So what's really going on in Worm?

[Melmar]

One of the earliest/largest/most influential fanfics crashing and burning so hard that it makes a notable chunk of the fandom paranoid of long fics set in it is extremely relevant to people's perceptions of what happened in Worm.

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You are literally the only person I've ever seen claim that. I've seen people complain that longer fics tend to die or that ACP put them off of Lacks' work. Just you doesn't constitute a notable chunk of the fandom. Hell, people like Taylor Varga and that's a meandering circlejerk so I'm gonna go ahead and call bullshit.

There are threads on QQ where you can complain about ACP to your heart's content. This ain't one of 'em so please, keep it concise and relevant if you absolutely must.

 

[Guardian54]

Sure, but I notice that a lot of your complaints had to do with characterization and pacing, which are not at all the same thing. That's one reason why I wanted to know what Wildbow had actually said, and part of why I'm skeptical of your reasoning behind judging Worm based on a reading of A Cloudy Path.

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"Gee, I really shouldn't do this stupid thing" *DOES IT ANYWAYS* "Gee, that didn't work out so well, I won't do it again" *DOES IT AGAIN* followed by rationalization is something that people keep yelling is standard for Worm. It is exactly what I saw in ACP.

In fact if you look at the debates in the ACP thread (if you can't find any, go for the Last Battle in both SB and SV threads, i.e. the post-quit exchanges) a lot of the supporters of Lacks use "it's the closest fic to canon Taylor mentality!" as a major lynchpin of argument. It was that argument, and the sheer stupidity of "being so useful I can demand Dinah be released" (which I heard is canon) that permanently burnt me on ever reading Worm.

 

[pepperjack]

Guardian54, I'll take you at your word that you will never read Worm regardless of what anyone says.

Bringing it back to the topic of the thread: if anyone else is curious about the thread-titular "What's Really Going On in Worm" with regard to Taylor, Dinah, and working for Coil, I'll be glad to discuss it with whoever asks.

 

[The Unicorn]

Bringing it back to the topic of the thread: if anyone else is curious about the thread-titular "What's Really Going On in Worm" with regard to Taylor, Dinah, and working for Coil, I'll be glad to discuss it with whoever asks.

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I believe this thread is to address canon questions, not to argue about various interpretations of the characters reasoning.

 

[pepperjack]

I believe this thread is to address canon questions, not to argue about various interpretations of the characters reasoning.

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And I was offering to address the canon questions of anyone who had them, in the same post that I declined to argue character interpretations with Guardian. I'm not sure where you're going with this.

 

[The Unicorn]

How long did it take the Western Roman Empire to fall?

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The problem is that Worm needs to be effectively static, neither collapsing or advancing for at least 20 years before we get to the start of canon. If it was collapsing and getting worse over time then the S9, ship's graveyard, Birdcage, etc would be impossible a decade+ before canon where CPS is effective enough that Brian can't have his sister living with him and ignore official custody concerns.

 

[The Unicorn]

And I was offering to address the canon questions of anyone who had them, in the same post that I declined to argue character interpretations with Guardian. I'm not sure where you're going with this.

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I might have misunderstood what you ware offering to discuss, but "Why Taylor stayed with Coil after finding out about Dinah" is the sort of argument that leads to flame wars and pointless morality arguments because there are a lot of interpretations and not much that can be conclusively stated in canon.

 

[Guardian54]

I believe this thread is to address canon questions, not to argue about various interpretations of the characters reasoning.

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I'm telling pepperjack that if Worm is like ACP as others claim, then I will never read Worm, but he should go read ACP because as a Worm expert he can give a good review of whether or not it actually is like Worm... oh, and because he'll probably like it if he liked Worm if it's as much like canon in characterization as others claim.

Because I agree with you on a lot. Like this:

The problem is that Worm needs to be effectively static, neither collapsing or advancing for at least 20 years before we get to the start of canon. If it was collapsing and getting worse over time then the S9, ship's graveyard, Birdcage, etc would be impossible a decade+ before canon where CPS is effective enough that Brian can't have his sister living with him and ignore official custody concerns.

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[pepperjack]

If it was collapsing and getting worse over time then the S9, ship's graveyard, Birdcage, etc would be impossible a decade+ before canon where CPS is effective enough that Brian can't have his sister living with him and ignore official custody concerns.

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I don't follow the reasoning here.

 

[Chastity]

The problem is that Worm needs to be effectively static, neither collapsing or advancing for at least 20 years before we get to the start of canon. If it was collapsing and getting worse over time then the S9, ship's graveyard, Birdcage, etc would be impossible a decade+ before canon where CPS is effective enough that Brian can't have his sister living with him and ignore official custody concerns.

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None of those things are a meaningful threat to CPS's ability to function, except insofar as they create more orphans.

The big collapsing threats - groups and individuals like the S9, the Endbringers, etc - are generally both counterbalanced by institutional power (PRT, cartels in Latin America, Suits in Europe, Yangban in CUI, etc) and only threaten the order as is in a piecemeal fashion. Rather than attacking the system as a whole, they threaten its control over its territories. If Texas seceded from the Union, I'd fully expect people in the rest of the USA to still get given parking tickets while the USA tried to take back its territory. Even if it was successful, and later joined by California and Alaska, I really doubt that Congress would be going "it's time to disband CPS."

 

[The Unicorn]

None of those things are a meaningful threat to CPS's ability to function, except insofar as they create more orphans.

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Not directly, but while it's possible there is(on paper) a CPS or similar organization while civilization crumbles around them, it's one of the organizations whose power(in practical terms) and financing would be cut first, so it being a powerful and well funded organization in canon, means that things must be pretty good for society as a whole, even if not necessarily for all parts of it.

At the same time stuff like the Birdcage, S9 (especially before Manton joined them, i.e before Cauldron got involved), the boat graveyard indicates society is in a pretty bad situation (especially that last, as it means there isn't financial interest to remove the ships).
I'm not saying that they can't exist at the same time as CPS, but they do indicate a very static situation, despite the fact that things should be either rapidly collapsing (if you got to the point of the S9 wandering around with impunity) or rapidly improving (if they had the spare resources to support charities like CPS).

 

[Prince Charon]

The problem is that Worm needs to be effectively static, neither collapsing or advancing for at least 20 years before we get to the start of canon. If it was collapsing and getting worse over time then the S9, ship's graveyard, Birdcage, etc would be impossible a decade+ before canon where CPS is effective enough that Brian can't have his sister living with him and ignore official custody concerns.

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... OK, this is a good point that I had not considered. Thank you.

 

[Chastity]

Not directly, but while it's possible there is(on paper) a CPS or similar organization while civilization crumbles around them, it's one of the organizations whose power(in practical terms) and financing would be cut first, so it being a powerful and well funded organization in canon, means that things must be pretty good for society as a whole, even if not necessarily for all parts of it.

At the same time stuff like the Birdcage, S9 (especially before Manton joined them, i.e before Cauldron got involved), the boat graveyard indicates society is in a pretty bad situation (especially that last, as it means there isn't financial interest to remove the ships).
I'm not saying that they can't exist at the same time as CPS, but they do indicate a very static situation, despite the fact that things should be either rapidly collapsing (if you got to the point of the S9 wandering around with impunity) or rapidly improving (if they had the spare resources to support charities like CPS).

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"Civilization" is not crumbling in a meaningful sense inside the USA. Civilization - the mechanisms and institutions of social control such as police, taxation, telephone networks, etc - by all appearance continue to function within the world of Worm, at least inside of the United States.

The Slaughterhouse Nine are a rare, one-off group, thus their enormous reputation in setting, the fact that every member is preemptively shoot-on-sight, and their leader and fulcrum has one of the most OP defensive powers in the entire setting. If there were lots of groups like the S9, then I would agree with you, you couldn't run the country any more, but there aren't, and the S9 themselves hemorrhage members ridiculously fast.

The Birdcage is actually a mechanism of reinforcing social control. We wouldn't say that the historical USA should have disbanded all social services because they had to build Alcatraz, would we? The government of Worm has the desire and capacity to throw all these people into prison. That suggests it's working.

With the Boat Graveyard, I don't think Brockton Bay is meant to be an economically normal city, but besides which, the collapse in its import/export industry also lead to, quote: "The richest and most resourceful people in town had managed to make more money, turning the city's resources towards tech and banking, but all of the people who had been employed on the ships and in the warehouses had few options left to them." (Gestation 1.3) That doesn't exactly sound like a city in economic free fall unable to reinvest, it sounds like they didn't bother because the people with the money decided it wouldn't be worth it and they should do other stuff with their money instead.

 

[Nekraa]

One Word Of God take* is the shards use precog to select for violent manics predisposed to using their powers for violence, but the text reading is shards actively push for it and punish parahumans who don't use their powers for violence.

Wildbow's out-of-text statements are generally incoherent as hell and rarely actually match what is presented in the work.

*Wildbow sometimes contradicts himself with WoG statements, since they are often post-hoc "I win" sort of vs-debate crap, rather than written as part of the work

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Could you cite any contradiction? It's often claimed, but so far I can't remember ever seeing it. Though he is human, so mistakes wouldn't be surprising.

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Still waiting.

 

[litaispe]

"Civilization" is not crumbling in a meaningful sense inside the USA. Civilization - the mechanisms and institutions of social control such as police, taxation, telephone networks, etc - by all appearance continue to function within the world of Worm, at least inside of the United States.

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This is called Wildbow's world-building is fucking shit. The powers parahumans have, geopolitics of endbringers (which narratively didn't even exist pre-timeskip, before surprise jobbing end-boss), and wandering murderhobos and the entire super-villan thing isn't compatible with how 'intact' civilization is.

Early Worm is written as if there wasn't city destroying wrecking balls bouncing around every ~6 months, and is closer to urban-fantasy which has no real consideration for the changes that would inflict on a society.

Still waiting.

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I'm not going to bother digging thought literally millions of words for you. "Death of the author" is a thing, Wildbow's Worm and Wildbow's statements written literally years after the fact often have very little in common.

 

[Nekraa]

This is called Wildbow's world-building is fucking shit. The powers parahumans have, geopolitics of endbringers (which narratively didn't even exist pre-timeskip, before surprise jobbing end-boss), and wandering murderhobos and the entire super-villan thing isn't compatible with how 'intact' civilization is.

Early Worm is written as if there wasn't city destroying wrecking balls bouncing around every ~6 months, and is closer to urban-fantasy which has no real consideration for the changes that would inflict on a society.


I'm not going to bother digging thought literally millions of words for you. "Death of the author" is a thing, Wildbow's Worm and Wildbow's statements written literally years after the fact often have very little in common.

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And then I can tell you that you're full of shit, making claims without backing them up is worthless.

Also, "Death of the Author" doesn't mean "the author makes contradicting statements", it is that you consider the text while (deliberately) not thinking about who the author is only using the text to understand it. Which is good enough reason not to want to read/care about WoG but don't turn around and say that the author contradicts himself.

 

[litaispe]

And then I can tell you that you're full of shit, making claims without backing them up is worthless.

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This level of intellectual "rigor" reminds me of SB Vs Debates. Even academic papers with citations & references don't require as much pointless effort to go find some quote.

Also, "Death of the Author" doesn't mean "the author makes contradicting statements", it is that you consider the text while (deliberately) not thinking about who the author is only using the text to understand it. Which is good enough reason not to want to read/care about WoG but don't turn around and say that the author contradicts himself.

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It isn't exactly a masterwork thesis that a bunch of adhoc statements often as throw away replies written years after the fact will be coherent with a body of work that is over a million words long, that was speed written with effectively zero editing.

The question is not does 'author contradicts himself' but how badly.

 

[Aleph]

This level of intellectual "rigor" reminds me of SB Vs Debates. Even academic papers with citations & references don't require as much pointless effort to go find some quote.

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I don't have a dog in this fight, but if you make a claim then it really is on you to back it up. Summarily rejecting random unsupported claims is pretty basic intellectual rigor.

 

[litaispe]

I don't have a dog in this fight, but if you make a claim then it really is on you to back it up. Summarily rejecting random unsupported claims is pretty basic intellectual rigor.

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My first post in this thread was a demonstration of my claim, why the should I repeat myself for people with a pre-school grade English comprehension level; Wildbow claims one thing about Worm via WoG (which is quoted in this thread!), while the text says easily says something else.

 

[Aleph]

My first post in this thread was a demonstration of my claim, why the should I repeat myself for people with a pre-school grade English comprehension level; Wildbow claims one thing about Worm via WoG (which is quoted in this thread!), while the text says easily says something else.

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Those aren't contradictory statements, though. Shards select for people inclined to use their powers in times of conflict, but if the Entities could predict the outcome of the entire host's lifespan they'd never bother sending out their Shards in the first place. So they have mechanisms to push hosts in the right direction and punish them if they go in the wrong direction. Belt and suspenders.

 

[MissileTeatime]

Canary has a Cauldron vial.

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Yes. Which-- okay, time out, first I have to offer a disclaimer: The rest of this post is technically synthesis. I'm combining what we actually see in the story with apparently at least three WoGs. That out of the way:

Yes, she does. Which is why she wound up an extreme example of "agent intervention"/the "conflict drive". Because she got her powers from a Cauldron vial rather than a natural trigger, her shard(s?) didn't have the set-up steps they would with a natural trigger. This means the only levers available for shard intervention are the more basic and extreme ones, like activating her power at a time she doesn't specifically want to and seems like it could cause her problems. Hopefully, causing her problems will lead to her using her power more.

Note that in addition to her power messing with her by activating at a bad time, Canary got fucked over by the legal system railroading her into the Birdcage. Those are separate issues that severely compound each other, unless Canary's shard(s?) mind-controlled people around her into it without her using her power, in which case all bets are off but I'm pretty sure that would contradict in-universe logic.

 

[Valor]

Living shards fucks with the mind. Dead shards (cauldron vial) fucks with the body.

Pretty sure Cauldron Capes don't have agent intervention.

 

[ShadowStepper1300]

Living shards fucks with the mind. Dead shards (cauldron vial) fucks with the body.

Pretty sure Cauldron Capes don't have agent intervention.

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That's a statement from Satyrical in-universe, and while he correctly called the general trend, there are exceptions. As seen with Canary, who admitted in Worm to being a Cauldron cape and who WoG says was subject to agent intervention.

 

[Nekraa]

Actually, do we know for sure that Cauldron capes automatically have dead shards? Or is it (admittedly likely) extrapolation?

 

[Chastity]

This is called Wildbow's world-building is fucking shit. The powers parahumans have, geopolitics of endbringers (which narratively didn't even exist pre-timeskip, before surprise jobbing end-boss), and wandering murderhobos and the entire super-villan thing isn't compatible with how 'intact' civilization is.

Early Worm is written as if there wasn't city destroying wrecking balls bouncing around every ~6 months, and is closer to urban-fantasy which has no real consideration for the changes that would inflict on a society.

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I think you're making sociological presumptions about the effects of endemic death that aren't really supported by the historical record. I generally think that civilization is a much more robust and stable thing than you give it credit for, especially given all the kill-machines in Worm aren't doing things like "attempting to coup the U.S. government" or "establishing alternative governmental organs" (Nilbog excepted).

Besides which, no amount of money can be spent to get rid of the Endbringers. They're immune to conventional weapons, you can't spend cash to get more parahumans (Cauldron excepted, but that's not available to the US government), and they're too rapid in their attacks to be adequately responded to most of the time (remember, it was an experimental, new system that predicted Leviathan would hit Brockton Bay, giving them advanced warning). You can't take capital from CPS and give it to some amazing anti-Endbringer stuff that will make them stop killing your people every couple years because there is no such thing to spend money on.

 

[MissileTeatime]

Actually, do we know for sure that Cauldron capes automatically have dead shards? Or is it (admittedly likely) extrapolation?

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...That's a good point. We know* that "dead" shards come from Eden (prior to Gold Morning, anyways), but I can't think of any evidence that all Eden shards are dead.

* I think technically it's an extrapolation, but it's got a very very high likelihood based on what I know.

 

[Guardian54]

The Slaughterhouse Nine are a rare, one-off group, thus their enormous reputation in setting, the fact that every member is preemptively shoot-on-sight, and their leader and fulcrum has one of the most OP defensive powers in the entire setting. If there were lots of groups like the S9, then I would agree with you, you couldn't run the country any more, but there aren't, and the S9 themselves hemorrhage members ridiculously fast.

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Jack has one of the most powerful defensive powers BECAUSE CONTESSA IS HIS PLOT ARMOUR for some stupid, counter-productive Cauldron reason!

For fuck's sake, Jack can't Thinker normals. And do you know what normal humans have done throughout history? Shit all over odds, that's what! My favorite moment in A Cloudy Path was the S9 getting blown up by one normal human with a giant IED. Even if it removed one of the "cranial anal insertion extractors" possible for that fic, it still showed how the S9 should have stopped existing a long, long time ago by simple human ingenuity.

The "only capes can kill capes" thing in cape settings is so utterly ridiculous that civilization being remotely like ours a generation after capes start showing up in numbers is a diagnostic sign of insufficient world-building. This applies to all superhero settings

Besides which, no amount of money can be spent to get rid of the Endbringers. They're immune to conventional weapons, you can't spend cash to get more parahumans (Cauldron excepted, but that's not available to the US government), and they're too rapid in their attacks to be adequately responded to most of the time (remember, it was an experimental, new system that predicted Leviathan would hit Brockton Bay, giving them advanced warning). You can't take capital from CPS and give it to some amazing anti-Endbringer stuff that will make them stop killing your people every couple years because there is no such thing to spend money on.

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Screw Endbringers. We don't need to give a fuck about the Authorial Fiat Cops-And-Robbers Justification Devices when we have more obvious problems that can easily be dealt with.
The S9 haven't been nuked off the map purely due to Contessa being a FUCKING ENTITY SABOTEUR.

The Nine do not generate more capes to fight Scion (any triggers due to them are grossly unliekly to get a handle on their powers before getting killed so even a new Eidolon wouldn't be picked up by Cauldron nearly quickly enough as Contessa can't path triggers and her think-meat can't send "door me" fast enough to react to PtV noticing before Jack kills the new trigger. The Nine can easily be removed PERMANENTLY by one Tinker building a drone, tracking them, and directing a surprise nuclear strike onto them.

Yet Contessa actively undermines the basics of society by letting them run around making Cauldron's job more difficult instead of let the military nuke them off the map.

 

[Nekraa]

Jack has one of the most powerful defensive powers BECAUSE CONTESSA IS HIS PLOT ARMOUR for some stupid, counter-productive Cauldron reason!

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Since when?

 

[Guardian54]

Since when?

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Jack doesn't have a defence against some random normal with a bomb or a sniper rifle (you don't need a scope as Simo Hayha showed).

That means, well, a lot. As in... how is he still alive in as gunned a country as the USA? Because gun ownership in Earth Bet US will only be greater than in ours. Like, an order of magnitude greater.

 

[Valor]

Cauldron didn't give give a shit about Jack until it was learned that he would kickstart Scion. They cared about the Siberian.