Amelia, Worm AU [Complete]

[Mastigos2]

"I could use the Yggdrasil to replace the mass," Amelia offered, I could tell from her voice that she'd been crying, even if the link hadn't made it painfully clear. "Spread it, kill it, let it decompose into a new layer of soil. Everything we're doing on Avalon."


"Dragon," Emma turned toward the older, more respected, Trump-Tinker. "If I'm wrong, please tell me."


"You're not," Dragon admitted. "I'm sorry. The Yggdrasil could support, at most, a population of fifty thousand using the space available in Brockton Bay. And that's if dedicated solely to living space, not including utilities, or places of employment. At best, we might be able to demolish the buildings beyond and use them for raw materials, but that would require months to achieve anything notable. Decades before the city will be recognizable as such again. We saved as many people as we possibly could, but the city itself is lost." FailureGuiltDespair.

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That ... doesn't make sense at all. The spatial size is still the same obviously, and as far as yggdrasil mass ... they've got an entire freaking planet of the stuff.

 

[Snake/Eater]

That ... doesn't make sense at all. The spatial size is still the same obviously, and as far as yggdrasil mass ... they've got an entire freaking planet of the stuff.

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Political and economic reasons,Avalon would be demanding to expand their embassy which can cause a lot of Speculation in the media along the lines "Avalon destroys city,then invades" and the Financial reasons are they would spending more Money and time to give the city utilities (water,electricity, Heating healthcare and education).thats what I read between the lines the last chapter.

 

[cosoco]

That ... doesn't make sense at all. The spatial size is still the same obviously, and as far as yggdrasil mass ... they've got an entire freaking planet of the stuff.

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Perhaps it's an energy limitation?

But the city has been razed down to bedrock. Even if it took a tiny amount of money, it would still be cheaper to rebuild elsewhere.

"Dragon," Emma turned toward the older, more respected, Trump-Tinker. "If I'm wrong, please tell me."

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Wait, Dragon is a Trump Tinker?

You guys are feeling down about this, but this is a massive improvement. They managed to seriously damage an EB without destroying a subcontinent.

 

[Ack]

Perhaps it's an energy limitation?

But the city has been razed down to bedrock. Even if it took a tiny amount of money, it would still be cheaper to rebuild elsewhere.

Wait, Dragon is a Trump Tinker?

You guys are feeling down about this, but this is a massive improvement. They managed to seriously damage an EB without destroying a subcontinent.

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FTFY.

(totally different meaning. Really. Direct opposite)

Not down to bedrock. Just ... slightly cratered.

I am curious, however, as to why they don't just get Accord to design the city so that it works and then create a plan to rebuild it in as short a time as possible. Between Yggdrasil, shunting appropriate materials from Avalon, super-powered assistance, the near-limitless capability that is Pantheon (Taylor, for instance, could control x number of insect-based critters to handle construction simultaneously, where x="all we can spawn/grow/make") ...

Stopping an Endbringer dead, and 'destroying' it? Awesome PR.

Bending all their capabilities toward rebuilding Brockton Bay after? Priceless. Plus, a huge 'fuck-you' to the Endmakers. "Hey, not only did we stop your Endbringer, and saved the people, we also rebuilt the fucking city!"

"Oh, we can't rebuild a city."

Normal people can't rebuild a city. Pantheon does the impossible. Regularly. And doesn't even really notice any more.

So fix a human problem for once, and rebuild the damn city already.

 

[cosoco]

FTFY.

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Well, that's embarrassing.

So fix a human problem for once, and rebuild the damn city already.

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Their newest recruit is Reed Richards.

 

[TanaNari]

Pity they don't actually have the ability to do half the stuff you people just mentioned. Construction bugs? Maybe. Not that Taylor actually knows anything about building houses. Import mass? That's the easy part. Build it into houses? At max two stories tall using just the Yggdrasil. Three or four using refined products that the Yggdrasil can actually produce.

They can extract iron. They'd then have to convert it to steel. Concrete, sure, they can do concrete, but that's not going to achieve much without the other resources.

Even assuming they can get permission to do any of it in the first place.


I established all of that a while ago. It's why they needed Dragon to help jumpstart them into industralization and real construction equipment. Because their powers cannot do what you're suggesting they do.

 

[The Shadowmind]

Construction bugs? Maybe. Not that Taylor actually knows anything about building houses.

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They do have the ability to upload skills into to people. It was a pretty important during the time you wrote the Butcher!Taylor scenes.

 

[TanaNari]

... Touché.

Still doesn't change any of the other problems.

 

[Daunmi]

Construction bugs? Maybe. Not that Taylor actually knows anything about building houses.

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They do have the ability to upload skills into to people. It was a pretty important during the time you wrote the Butcher!Taylor scenes.

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A far more important thing to wonder here is... Can they make bugs and give them construction skills so that they can be let out and just set to work and forgotten? Because something like that would be a game changer, provided they could follow plans/blueprints, along with bugs that could do the whole 'converting resources' thing as mentioned.

I can't really see it working though, what with bug brain limitations (not to mention the differences between bug/human brains and how you'd transfer skills encoded for human brains onto other species without giving them the intelligence of people which creates whole other problems for them), resource limitations (just filling the crater will take a lot of stable mass), and a general lack of desire to do it in the first place (easier and cheaper to just move everyone to other cities, rather then provide temporary lodging and sustenance for the weeks/months it would take to design, gather materials for, and build a whole new city).

 

[Peanuckle]

Bugs and people having the abilities still doesn't resolve the resources problem. A lot of materials go into building a modern house, so unless the people are happy living in log cabins there's not much they can do. Yggdrasil can't smelt metals to make the various types of steel, or hammer it out to precision, or print computer chips, or any of those high-end things a modern society needs.

Yggdrasil is good at terraforming and providing housing for people who don't mind living inside the Body of the Many.

 

[Automatonation]

Now I am seeing ants in hard hats leering at a passing wasp......


"Woo, baby, work that thorax!"

 

[The Shadowmind]

Canon-Golem's ability would of been so useful for rebuilding a city. Is L33T working for Dragon now? Something in his skill trees might be useful.

The skill uploading tech would be very useful got getting people to have the electrical, sewage, and construction knowledge they need.

 

[GiftofLove]

Build them houses outta EB material.

Just try to fuck up my lawn again, motherfucker!

 

[powerofvoid]

Couldn't Yggdrasil make like a combination of a vine and coral and lay itself over a lattice of some kind?

 

[Daunmi]

Build them houses outta EB material.

Just try to fuck up my lawn again, motherfucker!

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That would be an awesome press release.

Pantheon: We've worked out how to Endbringer-proof future cities!
Press: Yay! Tell us how!
Pantheon: We're going to start building cities out of Endbringer carcases and whatever else we can carve off them.
Press: *horrified silence*
Pantheon: Also, it's a renewable resource!

 

[dasstan]

That would be an awesome press release.

Pantheon: We've worked out how to Endbringer-proof future cities!
Press: Yay! Tell us how!
Pantheon: We're going to start building cities out of Endbringer carcases and whatever else we can carve off them.
Press: *horrified silence*
Pantheon: Also, it's a renewable resource!

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If I didn't know better, I'd say they were trying to demoralize the Endbringers. "Doesn't feel so good when it's happening to you, huh?!"

 

[Ack]

The main argument in favour of rebuilding BB where it used to be (aside from PR) is the same as the reason that it was built there in the first place.

Convenience.

No city is built in a place that's hard to get to.

It's a port city, built on a natural harbour, with interstate highways leading to it from all directions. Flat ground (once that pesky saltwater lake is filled in), perfect for building houses on.

If Pantheon can't put one-tenth of the effort toward figuring how to get around the logistical problems of rebuilding the city that they've put toward rewriting the rules in every other endeavour they've gone into, as opposed to going "it's too hard" at the outset ... well, fuck.

Seriously.

 

[Snake/Eater]

i have a new name for the Rosary/Shaman ship - The Zero Principles aka The Misfits.

 

[SwiftRosenthal]

i have a new name for the Rosary/Shaman ship - The Zero Principles aka The Misfits.

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Why not Heresy?

 

[Beyogi]

Couldn't Yggdrasil make like a combination of a vine and coral and lay itself over a lattice of some kind?

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Yeah basically something like this. And have dragon design the infrastructure. Upload the plan into Amelia and Taylor's head and then have them execute the plan. Honestly, it shouldn't be that hard. Just have the Tinkers and Thinkers do something else than trying to kill Endbringers for once. Might get them out of their rut and maybe give them some creative ideas too.

 

[TanaNari]

Couldn't Yggdrasil make like a combination of a vine and coral and lay itself over a lattice of some kind?

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Absolutely. But the material would be too fragile to really use. They can't just magic up modern construction. You are looking at, at best, a four story building.

It's not that they can't rebuild the city. It's that they can't rebuild it large enough or fast enough. The city would take a decade to rebuild. During that time, what would they do with all the refugees? Because that's the problem.

Seriously. Stop overestimating what their powers are capable of. Because this vastly exceeds it. Am I honestly going to have to write a chapter explaining how not possible rebuilding a city is for them?

... Let alone the political ramifications of doing so, even if it could be done...

 

[Masked Menace]

Another problem with rebuilding Brockton bay is that it's currently a big ass crater. they would need a LOT of mass to get it back to being a level surface.

 

[edale]

Build them houses outta EB material.

Just try to fuck up my lawn again, motherfucker!

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Landlord to perspective renter: "...and that's the house, nice and sturdy, rated to survive any Endbringer up to Laviathin! Just one word of warning... don't step on the grass...Ever."

Perspective renter: "You must really like to keep the lawn tidy."

Landlord: "No, it's not that, the grass'll slice through your foot like a hot knife through butter if you're anything less than a Brute 4..."



Also, doesn't Yggdrasil already store and convert energy? So all you'd need is some converter to change that energy to 220V AC electricity, and you've removed the need to have electricity generation. That or just link Yggdrasil directly into the national power grid where it was cut off by the Endbringer, and have Yggdrasil act as organic power lines, simply carrying the energy instead of converting it.

So Yggdrasil can act as both sewage and electrical distribution, on top of basic housing construction. It can even provide purified water to drink, by filtering the sea water....and then you've got natural Sea Salt to export.

It'd be a chore, but not impossible to rebuild. But Dragon was right in it would be a decade or more until the city made it anywhere close to like it was before.

 

[GiftofLove]

Well, they could get Chevailer to merge Amy and Taylor. Their combines power sets could probably get it done in ... like, a year if they use the skill uploading tech?

Mayke be better to just delve into their wealth and pay out a large sum to everyone, plus expedited immigration if they so desire.

 

[Ack]

Absolutely. But the material would be too fragile to really use. They can't just magic up modern construction. You are looking at, at best, a four story building.

It's not that they can't rebuild the city. It's that they can't rebuild it large enough or fast enough. The city would take a decade to rebuild. During that time, what would they do with all the refugees? Because that's the problem.

Seriously. Stop overestimating what their powers are capable of. Because this vastly exceeds it. Am I honestly going to have to write a chapter explaining how not possible rebuilding a city is for them?

... Let alone the political ramifications of doing so, even if it could be done...

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Ask Shuffle to move enough higher ground into the lake to act as landfill. (Canon cape, can move chunks of the landscape around. Big chunks). Lake, taken care of.

Give a couple thousand square miles of Avalon to the US government (I'm sure they'd love that) in return for the steel, the concrete, the other building materials, the finicky stuff that they can't make themselves. Building materials, settled.

Hire construction experts. Download their skillsets. Upload them into Taylor's head. She now knows how to construct buildings. Skilled assistance, settled.

Get Accord to design a city plan, and a streamlined set of instructions on how to handle all that workforce so they don't get in each other's way. City planning, settled.

Speed-clone enough worker/bug/things to build every building simultaneously. Houses get finished first, so people have a place to stay. Shops next, so they have a place to buy food. (In the meantime, Accord can throw together a plan to feed everyone with minimum of fuss). Other places of business, next. Extraneous places, such as schools and libraries, last.

It's doable.

 

[Godwinson]

Ask Shuffle to move enough higher ground into the lake to act as landfill. (Canon cape, can move chunks of the landscape around. Big chunks). Lake, taken care of.

Give a couple thousand square miles of Avalon to the US government (I'm sure they'd love that) in return for the steel, the concrete, the other building materials, the finicky stuff that they can't make themselves. Building materials, settled.

Hire construction experts. Download their skillsets. Upload them into Taylor's head. She now knows how to construct buildings. Skilled assistance, settled.

Get Accord to design a city plan, and a streamlined set of instructions on how to handle all that workforce so they don't get in each other's way. City planning, settled.

Speed-clone enough worker/bug/things to build every building simultaneously. Houses get finished first, so people have a place to stay. Shops next, so they have a place to buy food. (In the meantime, Accord can throw together a plan to feed everyone with minimum of fuss). Other places of business, next. Extraneous places, such as schools and libraries, last.

It's doable.

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What you're missing is that TanaNari doesn't give a fuck if it's actually doable. He's said it's not doable, and as the Author, he is right, and anyone telling him he isn't (based on what he's said previously in the text) is clearly just fucking retarded, because this asspulled justification-after-the-fact should've been obvious from the subtext!

ALL HAIL THE AUTHORLORD! INFINITE BE HIS WISDOM! LET IT BE KNOWN THAT NO OTHER AUTHOR IS HIS EQUAL!

 

[TanaNari]

It's doable.

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And it would still take a decade or more even at full titlt.

They were talking about abandoning Brockton Bay after the damage done by Leviathan and the S9. This is orders of magnitudes greater.

And let's not forget the city's sitting on a patch of land that just had a high end mass driver fired straight into it, had the top hundred or so feet peeled off of it... and it was already sitting atop an aquifer. That can't be safe land to build on.

Seriously, though. This is to the point of being fanwank.

 

[Snake/Eater]

Ask Shuffle to move enough higher ground into the lake to act as landfill. (Canon cape, can move chunks of the landscape around. Big chunks). Lake, taken care of.

Give a couple thousand square miles of Avalon to the US government (I'm sure they'd love that) in return for the steel, the concrete, the other building materials, the finicky stuff that they can't make themselves. Building materials, settled.

Hire construction experts. Download their skillsets. Upload them into Taylor's head. She now knows how to construct buildings. Skilled assistance, settled.

Get Accord to design a city plan, and a streamlined set of instructions on how to handle all that workforce so they don't get in each other's way. City planning, settled.

Speed-clone enough worker/bug/things to build every building simultaneously. Houses get finished first, so people have a place to stay. Shops next, so they have a place to buy food. (In the meantime, Accord can throw together a plan to feed everyone with minimum of fuss). Other places of business, next. Extraneous places, such as schools and libraries, last.

It's doable.

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The US congress will not allow a foreign nation to legally annex any land on Protectorate soil.it dosn't matter if they have been co-oped by Cauldron.this would be over the line. thus it's not doable

 

[Beyogi]

Covering an Entire planet in an edible super plant within weeks - possible. Using that super plant to build Plant Venedic - impossible.

Okay, if you say so... It does reek of narrative anti-phlebotnium though. I guess you've already planned the drama that is to follow, but meh. Considering all the shit they've pulled so far it's a bit hard to believe that this particular feat is now impossible. They wouldn't even have to fill the lake. Just build a floating city.

Or don't and give us hamfisted drama.

 

[Ack]

And it would still take a decade or more even at full titlt.

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Really? What part? The Empire State Building took one year to complete. Nothing in BB is anywhere near that scale.

With enough workers, Taylor could build everything in the time it takes to build one building.

They were talking about abandoning Brockton Bay after the damage done by Leviathan and the S9. This is orders of magnitudes greater.

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They didn't have the Pantheon. Who have done many other things that are orders of magnitude greater than what was previously achieved.

And let's not forget the city's sitting on a patch of land that just had a high end mass driver fired straight into it, had the top hundred or so feet peeled off of it... and it was already sitting atop an aquifer. That can't be safe land to build on.

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Shuffle, as previously mentioned. Tecton. Gully. All earth manipulators. All of whom could make it safe.

Seriously, though. This is to the point of being fanwank.

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No, this is pointing out existing aspects of the Wormverse and of the internal consistency of the story which make me wonder "If they can do that ... why can't they do this?"

The US congress will not allow a foreign nation to legally annex any land on Protectorate soil.it dosn't matter if they have been co-oped by Cauldron.this would be over the line. thus it's not doable

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Who's talking about annexing? This is foreign aid

... fine.

It's not possible. I'll accept that it's not possible. I'll keep reading, and keep liking. I'll just always wonder ... wtf?