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Hit him with the chunks of his wife, and then HAMMER him with the biggest lump of steel ever. Low blow, but I dare say that took more out of him than the entire fighting short of Eidolon did.
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Oct 5, 2013 06:03
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DudeOnCrack posted:I don't see how dropping that column on Scion one time could possibly do more damage than the way the Siberian tore through him, or how it could could qualify as a distraction comparatively. Because his defenses are entirely down, he doesn't cut off the connection after taking damage, so is actually capable of taking multiple bodies worth of damage at once.
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Oct 6, 2013 08:18
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With the way the 'Well' works, what happens is that Scion can negate any attack he sees coming(meaning any natural triggered powers are already out), and he can take at most, one body-mass worth of damage, since he can close the connection to limit the extent. He's not super-dense, so much as his body is simultaneously enormous and human sized, so you can damage the whole body at once, unless he's paying attention and isolates the avatar you're fighting. Siberian did massive damage to his avatar, but it was only one body's worth of damage each time. And he was distracted by the Cauldron vials at that.
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Oct 6, 2013 08:47
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That's what I got out of the description of how the main body and avatar seems to work. The avatar isn't just a projection or appendage, it's simultaneously the whole body and a part which can be isolated. It explains why Scion didn't want to take a hit from Foil, presumably her power would let her hit the main body even if he closed the connection.
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Oct 6, 2013 09:34
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Simurgh: Just As Planned I see how Simurgh got past Scion's precognition. His 'path to victory' was based on reuniting with his mate, thus anything that happened after wasn't covered. What happened was Panacea got her setup by Simurgh engineering things so that she got sent to the Birdcage through the works of the S9, and kept there by the tweaked message that Dragon would otherwise have gotten. Later on, Taylor was manipulated with the one "Sorry" at the right time, place and state of mind. Tattletale was likely guided to where she wasn't going to interrupt this in the same stroke. That manipulation in turn, kicks in this chapter, when that one word proved the tipping point to Taylor taking the plunge to unlock her powers. AND while Simurgh is singing in the background, causing no doubt, some kind of disruption to the two brain surgeons. Yet to figure out what roll the air gun plays in this though.
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Oct 8, 2013 15:41
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I'm thinking more likely that Simurgh singing right now is Relevant. What did the bird do.
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Oct 8, 2013 20:56
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NecroMonster posted:hiding a metal capped three foot diameter seven foot long glass tube in a giant blow dryer Sudden realization. That's the usual dimensions of the peoplejars you see in various media isn't it? A glass tube which fits one person, capped with metal and usually filled with suspicious liquid.
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Oct 8, 2013 23:20
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why oh WHY posted:I swear to Zion, if WildBow doesn't give us a chapter from either Taylor's point of view or someone in the thick of this most recent development I am going to throw a motherfucking temper tantrum. Just wait till we get Leviathan's thoughts about being used as a missile weapon.
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Oct 12, 2013 02:20
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Grundulum posted:Why do you assume that the character who held up her picture is necessarily acting in the best interests of humanity? Yeah, of the people we see here, they are pretty much all problem cases. And not the useful kind of problems either.
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Oct 12, 2013 09:09
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thespaceinvader posted:I don't know, I may have misread something. Or it's possible I just misinterpreted the line about 'her skin being the strangest black colour' as being unnaturally black, rather than just the reaction of a kid who's never seen a black person before. Looks like Contessa is from an Earth where civilization never developed very far, nor internationalized. She'd probably never seen anyone outside her own race before.
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Oct 12, 2013 15:37
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Tollymain posted:Wait, which one in the thinker's projection is supposed to be an alternate version of Jack? I think I spotted an alternate Miss Militia and Armsmaster/Defiant or Chevalier, but Jack? The Black Knight, who can't lose as long as he's fighting a parahuman
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Oct 14, 2013 10:57
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Dietrich posted:Sounds more like Taylor to me. Except she is not likely to be mistaken for a man.
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Oct 14, 2013 14:27
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quote:We bait them into a fight, then sic him on them. He’ll be able to win as long as it’s parahumans he’s fighting. Note how it's phrased. The Black Knight is described like an attack dog there. Taylor, however she winds up, will be a Master type due to the Administrator shard, not something you use in a head on attack. Number Man is extremely strong head on but only really powerful when used behind the scenes, he has more uses than direct assault. The only character you could 'sic' on parahumans and always win is Jack.
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Oct 14, 2013 14:52
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It was the combination of two qualities: -Firstly, his ability to connect with, predict and manipulate any shard bearer. This would basically put him at a high level Thinker's combat qualities, not unlike Number Man. However, unlike Number Man and Contessa, this ability lets him anticipate what they do in a wide range of ways, including subconscious cues that only their shard is normally privy to. Additionally, the battle-Thinkers we've seen have no powered offenses, they work with blades, guns, and if they're lucky, Tinker-made weaponry. This means there normally are no-win scenarios for a battle-Thinker, because they simply don't have the offensive muscle to get through a defensive power. -Secondly, his restricted Broadcast ability, to extend the cutting power and range of a slashing attack. This ability cuts just about anything, as befits what was originally transdimensional transmission ability. On it's own, it's just another blaster option, but in combination with his secondary ability, it makes for a neat combination that would make him capable of defeating any normal parahuman. Just about the only things he might be weak to are certain kinds of Strangers that can counter his communication ability(e.g. Mantellum), an Endbringer class Brute(Hookwolf and Noelle wouldn't be sufficient, as he could cut their cores, but an Endbringer's core may negate the power) or a Blaster of such magnitude that they could destroy the entire zone he's in, rapidly enough that he cannot escape the area in the time between the Blaster having the intent to do so and finishing the deed(as far as I can tell, this would be some of the Indian capes or Zion himself).
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Oct 14, 2013 17:07
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Administrator. Administrate. Thread title fits perfectly here.
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Oct 15, 2013 09:05
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Fellwenner posted:
Theory is that the glass tube isn't a gun at all, it's a bottle for Taylor(should we call her Web now?)
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Oct 15, 2013 09:44
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pretty much sums that up nicely.
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Simurgh is singing and Zion is destroying the town around them. That's a lot of persuasion.NecroMonster posted:Well it might not actually, but Jacks did give him such an advantage, and experience fighting with and against Taylor helped him come up with an idea that would possibly (and did in fact) work. Seems likely to be largely the same, a subtle awareness of other shards in the vicinity and possibly, some slight influence over the subconscious aspects of their manifestations.
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Oct 15, 2013 20:53
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TOOT BOOT posted:You have to respect the fact that Wildbow never gave into the temptation to give Taylor more power as the stakes got higher and higher. He did things the hard way and wrote around it for 3 years. She never felt irrelevant even though her power is one of the worst in the entire series. While her power isn't a top tier combat power, it's far from one of the worst, possessing immense flexibility in information gathering, huge range and also quite lethal to anything without defensive powers. EDIT: Hell, the only reason it looks weak is because she insists on taking on Endbringers and Zion, when they are immune to poison and resistant to any physical damage smaller than a cruise missile. Fellwenner posted:It was reflected on by Taylor at some point that her hyper-awareness of everything around her through the fine control of her bugs gave her an advantage. Minute detail stuff like bits of airflow, trajectory, etc. She's giving the insects too much credit I think, there are details she acquires with them that she couldn't have gotten without the person in question noticing, since it'd involve a full body bug carpet. veekie fucked around with this message at 12:08 on Oct 16, 2013 |
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Oct 16, 2013 09:15
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But in that case a Tinker using a hypertech gun should work just fine.
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Oct 16, 2013 20:17
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Tinker hypertech wielded by a Tinker that is. He definitely has a lot of insight into all parahumans, whether or not their powers are involved. It's how he managed to keep the S9 a cohesive unit in the first place, he can anticipate all their plans and manipulate them easily.
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Oct 16, 2013 23:09
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Looks like she lost all communication ability outside of her new powers. And now she's going on a collecting spree. Makes me think Pokemon. Wild mons never fight as good as trainer mons, especially in team battles
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Oct 17, 2013 08:42
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Mr. Fowl posted:Well, they've mentioned that when two clairvoyants fight, their powers cancel out, so it might be a similar, though lesser effect because their shard-related powers don't perfectly align. Or maybe Jack was just loving with her because he knew the mesh would catch the bullet. Actually, it's more a matter of escalating complexity when Thinker powers clash. The powers have to account for not only what would happen, but what their opponent's counter prediction to their own predicted actions until all of them need to lie down to have a headache. Jack's is easier in a sense. He just reads intent and targets. The external consequences can go burn.
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Oct 17, 2013 23:50
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TOOT BOOT posted:It's interesting that all he's doing is reading a novel when we see him, given that he's supposed to be an s-class threat, I guess I expected something more...imposing? He's nasty enough that even Taylor at her present level of power would prefer not to try to take him. Probably a very inconvenient, semi-passive effect.
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Oct 22, 2013 09:14
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Tollymain posted:Not really though? As much as Taylor is dealing with a lot of different people, the general idea is pretty simple. She's snaring as many capes as she can afford to get her hands on and preventing the rest from harming her efforts. More than that, her shard is getting more and more dominant as it links up with more people. It's essentially still Taylor, but it's escalating even harder, operating at a high level of organization to get all the powers it can find and integrate them into the whole. She arrived, originally intending to take on Zion with a strike team of high end powers, working in concert through the Yangban capes to multiply the powers. Now she gets distracted, her first impulse is to capture if it's useful and kill if it's harmful. It happens unless she actively overrides it, and the times where she's overriding her instincts are getting fewer and fewer. It shows how much Dragon and Tattletale mean to her that she could find an alternative and reject the easiest way there.
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Oct 23, 2013 02:33
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Pierson posted:I seriously hope there's a planned aftermath/reactions chapter from the POV of everyone but Weaver; Protectorate, Undersiders, internet chatroom, everyone, as they realise the smart bug kid from a B-list team is now an all-controlling god-queen. I'd think the chatroom is pretty much defunct now.
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Oct 24, 2013 09:56
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It hadn't really been that long since though.
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Oct 24, 2013 11:20
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Tattletale can really piss anything off. Holy poo poo, that cracked me up good when I saw Scion's reaction.
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Oct 24, 2013 23:00
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Feet. She wouldn't have minded nearly as much if it was yards, she could work with that, but any shorter and it'd be touch range.
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Oct 25, 2013 00:49
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Hawkgirl posted:I kind of get it but I need someone to walk me through it. Oliver was important because he drank half a potion, right? Did he drink the other half of Noelle's thing? I forget. Anyhow, he drank the "balance" half, and that makes him like the entity because...I can't quite put it together. Because his appearance and identity changes on some variable that I can't decipher? That made him seem like the partner entity to Scion? berenzen posted:And to think this all started with a girl getting shoved into a locker full of used tampons. Come to think of it, she did that. Pretty much exactly that, right back at Scion.
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Oct 26, 2013 08:37
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A nice touch is that while she can't communicate with then anymore, it's still very much an Undersider style operation in the end. Tattletale coordinating the efforts, Taylor gathering information on an immense scale and handling the frontline tactics, Imp providing the right nudge at the right places. They don't NEED to talk, they just work together regardless.
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Oct 26, 2013 20:23
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Oneiros posted:Bolded your problem there. I'd be one of you except someone did the same in a chatroom a day before that first drive by post.
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Oct 28, 2013 15:23
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Interestingly, it seems that the last we saw of the 'real' Taylor, was the thought that everything went wrong. Everything after that was Administrator, growing increasingly out of touch with Taylor, who became the 'passenger' the invisible impulses that led her to irrationally spare friends. Administrator, who was so incredibly skilled at managing multiple powers and coordinating them to a combined effort. Administrator, who never was human to begin with, and had no use for human concepts like language or empathy. All the ability to communicate derived from Taylor, who, like how Administrator normally supplied her with intuitive knowledge of how to control insects, supplied intuitive language ability to the extent of gross symbols. Except, when her body grew tired and her mind started cracking from the stress, Administrator didn't feel it anymore than the combined pair felt the discomfort of the capes under their control. So Taylor grew weaker and no longer could support Administrator's decision making, she likely collapsed after Scion's defeat, and was only moving by dint of her power controlling her unconscious body. Even when finally knocked unconscious, we know the shard can still operate(see Alexandria), and it held on control, though the Taylor side of the combination recuperated sufficiently to resume some degree of human comprehension and communication. Contessa was thus, trying to verify if there was any way out. A solution which might have the shard release control over Taylor's body, and after that, to restore Taylor's own control. Funny that the unarmored part of her costume, mentioned very much early on, became relevant here.
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Oct 29, 2013 20:00
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She's made many sacrifices all the way getting to this point, and sacrificed people and things of value. She's crossed lines, done the unforgivable and finally became a monster. All that was to do the right thing, in the end. She already chose to sacrifice herself at the end of the last arc, and while painful, it'd quite cheapen her decision if she got out of it 'free'. There is a happy(ish) ending for humanity, but really, what she could hope for in the end was just to have an ending at all.
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Oct 29, 2013 23:16
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The shards do have minds of a sort, if not quite actual personalities. The Worms are basically gestalt entities formed from shards which have either managed to cooperate with other shards or obtain dominance and an overarching will. Each shard has the capacity to remember(we have two forms of this, the flashbacks and Tinker skills are both shard memories), learn and adapt. They have a directive which is consistent through to their earlier stage of evolution, they are driven by conflict in the long ago past, conflicts of resources, knowledge and dominance. We know all that from their point of view interlude.
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Oct 30, 2013 01:03
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Fellwenner posted:The two bullets issue is laid to rest when the S9 clones are given as an example of Contessa previously double tapping. The part I question is why was the second bullets purpose stated as being to prevent pain? I don't understand that. What's the point? There's maybe a second before the second bullet is fired and she'd be dead regardless.
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Oct 30, 2013 09:29
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Algid posted:Contessa's power gave an output to a particular input, if you don't ask the right question, you could end up suiciding yourself like the thinker did.
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Oct 30, 2013 18:15
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thespaceinvader posted:Also, it really fits Taylor's whole thing of doing bad things for the greater good - killing Taylor is bad, sure, but the greater good is served by not having humanity entirely controlled by an alien intelligence hell bent on order and peace at all costs. Kind of like the Worms really, though approached from the opposite direction. Peace and order brings stagnation even as unlimited conflict brings waste and destruction. The key is always in the middle ground.
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Oct 30, 2013 22:28
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The big difference there is really that she was controlling herself with her power, when her power has been unleashed from her will.
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Oct 31, 2013 06:23
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She didn't ask. That's the entire thing that drives Cauldron's mistakes. It only works if you ask the right questions, and it's incredibly easy to get exactly what you asked for, destroying what you truly needed. And Contessa never learned to make decisions unassisted either, deep down she's still the kid who got the walkthrough for the whole world.
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Oct 31, 2013 08:36
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Yeah, you could REALLY see it when Cauldron eliminates uncertainty from the situation whenever they can. It's ALL to ensure that they can carry out the steps that Contessa plotted out, even if they don't know why it works, and can't account for the prescience-blind factors, such as Scion, some Strangers, the Endbringers or Eidolon, as well as being unable to consider the effects of compounded precognition messing everything up. Neither Doctor Mother nor Contessa are really qualified to deal with the management demands honestly.
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Oct 31, 2013 12:43
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