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Nigulus Rex posted:Has there been any confirmed speculation on that dude chillin in a porch that Khepri said wasn't worth the aggravation of gathering? The Sleeper? No. Nothing whatsoever besides what is found in the story text.
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May 23, 2017 23:41
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Sampatrick posted:Honestly the entire Echidna arc is kind of dumb but eh. In retrospect, what was even the point of that arc (in the context of the greater story)? The only thing I really remember as being relevant was the whole deal with Eidolon's clone revealing info on Cauldron. I did kind of like how the Traveler's plot ended up just being a complete tragedy; Noelle is never saved and no one really has a good ending (except for very arguably the remaining Travelers who hopefully manage to put things behind them). Another part I feel could be excised or greatly shortened is the part where Skitter is fighting multiple Dragon mechs. That's the only part of the story where I straight-up skipped chapters, because I knew she would end up beating them and just wanted the story to continue. I think what annoyed me about the whole time skip and "Skitter becomes a hero" plot element is that it was such a lost opportunity. Up until that point I had constantly been thinking "man, Skitter's reasoning for staying a villain is looking awfully dumb", so when she decided to become a hero I was excited that she was growing as a character and learning from her mistakes, but then there's just a time skip and her personality barely changed at all. edit: Oh, another thing that kind of bugged me was the reveals regarding the Endbringers. From what I understand, it's basically confirmed Eidolon unknowingly used some power to create them, right? But if that's the case, why did they also show up in Eden's view of a possible future (where both her and Zion survive)? I guess you could argue that Eidolon borrowed the same power the Entities would have used to create the Endbringers, but it still kinda felt anticlimactic. Ytlaya fucked around with this message at 01:46 on May 24, 2017 |
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May 24, 2017 01:43
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My understanding is that the Endbringers were an Eden creation meant to guarantee escalating conflict and lots of data for the cycle. Eidolon didn't create them. He was just "the priest" and could channel Eden's powers. Subconsciously, he activated them.
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May 24, 2017 02:22
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He needed worthy opponents.
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May 24, 2017 02:49
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Sampatrick posted:Honestly the entire Echidna arc is kind of dumb but eh. I think the Echidna arc gets something of a bad rap for being a decent arc that ends up compared to the high points that come before it (Leviathan and S9) and lumped in with the slump that follows (Dragon War, Weaver, and S9000). It's been a while since I read it so I checked the cliffnotes and made a quick reference for what I'd consider to be the story's arcs. Introduction (Arcs 1-2) Bank Heist (Arc 3) ABB (Arcs 4-5) Party Crashing (Arc 6) E88 (Arc 7) Leviathan (Arc 8) Wards Interlude (Arc 9) PRT infiltration (Arc 10) S9 (Arcs 11-14) Coil (Arcs 15-16) Travellers Interlude (Arc 17) Echidna (Arc 18-19) Dragon (Arc 20-21) Killing Alexandria (Arc 22) Becoming Weaver (Arc 23) Behemoth (Arc 24) S9000 Training Arc Timeskip (Arc 25) S9000 (Arc 26) Scion (Arcs 27-30)
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May 24, 2017 03:32
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Worm Arcs 1 - 8 are great. The S9 bit is a tad long. Coil bit is fine. Traveller stuff should be cut down. I like the Echidna stuff. But everything from 20 - 30 is very uneven. There's some great bits in the (the drat Scion interlude at the end of S9000 is amazing), of course.
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May 24, 2017 03:49
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Arc 22 is quite possibly my favorite, but I'm a real sucker for good "characters in a room" tension and development.
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May 24, 2017 05:49
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Stop making me want to read it again!
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May 24, 2017 08:22
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The whole S9000 stuff was pretty weird in general. Like, S9 by themselves were this huge problem that no one could deal with, and somehow we're supposed to buy 10 copies of almost every current and past S9 member being defeated by some heroes without the help of the big guns (Triumvirute, etc)? I understand that a big reason the S9 was such a problem was Jack's weird parahuman intuition, but wouldn't that also apply with the S9000?
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May 24, 2017 08:27
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Ytlaya posted:The whole S9000 stuff was pretty weird in general. Like, S9 by themselves were this huge problem that no one could deal with, and somehow we're supposed to buy 10 copies of almost every current and past S9 member being defeated by some heroes without the help of the big guns (Triumvirute, etc)? Remember that most of the S9 don't last very long. Either because they are cut down by other S9 members or because they are quietly killed by law enforcement. Quite a few also were cases of it taking the heroes a while to figure out the 'trick' to taking them out; the Siberian is very scary, but becomes significantly less so if you know her/his/its power mechanic. So you get a bit of survival-of-the-fittest going on. The ones that do become long-term members are grizzled veterans with very lethal powers and very few hesitations in using them. The clones are basically deranged babies with broken memories. They don't have this experience. It is the difference between putting a delta-force-navy-seal-mi6-so-scary-it-doesn't-even-have-a-name in the field versus a high school teen without basic combat training. Also take into account that the S9 is normally a North American threat, and for the S9000 all the big players in the world came together to take them out. The 8 Siberians rampaging through Chicago(?) were unstoppable until the Indian capes came in. Contessa and Number Man themselves had to take out the S9000-Illusion-Squad or the Harbinger clones who were comfortably ripping apart the Protectorate heroes.
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May 24, 2017 09:00
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The S9000 also had to deal with the Defiant/Dragon Azazel suits which were extremely good at taking out the S9000. But yes, it is a bit weird and not properly explained.
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May 24, 2017 09:25
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The whole arc feels rushed, is the biggest problem imo.
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May 24, 2017 12:11
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The Shortest Path posted:The whole arc feels rushed, is the biggest problem imo. Yeah, IMO it should really be about twice as long and have more quiet moments.
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May 24, 2017 14:49
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It would have been funny if that homeless guy who Scion talked to told him "play MMORPGs" instead of "save people."Milky Moor posted:The S9000 also had to deal with the Defiant/Dragon Azazel suits which were extremely good at taking out the S9000. Yeah, I think the Dragon Teeth or whatever (plus the suits) made a big difference, since each of the Dragon Teeth seemed like a low rent Defiant. But even then the whole idea for the arc just felt really goofy and contrived. Like, using that technology you could also make 1000 Eidolons or whatever, which would be loving ridiculous and could probably even defeat Scion. In general I don't like the idea that you can make clones of parahumans that retain their powers, and this also applies to Echidna to a lesser extent (though I like that the Echidna clones at least had altered versions of the original's power). As a non-Worm note, Lara and Nora in Twig are adorable. Ytlaya fucked around with this message at 18:12 on May 24, 2017 |
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May 24, 2017 18:10
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Ytlaya posted:But even then the whole idea for the arc just felt really goofy and contrived. Like, using that technology you could also make 1000 Eidolons or whatever, which would be loving ridiculous and could probably even defeat Scion. In general I don't like the idea that you can make clones of parahumans that retain their powers, and this also applies to Echidna to a lesser extent (though I like that the Echidna clones at least had altered versions of the original's power). Maybe if instead of just being random tech, it was a result of studying Echidna's corpse? That'd tie them together better.
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May 24, 2017 19:43
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Ytlaya posted:In retrospect, what was even the point of that arc (in the context of the greater story)? The only thing I really remember as being relevant was the whole deal with Eidolon's clone revealing info on Cauldron. I did kind of like how the Traveler's plot ended up just being a complete tragedy; Noelle is never saved and no one really has a good ending (except for very arguably the remaining Travelers who hopefully manage to put things behind them). Well. I think it depends what you think Worm is about, really. If you look at it in terms of pure plot, there's not a hell of a lot going on here. The big thing is Alexandria's identity of the (supposedly) civilian head of the heroes' union, I forget what it's called, and the interdimensional gateway that forces the government to get serious about putting the city back together. The Alexandria reveal is presented as having serious long term consequences precipitating a schism in the heroes, but I think that gets lost in the shuffle once the apocalypse kicks off in earnest. In narrative terms, I think it's a little more interesting. So, starting out, Worm presents a vision of a world similar to those of Marvel or DC- fundamentally the same as our own, with this superhuman community layered in over it. Superpowers exist, but haven't altered the structures of the society they exist in in any significant way. In Worm, however, it slowly becomes apparent that this is less of a status quo and more of a particular historical moment, and the world is rapidly unravelling under the pressure of containing these individuals. In the big climax it turns out that everything Cauldron has done has been in hope of a peaceful transition to this sort of neofeudalist patron/client society they either think is inevitable or the best we can hope in this world of superpowers. So this moment where the established order goes from "embattled and failing" to "broken" is I think fairly important. And is revealed to be fundamentally corrupt, rather than simply undermined by corrupt officers. It also functions as the Simurgh fight, l which is something I guess I appreciate structurally even if it's not half as good as Leviathan or Behemoth.
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May 24, 2017 20:58
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The S9000 arc feels misguided as a whole. It builds off a well-regarded previous arc while removing everything that made it memorable. The S9 go from a terrifyingly personal threat to an army of faceless trash mobs. The Leviathan/S9 one-two punch was a great example of how to do contrasting types of threats instead of just dialing up the numbers.
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May 24, 2017 23:44
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Worm 2 will involve an Entity colony of like 1000 Entities attacking Earth. Panacea will have to unlock everyones' ~true powers~ to address this grave threat. edit: Taylor, who regains her powers through undergoing a third trigger or something, controls entire galactic civilizations in the ensuing war. edit2: Aliens from various nerd intellectual properties make cameos in this riveting sequence. edit3: I was rereading some earlier chapters recently, and I was just wondering about something: Why didn't Tattletale's powers clue her into Coil's long-term plans? In 7.1 she says "I don't think he's trying to deceive us, because my powers probably would have picked up on it." Ytlaya fucked around with this message at 02:01 on May 25, 2017 |
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May 25, 2017 00:29
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I'm pretty sure the actual answer to that was "Coil is really really smart and used his power to trick Tattletale's" despite nobody having any clue whatsoever how that would be possible, including Wildbow. It's one of those things where it becomes obvious the author is trying to write someone significantly more intelligent than themselves and having to handwave some bits of their knowledge/actions because they can't come up with something sufficiently plausible.
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May 25, 2017 04:43
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No, it's not even that complex. In earlier arcs, Tattletale's power could be fooled. For example, she got some very basic stuff wrong at the bank. Later, though, it became full on omniscience.
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May 25, 2017 05:38
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Also presumably if she ever did pick up on it Coil would just throw away that instance of reality.
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May 25, 2017 05:45
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Milky Moor posted:No, it's not even that complex. I get the impression she can be wrong with specific judgments made under limited circumstances, but with time and repeated exposure to a person she would inevitably figure something like that out. I mean, she knew about Taylor's early betrayal plans, which is almost a direct comparison to Coil's situation (in terms of being a situation where someone you work with has other secret plans). I think the other limitation is that she has to know the "right questions to ask" so to speak, but "does Coil have ulterior motives" is a pretty obvious thing to wonder about and the exact sort of question where her power would probably fill in the blanks. Even if her power couldn't tell her exactly what ulterior motives he might have, it seems like it should at least be able to tell her "he's not being honest with you." Put another way, Tattletale should be able to find out pretty much anything given a reasonable amount of time. Most of her mistakes were due to being forced to come up with some plan in a short period of time and not having the opportunities to really investigate different angles. sunken fleet posted:Also presumably if she ever did pick up on it Coil would just throw away that instance of reality. Unless she specifically tells him, there wouldn't be any way for Coil to know (and it would be too late if he had already split reality instances again at some point after Tattletale figured things out). Coil's power is actually quite limited and requires intelligent use to be powerful (and Coil even mentioned at some point how it took him a while to learn how to proper leverage his abilities). Over an extended period of time he can repeatedly attempt things with different permutations, but during any specific period of time he only gets two tries. If he tries to play things defensively he can more or less ensure his own safety (i.e. have one reality where he acts as Coil and another where he is in a different place doing something unrelated), but if he wants to try two options during the same period of time that require him to be in the same place, he's still very vulnerable. For example, if both realities involve him staying at his hideout and someone suddenly successfully attacks him, there's not much he can do). He's also very vulnerable if he's ever caught off-guard during a time soon after diverging realities (i.e. before he's managed to make conditions significantly different between each reality). Basically, his power is only powerful because Coil is both patient and very skilled at using it. Ytlaya fucked around with this message at 08:56 on May 25, 2017 |
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May 25, 2017 08:54
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In reality, I suspect the vast majority of people would only use Coil's power to flirt with people (and disband that reality on rejection) or do things like ask for a promotion only in one reality so they would never have to deal with any social blowout of anything. I mean that's what I would do.
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May 25, 2017 09:57
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Namarrgon posted:In reality, I suspect the vast majority of people would only use Coil's power to flirt with people (and disband that reality on rejection) or do things like ask for a promotion only in one reality so they would never have to deal with any social blowout of anything. Making mega-bucks in the stock market is also an obvious choice and one that Coil took* (since you could basically do day trading where you buy a bunch of some really volatile stock in one reality and short it in the other reality and select whichever one ends up being true). His power can be used most easily for situations that have binary outcomes, particularly if there's a specific action he can take to capitalize on each potential outcome. *I'm kinda wondering how he managed to do this without the authorities noticing. I'm sure that Thinkers using their abilities to make money like this is pretty common, and it should be entirely possible to detect if someone is being successful far more than they normally should be (especially since there's a good chance Tinker tech can be put to use analyzing such data). I guess he could do something where he somehow divides his trading activity among several accounts.
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May 25, 2017 18:06
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Ytlaya posted:Making mega-bucks in the stock market is also an obvious choice and one that Coil took* (since you could basically do day trading where you buy a bunch of some really volatile stock in one reality and short it in the other reality and select whichever one ends up being true). His power can be used most easily for situations that have binary outcomes, particularly if there's a specific action he can take to capitalize on each potential outcome. The best working theory I've heard is that the PRT/Government think tank working to prevent poo poo like that are the bottom of the barrel thinkers, and all the really good ones are working around them.
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May 25, 2017 18:25
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NinjaDebugger posted:The best working theory I've heard is that the PRT/Government think tank working to prevent poo poo like that are the bottom of the barrel thinkers, and all the really good ones are working around them. If The Big Short has taught me anything, this is true in real life too. Like he could still take small or medium losses against his big wins too makes the look legit. Though I wonder how much sports betting there could exist in a world where being prescient is fairly common.
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May 25, 2017 18:43
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Lone Goat posted:If The Big Short has taught me anything, this is true in real life too. I had this one interesting course in college that was taught by this guy who had a ton of industry experience acting as a technology consultant for various financial firms (so stuff like algorithmic trading, etc), and the course just consisted of him lecturing us on how the industry works and giving us an easy exam at the end. The general takeaway was that the most powerful financial institutions have basically arranged things such that they can almost literally print money through acquiring advantages that other traders and institutions don't have access to (like locating their servers closer to the exchanges so they can make transactions just a couple milliseconds faster than their competition). Interestingly, I took this course right before the financial crisis. It's a really toxic and harmful industry for various reasons, not the least of which that it effectively poaches a huge portion of the most talented math/statistics PhDs, since academia can't offer nearly the the same financial incentives. So all these talented people that could be helping to solve countless important problems aren't really accomplishing much other than enriching the institutions they work for and providing a little more market liquidity. I now work as a programmer for a web application used by biologists/geneticists, and it's a field that would benefit immensely from that sort of expertise, but instead is forced to rely on the small number of people truly passionate about the subject who are willing to forgo making 10x as much money working in either Silicon Valley or Wall Street.
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May 25, 2017 22:59
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Ytlaya posted:*I'm kinda wondering how he managed to do this without the authorities noticing. I'm sure that Thinkers using their abilities to make money like this is pretty common, and it should be entirely possible to detect if someone is being successful far more than they normally should be (especially since there's a good chance Tinker tech can be put to use analyzing such data). I guess he could do something where he somehow divides his trading activity among several accounts. There's an offhand mention that the Number Man does monitor the stock market for thinker activities. What he's worried about and what the PRT would want to catch aren't entirely aligned, but if he's dealing with the economy-destabilizing threats, then the more official version is naturally going to end up underfunded and somewhat complacent.
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May 26, 2017 03:51
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Ytlaya posted:I had this one interesting course in college that was taught by this guy who had a ton of industry experience acting as a technology consultant for various financial firms (so stuff like algorithmic trading, etc), and the course just consisted of him lecturing us on how the industry works and giving us an easy exam at the end. The general takeaway was that the most powerful financial institutions have basically arranged things such that they can almost literally print money through acquiring advantages that other traders and institutions don't have access to (like locating their servers closer to the exchanges so they can make transactions just a couple milliseconds faster than their competition). Interestingly, I took this course right before the financial crisis. flash boys by the same guy that did the big short (i find it really strange as someone from a finance-related profession that i have to refer to michael lewis as something other than 'the guy who did liar's poker') talks about this, and follows one guy who figured out at least some ways to stop people loving things up and made some cash from it. Plorkyeran posted:There's an offhand mention that the Number Man does monitor the stock market for thinker activities. What he's worried about and what the PRT would want to catch aren't entirely aligned, but if he's dealing with the economy-destabilizing threats, then the more official version is naturally going to end up underfunded and somewhat complacent. iirc the number man was more about making money to fund their clandestine operations but it would make sense for them to try to stabilise things as you say. funny since ordinarily trading on better-than-publicly-available information makes the market more volatile but i guess if stability is his goal he'll take the bad side of a lot of trades.
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May 26, 2017 16:02
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Speaking of The Number Man, his power (or rather the way it was applied) always kinda bugged me. Like, it seemed really vaguely defined, and I never really understood how understanding all this info like speed/trajectory/etc would somehow make you capable of moving your body in a way that lets you take advantage of that information. I could see it being useful for things like avoiding bullets (since presumably he could see the expected trajectory and potential range of possible places guns could shoot), but I don't see how his powers lets him fall 3 stories and contort his body such that he can avoid injury. I was re-reading some of the chapters before Taylor turns herself in, and it's kind of disturbing how many commentators think that Taylor and Brian are perfect for each other and have a wonderful relationship. Like, it is very clearly not a good relationship, and even the characters themselves realize that. As a random side note, Worm uses the word "headspace" too much. At first I thought it was just a word Taylor liked to use, but then other characters also use it. Like, I'm not sure if wildbow realizes there are other words that mean the same thing, like "mindset".
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May 26, 2017 17:40
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I think that was just a Worm problem though, I don't think he uses it at all in Twig, although it would be appropriate sometimes... How are you getting on with Twig? I was enjoying your updates! Has Jamie died yet? :p
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May 26, 2017 19:13
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Nettle Soup posted:I think that was just a Worm problem though, I don't think he uses it at all in Twig, although it would be appropriate sometimes... I'm at 13.9 right now (Lambs + Sylvester fighting the Devil). I feel like Sylvester would be many times better off if he just spoke honestly with the Lambs instead of trying to be a suave puppet-master constantly, but I also understand that's just how he is (or rather how he's learned to be). He's kinda being a pretentious douchebag with all the "ah I want to ~dance~ with you again" stuff. I also feel like the Lambs are kinda being dicks to him, though. Like, he's supposed to be your friend, let him be free and do what he wants. He even created a clear avenue for them to make a failed attempt, so it's not like their own well being is riding on successfully capturing him. Lara and Nora continue to be the best. I'm not sure what Emmett or Abby's deals are. Emmett seems to be strong, and Abby is...good at empathizing? Not sure how the latter would be that useful, and I'm not sure about the former. Jamie has not died (unless Sy is hallucinating him or something), but I already had it spoiled that he was going to die (thanks to the Twig page automatically loading the most recent chapter), and it's also something that seemed inevitable due to Jamie's unique issues. edit: Duncan is also a pretty interesting guy. Even if he doesn't fit in as well and is kind of a pretentious dweeb, he's clearly really talented and seems to be changing. The characters in general are so much better in Twig than in Worm. Ytlaya fucked around with this message at 20:05 on May 26, 2017 |
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May 26, 2017 19:41
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Yeah Duncan doesn't get much screen time, but he seems much better later on. Or maybe just from outside Sys perspective.
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May 26, 2017 21:24
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You know, I actually hope Twig has a good ending, even though I seriously doubt it will happen. Worm was already a huge bummer with a mostly bad ending for the protagonist (who kinda deserved some sort of bad ending), while Twig is about literal child soldiers who aren't really that culpable for their own actions and have been forced to do a bunch of bad stuff just to survive. It would be kind of nice for Sy to have an unabashedly good ending (given the circumstances of already having lost some of his closest friends, at least).
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May 26, 2017 23:53
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Am I on the wrong track here or is Foundling's cunning plan going to see Heiress made a Duchess of Summer?
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May 31, 2017 14:08
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Ytlaya posted:As a random side note, Worm uses the word "headspace" too much. At first I thought it was just a word Taylor liked to use, but then other characters also use it. Like, I'm not sure if wildbow realizes there are other words that mean the same thing, like "mindset". Worm has a few of those words ("copacetic" is the other really noticeable one) where initially one character uses it and then the other people they talk to start using it too. It's sort of a neat idea as that's something that happens all the time but generally doesn't show up in fiction, but I think Worm also ended up showing why it doesn't happen in fiction (it got annoying to read).
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May 31, 2017 22:13
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Plorkyeran posted:Worm has a few of those words ("copacetic" is the other really noticeable one) where initially one character uses it and then the other people they talk to start using it too. It's sort of a neat idea as that's something that happens all the time but generally doesn't show up in fiction, but I think Worm also ended up showing why it doesn't happen in fiction (it got annoying to read). None of those words bothered me nearly as much as "anyways".
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May 31, 2017 22:58
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I think I may have said this before, but rereading parts of Worm Taylor is really not a good protagonist. She's a good character, but not someone I want to spent thousands of pages with. Like, there's a in-story reason why she gradually becomes a stick in the mud who is Serious Business all the time (the Queen Administrator shard's influence) but it doesn't make it any less unpleasant to read. She was so much more interesting pre-Leviathan, when she actually cared about things other than achieving important key objectives. Sy is such a breath of fresh air in terms of actually being an interesting, entertaining person. I'm looking forward to wildbow also having an interesting protagonist in this supposed Worm sequel. edit: Another thing I noticed is that Taylor seems to almost always assume that she's the only one who can be trusted to be in charge of various situations (it's basically her whole rationale for staying in charge of her territory*), and while this makes sense in story (again, the Queen Administrator shard) it's a little annoying how no one ever raises the obvious counter-argument to her justifications. Like, Clockblocker and Miss Militia bring up the harm caused to civilians by her actions, but I don't recall them ever bringing up some of the more obvious long-term problems associated with having unelected people suddenly seize power. *Like, just to use this as an example, if she had joined the Wards from the beginning she would have also been capable of working to keep the peace. While she wouldn't have the same set of tools available to her (keeping people in line through fear/intimidation), she could have dramatically helped keep peoples' faith in the official power structures. For example, her power is remarkable well suited to completely stopping non-powered crime over wide areas, which would ease up pressure on the other heroes to go after bigger threats. Maybe she could have even found Coil's base using her power and defeated him with the help of the heroes. Ytlaya fucked around with this message at 03:14 on Jun 7, 2017 |
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Jun 7, 2017 03:07
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The Queen Admin stuff always felt like a response to people pointing out that sort of thing. Worm was at its best pre-Leviathan, I think.
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Jun 7, 2017 04:44
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It's not that Taylor has control issues because of Queen Administrator. She got Queen Administrator because she has control issues.
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Jun 7, 2017 05:13
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