threats, use your shield to protect others, or provide needed resources for members without them, we'll take it. PRT officers are welcome to join the same as anyone else. They can contribute off-duty, if that clears up any mixed loyalties. And I'd hope those officers would already be willing to make the effort to help keep other people safe. Of course, I'm sure the PRT will have their own policy on membership in Contact by the end of the day."
"Are you saying your plan is not to assist law enforcement, but only your own members?" Tim King, New England News, was our skeptical/hostile invite.
I nudged an eyebrow down and moved my smile into the 'snide' indicators. "Contact isn't here to make profit or uphold the law. You have plenty of existing groups for that. We plan to use both altruism and rational self-interest to repair human society. Anyone who's looking for a way to help each other is more than welcome. Anyone who just wants security for themselves and their family in a world full of giant dragons, walking explosions, and bladed Nazis is welcome too. Anyone who has a power and wants to do something safer and more constructive than beating down baddies is always welcome. We just ask for a contribution from all members, in something more important than money."
"The use of parahuman powers for profit is strictly outlawed, and there are age questions about you as well, Ms. Hebert. How do you expect the law to allow you to operate?" Cliff Carlson, Brockton Herald, focused on parahuman rights and trials, journalistic pieces that skirted the opinion page and occasionally dipped a toe into it, plus long-form exposes.
I laughed, not without help. Light and bubbly, just per guidelines. It was a little weird using a suite to partially control my throat movements, but they were all really like that in the end - not just guides or wiki-hows, but actual instincts, evaluations, and muscle memory I could load into myself, set priority lists and integration levels for, and tools that I was constantly aware of. Speaking with a suite was like singing or adopting an accent, a feeling that I was acting intentionally, but not as if the action was alien or imposed upon me. "I appreciate the assumption of competence, but I'm not leading or controlling Contact. I'm just the volunteer spokesperson - and hopefully not the only one for long." I left alone the issue of NEPEA-5 and the other legislative straightjackets for parahumans. I believed the Mind when it said that was under control. No need to dull a fine speech by bringing up politics.
I didn't pause for questions, kept up my rhetorical momentum. "Contact is a consensus-guided democratic organization with open membership. The only requirement to be involved in decision-making is to stay in good standing. Right now we're guided by a six member council, who will present decisions to the membership for voting. New branches will have their own councils with equal weight." I flashed up the council headshots on the drone. "The Contact Leadership Council - for now - consists of myself. Dr. Jessica Yamada of the McCarren Psychiatric Group, parahuman therapies. Anthony Walker, former city social worker and BBPD veteran, community relations. Carmen Juarez, former partner at Midland Fairchild LLC, legal and public relations. Anna Brookings, former parahuman research director at DynaM. 'Apoptosis,' going by his real name of Tim Warren, parahuman experience and biotechnology research." The Mind had gotten me the all-star council, which would have been way beyond my ability to talk to, let alone recruit. It had been planning something for a long time - I still wasn't sure if this was exactly what it wanted, but it seemed satisfied with what I'd hammered out with the Current Earth-Bet Committee.
The hires came with an agreement, though - we had 60 days before they got full disclosure of everything, including the Mind. It wasn't exactly simple to center organizations around a fifteen year old with new powers and not have to make some concessions. Fair ones, too. I didn't think I could stand being a duplicitous mastermind for more than two months, anyway. It was beginning to grow on me, but I didn't think being that smug and self-satisfied was particularly healthy. I thought I'd really appreciate having some more Earthlings that knew what was actually going on, too.
"Apoptosis is a known villain, how do you justify including him in your leadership?" "Where are you getting your funding?" "How do you manufacture this technology and can you prove it's not Tinkertech?" The flurry of questions was expected, timed, and prepared for.
I pointed to the unspeaking but intent armored figure. "Armsmaster?" Why not play nice with the authorities after dumping chaos on them?
"Your shield has been observed vaporizing projectiles. You have claimed it will not injure humans. If you intend to hand this technology out free of charge, and claim no parahuman expertise is necessary to understand it, how do you intend to prevent it from being reverse-engineered into a disastrous weapon?"
Oh good, technological questions. So simple! Or at least, I had a shared jargon to use for them, rather than having to fast-translate Marain's staggeringly complex social sciences into English and then deal with our preconceptions and biases. And I could appreciate the effort Colin put into trying to understand what his shard fed him, which made him capable of following along. It was one of the reasons he was on our Parahuman List B. I flashed up a diagram of the Mark I shield generator on the hologram, confident he'd be recording. "This device, US Patent 6640057, is the phase uniformity inducer, the active producer of our shield. Take a look at the coil modulation here. The force field's properties are inherent to it - a polarized emission that reacts based on what hits it, and the biofeedback of a human target will default to the kinetic response. It can't go to thermal if it's touching a human, period. It's not perfect, and we had to sacrifice a few things to get the design functional - the Mark I won't withstand a sturdy Brute or Blaster for more than a few minutes, the Mark II for a couple hours. But we've made it so hard to alter this shield generator into a weapon of any kind, any would-be terrorist is better off starting from scratch." That had been the real pain in the ass to design, I understood.
Timeline B7: "It's fine!" I shouted as the Mark II shield sitting by the stage flared, swallowing the initial bomb snuck under the podium, the 40mm grenade lobbed from an adjacent alleyway, and the sniper round aimed at my head. I flicked my fingers out, yanking a man off a parking garage 600 meters away and hurtling him towards us. "We were expecting someone and - oh, looks like it's Coil. I'm two for three." I smiled.
-Timeline closed-
And I was incredibly grateful I hadn't had to be part of that design process, Cultural knowledge or not. The steady but piecemeal dissemination of accurate physics hundreds of years in advance of ours, through journals and universities, tapping and nudging the available information and academic understanding to make this specific shield buildable, all without tipping off the 'precognitive' powers that something was truly amiss? I was really getting an idea of why the Minds ran the show, and why people were proud of just being a part of a far greater Contact mission.
"I'd like one to study to confirm your claims." Armsmaster was giving me his full attention. I felt the mask of anxiety, of fear: the knowledge that I would, should feel afraid to receive that attention, but didn't feel it. I just had the understanding 'this scared me,' as if someone had told it to me. Stage directions. That was something I could banish without even having to rely on suites or cranking up my thought speed. Just another wound from the old Taylor, already bandaged and scabbing.
I flicked my fingers and yanked over one of the boxes by the side of the stage. "I assume you'd like a decal instead of clothing?" I pulled out the sticker, hoodie, t-shirt, and sweatpants just in case, all white with the 3x3 Marain grid prominent. The reporters chuckled, but Armsmaster took it in stride. I was treating it a little lightly, but that was planned too, honest. I was aware I was offering/requesting/requiring him to sign on to a double allegiance to get access to our tech, and I took him as someone smart enough (or assisted by enough of his own primitive versions of my social suites, anyway) to figure that out. Humor helped defuse rather than emphasize the ethical quandary. For now.
He nodded, a little curt but without directed hostility, and I drifted myself off the stage, actually touching down next to him. He was still taller than me, 188 cm to 183 in our armor, but my (probably biased) opinion was that the expansive aura of my gravity-optional hair and knife missiles helped me maintain the dominant presence. "Thank you," I said, loud enough for the cameras, and I wasn't even following my sincerity meters. I let out some actual internal feeling, not trying to tone the believability for the cameras, just to be earnest in who I was: a loser, a victim with a new cause and the honest feeling of thanks that somebody in authority was treating me like an equal. I held out the decal and shield. Exceptionally sturdy materials, but Earth-made, real technology.
"Assuming you've been honest about your requirements, I don't see any immediate harm in assisting your organization." He took them with caveats, but they were honest ones. Perfect.
I dropped the joke about pod people, mid-thought, and nodded. "That's all we need. We ask that you reach out to us before you have to fight anyone in Contact, so we can mediate and try to avoid violence, but that's more of a hope than a requirement. We revoke standing immediately if a member instigates violence, but I don't expect we have to worry about that with you."
His focus was still intent, analytical, but Armsmaster nodded his agreement. Good enough, I wasn't expecting a rousing speech from him.
"What about plain misuse? What if one of your shields gets into Crusader's hands, or Kaiser's, and they resist arrest with it?" Gallant didn't even need anyone's cue to ask a question. Good for him. I probably should have been less condescending, given that he was older than me, but… it was really hard not to lump all the Wards in with Sophia in my upcoming Professor Hebert's Child Soldier Deindoctrination course. They were being taught how to do PR stunts and punch bad guys. I was learning how to use PR stunts to upend the economy and fourth dimensional physics. Punching murderers was just a means to an end, not a purpose by itself.
"The shields are only for Contact member use. They serve as communicators and general locators as well. We will be paying attention to them. If they're given to non-members or a membership is revoked? I wouldn't want to be the person counting on the shield."
"Taking them apart, reverse-engineering them?" People wearing helmets seemed to think I couldn't see their expressions. That was pretty funny, honestly. So skeptical, Dean. So confident in your doubt.
"It's an open source patent. Not all the components are easy to understand, but somebody else will be able to make them soon enough. You have armor, Gallant. So do I." I flexed my hand, let the bracer slide over it, long and silvery, bulbous and sharp at the end. "Three hundred and fifty thousand people in this city alone don't have any. If we start a defensive tech race? Fine. We need it in a world full of Endbringers and the Slaughterhouse."
I crossed my arms, staying upright, slightly above the ground, boots pointed down, completely vertically aligned. I looked taller, felt more confident, more perceptive. My body fed into my mind, my mind fed into itself. I could do this. I would do this.
"Orbital, where is the money for this coming from? How were these shields created, the resources obtained?"
I nodded to Cliff, shot myself slowly back up onto the stage before answering. "The idea and organization came before me. I was just lucky enough to figure it out and get on board." I avoided laughing at my own double entendre. I was already indulgent enough, just slipping it it in. "And be a bright, encouraging face for the future, or something, I guess." I didn't really feel the humor of that joke (it felt too much like self-dismissal to reassure the adults - it was that, intentionally, but it really felt like it), but let my suites push me into a wry grin, and earned a few chuckles from the journalists. "The principles behind the shield generators were developed by researchers formerly at DynaM, CTR Tech, and Xenith, working together in an informal predecessor of our organization. The developments they found along the way were sold to those companies, and a number of private individuals, to get the manufacturing equipment and our seed money. Contact has 5.6 billion dollars in our operations budget right now, and will be moving production from the piecemeal machinery in three states that we have been using, all here to Brockton Bay." And not all of that money and machinery had been diverted to us by embedded Contact agents!
Some of it was from rich individuals who had thrown us hundreds of millions for isolated gifts of life extension and medical technology. Completely legitimate sales, but about to become considerably less rare than they thought. Other acts of parceling out advanced tech with the hint of exclusivity in exchange for depleting the coffers of those with the power to obtain it. The Mind seemed to delight in that. Well, I wasn't surprised that it loved irony.
And that was the legal funding. A lot of the dark money (another 4.8 billion dollars) was just stolen, from criminals or those same rich individuals. 'You store your currency in digital networks,' the Mind had said, casually smug as ever, and I guess that really did explain it all. Must have been like cracking a Bronze Age safe with a laser.
"Yes, the intellectual property sales and asset transfers are all legal," I said to forestall the follow-up. "Do you really want a teenager to tell you that instead of looking it up on your own?" I thought I was riding the borders of my snark a little hard, but it served them right. I didn't know who 'them' was at the moment. Maybe the journalists, maybe the Culture. Definitely the world. "I didn't invite the Protectorate to a press conference to tell them I was breaking the law."
I lifted up a few feet, feeling the edges rising up in me, feeling restless and full of words. "Our world is crumbling, and nobody seems to want to admit it. Two thirds of new capes are 'villains.' People are starving in our streets. We wait for a new Kyushu, Madison, Newfoundland. That has to end. The world needs a new method. A new source of hope. If you want to be part of it… get in Contact."
Not at all. It meant something. Giving the media narrative a healthy, positive image to center on will allow us to construct a framework to counter the later insinuations.
Depending on proactivity of opposition, expect a media source to emphasize that ˈkɑnˌtækt is undercutting 'law and order' and Protectorate authority within 48-72 hours. Opinion penetration estimated 19 plus-minus 12.
This is a big chunk of where the original fic was headed, or close enough to it. Earth-Contact kept growing in importance as I tried to write the next chapter of YNOWG 1.0, until I realized it was something that had to be introduced before Taylor tried to be a 'hero,' and that had me rethinking a lot of the story structure until we come here.
I think this more or less sets the stage for where we're going. You could consider this almost a fix-fic, not just for Taylor but for Earth-Bet; don't mistake that as meaning there are no challenges, I just intend for very different ones than overcoming Lung, Armsmaster, Coil, the S9, etc. Even Scion.
Power isn't an issue for Orbital. That leaves all the problems that power can't solve.
And yes, I bowed to fanon and stole Dr. Yamada, Earth-Bet's greatest therapist. A number of the other new names were in YNOWG 1.0, or in the draft notes I never got to.
Taylor (and contact) is obviously going to get a whole bunch of attention. There are going to be plenty of people attempting to abuse them and get the shields. No way they succeed though.
As for Cauldron, I would think that if Contact/the Mind could just talk to them they could be brought on board pretty easy. Contact has a viable plan to defeat Zion, which is more than Cauldron can say, and it isn't even morally questionable. Cauldron have no real reason to fight Contact, though many of their members will likely have to answer in some way for their crimes (and appear willing to).
As for Cauldron, I would think that if Contact/the Mind could just talk to them they could be brought on board pretty easy. Contact has a viable plan to defeat Zion, which is more than Cauldron can say, and it isn't even morally questionable. Cauldron have no real reason to fight Contact, though many of their members will likely have to answer in some way for their crimes (and appear willing to).
I'd like to think that but... one of the things about Doctor Mother (and the rest of them really, but especially her) is that she's something of a mirror to the canonical Taylor Hebert; they're both people with very strong issues about control. Everything Doc has done in Cauldron has been to ensure that she has a grip on things before everybody else does, and ultimately it's easier for her to be the shadow queen of the world than it is for her to actually accept a loss of control anywhere. Had Sufficient been in the neighborhood nearer the beginning of Cauldron it might've been able to stage an intervention like it did with Taylor and broken her out of that before shit got out of hand. Now, though? I think if SC did a full disclosure the feedback-looping control freaks that run Cauldron as of 2011 would think of the Minds as just another breed of Entity and things would escalate from there.
They probably can be reasoned with in the end, but not within the span of time that the story will likely cover.
I'd like to think that but... one of the things about Doctor Mother (and the rest of them really, but especially her) is that she's something of a mirror to the canonical Taylor Hebert; they're both people with very strong issues about control. Everything Doc has done in Cauldron has been to ensure that she has a grip on things before everybody else does, and ultimately it's easier for her to be the shadow queen of the world than it is for her to actually accept a loss of control anywhere. Had Sufficient been in the neighborhood nearer the beginning of Cauldron it might've been able to stage an intervention like it did with Taylor and broken her out of that before shit got out of hand. Now, though? I think if SC did a full disclosure the feedback-looping control freaks that run Cauldron as of 2011 would think of the Minds as just another breed of Entity and things would escalate from there.
They probably can be reasoned with in the end, but not within the span of time that the story will likely cover.
I don't know. Take for example the Siberian. Even after the Siberian killed Hero and severely injured Alexandria they didn't kill them, even though they clearly could have with PTV. So they obviously view their mission of saving humanity and Siberian's probably minor role in it as more important than their own lives. It seems to me that if Contact is able to prove that they have an actually viable plan to defeat Zion they'd be more than willing to step aside or help out. Even if they have to surrender themselves to authorities at the worst the most consequences they're likely to see are a trial in The Hague and life in prison. To them a small sacrifice to help save humanity. Hell, they can even say their existing plan helped if they provide their existing resources to Contact and that they kept things stable enough until Contact showed up.
Cauldron would have to confront the fact that everything they've done was in service of an effort that was doomed by a combination of Eden having the chance to cripple the PtV shard and Fortuna being a small child from a peasant family in a medieval-at-best world who asked her power the wrong question as a result.
The idea that they might eventually have been willing to pay for their crimes is vaguely plausible. That they might willingly accept that their crimes were pointless, less so.
With this I generally agree. They may be willing to help, but they'll still convince themselves that they were always necessary. They might argue that there was no reason to expect the Culture/Contact would ever appear, that they kept things stable enough until they showed up anyway and possibly that they contributed with their massive resources (if they do decide to help Contact).
Cauldron would have to confront the fact that everything they've done was in service of an effort that was doomed by a combination of Eden having the chance to cripple the PtV shard and Fortuna being a small child from a peasant family in a medieval-at-best world who asked her power the wrong question as a result.
The idea that they might eventually have been willing to pay for their crimes is vaguely plausible. That they might willingly accept that their crimes were pointless, less so.
Agreed. Far am I from an expert in any sort of psychology, and less so in that of parahumans, but people are not wont to willingly admit that every act they have undertaken has been for naught, most particularly those they feel were immoral or distasteful yet somehow "necessary evils" such as those of Cauldron. The idea that all the terrible things they have done may have been awful but were at least needed offers some form of moral counter, as if they shouldered those great sins for the sake of others that no one else need do so. Were they then told "actually, none of that was ever necessary, or even a marginally good approach even given the constraints you were under" I have little doubt they would, at best, refuse to believe it.
That actually seems to be an interesting punishment. After all the problems are solved and the messes cleaned up by the Culture, Caldron is simply faced with the knowledge that nothing they did mattered, and that it was all pointless and unnecessary.
Funny story: in the 19th century, the medical community refused to believe that washing their hands could prevent illness from spreading because they could not mentally handle the idea that they were the cause of it, even though they couldn't have known.
Moral: never underestimate human capacity for denial.
With this I generally agree. They may be willing to help, but they'll still convince themselves that they were always necessary. They might argue that there was no reason to expect the Culture/Contact would ever appear, that they kept things stable enough until they showed up anyway and possibly that they contributed with their massive resources (if they do decide to help Contact).
Funny story: in the 19th century, the medical community refused to believe that washing their hands could prevent illness from spreading because they could not mentally handle the idea that they were the cause of it, even though they couldn't have known.
That and some honor based bullshit that washing your hands meant admitting that your hands were unclean, and thus besmirching their honor. Tens of thousands died as a result of their egos.
That and some honor based bullshit that washing your hands meant admitting that your hands were unclean, and thus besmirching their honor. Tens of thousands died as a result of their egos.
To make this argument you need to assume that Contessa's PtV actually worked for finding a path for dealing with Scion, or the Endbringers, and is not disrupted by fresh triggers changing things.
Since it's canon that this is not actually true this argument falls apart.
Cauldron did not have a cape to guide them on the Path to Victory, they had a cape whocould guide them on many (but not the more critical ones) of the tasks they believe were needed to acomplish their goal, but couldn't provide any guidance on how to acomplish that goal. However despite knowing that they keep acting as if Contessa's plan was not only the best possible way to succeed, but the only possible one.
Dinah said there was a 100% chance Taylor would be there at the end, implying she was crucial to the PtV path. Did producing capes finally pay off?
To make this argument you need to assume that Contessa's PtV actually worked for finding a path for dealing with Scion, or the Endbringers, and is not disrupted by fresh triggers changing things.
Since it's canon that this is not actually true this argument falls apart.
Cauldron did not have a cape to guide them on the Path to Victory, they had a cape whocould guide them on many (but not the more critical ones) of the tasks they believe were needed to acomplish their goal, but couldn't provide any guidance on how to acomplish that goal. However despite knowing that they keep acting as if Contessa's plan was not only the best possible way to succeed, but the only possible one.
nope. It might imply Taylor was critical to the simurgh's plan, but PtV had nothing to do with the final fight.
No, it didn't.
PtV can't see the goal. That's the whole point of them fumbling around trying to find a solution.
I rather disagree with this. Contessa actually models her blindspots as a workaround. It's mathematically proven that the optimal strategy in zero-sum scenarios is to minimize maximum loss, which is the strategy they used. PtV did say the alternative was worse. I quoted and sourced to show that. You could argue the Doctor was lying, but there appears to be no evidence of that and it wouldn't make narrative sense. PtV's whole power is goal-oriented, and can't determine steps without having a goal. Seems absurd to claim it can't see the goal.
I look forward to the author's response/argument in-story.
This not only assumes that she has a good understanding of what she is modeling, but moves it from "we have a cape who can predict the best path to victory" to "we have a cape who if they know what they're dealing with can predict a probably path for victory".
It's mathematically proven that the optimal strategy in zero-sum scenarios is to minimize maximum loss,
No it didn't. It might have said that assuming the assumptions given were correct the other options will either be worse or take more effort to achieve, but that brings us back to the fact that Cauldron was blindly assuming the assumptions were correct when they shouldn't have done so.
Then you have the way they advertized themselvs to everyone on Earth beit despite supposedly being unable to talk to anyone because they were hiding, which from a Watsonian POV can only be explained by them lying about their goals or being complete morons.
Cauldron are way too deep into sunk-cost fallacy to let anyone else save humanity.
And that's not even getting into the fact that they are smart enough to recognize that Shards and therefore Parahumans cannot be trusted in a position of leadership, only to turn right around and trust The Eye (PtV) implicitly. (That The Eye was in fact theoretically not untrustworthy, thanks to being an Abaddon Shard instead of an Eden Shard, was extremely lucky for them and not something they could possibly have known.)
Why is everyone arguing about Cauldron being right or not? Isn't it pretty self explanatory with how Wildbow wrote Cauldron?
I thought it was implied that if Taylor didn't happen, or if Queen Administrator hadn't picked Taylor instead of Danny the world would have been doomed (or that's what I took from that otherwise unnecessary interlude)? Wasn't it also implied that Cauldron is supposedly 'making the hard choices' despite also being implied to be incompetently evil? As in self deluded?
As in Cauldron is so incompetent, that they don't even know they're evil? At least that's my opinion on Wildbow's take on Cauldron.
On another hand they're also just so dumb? And it's not really a coincidence that there are parallels between Cauldron as an organization and The Entities as a species? Individually they're dumb, and despite having intelligent leaders (The Thinker and The Warrior/Cauldron secrecy society leaders), they're still dumb? 'Cauldron' hasn't really been the same since Hero died, the same way Zion hasn't been the same since Eden?
Cauldron plays at being the only reason Humanity and Earth will survive Zion, or more specifically kill Zion... But did anyone in Cauldron ask PtV on a way to persuade Zion to give up on the cycle/killing all Earths? He certainly doesn't know Contessa killed Eden or that she was even murdered (and it wasn't death by accident) or else Contessa would be dead. I'm pretty sure they didn't even ask PtV if there was anyway to make Golden Morning never happen?
It's the old 'but hard men making hard choices while hard is cool' argument. Personally, I've Cauldron needs a lot of work to not be a bunch of generic evil assholes. Queen of Blood, for instance, showed that while they originally made progress, then things like Endbringers showed up and broke everything and generally trashed their plans, leaving them more and more desperate as time went on.
I thought it was implied that if Taylor didn't happen, or if Queen Administrator hadn't picked Taylor instead of Danny the world would have been doomed
I don't think so. Taylor might have been one of the Simurgh's plots to kill Scion, but as we see from her interlude her plots fail quite often, she just launches many of them.
