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Katreus posted:Re: Other race. ... Sort of but no. The other species was the 2nd or 3rd species that the Worms met and at that time, they had dimensional space tech that the Worms were just being introduced to. The other species ended up killing some of the Worms due to that since the Worms didn't know how to lock off dimensions yet. However, they didn't manage to drive off the Entity. The Entity realized that the experiment was going nowhere since the Worms were just getting killed too quickly before getting any usable test data and ended the Cycle early, destroying that species' planet and all its alternate planets. So, to clarify, that species stopped the experiment early but did not manage to successfully drive off the Entity without getting its species and all alternate versions of it exterminated. Uhh, doesn't interlude 26 say regarding Until the species turns against them. Those lucky enough to bind with the entity’s offspring war against those who do not. Some seek to rule. Monarchs. The entity forms the thought, defining the memory. The cycle is cut short by a forced exit, as the shards are rooted out and destroyed by the natives of this civilized world. I don't see anything about destruction.
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Jan 25, 2014 10:27
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Neurosis posted:Uhh, doesn't interlude 26 say regarding What exactly do you think a forced exit is? The Entity cannot move to another planet without propulsion. The propulsion that comes from blowing up that planet and all its alternates. Since Scion is still alive, that means that species is dead. So yes, you can force the Entity to stop its experiments because the paraspecies are getting killed or Shards are. You cannot force it to not genocide you unless you kill it.
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Jan 25, 2014 10:57
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Forced exit = natives rooting out shards and loving them up Surely they have propulsion not dependent on the explosion of the planet. I mean, Legend has the space flight shard which isn't apparently dependent on anything and would formp art of the entity.
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Jan 25, 2014 11:02
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Neurosis posted:Forced exit = natives rooting out shards and loving them up And? Yes, they have to stop the experiments early. Their Shards are dying without getting any usable test data. The species is still dead. You can force the Entities to leave early but I wouldn't really consider it successful if your species got exterminated in the process. quote:Surely they have propulsion not dependent on the explosion of the planet. I mean, Legend has the space flight shard which isn't apparently dependent on anything and would formp art of the entity. 1. The fact that a single Shard can apparently go into FTL doesn't mean the rest can without being integrated in and even then, it would use up energy, when it's been said over and over that it takes forever to get to another good test planet. 2. Why would the Entities care about not blowing up the planet? It's just propulsion and a group that didn't cooperate in the experiment. This is less energy the Entities have to spend on getting up to speed to get somewhere else. They're going to blow it up and there's nothing that the species can do because the main body won't have any link that the natives can get to. That species is gone. quote:Their bodies form into a large, complex shape, with only small fragments in this one world. The extensions of those same fragments extend into other realms, in concentrated, specific shapes, made for a purpose: to survive the next step. quote:The planetoid is small, the range of options limited. A message is broadcast. Mutual agreement. They will move on. Note the 3rd planet, 2nd version of their cycle. quote:They meet, they bind and again they share ideas. Richer perceptions, complex technologies and more are fashioned in the unity of three larger creatures. It is through differences in the greater entities that a richness is created, new derivations, new connections that none would be capable of on their own. BTW, that's never worked again because from the 2nd cycle, they picked up new tech and knowledge from that planet and the Shard dimensions are now locked before sent out to hosts. Humanity was very lucky that they managed to get Scion to stand still to get hit by Sting to force open the dimension. The Tinkers couldn't open it at all. Katreus fucked around with this message at 11:22 on Jan 25, 2014 |
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Jan 25, 2014 11:09
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Neurosis posted:Oh yeah, I remember that, just not them referring to her as Blue Woman. Think about this, Teacher acquired control over Dragon. Richter's restraints on Dragon would prevent Dragon from obeying Teacher, as she is constrained to follow the law and the rightful authority of the people. As an international terrorist, Dragon couldn't obey him even if she wanted unless Teacher broke Richter's restrictions.
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Jan 25, 2014 18:17
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veekie posted:Think about this, Teacher acquired control over Dragon. Richter's restraints on Dragon would prevent Dragon from obeying Teacher, as she is constrained to follow the law and the rightful authority of the people. As an international terrorist, Dragon couldn't obey him even if she wanted unless Teacher broke Richter's restrictions. Yeah, that kind of makes sense, although I have some problems with Teacher's students being able to remove restrictions Armsmaster couldn't. Katreus posted:Stuff Yeah, I have to reread that chapter closely because I didn't get it all at first. I would still like to read a space opera about loving Worms up.  As long as Wildbow read A Fire Upon the Deep very closely beforehand.I reread some of the discussion that was going on at the time and the place I seem to have differed from a lot of people is that I just didn't like Taylor. I could see how she progressed but I thought far too many words were devoted to introspection and I found it kind of tedious. I didn't find her likable as a person, either. She did some very important and in some cases noble things, I will admit, but I just did not care for her perspective and I liked the interludes much more than the chapters from her viewpoint. Also rereading the thread, the first time I saw Valkyrie was trying to ignore the hero trying on his white suit I assumed she was having trouble adjusting to being more mature and her new sexuality and found it cute. Then I found out Wildbow said it was a dude with red hair and after GU's comment about bringing people back from the dead... Awesome. Although Kid Win is still dead. 
Neurosis fucked around with this message at 18:53 on Jan 25, 2014 |
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Jan 25, 2014 18:45
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Neurosis posted:Yeah, that kind of makes sense, although I have some problems with Teacher's students being able to remove restrictions Armsmaster couldn't.
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Jan 25, 2014 20:09
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veekie posted:Armsmaster was worried about causing permanent damage to Dragon. Teacher didn't give a gently caress. Also, Armsmaster was a tinker operating outside of his specialization. Teacher could presumably create a small army of tinkers specialized in AI code editing.
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Jan 25, 2014 22:13
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Cryophage posted:Also, Armsmaster was a tinker operating outside of his specialization. Teacher could presumably create a small army of tinkers specialized in AI code editing. Teacher's power was pretty much "I've got people for that."
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Jan 26, 2014 12:41
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Tollymain posted:Teacher's power was pretty much "I've got people for that." This is about as perfect a description gets.
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Jan 26, 2014 20:09
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Just blitzed through Worm in less than a week. Honestly, I kind of liked the lower scale stuff much more than when it went all Evangelion at the end. The Undersiders pulling jobs and Taylor working within the restrictions of the Wards and such. I found myself kind of annoyed when they interrupted the awkward morning tv show bit I was enjoying for another big monster fight. I guess Leviathan was kind of neat for how different it was at first, and how it set the stage for the underworld takeover/Coil conspiracy, but I can't say I really enjoyed the S9/Yet More Kaiju/S9^2/Alien God stuff as much. Thinking back, I think my favorite bit was the Wards interlude where they sit around rubbing bug bites, and trying to analyze what the hell just happened. I would have liked to have seen more of that sort of thing. 7c Nickel fucked around with this message at 09:08 on Jan 27, 2014 |
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Jan 27, 2014 08:41
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7c Nickel posted:Just blitzed through Worm in less than a week. How is that even possible???
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Jan 28, 2014 01:33
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Seriously, it took me 13 days and I basically did nothing else during that time. I put up a longer review here, but basically said the same thing, it didn't need the extra endbringers really and could maybe have done with a little more "downtime".
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Jan 28, 2014 02:02
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why oh WHY posted:How is that even possible??? It's possible if you do absolutely nothing else but eat and sleep in that week.
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Jan 28, 2014 03:45
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veekie posted:It's possible if you do absolutely nothing else but eat and sleep in that week. Perfect for when you have the flu  .
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Jan 28, 2014 07:36
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Read this chapter, it's pretty interesting and sheds some more light on Blake's situation. Read the comments, find some dude sperging the gently caress out all over the place about his verisimilitude being destroyed due to some convoluted and fallacious chain of logic. Why do I never learn 
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Jan 28, 2014 10:54
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Tollymain posted:Read this chapter, it's pretty interesting and sheds some more light on Blake's situation. The average comment quality was better before it went mainstream. *hipster.txt*
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Jan 28, 2014 11:09
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Ha, I was a little disappointed in the last chapter when I noticed Blake sarcastically lying without apparent consequences. I really should have known better.
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Jan 28, 2014 12:25
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This new story by Wildbow needs "something". I'm losing interest fast unfortunately. It was a nice cliffhanger at the end of the post, but meh.
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Jan 28, 2014 14:32
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Virigoth posted:This new story by Wildbow needs "something". I'm losing interest fast unfortunately. It was a nice cliffhanger at the end of the post, but meh. He's doing quite a bit of system-building but all the progress seems to be tangential to the stated problems of the story, which doesn't feel very satisfying. I can't leave the house! I'm eating oatmeal for every meal! Let's bind a spirit of hypothermia to this hatchet.
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Jan 28, 2014 14:40
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Dietrich posted:He's doing quite a bit of system-building but all the progress seems to be tangential to the stated problems of the story, which doesn't feel very satisfying. He can't safely leave the house without having enough magical or political power to defend himself. Binding ghosts gives him some power, which he can bootstrap into more power by using them to get a good familiar/implement/demesne. That... doesn't seem tangential at all.
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Jan 28, 2014 15:18
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pumpinglemma posted:He can't safely leave the house without having enough magical or political power to defend himself. Binding ghosts gives him some power, which he can bootstrap into more power by using them to get a good familiar/implement/demesne. That... doesn't seem tangential at all. What's tangential-feeling is that it's not well explained exactly how having a hypothermia hatchet confers power. (Which is exactly what we're about to find out.) This is mainly a comment on the pacing of the story thus far. I think we're seeing foundation being laid for a great story, but the pacing means that a lot of future-interesting things seem present-boring (to me, anyway).
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Jan 28, 2014 15:24
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Dietrich posted:What's tangential-feeling is that it's not well explained exactly how having a hypothermia hatchet confers power. (Which is exactly what we're about to find out.) This is mainly a comment on the pacing of the story thus far. I think we're seeing foundation being laid for a great story, but the pacing means that a lot of future-interesting things seem present-boring (to me, anyway). I agree with this statement. It's a lot of world building right now. It's not that I find the story bad, I'm just getting meh about all the prologue type stuff that is happening.
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Jan 28, 2014 16:25
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Dietrich posted:What's tangential-feeling is that it's not well explained exactly how having a hypothermia hatchet confers power. (Which is exactly what we're about to find out.) This is mainly a comment on the pacing of the story thus far. I think we're seeing foundation being laid for a great story, but the pacing means that a lot of future-interesting things seem present-boring (to me, anyway). I think at present the problem is he's basically unarmed and without options. All he can do is bullshit his way through things. With the hatchet, he has a weapon, a bomb even, that can be used without destroying himself. He needs more weapons, defenses, warning systems, senses, etc, before he is strong enough that the sharks stop circling. With the hatchet he can claim a larger demesne, use it in the construction of a more potent tool or intimidate a stronger familiar into his service than he could without anything to his name. Everything else derives from those.
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Jan 28, 2014 17:38
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veekie posted:I think at present the problem is he's basically unarmed and without options. All he can do is bullshit his way through things. With the hatchet, he has a weapon, a bomb even, that can be used without destroying himself. He needs more weapons, defenses, warning systems, senses, etc, before he is strong enough that the sharks stop circling. I mean, I get all that, but that's only because I've been told all that. I have yet to be shown any of that. And the "we'll just get an errand boy to handle getting your stuff for you, the cost of this service will be deducted from your allowance" resolution to his being stuck in the house is a bit of a let down. So it's kinda hard to feel like anything substantial has actually been accomplished though Blake's agency in the face of all the problems that (on the other hand) have been quite effectively shown, rather than told.
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Jan 28, 2014 19:53
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Dietrich posted:I mean, I get all that, but that's only because I've been told all that. I have yet to be shown any of that. Keep in mind that right after the errand boy thing happened, Blake realized something was up but wasn't sure what. Like literally a sentence or two after we get: quote:I nodded absently. I couldn’t quite figure out what had bothered me. Something elusive one of them had just said. So I doubt the errand boy thing is really the resolution it could be seen as.
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Jan 28, 2014 20:18
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SerSpook posted:Keep in mind that right after the errand boy thing happened, Blake realized something was up but wasn't sure what. Like literally a sentence or two after we get: I'm reasonably sure that was referring to the fact that they didn't tell him the entire cost for joining the firm.
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Jan 28, 2014 20:25
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pumpinglemma posted:I'm reasonably sure that was referring to the fact that they didn't tell him the entire cost for joining the firm. Maybe, but it is immediately after they agree to an offer for an errand boy. I'd not be surprised if there's something weird about said errand boy, not necessarily something that will sabotage him, but something that will make him uneasy.
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Jan 28, 2014 20:33
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SerSpook posted:Maybe, but it is immediately after they agree to an offer for an errand boy. I'd not be surprised if there's something weird about said errand boy, not necessarily something that will sabotage him, but something that will make him uneasy. More like anything outside of sabotaging him would be fair game. Spying on him for the lawyer's own reasons for example. Or getting his karmic debt even higher by helping him. It can do a LOT.
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Jan 28, 2014 20:59
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veekie posted:More like anything outside of sabotaging him would be fair game. Spying on him for the lawyer's own reasons for example. Or getting his karmic debt even higher by helping him. It can do a LOT. I don't think it would increase his Karmic debt because he's paying them. Right? But I wouldn't be surprised if they used him to spy.
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Jan 30, 2014 00:23
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Silver2195 posted:On a somewhat related note, did anyone else think Satyrical was lying/wrong when he claimed that Cauldron powers don't affect your mind, only your body? Transforming into Echidna clearly seemed to affect Noelle's personality, although I suppose you could attribute that to the Simurgh or rationalize that Satyrical was only referring to Cauldron powers limited by the Balance formula. I also have trouble believing Gray Boy was really that crazy/evil before he got his powers. "It's you natural triggers who are the crazy ones! I, myself, am perfectly sane! Now if you'll excuse me, you're delaying my suicide by way of angry god."
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Jan 31, 2014 04:38
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I really appreciated the trope-reversal Wildbow added regarding Natural and Cauldron triggers where the reader is natually predilected to think that "natural" triggers are preferrable and "right" when early in the story, but by the end, with the reveals about how "natural" triggers occur, it's shown that cauldron capes are generally better all-around as long as the mix they get is good.
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Jan 31, 2014 19:48
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Blasphemeral posted:I really appreciated the trope-reversal Wildbow added regarding Natural and Cauldron triggers where the reader is natually predilected to think that "natural" triggers are preferrable and "right" when early in the story, but by the end, with the reveals about how "natural" triggers occur, it's shown that cauldron capes are generally better all-around as long as the mix they get is good. I disagree pretty strongly on this point. I don't think that it matters how you get your powers, it depends entirely on what kind of person you are. Look at the SH9, off the top of my head three of their most dangerous and deranged members were Cauldron Capes. The reason Cauldron has so few crazies is that they run extensive tests before administering the serum.
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Jan 31, 2014 20:51
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why oh WHY posted:I disagree pretty strongly on this point. I don't think that it matters how you get your powers, it depends entirely on what kind of person you are. Look at the SH9, off the top of my head three of their most dangerous and deranged members were Cauldron Capes. The reason Cauldron has so few crazies is that they run extensive tests before administering the serum. And because anyone too unstable after the Serum is locked away or killed.
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Jan 31, 2014 21:09
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Besides, you know, Cauldron cheats.
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Jan 31, 2014 21:12
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why oh WHY posted:I disagree pretty strongly on this point. I don't think that it matters how you get your powers, it depends entirely on what kind of person you are... I wasn't talking about stability or quality as a person, I was talking about Effectiveness at stopping Scion in the final encounter. The idea that kind of comes across naturally at the start of the series is that Cauldron capes are unnatural, undesireable, flawed in some way; when in actuality, it is because of them being Cauldron-made that so many capes are effective against him in the end-- he wasn't able to nerf their shards against worms.
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Jan 31, 2014 21:28
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Blasphemeral posted:I wasn't talking about stability or quality as a person, I was talking about Effectiveness at stopping Scion in the final encounter. Although to be fair, Flechette/Foil's "Sting" shard was from a natural trigger. That is to say, the only projectile that he thought it worth the effort to dodge.
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Feb 1, 2014 07:18
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Cryophage posted:Although to be fair, Flechette/Foil's "Sting" shard was from a natural trigger. That is to say, the only projectile that he thought it worth the effort to dodge. Wasn't Glaistig Uaine also a natural trigger? Not to mention Panacea and Skitter. A new Pact chapter is up. I wonder if we'll get to see Ornias by the end of the story? Come to think of it, if Joanna just asks Letita, she'll be able to summon Ornias too.
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Feb 1, 2014 08:33
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Pact is ever so slowly picking up. I'm half inclined to give it a month of not reading to give Wildbow some time to take the training wheels off.
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Feb 1, 2014 09:11
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Silver2195 posted:A new Pact chapter is up. I wonder if we'll get to see Ornias by the end of the story? Come to think of it, if Joanna just asks Letita, she'll be able to summon Ornias too. I doubt they'd be willing to eat the price of the summoning, which, in Blake's case, Ms. Lewis was willing to take on. Also, Blake's already 'known' as a diabolist, the Duchamps probably don't want that reputation.
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Feb 1, 2014 10:27
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