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Ytlaya posted:But yeah, there is a big plot hole of sorts in the fact that human militaries don't participate in Endbringer fights, since modern weaponry is capable of doing more raw damage/destruction than all but the absolute top tier capes. Like, Purity is supposed to be near the top in terms of being flying artillery, and she's not much stronger than, well, regular artillery. I mean, they won't be able to kill them either, but the same is true for parahumans. They could at least help with first aid and what have you. Is it a plot hole in the sense that you don't like it? Because this is addressed. Both literally with WoG (I know what we think about those) but with enough different in-text hints to give it away as well.
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Jul 20, 2017 15:27
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sunken fleet posted:I think Miss Militia had the worst power. Her power was legit "I can summon a weapon". Like, do you have a credit card and gun store in your town? Congrats - you too have Miss Militia's "superpower". Miss Militia's power is a lot stronger than you're giving it credit for. She doesn't need to reload, there are never jams or other malfunctions, no maintenance, they don't weigh anything so she isn't limited to only a few options based on what she can lug around, she can switch to anything she is able to conceptualize on the fly at any time. In the hypothetical story where guns are actually useful against other metahumans, her power is likely among the strongest. They just aren't, because Wildbow said so.
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Jul 20, 2017 15:31
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Doctor w-rw-rw- posted:Miss Militia can produce a nuke with her power. I forget whether it was part of untold history, weaverdice, or whether it was a hypothetical, but iirc the endbringers getting nuked caused Bad Things. She produces a small nuke with her power during the last battle, another cape used a force field of some sort to contain the explosion to just the big Z. Russia tried nuking Behemoth, it was worse than just letting it rampage, Leviathan is too fast to effectively nuke, and Ziz wanted you to nuke her all along.
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Jul 20, 2017 15:41
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Yeah dropping a nuke on Behemoth is basically just giving him a huge tasty meal.
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Jul 20, 2017 18:02
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But if we reverse the polarity... My god.
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Jul 20, 2017 18:24
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Velius posted:Good to hear. It's kind of making me question my taste to see so much horrible stuff in this list along with stuff which seems genuinely interesting or well written. Mother of Learning is about a dude grinding endlessly in a time loop until he eventually becomes totally awesome, so it holds a lot of appeal for the people who like those weird gamer fics. It just also has an actual plot and interesting characters too rather than just being 500k words of the MC getting more powerful.
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Jul 20, 2017 19:57
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Plorkyeran posted:Mother of Learning is about a dude grinding endlessly in a time loop until he eventually becomes totally awesome, so it holds a lot of appeal for the people who like those weird gamer fics. Critically, it also manages to maintain a feeling that the MC is utterly hosed. That's not easy.
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Jul 20, 2017 22:43
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Wittgen posted:Critically, it also manages to maintain a feeling that the MC is utterly hosed. That's not easy. I dunno. Not really? It's a very low-stress read, which is one of the things I like about it.
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Jul 20, 2017 22:57
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Megazver posted:I dunno. Not really? It's a very low-stress read, which is one of the things I like about it. Well, there's that one nagging thing that guarantees he dies unless he solves it, and a massive brick wall in the way of solving it.
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Jul 20, 2017 23:25
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I just started mother of learning and it owns hard Zach being insanely blase about the fact that's he's groundhog day-ing everything is the BEST
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Jul 21, 2017 00:38
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Wittgen posted:Critically, it also manages to maintain a feeling that the MC is utterly hosed. That's not easy. Well the main antagonists are a 1000 year old lich with an adamantium skeleton and his own personal army of darkness and an evil dude stuck in the timeloop with him, which means that no matter how much he grinds his skills he will still be weaker than his opponents. This forces him to rely on other people for help, which makes for interesting plot progression when the protagonist starts off as a friendless antisocial jerk.
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Jul 21, 2017 00:40
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I tried to read Mother of Learning a few years back, but I just couldn't get into it. I'm not sure why.
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Jul 21, 2017 00:45
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Elyv posted:I tried to read Mother of Learning a few years back, but I just couldn't get into it. I'm not sure why. Because you suck
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Jul 21, 2017 00:58
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The Shortest Path posted:Miss Militia's power is a lot stronger than you're giving it credit for. She doesn't need to reload, there are never jams or other malfunctions, no maintenance, they don't weigh anything so she isn't limited to only a few options based on what she can lug around, she can switch to anything she is able to conceptualize on the fly at any time. In the hypothetical story where guns are actually useful against other metahumans, her power is likely among the strongest. They just aren't, because Wildbow said so. No, see, you're doing that thing Worm fans do when they're basically admitting they don't read or understand the text. Guns are useful against parahumans. Guns are very useful against parahumans. Wildbow doesn't say they are not useful. Wildbow says they are not used.
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Jul 21, 2017 01:08
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BENGHAZI 2 posted:Because you suck Probably correct
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Jul 21, 2017 01:13
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Hey quick reminder that the interlude at the end of chapter four of Worm is the best chapter in the whole thing That's the one from Brutus' POV Edit more specifically the one where he is a very good boy and helps Rachel fuckin destroy a dog fighting ring BENGHAZI 2 fucked around with this message at 08:07 on Jul 21, 2017 |
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Jul 21, 2017 08:01
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Doctor w-rw-rw- posted:Well, there's that one nagging thing that guarantees he dies unless he solves it, and a massive brick wall in the way of solving it. Yes, that's called having a conflict. Spoiler alert: it's not going to end with a "oh well I guess there's nothing I can do I guess I should just lie down and die" *dies*.
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Jul 21, 2017 08:16
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BENGHAZI 2 posted:Hey quick reminder that the interlude at the end of chapter four of Worm is the best chapter in the whole thing interludes were better than most of the main chapters because they spent less time spelling out what the character in focus' thoughts are, and also they occasionally had likable characters. Neurosis fucked around with this message at 11:17 on Jul 21, 2017 |
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Jul 21, 2017 08:40
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Neurosis posted:interludes were better than most of the main chapters because they spend less time spelling out what the character in focus' thoughts are, and also they occasionally had likable characters.
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Jul 21, 2017 08:48
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I like Taylor and also the Undersiders, superheroes are just volunteer praetorian guard for the ruling class
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Jul 21, 2017 13:53
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BENGHAZI 2 posted:Hey quick reminder that the interlude at the end of chapter four of Worm is the best chapter in the whole thing That chapter was indeed awesome. I loved almost all of the interludes. Doctor Yamada was a great fuckin character. The one at the end of the behemoth fight was pretty great too even if the rest of the arc was brutus poo poo.
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Jul 21, 2017 14:14
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The Behemoth arc is a big nothing-hole in my memory. In contrast to the Leviathan arc which owned.
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Jul 21, 2017 14:15
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also re putting down capes with bullets: if the world was falling apart like is intimated, and fighting capes had become as professional as is implied by the PRT, I don't believe for a second dropping a hailstorm of bullets on any metahumans wouldn't have become standard practice, as part of the desperate attempts to maintain some measure of non-feudal-and-metahuman-centric control..
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Jul 21, 2017 14:18
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Neurosis posted:also re putting down capes with bullets: if the world was falling apart like is intimated, and fighting capes had become as professional as is implied by the PRT, I don't believe for a second dropping a hailstorm of bullets on any metahumans wouldn't have become standard practice, as part of the desperate attempts to maintain some measure of non-feudal-and-metahuman-centric control.. I've wanted to try avoiding tooting my own horn, so to speak, in a thread where I've been a ruthless critic, but this is essentially the line of thinking that's informed the web serial I'll be starting and uploading in a few weeks, right down to that last bit about non-feudal and metahuman-centric governance.
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Jul 21, 2017 14:24
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Megazver posted:Yes, that's called having a conflict. Spoiler alert: it's not going to end with a "oh well I guess there's nothing I can do I guess I should just lie down and die" *dies*. Yeah, but lots of timeloop/power up stories end up not having conflicts. Despite Zorian's increasing power, the odds are always desperate. The author balancing power increases for Zorian and his antagonists is good.
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Jul 21, 2017 23:30
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yeah considering time loop/time freeze poo poo is usually like, groundhog's day meets the hyperbolic time chamber, where you just run it forever until you find the perfect series of events and mastermind it in a way that your opponent can't, having zorian realize pretty early on that "oh poo poo there's a third dude in here and he's doing the same thing we are" and then continiuing to make that dude a threat owns
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Jul 21, 2017 23:33
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Milky Moor posted:For example, Taylor doesn't need to be physically present -- but a lot of the time she is, particularly when she's just starting out. Bitch, too. Imp might be the hardest, sure, but isn't her ability defeated by cameras and such? Dragon sees right through it. Grue is solved by 'firing into the big smoky cloud'. Regent and TT can't do a thing against it. Grue is a lot harder to deal with than you're implying, and his mere presence can cover for anyone he's working with as well. If he covers his opponents with his darkness (which he can do pretty easily, since he can cover very large areas that include himself) they'd be basically helpless, regardless of how many guns they had. Taylor revealing herself is largely due to facing enemies that her bugs can't handle, which isn't true most regular humans unless they have some sort of suit specifically designed to completely prevent any bugs from getting inside (and even then she can cover their eyes and poo poo or tie them up). Under normal circumstances Taylor can quickly murder every single human within a several block radius and detect anyone long before they reach her. Her power is actually one of the strongest "anti-regular people" powers. It also seems like most Brutes (like Manpower, Browbeat, Aegis, Weld, etc) as well as Tinkers with power armor are capable of handling small arms fire. Other randoms examples of people that would be very difficult for normal humans to deal with are Oni Lee, Cherish, and that one villain who can command people after making eye contact with them. Folks like Tattletale and Regent have abilities that have other unique purposes (TT because she's a Thinker of course, and Regent mainly because of his "Take over a person's body" ability), so their ability to directly fight against humans with guns isn't as relevant. Same goes for people like Flechette, who are specifically geared towards fighting other parahumans, particularly if they have high endurance. In fact, most people who can't handle humans with guns have some ability that is a Thinker sort of thing or something specifically geared towards fighting other parahumans. This isn't to say that a modern military couldn't kill most parahumans if they put significant effort into it (for example tracking someone down and waiting until they have to sleep or something), but most combat-oriented parahumans, particularly if they work in teams, are more than capable of handling normal police or small squads of armed humans. edit: The handful of parahumans who are almost impossible to deal with (like the Triumvirate) also serve as a deterrent to any sort of wide-scale crack down. Ytlaya fucked around with this message at 05:31 on Jul 22, 2017 |
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Jul 22, 2017 05:25
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Milky Moor posted:The Behemoth arc is a big nothing-hole in my memory. In contrast to the Leviathan arc which owned. It's memorable in that it has the only on screen Undersider death (the lamest death, seriously what was that?).
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Jul 22, 2017 05:34
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Ytlaya posted:Grue is a lot harder to deal with than you're implying, and his mere presence can cover for anyone he's working with as well. If he covers his opponents with his darkness (which he can do pretty easily, since he can cover very large areas that include himself) they'd be basically helpless, regardless of how many guns they had. Taylor revealing herself is largely due to facing enemies that her bugs can't handle, which isn't true most regular humans unless they have some sort of suit specifically designed to completely prevent any bugs from getting inside (and even then she can cover their eyes and poo poo or tie them up). Under normal circumstances Taylor can quickly murder every single human within a several block radius and detect anyone long before they reach her. Her power is actually one of the strongest "anti-regular people" powers. It also seems like most Brutes (like Manpower, Browbeat, Aegis, Weld, etc) as well as Tinkers with power armor are capable of handling small arms fire. Other randoms examples of people that would be very difficult for normal humans to deal with are Oni Lee, Cherish, and that one villain who can command people after making eye contact with them. Well, sure, if you let the parahumans always have optimal conditions and optimal knowledge and assume that the people they're facing are just standing around with their thumb up their collective asses and not knowing what they're walking into, sure, the parahumans will win. But that's being very disingenuous. A weird thing to argue, though, that normal people with guns aren't a threat to parahumans when the story basically handwaves away the existence of anyone with a firearm in a story set in America of all places. And then, later, goes all-in with the Cauldron conspiracy explanation. Again, it wasn't interested in exploring the relationship of superpowered people and wider society. Very few superhero stuff is. Batman VS Superman is about as close as you can get. For the most part, firearms don't exist in the text. Beyond the opening with Lung telling all of his people to shoot the Undersiders, of course. But the opening chapters of Worm feel very different to the rest of the work in general (RIP Armsmaster's motorcycle). edit: Doesn't Tattletale carry a handgun? sunken fleet posted:It's memorable in that it has the only on screen Undersider death (the lamest death, seriously what was that?). That's the one thing I remember. That and Phir Se with the plan to hit Behemoth with a big laser beam? Oh, and Accord died. Milkfred E. Moore fucked around with this message at 09:45 on Jul 22, 2017 |
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Jul 22, 2017 09:36
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The fandom waves it away but does the text? Listening to the We've Got Worm podcast, they noted a rare instance of cape-on-human violence - Purity murdered the poo poo out of a lot of people, and if you think about it, Skitter could kill hundreds or thousands of people within the span of an hour. Tattletale could shut the city down any number of ways, Regent could, if they're not careful, control a heavy hitter, Lung can help level an island, Labyrinth is a Shaker _12_, literally rejecting their reality and substituting her own in a wide area, Trickster can friendly fire the poo poo out of you, Night and Fog are even more of a murder machine together than the rest of the E88 capes... Bullets up the ante and make every cape fight a fight for survival from the get-go, because parahumans are goddamn lethal if they're not playing the game (which the S9 specifically underscore). Unless the threat of a kill order actually means something to them, i.e. kill on sight, guns will kill way more normies than capes.
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Jul 22, 2017 10:56
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Doctor w-rw-rw- posted:The fandom waves it away but does the text? Listening to the We've Got Worm podcast, they noted a rare instance of cape-on-human violence - Purity murdered the poo poo out of a lot of people, and if you think about it, Skitter could kill hundreds or thousands of people within the span of an hour. Tattletale could shut the city down any number of ways, Regent could, if they're not careful, control a heavy hitter, Lung can help level an island, Labyrinth is a Shaker _12_, literally rejecting their reality and substituting her own in a wide area, Trickster can friendly fire the poo poo out of you, Night and Fog are even more of a murder machine together than the rest of the E88 capes... given the threat these people represent setting up a surveillance state and drone striking/carpet bombing where they are seems better than continuing to exist at gunpoint.
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Jul 22, 2017 12:30
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Purity even got, what, put under house arrest with her kid and extended 'family'? God forbid the normal people don't up the ante. It'd risk upsetting the parahuman ruling class. Full communism now.
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Jul 22, 2017 12:41
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oh the ruling class would've been onto the parahumans long before. and they would've been morally in the right to do so. sure they might rule through wealth and political power, but that provides more protection and more chance of climbing for the common man than a system based on a lottery of magic powers. that's something peculiarly absent from worm - everything is superhuman driven. the reaction by any group of powerful and intelligent normal humans is strangely absent.
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Jul 22, 2017 12:48
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I think the implication with the Cauldron situation was that some of the wealthy and powerful become parahumans and quietly used that to depose the rest, then got involved with the cauldron/prt clusterfuck. Or just absent because Wildbow didn't want to touch on it. 
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Jul 22, 2017 13:17
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Neurosis posted:oh the ruling class would've been onto the parahumans long before. and they would've been morally in the right to do so. sure they might rule through wealth and political power, but that provides more protection and more chance of climbing for the common man than a system based on a lottery of magic powers. It's almost like part of superhero fiction is suspending your disbelief
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Jul 22, 2017 23:14
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Re: guns, the obvious answer is that most capes have costumes that are more or less bulletproof. Which is, in fact, what we're shown (e.g., when Taylor fights Coil's soldiers).
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Jul 22, 2017 23:17
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As someone else mentioned, I think the key point is that humans have little to gain from upping the ante. There exist parahumans like Panacea (or Skitter, Cherish, Bonesaw, etc) who can kill a huge number of people in a short period of time without even revealing themselves, and any sort of full-power attempt to eliminate parahumans would result in a massive amount of casualties. It would also probably cause parahumans to band together, which eliminates many of their weaknesses because you'd have one side with a bunch of precogs, superhuman thinkers, and futuristic technology at their disposal. I have little doubt humans would probably win in the end (though there are some parahumans that I think are literally impossible to kill with normal weapons), but it wouldn't be pretty. Then there's the issue of the Endbringers. Another reason capes are tolerated is because they act as some sort of resistance against Endbringers. Even if they can't defeat them, they can at least make the difference between causing a big disaster and wiping an area off the map.
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Jul 23, 2017 03:14
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Right, and IIRC society is as a whole a lot more broken than is immediately apparent. I bet some large amount of industry or agriculture is sustained or at least boosted by tinkertech.
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Jul 23, 2017 08:39
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BENGHAZI 2 posted:It's almost like part of superhero fiction is suspending your disbelief in this kind of story, particularly where the author goes to huge efforts to build the world, the suspension of disbelief should concern the physically impossible things like the tinker tech, superpowers, and entities. it's valid to find a lack of realism in another aspect to be a flaw. anyway it's not like i'm saying this totally undermines the story, it's just one background detail i'm not too sold on.
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Jul 23, 2017 09:07
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Neurosis posted:in this kind of story, particularly where the author goes to huge efforts to build the world, the suspension of disbelief should concern the physically impossible things like the tinker tech, superpowers, and entities. it's valid to find a lack of realism in another aspect to be a flaw. anyway it's not like i'm saying this totally undermines the story, it's just one background detail i'm not too sold on. Why don't the police just gun the joker down as soon as he's in custody
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Jul 23, 2017 09:14
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