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Well... Time to go get the endslayer gear, evacuate the city while walling it off/shunting the whole thing, interrogate any parahumans for responsibility, then unleashing a full blast of sting on the whole city... Replacing the buildings with yiggsdrasil analogs afterwards.
Daunmi
Shun the sun, night so nice
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"Damn, they're burning down the area, civilians are in trouble!"
"Send Taylia at them!"
"Send Riley at them!"
"They took Theo."
...
"Fuck it, suit up everyone."
Actually, you may be on to something. There's never been any indication that they can't shunt whatever they want, as far as I can remember. I would imagine they'd get some sort of result pulling an entire city into a mostly barren world that's covered by something they control.
Free fertilizer would probably be the most prolific result.
Sheaman3773
(Unverified Writer)
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Don't forget the theory that it's out-of-towners doing this to get rid of competition.
This would be playing right into their hands.
GiftofLove
A Gift From The Heart
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That was masterfully done.
Riley really is growing up. I doubt Bonesaw would be this emotional. Nice character growth.
Riley really is growing up. I doubt Bonesaw would be this emotional. Nice character growth.
rick1497
Well worn.
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It has more than escalated. Whoever just attacked Pantheon got into an escalation way with Pantheon. Remember, Pantheon isn't just the most powerful parahuman organization in the world, it's also co-led by Taylor Hebert, the queen of escalation. The last time anybody tried to escalate with them was when the Simurgh showed up at New Delhi. India did not survive. The smart thing for any parahuman in the city, regardless of which side they're on, is not to leave the city, it's to leave the tri-state area.
evildice
(emotionally stable clown posse)
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"We advise you to not merely leave the state, but to evacuate the entire sub-continent."
"There is no sub-continent."
"There will be."
Faraway-R
Know what you're doing yet?
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Oh well. Playmate pretty much confirmed.
Theo has died and was removed from the 'board'. Also, this:
Incidentally, I approve of "Shunt a city in another dimension" idea. Followed by full-scale invasion by Pantheon.
We're gonna call this strategy "The Fall of Tarsonis".
Theo has died and was removed from the 'board'. Also, this:
Incidentally, I approve of "Shunt a city in another dimension" idea. Followed by full-scale invasion by Pantheon.
We're gonna call this strategy "The Fall of Tarsonis".
Nigel Burnelli Isaacs
I trust you know where the happy button is?
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Not to mention that Playmate's power actually explains how Theo got affected through his armor as normally nothing should, so his power being altered through the rules explains why Theo got removed from the board, I also suspect that this might explain why Victoria gets the response she gets when she uses her power on Brain: I think her power got altered too to fit the game's rules.
Ch 209- Victoria
TanaNari
Verified Dick
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Amelia, Ch 209- Victoria
I shunted over above the motel we had chosen to stay the night in, and the inferno it had become. I didn't need my power to tell me there were no survivors. a hundred feet back, my armor was alerting me to the dangerous heat levels. Easy enough to change that, however. A couple quick cryo blasts siphoned massive amounts of heat and prevented the spread to other buildings. Thanks to whatever tinker bullshit was going on, it would wind up in the batteries of the Ultralisks. Somehow. After that, a few more targeted shots reduced the flames to something approachable. Guess combat precognition extends to firefighting. Awesome.
I dropped down in front of the building, doing everything I could to get my power locked on to whatever asshole torched a building with... whatever the fuck that stuff was. I'd need to ask Riley, all I knew is it wasn't alive and probably wasn't a power, maybe. There was a lot of other stuff coming over my suit's sensors. Riley went all out with my armor's sensor suite, and what she couldn't give me, Emma and Trevor did.
My arm snapped out, grabbing the invisible Case 53 by the arm. "Fancy finding you here," I said with nothing resembling the light humor my words suggested.
"Hey!" he shouted, startling a couple of others who had come here to gawk at the now mostly dead flames. Many of them woefully underdressed for the chill of a mid October night. "Ya gotta believe I didn't have shit to do with this!" My power told me he was telling the truth. Then again, I didn't trust my power against him.
I took off, slowly, while my electrical power recharged the batteries of the suit. That ice weapon drained it fast, and shunting was fucking expensive. "The only thing I gotta do is find out how you survived that inferno."
"I..." he hesitated, and I knew he was about to either lie or refuse to speak. I let the antigrav deactivate, dropping us both toward the ground. "Okay! It was Playmate's power!" I reactivated the field. "Look, we use her to keep us safe. Walkin neutral ground, with rules that you can't fight at all. Even if the other guy wants to fuck us, they can't. Yer pals should be alright. Can't die in her power's field."
Made sense, and my power still believed him, regardless of my suspicions. "Sounds like something that'd be a real hit at the Endbringer fights," I pointed out.
"Don't work," he answered. "They're special or somethin', I dunno. You'd have to ask her how her power works, all I got is rumors."
Atropos' voice came on over the com. "Is Th... Horus with you? His suit's on this side, but he wasn't in it."
My eyes narrowed. "Apparently Playmate was doing her thing," I informed her. "Everyone got out, but Horus isn't with the others saved from the fire."
"Kaiser's kid?" he asked. "Unless he's immune to powers, he should be out." Oh, I spoke out loud. Well, nothing damaging was said.
"We lost Clarice," Atropos added. "What do we do?"
God damn it. "What we should do is call in the reinforcements," I answered to my new de facto second in command. "But what I want to do is fix this ourselves. We're putting this to a vote, though. Call the big guns, or follow my plan and handle this by ourselves?"
A few seconds later, I got my response. "We're in," Atropos replied.
"So," I spoke to my captive. "Do you wanna help find out who napalmed your neutral ground?"
....
"They tipped their hand," I told the girls. "They used a teleporter to deliver that attack, and to abduct Theo. I know almost exactly where they are, but we have to hurry."
"Then we can save him!" Riley exclaimed. She was sitting next to a badly mutilated Clarice. The doll had been split open in a way that my senses were certain came from Atropos' power. Dozens of mechanical bits had been pulled out of its insides and were strewn about, along with segments of two sets of bioarmor.
She's not going to let them live through this, I realized when I got a look at the girl. Her emotions were the slow boiling rage of a murder waiting to happen, and Riley had killed enough times already that she wouldn't blink an eye at another. Fuck. How was I going to handle that? I decided that question would have to wait until after we got Theo back. Depending on how we find him, I might just give them to her, I added.
"Atropos," I instructed. "We're going right now, along with a few of the Mafia capes. I told them we wouldn't wait for them, but I'd keep them updated by GPS and if they think they want to join in, I wasn't going to stop them. Riley, you tell us what you learned while we're en route."
Lily and I shunted over, using her system to do it. "Turn off your defensive power," I instructed her. I waited for her nod, and then grabbed her hand. "I can fly faster." I told her, and pulled her along toward our destination. Our antigrav flight had a max speed of just above three hundred miles an hour. The extra tech loaded into mine afforded me over twice that max speed. Still nothing compared to Sabah's armor, but pretty damn fast.
"They used some kind of thermite bomb," Riley informed as we started in the direction the armor's senses led me.
"So not a power," I replied. "I was pretty sure it wasn't."
"It was sort of," she answered. "The chemical residue is a tinker recipe."
"First tinker tech drugs, now tinker tech chemicals in bombs," I replied. "Does anyone else find that suspicious?"
"Same guy, probably," Riley agreed. "But he's virtually a rogue. Works for the Elite, but all he does is make and sell stuff. It's not impossible that he's involved, I guess, but it's much more likely that he's just selling the weapons."
"Not quite a dead end, then," I replied. "I bet that stuff costs a lot of money."
"Yeah, lots," Riley agreed. "Enough material to do that kind of damage would run a quarter of a million dollars or more."
"So well funded, whoever they are," I acknowledged. "Okay, Atropos, you know the score."
"You kick their asses, I nuke their gear?" she snarked. "I miss the good ol' days when I was allowed to point weapons at people without needing a kill order first."
"Well, next time you'll think twice before making confetti out of an Endbringer," I retorted. "Personally, I think there's something to be said for making your enemies soil themselves just by standing in front of them. Although it's kinda gross when it actually happens."
"There's no way that actually happens," she insisted.
"My old power made it pretty easy, actually," I replied. "But I'm willing to bet you could do it on rep alone. Plus or minus a crossbow bolt a couple inches away from the throat."
We spent the next ten minutes talking about various strategies to, perhaps literally, scare the crap out of our enemies. It wasn't like we could travel any faster than we already were, without Missy around to help.
"There's the building," I replied as we approached the farmhouse well outside of the city. "Theo's alive," I informed them both. "Doesn't look like he's in any danger. A teenage girl in the room with him. Both seem calm and in good health."
"Another captive?" Lily asked.
"Dunno, maybe," I responded. "They're not leaving and I'm seeing no other living being. Shunting over, we'll check things out from the safe side." A second later, Atropos and I were back in the familiarly endless expanse of Yggdrasil.
We dropped into the ghost of the farmhouse, looking around. My powers didn't see any threat to traversing the house. No threat of injury, no real threat of discovery past the occasional floor panel to avoid stepping on. Judging by the age of the building, I would be surprised to learn there weren't creaky boards. Theo wasn't under any apparent duress, sitting in an old fashioned rocking chair, talking to a girl around his age, perhaps a little older.
Her, on the other hand, my power saw as incredibly dangerous. Deadly, even. Line of sight power, if she could see me she could hurt me. She probably wouldn't be able to kill me, but I got the impression that my regeneration and shapeshifting powers were the only reason for that.
"Lily, stay here," I instructed. I activated my stealth systems and watched as all the power to my other systems were quickly draining. With only the cloak active, I had at most twenty minutes of power. I was about to cut that in half. I shunted into the room. I couldn't touch her, either. It was unlikely she could hurt me if I did, but the risk was still pretty high. High enough that my power didn't like the idea. Besides, I had another option. One magnetic pulse later, and we were plunged into absolute blackness. Less than two minutes of power left in my suit.
"No!" the girl shrieked. "You were supposed to stop them! How did you even find me!"
I sense Theo diving sideways, using his armor to propel him quickly away from the girl. So, she was responsible, I thought. I couldn't touch her, I didn't have enough power to reliably blast her with the nonlethals. So I went with the next best option and hit her upside the head with an end table.
To my surprise, the table shattered into pieces that looked like it had gone through a wood chipper. Her power at work, because I didn't hit her nearly hard enough to break the table naturally. Much less to shatter it like that. Still, it was hard enough to send the girl face first into the couch, unconscious. Minor concussion at worst, my power informed me.
I let the stealth function drop. Theo couldn't see me either way. "So, I know there's a story here, but I can't for the life of me figure out what it is."
"I'll fill you in," he answered.
==============
A/N- And to this bitch, I bequeath aboot table to the head!
I shunted over above the motel we had chosen to stay the night in, and the inferno it had become. I didn't need my power to tell me there were no survivors. a hundred feet back, my armor was alerting me to the dangerous heat levels. Easy enough to change that, however. A couple quick cryo blasts siphoned massive amounts of heat and prevented the spread to other buildings. Thanks to whatever tinker bullshit was going on, it would wind up in the batteries of the Ultralisks. Somehow. After that, a few more targeted shots reduced the flames to something approachable. Guess combat precognition extends to firefighting. Awesome.
I dropped down in front of the building, doing everything I could to get my power locked on to whatever asshole torched a building with... whatever the fuck that stuff was. I'd need to ask Riley, all I knew is it wasn't alive and probably wasn't a power, maybe. There was a lot of other stuff coming over my suit's sensors. Riley went all out with my armor's sensor suite, and what she couldn't give me, Emma and Trevor did.
My arm snapped out, grabbing the invisible Case 53 by the arm. "Fancy finding you here," I said with nothing resembling the light humor my words suggested.
"Hey!" he shouted, startling a couple of others who had come here to gawk at the now mostly dead flames. Many of them woefully underdressed for the chill of a mid October night. "Ya gotta believe I didn't have shit to do with this!" My power told me he was telling the truth. Then again, I didn't trust my power against him.
I took off, slowly, while my electrical power recharged the batteries of the suit. That ice weapon drained it fast, and shunting was fucking expensive. "The only thing I gotta do is find out how you survived that inferno."
"I..." he hesitated, and I knew he was about to either lie or refuse to speak. I let the antigrav deactivate, dropping us both toward the ground. "Okay! It was Playmate's power!" I reactivated the field. "Look, we use her to keep us safe. Walkin neutral ground, with rules that you can't fight at all. Even if the other guy wants to fuck us, they can't. Yer pals should be alright. Can't die in her power's field."
Made sense, and my power still believed him, regardless of my suspicions. "Sounds like something that'd be a real hit at the Endbringer fights," I pointed out.
"Don't work," he answered. "They're special or somethin', I dunno. You'd have to ask her how her power works, all I got is rumors."
Atropos' voice came on over the com. "Is Th... Horus with you? His suit's on this side, but he wasn't in it."
My eyes narrowed. "Apparently Playmate was doing her thing," I informed her. "Everyone got out, but Horus isn't with the others saved from the fire."
"Kaiser's kid?" he asked. "Unless he's immune to powers, he should be out." Oh, I spoke out loud. Well, nothing damaging was said.
"We lost Clarice," Atropos added. "What do we do?"
God damn it. "What we should do is call in the reinforcements," I answered to my new de facto second in command. "But what I want to do is fix this ourselves. We're putting this to a vote, though. Call the big guns, or follow my plan and handle this by ourselves?"
A few seconds later, I got my response. "We're in," Atropos replied.
"So," I spoke to my captive. "Do you wanna help find out who napalmed your neutral ground?"
....
"They tipped their hand," I told the girls. "They used a teleporter to deliver that attack, and to abduct Theo. I know almost exactly where they are, but we have to hurry."
"Then we can save him!" Riley exclaimed. She was sitting next to a badly mutilated Clarice. The doll had been split open in a way that my senses were certain came from Atropos' power. Dozens of mechanical bits had been pulled out of its insides and were strewn about, along with segments of two sets of bioarmor.
She's not going to let them live through this, I realized when I got a look at the girl. Her emotions were the slow boiling rage of a murder waiting to happen, and Riley had killed enough times already that she wouldn't blink an eye at another. Fuck. How was I going to handle that? I decided that question would have to wait until after we got Theo back. Depending on how we find him, I might just give them to her, I added.
"Atropos," I instructed. "We're going right now, along with a few of the Mafia capes. I told them we wouldn't wait for them, but I'd keep them updated by GPS and if they think they want to join in, I wasn't going to stop them. Riley, you tell us what you learned while we're en route."
Lily and I shunted over, using her system to do it. "Turn off your defensive power," I instructed her. I waited for her nod, and then grabbed her hand. "I can fly faster." I told her, and pulled her along toward our destination. Our antigrav flight had a max speed of just above three hundred miles an hour. The extra tech loaded into mine afforded me over twice that max speed. Still nothing compared to Sabah's armor, but pretty damn fast.
"They used some kind of thermite bomb," Riley informed as we started in the direction the armor's senses led me.
"So not a power," I replied. "I was pretty sure it wasn't."
"It was sort of," she answered. "The chemical residue is a tinker recipe."
"First tinker tech drugs, now tinker tech chemicals in bombs," I replied. "Does anyone else find that suspicious?"
"Same guy, probably," Riley agreed. "But he's virtually a rogue. Works for the Elite, but all he does is make and sell stuff. It's not impossible that he's involved, I guess, but it's much more likely that he's just selling the weapons."
"Not quite a dead end, then," I replied. "I bet that stuff costs a lot of money."
"Yeah, lots," Riley agreed. "Enough material to do that kind of damage would run a quarter of a million dollars or more."
"So well funded, whoever they are," I acknowledged. "Okay, Atropos, you know the score."
"You kick their asses, I nuke their gear?" she snarked. "I miss the good ol' days when I was allowed to point weapons at people without needing a kill order first."
"Well, next time you'll think twice before making confetti out of an Endbringer," I retorted. "Personally, I think there's something to be said for making your enemies soil themselves just by standing in front of them. Although it's kinda gross when it actually happens."
"There's no way that actually happens," she insisted.
"My old power made it pretty easy, actually," I replied. "But I'm willing to bet you could do it on rep alone. Plus or minus a crossbow bolt a couple inches away from the throat."
We spent the next ten minutes talking about various strategies to, perhaps literally, scare the crap out of our enemies. It wasn't like we could travel any faster than we already were, without Missy around to help.
"There's the building," I replied as we approached the farmhouse well outside of the city. "Theo's alive," I informed them both. "Doesn't look like he's in any danger. A teenage girl in the room with him. Both seem calm and in good health."
"Another captive?" Lily asked.
"Dunno, maybe," I responded. "They're not leaving and I'm seeing no other living being. Shunting over, we'll check things out from the safe side." A second later, Atropos and I were back in the familiarly endless expanse of Yggdrasil.
We dropped into the ghost of the farmhouse, looking around. My powers didn't see any threat to traversing the house. No threat of injury, no real threat of discovery past the occasional floor panel to avoid stepping on. Judging by the age of the building, I would be surprised to learn there weren't creaky boards. Theo wasn't under any apparent duress, sitting in an old fashioned rocking chair, talking to a girl around his age, perhaps a little older.
Her, on the other hand, my power saw as incredibly dangerous. Deadly, even. Line of sight power, if she could see me she could hurt me. She probably wouldn't be able to kill me, but I got the impression that my regeneration and shapeshifting powers were the only reason for that.
"Lily, stay here," I instructed. I activated my stealth systems and watched as all the power to my other systems were quickly draining. With only the cloak active, I had at most twenty minutes of power. I was about to cut that in half. I shunted into the room. I couldn't touch her, either. It was unlikely she could hurt me if I did, but the risk was still pretty high. High enough that my power didn't like the idea. Besides, I had another option. One magnetic pulse later, and we were plunged into absolute blackness. Less than two minutes of power left in my suit.
"No!" the girl shrieked. "You were supposed to stop them! How did you even find me!"
I sense Theo diving sideways, using his armor to propel him quickly away from the girl. So, she was responsible, I thought. I couldn't touch her, I didn't have enough power to reliably blast her with the nonlethals. So I went with the next best option and hit her upside the head with an end table.
To my surprise, the table shattered into pieces that looked like it had gone through a wood chipper. Her power at work, because I didn't hit her nearly hard enough to break the table naturally. Much less to shatter it like that. Still, it was hard enough to send the girl face first into the couch, unconscious. Minor concussion at worst, my power informed me.
I let the stealth function drop. Theo couldn't see me either way. "So, I know there's a story here, but I can't for the life of me figure out what it is."
"I'll fill you in," he answered.
==============
A/N- And to this bitch, I bequeath a
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Daunmi
Shun the sun, night so nice
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Hmm, they might have left the city by now. Better to the continent, it's the only way to be sure.
Clearly we're not thinking about it enough.
Every cape in the city is Playmate. Every person in the city is Playmate. Every city in the city is Playmate.
It's so obvious now!
Sheaman3773
(Unverified Writer)
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So, vengeful out-of-towner--or at least, not a member of the in-town gang(s)--except perhaps not actually a villain(ous group)?
Also slightly surprised that her power would shred the table but still let it hit her, but I'm sure we'll get some explanations.
GiftofLove
A Gift From The Heart
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You must be pretty buff from scaling all these little cliffhangers.
Slayer Anderson
Orthodox Heretic
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Honestly at this point?
I'm betting she's Missy and Theo's kid come back from the future to stop Riley and Theo from getting together.
Time Travel relationship drama and Evil Twins are about the only kind of drama Pantheon hasn't done yet, and the 'Evil Twin' could be argued.
Nigel Burnelli Isaacs
I trust you know where the happy button is?
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Now this new chapter is intriguing, so Playmate(who apparently got a name change) is hiding from someone intent on killing I like it, this also makes Brain all the more suspect anyway curious to see how things play out now and what the guy will do especially since now I think Victoria's power was not messed with and that the guy really is that problematic.
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jaelin910
habitual lurker
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unnatural disaster has him making an effort to turn his life around after joining the protectorate. he's actually doing pretty well at not swearing at people
cosoco
Not too sore, are you?
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I think you meant said, but dead works here too.
supposed
I wonder if she's talking to someone else. The teleporter, maybe?
"Oh, that? Pantheon has a Tinker device that records whenever someone thinks about us. We just looked at who was thinking about us at the time of the murders."
Seriously, though, Pantheon is like Santa. They see you when you're sleeping, they know if you've been bad or good, so be good for goodness sake.
Peanuckle
Versed in the lewd.
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edale
Versed in the lewd.
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I think it was back on SB, but in one of the thread comments I believe TanaNari stated shunting was only possible because of the tech in their suits. This means there's a limit of what's in the suits. I don't recall once ANYTHING being shunted that wasn't in the suits. If they could, then the modus operandi for handling cape fights would be:
Step 1: Get contact with enemy, and shunt to Pantheon's world.
Step 2: Completely OWN the enemy with Yggdrasil and Zergs.
Step 3: ???
Step 4: PROFIT!!!
TanaNari...You get bonus points if you manage to get one of the characters to say that in the fic as part of a bluff-out at some point. My bet's on Vicky, fit's her personality. I'll go through and like every damn post you've ever made on the forums, story post or not. Seeing the reaction to that, and the person thinking they could actually do that ("but telepathy isn't possible.... but... PANTHEON....... shit.")... priceless.
Nigel Burnelli Isaacs
I trust you know where the happy button is?
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Always love me some Krang, but I was not thinking about Grue at all.
Deltawaves1
Getting sticky.
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Why have there been no new omakes? There has certainly been enough fuel for them.
Cambrian
The Pimperor - Inspirational as Fuck
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Hmmm, well it all seems fairly vague still... I'm going to stick to my original theory for the time being and continue to believe the PRT and or protectorate is setting the mafia up. Might be leaning towards some individual girl on a revenge crusade, but momma didnt raise no doubters!
tordg
(Unverified Idiot)
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Redundant "body".
Second doublequote confusing and redundant.
Uncharacteristically missing the title.
I may be wrong on some of these being Inference Engine speaking. I actually flat out recommend rereading all pre-move Lisa chapters; they were hit hard.
Bright blue whats? Eyes, I assume.
Redundant "crime"?
Endbringer
Can't remember why I highlighted this one, sorry.
Awkwardly phrased. I recommend either "stay right here for now" or removing the "right".
we're
No error, just utter pants-shitting terror.
Awkwardly phrased. I can't recall my recommended fix, sorry.
So... I just finished my first reread. Enjoy your likebombing, Tana. I actually got the idea to take advantage of QQ's impressively convenient Multi-quote feature way back in chapter 77, 9 chapters after the Taylia bond was created. Sadly, a cookie glitch on my end destroyed ~80% of my work. Something on the order of 3/4 of your italics got stripped in the move. I will hereby invite anyone planning on a reread soon to help TanaNari out by continuing my little project. It only added about a half hour to how long it took to finish rereading (so about 6 minutes for what is shown here).
I also had a couple of economically oriented ideas for Pantheon. First was to note that Thorium is pretty much everywhere and reduces the profitability of most metal refineries even before considering the pain-to-extract and valuable Rare Earth metals that are often bundled with it that sadly have to be disposed of. I suspect there are not enough Tinkers out there to make much of an impact there (never mind trusted heroes). Pantheon operates on a large enough scale that they could also save various governments the not inconsiderable costs of facilities like Yucca Mountain. Admittedly the politics would be tricky, but I think it might be doable and something to consider at some point.
Second was the thought that smart highways would be easy with Yggdrasil, even before the TBF (Tinker Bullshit Factor). Both of these ideas would be pretty low priority, but I suspect that the smart highways, at least, would be a good PR move with the general populace (a. By saving a lost of tax money like with the sewer systems. b. By how trivial it would be for them to improve road safety.), and fits their MO of heroism by actually-saving-lives-instead-of-cops-and-robbers.
edale
Versed in the lewd.
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Mixing Bio-Tinkers and the idea of Magic Mushrooms is never a good idea....unless you're Skidmark.
*Edit- and if that Bio-Tinker is Bonesaw...
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Alterego9
Know what you're doing yet?
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It sounds really strange that here, Saint seems to subscribe to a very conservative vision of the AI threat. Even IRL, many singularitarians tend to portray a hostile exponentially self-improving AI as something that will just "go FOOM", quickly convert all matter on the planet then in the solar system into part of it's own body through nanotechnology, and expand outward into the galaxy with near lightspeed, to convert that too.
If you say that in-universe the hard-takeoff theory is wrong, and Dragon couldn't really use that to squash Zion, because of reasons, that's your prerogative, but Saint, who has been obsessing over AI threat for years, should really have more imagination than to picture a hostile singularity as a battle against Skynet-style rebelling robots, that humans could reasonably fight against.
TanaNari
Verified Dick
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Early on, they used an Yggdrasil bubble to shunt larger areas, but that was before they really perfected the miniaturization of the devices so they could be carried within the suits.
Good question. Why haven't you written one?
Thanks, but you needn't have bothered. ALL formatting was lost during the transfer. I am, when I have time, going back to edit the early chapters. I'm up to ch 30 now. It's mentioned in more detail over at the SV port of the story.
selonianth
Writer of Words
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Wooo!!
Canon Omake: Zach's Close Call
Hexed999
I trust you know where the happy button is?
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Seeing as there appears to be a demand for Omakes I figured I'd try my hand at one. This is the first time I've written in over two years and my first attempt at writing Worm, so please be gentle.
Without further ado, Zach's close call, or why you should never assume people are talking about the same things you are.
Trevor was enjoying a quiet evening tinkering when Zach burst into his workshop looking like the hounds of hell were after him.
"Dude, thank god you're here, listen I need your help, my life depends on it" The other boy looked genuinely terrified, something that Trevor had never seen before, even in the face of the Simugh.
Trevor felt the rush of adrenaline flow through his system, something that could make Zach fear for his life was formidable, and could either be a huge asset or a huge threat to Pantheon "Ok, let me call Khepri and -"
"NO!" Zach screamed "They don't need to know! We can deal with this ourselves! It's for the best!" With that he grabbed Trevor and dragged him to where his Chariot was, stopping once to crumble to dust and regenerate. Trevor noted that Zach's terrified expression never ceased despite the mental balancing effect his powers normally had. "We need to get up in the air, where no one can hear us" he muttered in his rush, barely giving Trevor enough time to grab his helmet before forcing him to fly the panicked boy into the clouds, well beyond even Khepri's ears.
"Ok" Trevor said calmly, attempting to soothe Zach "What's this all about? Why didn't you want me contacting the others? Are we facing another Master/Stranger situation?" His mind was reaching for the worst possible conclusions, if Gaea and Khepri were compromised then the best case scenario was the fall of Pantheon, worst case was an extinction level event.
In response Zach handed Trevor the laptop that the tinker hadn't realized he was carrying "I need you to delete something from my computer and make sure no one can ever, ever recover it"
...What?
Faced with Trevor's blank stare Zach elaborated "A couple days ago I got curious and decided to see what kind of porn of us there was, most of it was pretty straight forward, usual stuff, you know" Trevor nodded, while he doubted his and Zach's idea of "usual stuff" was the same, the plot of pornos was fairly generic no matter what you were into "One of the more popular videos out there was titled 'Sister appreciation' and I was feeling a bit down about Victoria so I figured I'd see what it was about. I started downloading it but then Emma came to talk to me and I forgot all about it until now and I really need you to make sure no one can ever find out I downloaded it!" Zach was pleading by the end of it
Trevor put his hand on his forehead "you know you can just delete it?"
"But it might not be enough!"
"Why not? Neither Amelia nor Victoria are tinkers and even if they do find out it's not like they can hurt you..." Trevor paused upon realized that there was another member of Pantheon the public accepted as Amelia's sister, the only person who had managed to physically harm since he triggered "It wasn't Victoria was it?"
Zach shook his head "Give it here" Zach handed the computer over and Trevor plugged in a USB that he'd gotten in the habit of carrying around from his days as a spy for the Wards. It contained a program that made all deleted data completely irretrievable without damaging any saved data.
"Here, you computer should be pretty slow for a few hours but no one will every find that video. Just don't download porn of you teammates again ok?" With that Trevor turned to the controls and flew them back to base, eager to be back in his workshop. With any luck he'd be able to complete his current project before something else dragged him away from his workbench.
Hopefully.
Without further ado, Zach's close call, or why you should never assume people are talking about the same things you are.
Trevor was enjoying a quiet evening tinkering when Zach burst into his workshop looking like the hounds of hell were after him.
"Dude, thank god you're here, listen I need your help, my life depends on it" The other boy looked genuinely terrified, something that Trevor had never seen before, even in the face of the Simugh.
Trevor felt the rush of adrenaline flow through his system, something that could make Zach fear for his life was formidable, and could either be a huge asset or a huge threat to Pantheon "Ok, let me call Khepri and -"
"NO!" Zach screamed "They don't need to know! We can deal with this ourselves! It's for the best!" With that he grabbed Trevor and dragged him to where his Chariot was, stopping once to crumble to dust and regenerate. Trevor noted that Zach's terrified expression never ceased despite the mental balancing effect his powers normally had. "We need to get up in the air, where no one can hear us" he muttered in his rush, barely giving Trevor enough time to grab his helmet before forcing him to fly the panicked boy into the clouds, well beyond even Khepri's ears.
"Ok" Trevor said calmly, attempting to soothe Zach "What's this all about? Why didn't you want me contacting the others? Are we facing another Master/Stranger situation?" His mind was reaching for the worst possible conclusions, if Gaea and Khepri were compromised then the best case scenario was the fall of Pantheon, worst case was an extinction level event.
In response Zach handed Trevor the laptop that the tinker hadn't realized he was carrying "I need you to delete something from my computer and make sure no one can ever, ever recover it"
...What?
Faced with Trevor's blank stare Zach elaborated "A couple days ago I got curious and decided to see what kind of porn of us there was, most of it was pretty straight forward, usual stuff, you know" Trevor nodded, while he doubted his and Zach's idea of "usual stuff" was the same, the plot of pornos was fairly generic no matter what you were into "One of the more popular videos out there was titled 'Sister appreciation' and I was feeling a bit down about Victoria so I figured I'd see what it was about. I started downloading it but then Emma came to talk to me and I forgot all about it until now and I really need you to make sure no one can ever find out I downloaded it!" Zach was pleading by the end of it
Trevor put his hand on his forehead "you know you can just delete it?"
"But it might not be enough!"
"Why not? Neither Amelia nor Victoria are tinkers and even if they do find out it's not like they can hurt you..." Trevor paused upon realized that there was another member of Pantheon the public accepted as Amelia's sister, the only person who had managed to physically harm since he triggered "It wasn't Victoria was it?"
Zach shook his head "Give it here" Zach handed the computer over and Trevor plugged in a USB that he'd gotten in the habit of carrying around from his days as a spy for the Wards. It contained a program that made all deleted data completely irretrievable without damaging any saved data.
"Here, you computer should be pretty slow for a few hours but no one will every find that video. Just don't download porn of you teammates again ok?" With that Trevor turned to the controls and flew them back to base, eager to be back in his workshop. With any luck he'd be able to complete his current project before something else dragged him away from his workbench.
Hopefully.
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