Worm

Contessa's power as stated seems to have a flaw, though...namely that it seems to be an "activated on command" power, not a passive one. So it seems like it should have been possible to snipe her when she's not actively using her power to accomplish a mission (admittedly that may be hard if she hangs out at the Cauldron base during all her downtime). Taylor explicitly notes that Contessa's power differs from Scion's version in that only the latter is able to set up contingencies (although, it's possible Taylor was mistaken about Contessa being unable to).

Unless her power allows her to ask something like "what should I do to ensure I survive the next day/week/month in perfect condition" and she refreshes that question periodically. (Though that may raise some uncertainties about what happens during the occasional encounters with those immune to her power, like Scion and the Endbringers.)

I would think that she would be running a "how do I complete cauldron's master plan? " in the background, which would protect her from surprise attacks.

If she did encounter Saitama, she'd probably just run away or defuse the situation.

Saitama is actually much less of a threat in the Worm verse than anywhere else. He's a very laid-back guy who's merciful so long as he doesn't catch you murdering innocents. And Wormverse people are, by and large, reasonable, clever people who will not stupidly start fights for the heck of it, engage in pointless displays of cruelty, or insist in fighting an opponent whenever they know for a fact that they are outclassed. Wormverse villains, as soon as they knew about Saitama, would flee. Even the Slaughterhouse Nine.

But he'd surely run after them. And end them.

But... If the Simurgh decides to fuck with Saitama and orchestrate a Face–Heel Turn for him, he would become the Endbringer of Endbringers. A death sentence on the planet.

On the other hand, is there anyone who can catapult Saitama into outer space (you know, making sure that he misses the Moon or any other object he could conceivably support himself with)?

The Doorman springs to mind. Also, probably Legend or Eidelon.

Also Scion, obviously.

edited 3rd Jan '16 3:52:43 PM by Gaunt88

It almost goes without saying Glaistig Uaine probably has a power that could do it.

Siberian maybe depending on if Saitama can work out she's a projection since she can ignore physics, although not sure how hard she can hit, since nothing in series really stands up to her.

I think quite a few Tinkers could do it as well with prep time. Bakuda (with collateral damage), String Theory and Dragon come to mind.

Ziz's TK might also be able to toss him into outer space. The others would likely get taken out before being able to make the throw.

edited 3rd Jan '16 3:57:05 PM by 32ndfreeze

On the other hand, is there anyone who can catapult Saitama into outer space

Wasn't there someone called Lab Rat or something that did that to Scion?

Edit: Oh, it was probably String Theory.

edited 3rd Jan '16 5:00:26 PM by storyyeller

I'm only remembering this because I'm flipping through random chapters, but Ballistic was also able to launch Glory Girl into A Twinkle in the Sky just by grabbing her for a second.

(Just out of nerd-interest: apparently Ballistic launches things at "a few hundred feet a second" though, which is still much less than Earth's escape velocity. So Saitama would end up landing somewhere on Earth.)

Something came up when rereading - what was Cauldron expecting Coil to do, mentioned at the end of Alexandria's interlude? At the time it seemed the plan might have been to have him deal with Jack somehow, but with knowledge of Cauldron's full plan now...they wanted to have Scion go omnicidal at a "controlled" timing, i.e. rather the opposite of stopping Jack. So why does Coil have a supposedly critical role? His power is useful but not that much of a gamebreaker, and his position in Brockton Bay doesn't seem relevant to the Scion issue.

It's been a while since my last re-read, but IIRC they were using Coil to help usher in a parahuman-controlled society, using BB as a test case. Scion going nuts was inevitable, Jack was just pushing the schedule forwards. So stopping him wouldn't have stopped Scion, just bought them extra time to prepare the world.

I think Cauldron's view was rather that there's no point in waiting - they wanted Scion to snap at that specific time, rather than waiting a few more years when the parahuman population would (supposedly) decline into infighting and chaos.

But I see your point, yes - so Coil was supposed to be a way to push their agenda of having more parahumans in charge of things, and increasing the parahuman population.

I've been thinking, in a way, the general thrust of Cauldron's plan did work - Scion's defeat hinged on a few critical parahumans who just happened to have the right powers to achieve it. If Number Man's forecasts came true and the parahumans descend into chaos in the upcoming years, Taylor, Panacea or (most critically) Foil might have died. And that would have rendered the chances of defeating Scion even more minuscule.

From what I recall it was about powerful parahumans dying to a large extent. After all every Endbringer attack takes out a lot of potential fighters. Of which you're going to get at least a few near top tier parahumans.

Odds are high that Flechette/Foil would have gotten killed by an Endbringer sooner or later. Being one of the few that can consistently damage the Endbringers, it's likely she'll have to be involved in a lot of the battles...and be considered a priority target by the Endbringers as well, since she's pretty much a Glass Cannon at the cape level.

I've been re-reading Dungeon Keeper Ami, and the thought struck me, what would happen if Taylor encountered the Keeper Arachne, who has almost exclusively spider minions, and who's body is made up of a swarm of insects?

Did that story ever properly end? I remember her escaping the Unraveler, and the scene with the CF 3, and that's it.

No, it's still ongoing and is well past that point. The author tends to take long hiatuses, but always seems to come back and he just started the next chapter. At the moment, Ami just beat back the first dwarven assault and is trying to recruit more troops so she isn't overwhelmed by the second. The troops don't want to join until she proves she can hold a dungeon in dwarven territory first, and thus she is boned.

The biggest reason she's boned is because the dwarves have railroads, and thus, industrial age capacity logistics.

edited 5th Jun '16 4:17:59 PM by CDRW

Probably total control since IIRC Wildbow said that's what would happen if a insect Case 53 came into Taylor's range.

Although magic could potentially complicate things. But initially with no warning I'd think Arachne would be taken control of.

Wait, he said that? I thought that her power worked on insects and crustaceans because they were nearly mindless, and an insect case 53 wouldn't be. I was figuring she'd get either partial or total control of the minions, but not Arachne herself.

It's pseudo-conceptual if I'm recalling the WOG right. So that's why she also gets some crustaceans, but not skin mites.

Here is the WOG. There might be another somewhere. But the WOG compilation is really big.

Holy thread necro Batman

Just started reading this a little under a week ago, and it's been a ride so far. Currently finished reading up to the end of the 10th chapter (book? act? It feels weird to refer to a set of pages as a "chapter" when each page is long enough to be a chapter or two in a physical book). It's interesting just how versatile Taylor manages to be with what seems at first to be a rather underwhelming power, and I suspect she'll continue to surprise me as the story continues.

Sophia's comeuppance was... disturbing, to say the least. Not to imply she didn't have a whole heap of bad karma ready to crash on top of her, but alienating her from her friends (okay, friend, singular), family, and threatening to stage her suicide crossed a few lines. It also disturbs me just how many comments on that page seem to think Regent should have gone through with the suicide threat. The whole episode was quite effective at showing just how messed up Regent really is, though.

She seems to be effectively neutralized right now, though I sense that she's not out of the story just yet, considering that the manner it happened keeps Taylor from getting any real closure on it. Then again, that might be deliberate, since the story seems to be moving away from Taylor's problems in her civilian life in favor of focusing on greater scope threats.

Does anyone know whether THE TECHNO QUEEN! had updated since 9.6?

Thank you for introducing me to that story, it's awesome.

It looks like the third thread is the last one on Space Battles though.

Time Of The Month. That is all.

Bringing this back from the dead with Twig's ending to note that Wildbow's said that up until Worm 2's first chapter uploads on its own site there'll be updates on Worm's website.

edited 18th Oct '17 3:44:21 PM by rmctagg09

And the first Interlude chapter is up.

Parahumans Online is back online.

These teasers are really getting me hyped for Parahumans 2.

The post GM world is an even bigger mess than Earth Bet.