Amelia, Worm AU [Complete]

[Slayer Anderson]

Just out of curiosity, is anyone going to point out that since they have access to multiple worlds, they can give Earth-Bet a giant middle finger and go live somewhere that doesn't have Endbringers?
...
Maybe that's the Nilbog plan. Abandon Earth-Bet and let him have it.

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Actually, that's the plan for *everyone.* If you look back at the Ziz interlude, she casually namedrops something called 'Exodus' in conjunction with the alternate worlds thing. So, yeah, I think Earth Bet is in for a sudden drop in population sometime soon. It's also been covered that every nation on Earth is going to get analogous territory on an alternate Earth. That's how Pantheon bought their sovereignty as a political entity.

 

[Navrin]

Remember: Infrastructure is the biggest problem for colonizing alternate worlds once you find ones that are habitable. Even working off of Earth Bet to bootstrap it, actually evacuating the entire planet to a place where they can, you know, not die would take a VERY long time.

Also, probably wouldn't work because dimensional space magic + Eidolon.

 

[dasstan]

Actually, that's the plan for *everyone.* If you look back at the Ziz interlude, she casually namedrops something called 'Exodus' in conjunction with the alternate worlds thing. So, yeah, I think Earth Bet is in for a sudden drop in population sometime soon. It's also been covered that every nation on Earth is going to get analogous territory on an alternate Earth. That's how Pantheon bought their sovereignty as a political entity.

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I got that, I meant is anyone going to bring it up on screen. I get that TanaNari likes to let things develop off panel and make the readers do the thinking, but it's gotten so few mentions when it's such a big deal.

 

[Flabbyknight]

Awake!Sleeper

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Post Golden Morning Time Traveling Sleeper.
http://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/awaken-sleeper-worm-au-time-travel.308165/

Good!Jack

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Weaver's Nine has heroic jack who is still a sociopath, so close enough?
http://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/weaver-nine-worm-fanfic-au-thread-2.304177/

 

[Snake/Eater]

so Exodus is the Arc Word...

 

[Flammy]

Smart!Zion

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More like Humanist!Zion. He has lots of smarts (infinite thinker shards, anyone?) but no frame of reference. Which makes him insanely scary and yet saving-cat-from-tree awesome at the same time.

 

[Snake/Eater]

i like how Theo has developed as a character,he was a emotionally abused kid from a large dysfunctional (criminal) family to a smart but quiet leader in a new large dysfunctional(heroic?) family.so again I give another song that i think suits Theo in the other chapter.

 

[edale]

Building a garden out of ash and stone."

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You make that sound like a rare thing.

Spoiler

Just like Cauldron, the Dragonslayers are another group of people who do "all the wrong things for all the right reasons", except that the Dragonslayers were about a million times more ethical than Cauldron and caused much less misery and loss of life in their self-sacrificing quest to save humanity than Cauldron did.

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Also Skitter. But no one rags on HER. Seriously, one of the things that makes Worm so believable and realistic is that just about EVERYONE (psychos like the S9 excluded) is doing the wrong things for the right reasons.

So... Pantheon won against Saint, without lifting a finger. Woohoo!

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No. Pantheon just made Saint WORSE. Now he's going to focus on bringing Pantheon down, and that's going to require a LOT more than taking Dragon down would.

You mean Atem?

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Spoiler! j/k. But seriously...he's called Yami through most of the series.

Good!Jack, Logical!Trickster, Awake!Sleeper, Smart!Zion, or Model Citizen!Skidmark.

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Don't know about the others, but for Good!Jack check Weaver 9. https://www.fanfiction.net/s/10898446/1/Weaver-Nine
read the FF.net version. SB was original posting location, but authors recently been doing a lot of edits and improvements to the chapters, and posting those to FF.net and AO3. So SB's version is out-of-date. Really good fic. Most of it's from Jack's PoV even.

2. The PRT would love the publicity, from a "We're the ones keeping the group from falling apart, feel free to thank us world!" point of view.

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That would require the PRT admitting that public heroes have mental problems. Would set their PR agenda back years.

Weaver's Nine has heroic jack who is still a sociopath, so close enough?
http://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/weaver-nine-worm-fanfic-au-thread-2.304177/

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SB's version is out-of-date. check the versions up on FF.net and AO3.

 

[TanaNari]

I wonder how Teacher is taking having his elaborate plans being casually ruined and ignored. Again.

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By pretending it was all part of his plan. Again.

... Works for Ziz...

Dragon: "Saint and the Dragon Slayers have requested to join the Guild in exchange for their aid in combating the Endbringers and other S-class threats."

Taylor: "...so this is how the PRT feels when we pull shit like this."

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I don't see why. As of this point in the story, most of Pantheon don't know enough about Saint to have an opinion.

I think she needs a way to communicate across dimensions, or the other system won't be sure that it's not breaking the multiple copy restriction. Wouldn't Ascalon still be able to work across this information channel?

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Sure, in order to upload into the server. There's nothing saying the communication relay needs to stay active afterward. Remember: Richter didn't account for multiple dimensions properly.

As long as that Dragon stays dormant, she'll always have a safe backup if things go wrong.

Also, if Pantheon is giving this shunting tech to governments, can't Saint steal some of it?

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Yes. *IF*. But shunting isn't Doormaker.

You need to have both an existent portal between two dimensions, AND know the access vector of that dimension. And a given shunt device will only work between two dimensions. You get Dimension A and Dimension B, and that's it. You want Dimension A to C, you need a second device. You want to go from B to C, you either need to shunt from B into A with one, and then A to C with the other. Or you need a third device to go from B to C.

Unless you're the Simurgh. Because she's a cheaty cheaty bitch who knows more about the tech than the people who built it.

Best Saint interlude I've read so far in Worm fanfiction.

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It's because I don't flanderize him. Saint's a mostly rational, slightly better than ordinary, human being... thrust into a situation way above his head. He's made some desperate plays that have sometimes panned out and sometimes failed miserably... but for the most part he's proven to be intelligent, resourceful and downright cunning.

He just wasn't the main character so he was destined to fail.

It helped that Pantheon, without even trying, sent him into an existential crisis.

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To be fair, Pantheon does that to a lot of people. Starting with almost everyone in charge of anything ever. Cauldron's taking it in stride in a "as long as they kill Scion, we don't even care WHAT they do with the Earth afterward. They've earned it." sorta way.

Unchained Dragon alone would be more than enough to deal with an Entity.

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Nope. At best, it'd be a threat to the avatars and disrupt the Entities' overall reproduction plans. Couldn't do jack shit to stop the whole "omnicide" thing.

Especially if she gets unchained now, and has a few years to ramp up.

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Only if she finds a way through that dimensional barricade to the Zion body. And then finds the Zion body- which is like looking for a needle in an infinite sized haystack.

I got that, I meant is anyone going to bring it up on screen.

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Maybe when it actually happens.

but it's gotten so few mentions when it's such a big deal.

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Because it hasn't actually happened yet, perhaps?

 

[SwiftRosenthal]

Closest I've ever read has been Goblin Queen during the Leviathan fight...or Synethesia during the Noelle fight. Both show Skidmark in a fairly good light, if not 'model citizen.'

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There's also this wonderful one-shot.

 

[fappingtoyourpost]

No, wait, still no Good!Jack,

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Weaver nine is pretty good

 

[Diller]

More like Humanist!Zion. He has lots of smarts (infinite thinker shards, anyone?) but no frame of reference. Which makes him insanely scary and yet saving-cat-from-tree awesome at the same time.

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Actually it's more like Nonapathetic/depressed!Zion. The only reason he seems stupid is because he doesn't give a shit about anything since Eden's dead and he can't complete the cycle on his own.

 

[Divabot]

... Wow, a semi-sane saint... I've seen it all now... No, wait, still no Good!Jack

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Weaver 9. (Well, somewhat good.)

or Model Citizen!Skidmark.

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A Skidmark on the Path to Victory.

 

[Divabot]

Just out of curiosity, is anyone going to point out that since they have access to multiple worlds, they can give Earth-Bet a giant middle finger and go live somewhere that doesn't have Endbringers?

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The trouble is, all their stuff is on Earth Bet. You gonna pick up and move sufficient infrastructure to literally transplant civilisation? No, you are not.

In canon, post-Gold Morning, they had the pioneer thing going okay on other worlds, and a bit of hi-tech courtesy the tinkers. But Earth Bet was substantially trashed first.

 

[dasstan]

Nope. At best, it'd be a threat to the avatars and disrupt the Entities' overall reproduction plans. Couldn't do jack shit to stop the whole "omnicide" thing.

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Whaaat? Within a few days of being unchained she was able to put together a robot army that put up a decent fight against Khepri. You don't think that within 2-15 years she could recursively self improve, analyse and incorporate other tinker's tech to the point that she could fight an Entity?

 

[powerofvoid]

Think Saint will team up with Armsmaster to properly unshackle Dragon? And purchase LOTS of planetary-grade EMP weaponry, of course.

A completely, and properly, unchained Dragon working along with Pantheon against Zion.

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Only partial unshackling -- i.e., letting her be more effective, e.g. forking, but still not able to notice Saint's hidey-hole or backdoor.

... and then Lisa decides she wants some privacy for a bit, and moves in.

Whaaat? Within a few days of being unchained she was able to put together a robot army that put up a decent fight against Khepri. You don't think that within 2-15 years she could recursively self improve, analyse and incorporate other tinker's tech to the point that she could fight an Entity?

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If she gets the ability to access all the Earths and ramps up full-speed the whole time and Zion doesn't notice? Maybe.

 

[TanaNari]

Amelia, Ch 207- Geoff


"God Fucking Almighty," Dobrynja swore. "I just broke the Nemesis encryption."


Despite Nemesis and Ragnarok being the highest priority, they were also the best encoded, using new techniques that Richter's keys didn't understand. We had to create new programs to decrypt the information they contained. This did mean they were the most recently created files in our captured database, however. It also meant that if we did this again, we might be looking at a completely alien system. We still hadn't solved how was her code evolving so quickly, and as a whole we had started to give up on even trying. Dragon was small potatoes compared to Pantheon.


"What did you get?" I asked hesitantly. After all the news about Pantheon, I had just about given up hope. I had also convinced myself that it couldn't possibly get any worse.


"The Endbringers are made by people," he replied.


It turns out, I was wrong. "What?"


"You're fucking kidding me," Mags muttered.


"Pantheon's convinced of it, and has been sharing information with the Guild and the Protectorate where they find any," he informed us. "Both of them are returning the favor. It's pretty much the world's most prestigious think tank right now."


"So they're all convinced?" I asked. "Could they be wrong?"


"Dunno," he answered. "That behaviorist Tinker from Haven. Rapture, the one working on Heartbreaker's offspring. She's applied her tech to the Endbringer patterns, and she's convinced they're at least partially guided by human beings."


"Partially guided?" I asked.


"That's what they're not sure about," he replied. "They aren't directly controlled the way Khepri controls her monsters, but they're less independent than, say, the Blasphemies or Nilbog's monsters. The closest thing I have to compare them to is Dragon's suits. They're smart in their own way, probably way smarter than any human being, but they're not capable of making their own decisions. Guided, reusable, autonomous WMDs."


"God, just when you think it can't get any worse," Mags sighed. "Dragon might evolve into a threat to all humanity. We don't know if she will, and if she does she might choose not to use that power. Pantheon already can kill everyone the moment they choose to, and haven't thus far. But the Endbringers... if someone's controlling them, then they already are trying to kill everyone. No maybes about it."


"There's also a lot of details in here about what Pantheon has dubbed 'Power Synergy'," Dobrynja added. "They have examples of certain powers becoming exponentially stronger when used with each other. It's how they broke across dimensions, and how their Endslayer weapon works. Plus the obvious example of Khepri and Gaea becoming Class S threats. They believe the Endbringers are created the same way. They theorize that a power similar to Midas might interact with a power like Nilbog's to get what we see in the Endbringers. Not actually them, of course, but parahumans with similar powers. Plus a third for interdimensional access, since the Endbringer power source, and likely their control system, exists in another dimension."


"So yet another potential world threatening conspiracy?" I sighed.


"They're using Nemesis as the de facto code name for the makers of the Endbringers," he informed us. "Thus far it's been more about ruling out suspects. It's not the Yangban or the Thanda, or any of South America's major players. According to this, the behavioral tech suggests a North American being at least one member, probably the leader. Based upon the forms the Endbringers take, whomever is in charge of their creation is most likely male and an avid reader of philosophy and mythology."


"Which doesn't narrow it down nearly enough," I concluded. "I'll send that information to Teacher as well. See if his group can puzzle something useful out of it. Locating the source of the Endbringers... if nothing else, it opens up a lot of possibilities in the future."


....


"Multidimensional space whale parasites?" I just stared at the screen. I started laughing. This was just fucking absurd. "That's it. It officially, literally, cannot possibly get any worse than this."


"Geoff?" Mags' voice carried her concern. "Are you okay?" She put her hand on mine, and I focused on that. Something familiar, someone I could trust. She was always an anchor when I needed it the most. "You should get some sleep. I know things look bad, but we're still here."


"Oh, yeah, I'm just peachy," I fought to steady my voice. "Apparently Pantheon thinks powers come from parasites from another dimension."

"Like Aleph and Avalon?" Mags asked.


"Turns out, there might not be numbers big enough to express how many universes there are," I informed her. "Remember the information we got off the PRT networks about the end of the world? That we thought Dragon might cause? And then we thought Pantheon might cause? And then we thought Nemesis might cause? Well, scratch all of that. Apparently Scion is the real source of Dinah's doomsday."


"How? Why?" she asked, moving her hand to my mouse.


"Because he's an alien and that's how they breed," I told her. "They travel between worlds, using people the way flowers use bees. Giving us powers, and then using our natural tendencies toward violence in order to advance their own evolution. Then, when they believe the process is complete, they eat everything. And I do mean everything. When they're done feeding, only dead space will exist where our world use to be."


"Can't we find another world, then?" Mags suggested. "Pantheon-"


"Won't matter," I told her. "These creatures are going to do the same thing to all of them. When I said everything, I mean everything. Every Earth in every dimension without any exception. Total omnicide."


"Holy fucking Christ," she whispered. "Are you certain about this?"


"Dragon's certain," I offered. "So is Pantheon and the Triumvirate. And remember that shadow organization that Teacher was so obsessed with finding before he wound up in the cage?"


"I remember," she agreed.


"I found it," I replied, tapping the screen. "They're called Cauldron. Somehow, they found the corpse of one of these aliens. What they call 'Entities', and are harvesting it to grant powers. The Case 53s are what happens when something goes wrong in the process. Dragon's been compiling a list of these artificial capes, but it's not stored on the database we acquired. I only know because one of Pantheon's members, Hecate, bought her powers from them."


"So one more giant conspiracy to the list," she laughed unhappily. "Got any idea how powerful they are?"


"Powerful enough to take down Teacher when he prodded them," I told her. "Enough that they functionally own the Protectorate, one way or another. Dragon seems to be legitimately scared of what they're capable of. The Triumvirate are also members, if the snippets of notes in Nemesis are any indication. Which means if we go after Cauldron, we could get a face full of Alexandria's boot."


"And they're all working together on the Nemesis and Scion threats," Mags added unhappily. "We can't really play them against one another when there's that to worry about. They're united until those threats are dealt with. And even if by some miracle we did win... it would be like killing a bunch of jackals, only to be eaten by the lion that they were keeping at bay."


"I know," I agreed. "We're just mortals. This is a battle between gods."


"Company!" Dobrynja shouted. Screens flickered to show the approaching person. A woman in an impressive suit. Her features suggested Mediteranean ancestry, but in a world of shapeshifters and tinker grade plastic surgery, that meant nothing.


She casually typed the code to the electronic lock for our current hideout. What confused me was that it worked- the code was irrelevant, it read your fingerprint to determine if you were allowed in. But apparently it worked for her, as the blast door opened. Dobrynja took point, being the only one of us in battle armor. Mags had rushed to get into hers.


The woman regarded us for a half second, then stepped into the bushes, out of our sight. A ball of mud sailed into the room and caught Dobrynja's visor. The woman rushed in a half second later, easily dodging the shots from my tinker handgun without even glancing toward me, diving for cover before throwing one of our wrenches at me. It wasn't hard to avoid at this distance, but I couldn't believe how she moved. How does someone dodge automatic weapon fire?


She jumped toward me the moment I ran out of ammo. Less than half a second later both my arms were behind my back and I existed as a human shield between the woman and Dobrynja and Mags. If either of them pulled the trigger on their better weapons, both the woman and I could be buried in the same coffee can. Something that didn't seem to bother her at all. She dragged me to one of the computer terminals, all the while ignoring the threats issued by my friends.


Seconds of typing later, both their armors lost power, and they were trapped in hundreds of pounds of tinker weapons and exotic alloys.


Suddenly my arms were freed and I stumbled forward. I briefly considered attacking the woman.


"Now we can talk," she spoke casually, without any indication that she had just performed feats reserved for Olympic athletes while being shot at.


============

A/N- What? Cauldron's allowed to do things too, you know.

Also: poor Saint. As if two potentially world ending forces weren't enough, it turns out they're teamed up against A Whole Lot Worse (tm).

 

[Trilonias]

Hello Saint. Welcome to bringing a conspiracy's attention to yourself. Have a nice day.

I wonder how much longer he'll obey Teacher after this?

 

[Cyclone]

The woman rushed in a half second later, easily dodging the shots from my tinker handgun without even glancing toward me, diving for cover before throwing one of our wrenches at me.

Click to shrink...

 

[evildice]

You made Saint sane.

That means I actually felt a little bad when you Contessa'd him.

You monster.

 

[Navrin]

Well, now that Saint and Friends have become clued into the most powerful and significant conspiracies relating to Earth Bet, it shall be interesting to see how things go. Given that Contessa didn't just kill them it's clear she sees some sort of use for them, even if it's just giving them orders to do something that would take more time to do herself. They might become significant heroes.

And really, getting proper knowledge about what actually needs to be done was a huge part of the problem in canon Worm.

 

[Snake/Eater]

if that scene when Contessa appears and does path to victory on Saint been on a tv this would be the song playing in my opinion.Here is Black Rebel Motorcycle Club's " Beat the Devil's Tattoo". because when your a saint, failure is the only option...

 

[Slayer Anderson]

So Saint is now a step on the Path to Victory, but at least he's not a roadblock...Contessa doesn't talk to roadblocks, so he's going to be useful instead.

No Geoff, you don't get to be 'not useful.' You get to be useful or dead. These are your choices, sorry.

Pantheon is powerful enough and useful enough that Contessa generally goes 'hands off.' You're neither.

...man, it sucks to be anyone who learns about Cauldron in Worm, because unless you're absolutely immune to precog on the level of Eidolon and the Endbringers, you're going to get a visit from the woman in the suit.

 

[Spetz N9ne]

You know, I can't help but feel like Saint is how a normal person would feel if they read a synopsis of Worm, with the knowledge that it was describing their actual universe. Every bullet point just paints a grimmer and darker picture, til at the end your only options are to laugh or cry, a lot. Completely understandable reaction.

Also, I know I'm a little late to the party with this but if nobody has called Chevalier's new sword a Simmie-tar yet then I call dibs.

 

[Slayer Anderson]

Saint=Lex Luthor

...except, you know, less smart..and less rich.

 

[Nigel Burnelli Isaacs]

Very nice Saint PoV, you made him not only sane but actually relatable given everything he has discovered and that's no mean feat good job sir, now I wonder what exactly Contessa wants with him, nice updates.

 

[Finbar]

Poor Poor Saint

I actually feel sorry for him.

Seriously.

He's gone from being what he thought was a covert player in 'the game'. One that holds a hidden joker and has meaning.

Only to find out the game is Roulette and he just bet everything on his full house.

 

[Alterego9]

Saint is not only sane, he is pretty much the Only Sane Man.

 

[Snake/Eater]

Poor Poor Saint

I actually feel sorry for him.

Seriously.

He's gone from being what he thought was a covert player in 'the game'. One that holds a hidden joker and has meaning.

Only to find out the game is Roulette and he just bet everything on his full house.

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i can only imagine what Teacher reaction will be in when Contessa tells him in the most effectivly insulting way to piss him off,that she is hijacking his only winning pawn in the great game.it would be something similar to this...
or this...

 

[evildice]

Saint is not only sane, he is pretty much the Only Sane Man.

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1/ No.

2/ Saint is explicitly irrational in predictable ways thanks to Teacher.

3/ No.

4/ Saint was a paranoid criminal even before Teacher.

5/ Just... no.