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Skippy McPants posted:The Undersiders as a group maybe an A, but not Skitter on her own. The level of distain Alexandria showed her made it pretty clear she didn't consider just Taylor alone to be a tremendous threat. I wouldn't be surprised if Contessa (and maybe by extention Cauldron) set up Alexandria from the very start to take this fall. Hell Alexandria's death ended up strengthening the wards and protectorate if anything. gently caress a hell of a lot of the poo poo Cauldron and Contessa are known to have done has had major impacts on Taylor. I think it's likely that a good part of Contessa's plan hinges on Taylor, to an extent that Doctor Mother probably isn't even fully aware of.
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Sep 4, 2013 20:48
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Skippy McPants posted:Ehhh, that's pushing it a bit. Defiant and Miss Militia both confirmed that what Taylor experienced was Alexandria normal method of interrogation, attempting to strong-arm and overawe people into submission. Occam's razor; Alexandria had fought the Endbringers dozens of times, she didn't have any reason to believe that a sixteen year old upstart could pose any kind of danger to her personally so she didn't see any risk in backing her into a corner. Attributing it to some grand plan on Cauldron's part just undercuts all the delicious hubris. Alexandria was approached by Doctor Mother and given powers, Contessa is very likely involved in that choice.
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Sep 4, 2013 21:25
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Oh yeah if everything is being set up for Taylor, when Tattletale figures this out and tries to say anything expect her to get killed. Dinah probably already knows, but also knows that Taylor cannot know or everything is hosed.
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Sep 4, 2013 21:58
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OmniBeer posted:Well I can't say I expected this plan. I was guessing something like this it makes excellent loving sense, they don't know who created the endbringers or why, which means not attempting to actually communicate with the things, especially when they are acting weird, is simply a huge missed opportunity. We also know that humanity's survivors are supposed to be mostly divided into five groups, and there are five endbringers. ON top of these two things, we, the readers, also have some inkling that Eidolon might have been subconsiously creating the things in the first place, and if that's true, why couldn't be reprogram them before he died? It's even more likely if you assume that what Scion said made Eidolon realize that he was doing it in the first place, makes it easier to fix. On top of all of this, it doesn't seem like Cauldron has ever really attempted to do much at all about the Endbringers, meaning maybe Contessa never saw them as a real threat.
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Sep 5, 2013 07:50
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SerSpook posted:Simurgh is an interesting case. Pretty much a perfect, or near-perfect, precog. How much of what it does is intelligence, and how much is it just Contessa on steroids? Even that would require some intelligence, sure, but not necessarily that much. Just picking whatever future seems to have the best results based on whatever she's been programmed with or whatever. You want something even crazier? While the Simurgh has wrecked a hell of a lot of havoc over time, a few of the her actions that we are aware of have had positive effects in the end, most notably Mannequin's interaction with Armsmaster having a POSITIVE effect on the man and Dragon, and Noelle's situation leading to both the discovery of how to create portals AND the reveal of the whole Cauldron situation improved humanities situation overall. Precogs give me loving headaches.
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Sep 5, 2013 21:28
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sirtommygunn posted:Sometimes when butterflies flap their wings to cause tornados on the other side of the planet, they look really pretty to anyone nearby. The converse could also be true. There is no reason to believe that causing positive things to happen wouldn't wreck utter havoc as well.
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Sep 5, 2013 22:23
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Skippy McPants posted:I think you mean inverse. Converse means to engage in conversation. Yeah, I do.
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Sep 6, 2013 00:12
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veekie posted:New Worm At this point I'm starting to think that Wildbow deserves some sort of reward for his ability to just keep upping the ante. Oh yeah does this mean that Defiant's nano-thorns can hurt Scion or does it just mean that Simurgh thinks it's worth a shot?
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Sep 10, 2013 08:30
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Honestly they don't even need to run Scion out of power Scions actions are largely predicated on him being correct about the death of the shards, and he's probably wrong.
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Sep 14, 2013 07:16
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Worm: Oh loving hell, how does everything keep getting more and more hosed.
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Sep 17, 2013 05:32
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The realization that the endbringers aren't all cooperating so much as following Simurgh's orders is disturbing.
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Sep 17, 2013 06:07
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SerSpook posted:I'm not buying that Contessa went down that easily. I have to wonder if she somehow deceived them or let herself be defeated as part of a larger plan. Somehow. Yeah, it's fishy, there is deffo something up with that, of course precognition makes guessing "why" even harder than it'd normally be.
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Sep 17, 2013 06:49
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SerSpook posted:As far as solutions to Scion goes, let's not forget that there is still a third entity around somewhere, and Contessa had a shard from it. That's probably going to be a big part of that. Yeah, victory isn't so much defeating Scion as it is neutralizing him. Changing his mind would be enough, and considering his powerset, it might actually be the only real hope. Oh yeah, The Simurgh: Is manipulating Lisa with a memory of her brothers suicide and manipulating Taylor with a memory of Dinah, both people these characters care a hell of a loving lot about, but what might that accomplish? Also, the thing Smufy is making and hiding inside of the gun is probably a cloning device, but it could be a lot of things that would hold a single human being; hibernation chamber, some sort of healing device, time machine? If it is a cloning device, who the hell is she planning to clone? NecroMonster fucked around with this message at 00:47 on Sep 18, 2013 |
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Sep 17, 2013 21:48
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Yep, the shards themselves grow, reproduce, and evolve. The children of capes are generally getting the child shards of their parents shards. Taylor's shard has a child shard for instance, but it's not in contact with anyone. Second triggers may be the holder of a child shard gaining access to that child shard, a whole family of shards in one person. This also means the whole point of the entities (Scion and the other) experiment has been fulfilled, only because the entities cannot be reformed, Scion (mistakenly) thinks the whole thing has been a failure.
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Sep 18, 2013 02:26
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Lprsti99 posted:Which I haven't gotten to yet Then you really shouldn't be reading this stuff because we are only using spoilers for the lastest current arc or two.
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Sep 18, 2013 02:34
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builds character posted:4. Necromonster - doesn't she have the admin shard? Is that a kiddie shard? She's got the admin shard and another shard that split off of her shard and that she isn't in contact with, Scion notes this during his interlude.
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Sep 18, 2013 03:08
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Algid posted:Aiden has it. He's the kid that got bird control powers and drew the pictures that had to be described to Lisa. That makes sense yeah. Scion didn't say anyone had it, but he also didn't say no one had it, just that Taylor didn't. Tho I guess it's also possible that Taylor's shard has reproduced more than once and Aiden simply has the earlier child shard. Not that it really matters, but that's a cool loving detail that I didn't put together there. NecroMonster fucked around with this message at 05:10 on Sep 18, 2013 |
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Sep 18, 2013 05:06
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I really really doubt that Scion has any plan beyond killing every human being he can get his hands on. He's honestly just not smart enough for anything else.
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Sep 19, 2013 00:43
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veekie posted:Scion seems less invulnerable now, what with having stains and stuff on him, and actually putting up an effort on defense. I reckon all those powers he deflected or blocked could have wounded him. Anyone he guns for aggressively could have killed him. Scion's never actually been invulnerable, well, he did make sure he couldn't lose a fight against the shards he altered and cast out, but those same shards have changed, and reproduced since then. He's dealing with far more unknowns than he started this whole experiment with, he's running himself dry of power at the same time. He's acting in total desperation, trying whatever he can to induce some sort of improvement in his own situation. He's basically committing a sort of suicide here.
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Sep 19, 2013 21:10
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veekie posted:There's a good chance of simply killing him by exhaustion then, if everyone puts up a good fight. There are far more shards out there than Scion has and defeating all of them will be hideously costly in terms of energy On the other hand he's making efforts to conserve his energy, probably so he doesn't run out of energy before he runs out of humans.
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Sep 19, 2013 21:28
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Scion isn't a projection the way Siberian was, rather he's a tiny bit of the whole that's projected into realities humans actually have access to. Hurting Scion does very likely hurt the whole thing, maybe not lethally, but I'd be willing to bet that Scion couldn't manifest another "body" if this one was destroyed.
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Sep 20, 2013 01:03
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Dickeye posted:I totally did not get that whole chapter, what was the point of the experiment anyway? The point of the experiment was achieving reproduction and evolution, the species was basically stagnant, probably also while wasting far far less in the way of resources. Dickeye posted:I think trying to call Scion smart or dumb in the way we think of being those things is a futile endeavor. You know how Lovecraftian Gods are just these ineffable beings with ideas and thoughts that just don't jive with the way we think? That's Scion: A horrible alien consciousness that is completely foreign to anything humanity has ever known. I mean smart enough in a human way. He doesn't really have much in they way of initiative or imagination, at least he didn't, he seems to be gaining those qualities now.
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Sep 20, 2013 02:35
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Saith posted:e: The Shards are basically Scion's sperm is what I'm saying. Hell the shards Scion doesn't designate as "dead" were actually part of Scion in the first place. The dead ones all belonged to the other entity, with Contessa's shard having originated from the third entity. Reading interlude 26 again I've actually come to the conclusion that the contact between the second and third entity may have actually changed the second entities goals, or at least been willful sabotage of the Scion and second entities goals.
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Sep 20, 2013 02:51
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thespaceinvader posted:Speaking of Shadow Stalker, why do I get the feeling she's going to somehow be key to the resolution? Not sure how, but it would be fitting... I feel like she probably will have an important role in it, on the other hand I also feel like she's a complete and total idiot who isn't going to be able to do anything but try and hurt Taylor somehow. She's mean, stupid, crazy and a complete coward so I'm really having trouble coming up with anything she might actually be willing to do.
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Sep 21, 2013 02:21
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I'm really starting to wonder about Scion's senses. Smurf just keeps on loving with the guy and he never picks up on it, I wonder if Lisa or Taylor have picked up on this yet. I also have to wonder what Taylor's plan is. Personally I'd get Amy, Riley, and Defiant to help me put together an army of human sized and shaped super powered bugs armed with nano-thorns, bonus points if you can find a way to get some endbringer material into them to gently caress with Scions senses, bonus bonus points if you can make them in such a way that Rachel's power will work on them. Super bonus points if they've all got Siberian's power as well. It's like Chev said in the last interlude, it's time to loving cheat. Oh yeah, another thing, the dimensions that house the shards, and the rest of Scion's body aren't "sealed off" they are only inaccessible to the shard with the dimensional portal powers that Scion himself sent out, this shard is probably Doormaker's. Scrub+Labyrinth should have no such restrictions. Also, the "stranger" power that makes everyone forget what they see when they trigger is the same shard that gives Aisha her power. NecroMonster fucked around with this message at 20:44 on Sep 21, 2013 |
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Sep 21, 2013 20:32
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Real talk Simurgh was distracting him, not just with the puff of air, but also by just generally being something his mental powers don't work on.
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Sep 22, 2013 06:38
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Grundulum posted:Is it pretty much accepted then that (Ch. 28) Eidolon's powers come from either the partner or the third worm? 'Cause there's no way Scion would have knowingly left a shard capable of creating the Endbringers, whose movements aren't predictable to him. Glaistig called him the High Priest of the Stillborn Fairy or something like that. So it seems like his shard both came from the second entity, and that Scion was mistaken about these shards having been encoded, at least in the manner his own shards had been. Also, we really don't know if he created the Endbringers, we've only got a hunch there, and Lisa is far from sure either way.
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Sep 22, 2013 07:10
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veekie posted:I suspect she's simply costing him as much energy as she could with the minimal effort on her part. Force him to check the future at minimal effort. It's all the same thing in the end.
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Sep 22, 2013 09:12
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I've always wanted to know if Grue named himself or if he got his name the way Taylor got hers. I'm starting to think that he may have named himself, because his sisters name is also a drat nerdy reference.
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Sep 23, 2013 05:19
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Hawkgirl posted:Imp isn't just a reference to her being a pain the rear end? I was feeling all smug about you plebeians not knowing about grues but I guess now I'm a plebeian too. In dungeons and dragons Imps have the ability to turn invisible at will. So yeah, it's not just a reference to her being a pain in the rear end.
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Sep 23, 2013 06:02
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Worm 29.3: A group of thinkers and strangers try to pull a fast one on Taylor, who doesn't even have thinker powers, and fail.
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Sep 24, 2013 05:43
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Ok so Scion. What are the chances that, if they kill or cut him off from his main body, that he dies? Cause I'm thinking it wouldn't kill him, just leave him real human and real vulnerable.
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Sep 24, 2013 20:57
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Grundulum posted:Why are you treating the human form and the worm as separate entities? My (fake) money is on the human form being a Siberian-like projection. I'm not treating them as separate entities. It is actually a part of the whole, and it is actually biologically human. We know that it's a part of the whole because any damage done to it is filled in and repaired with the material that makes up the rest of it's body. We know that it's biologically human because well, it thought it was, and Tattletale thinks it is. It cannot be a projection like Siberian, because Siberian was just that, a projection, bearing no attachment to the creator aside from the mental one. My guess for why the human Scion body would remain separate hinges on two things. First; the Scion body only interacts with the rest of the whole one way, the body gives power and matter to the human body, but nothing that happens to the human form effects the remainder otherwise. Second; the entity has no control over it's powers (or shards) aside from what the human form provides, we know this is true because the last shard Scion gave up is the shard that would provide the entity with that control. NecroMonster fucked around with this message at 22:40 on Sep 24, 2013 |
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Sep 24, 2013 22:34
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I've read it like four times. I'm on my first reread of the full story. I think there are probably clues and hints to the possible end of the serial hidden all throughout it but I know the Scion interlude and most of what follows is just loving dripping with clues. Try this one on for size. Leviathan's attack may have saved more people than it killed thanks to evacuations and the breaking of a LOT of the glass in town. With what we now know about the Endbringers, and specifically Simurgh "their" possible motivations have gotten really loving hard to pinpoint. NecroMonster fucked around with this message at 23:06 on Sep 24, 2013 |
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Sep 24, 2013 22:59
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Vateke posted:drat. I wonder if the Simurgh just does all the planning. You want a nose bleed? Taylor's running into and mostly beating Lung started the whole series of events that left the city in a heightened state of conflict, and thus a good target for an Endbringer attack in the first place. Contessa running into Lung started the whole chain of events that led to Lung being in Brockton Bay in the first place. NecroMonster fucked around with this message at 09:54 on Sep 25, 2013 |
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Sep 25, 2013 09:52
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Zasze posted:I like how the pre-destination /cognition stuff is handled is kinda in the background rather than beating the reader over the head with it. Same. Honestly it feels like it makes it work even better to me.
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Sep 25, 2013 19:15
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Grundulum posted:^ One of the many things I enjoy about this series. ^ It makes sense for Lung to respect Taylor, and even be willing to go to extra trouble for her, based on what we know of his psychology, but Shadow Stalker? Nope, not gunna loving believe it. What Shadow Stalker said was probably an attempt to get the rest of the group to condone her running away without trying to stop her, or at least save face in the face of her cowardice. Oh yeah, what's the chances that Imp tries to kill Mantellum knowing that she'd be good as dead for doing it?
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Sep 26, 2013 06:13
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I'm not really seeing anything wrong with Imp. The way she's acting seems to simply be a combination of her particular coping mechanism, as well as increased confidence and maturity. Then again, maybe Grue is still hanging around, copying her power, and she's realized it and is trying to get him to drop the act? Nah I'm just being crazy here.
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Sep 26, 2013 21:48
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hollylolly posted:She has an ear bud, she was just telling Tattletale she'd like to hear the cliff notes on the Irregulars after Lung said he didn't want to be distracted. If that's the exchange that made you think she didn't. Yeah, she just wasn't paying attention, because she's got a fairly severe case of ADHD.
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Sep 26, 2013 22:44
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Worm 29.5 welp, next chapter is going to be a loving nightmare. I don't know how to interpret this other than Scion is about to attack them. Maybe Satyrical is bluffing, but my gut tells me he's not and things are about to get really really loving bad.
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Sep 28, 2013 05:41
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