So what's really going on in Worm?

[The Unicorn]

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Reply at
https://forum.questionablequesting.com/threads/unrestricted-worm-discussion-thread.7824/

 

[liberty90]

CPS is effective enough that Brian can't have his sister living with him and ignore official custody concerns.

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You don't need GDP per capita at 50 000$ to have halfway-competent Child Protection Services. Romanian/Bulgarian/Mexican 18 000/20 000$ per capita is sufficient. Wormverse USA can have wealth per capita cut by half in comparison to OTL USA, easily.

Slow enough permanent recession can cut for example only 200 or 300$ in per capita wealth per annum. Riots and revolutions are partially kept in check by the Cauldron, and...

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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Cauldron. Cauldron conspiracy keeps USA and a few other places functioning much more normally and much longer than they should.

There is World Of God (Wilbow) how the world would look without Cauldron (and 20 years from now would look despite Cauldron, without early Scion rampage):

Absent Cauldron's meddling, there's no PRT for one thing. There's no Suits, no Red Gauntlet, no Elite Sentai group or whatever I called them, no Elite; all groups that Cauldron set up or supported. Groups are formed but can't sustain themselves past tight Undersider-like groups of 5-10 individuals. Conflicts are more tightly contained and devastating, recovery is slower, and an area that ends up lost or fucked doesn't get the backup needed to revive. Such areas are abandoned or occupied by whatever groups are willing to make do with the aftermath/ongoing occupation by X gang or Y high-level threat.

Non-parahumans in the West end up taking a more aggressive stance against parahumans, as certain voices aren't silenced, and without the Protectorate as an example, things are just more anti-parahuman around the world as a whole. Heroes are fewer and farther between than in conventional Worm - you've got an awful lot of shades of grey and people doing their damndest just to get by. The Chevaliers and Miss Militias of the world are staying right where they are, in small town X or Turkey-occupied Kurdistan, and they're helping their town/country and only their town/country. For the most part, parahumans are taking over where they can take over, and because the population is so hostile, they're forced to be a little ugly or harsh to quell dissent, or they're nice and constantly watching their back/focusing far too much on just keeping things functioning.

Assuming that Cauldron's operatives maybe killed Eden but then just sat on their hands/died, the Endbringers don't exist, the cauldron vials aren't spread out, and there's less of the really powerful parahumans here and there who're capable of acting decisively. Gates to other worlds are left open, feeding into Cote D'Ivorie, spitting out more than a fair share of Case-53 like monsters, only in a very tightly occupied space. If West Africa survives, it's either as a world power or as a mutant-occupied area. If they find Eden's corpse, well, you've got a whole other mess, because they're going to be less careful and organized about it. Assuming they don't accidentally revive Eden, there's going to be a lot of failed doses.

Further, the major threats that Contessa and Number Man deemed too dangerous to leave alone weren't necessarily eliminated (either because Contessa herself didn't pay a visit, or because Cauldron didn't contrive to have said parahuman put down), so there's more Ash Beasts, Blasphemies, Sleepers and the equivalent roaming around.

There's no Parahuman Containment Center, so there's no place to put the really dangerous villains. What do you do with the villains who can't be killed, like Gavel? You maybe try to wrangle some giant-killers like Flechette/Foil, but how many of those guys are there, really?

You're talking about infrastructure, but quite honestly, infrastructure wouldn't survive the 90's. By the mid-2000's, getting food from the agricultural states to the areas with the highest population density (ie. New york) is a struggle, because of bandits, threats, organized crime, disorganized crime and more. Things come to resemble the theoretical Edenverse, but you don't have Eden shoring up the population by putting tinkers and capes capable of reviving areas anywhere particular (you also don't have her sabotaging). Scion ends up playing a pretty big role in keeping society alive, more than before, with keen attention to the biggest threats and only those threats.

By March 2011, half the world is struggling, and the other half is controlled by powerful figures of the Glaistig Uaine class. Richter and his AIs might have a hand in keeping eastern Canada going, but his attention is focused on New York, which is a clusterfuck of the Nth order. A coalition of villains occupy Brockton Bay, including Marquis, the Butcher Queen and the Little Doctor, while outside parties want a piece of that pie. Every second city has a major threat in or near it - not quite on the level of an Echidna or Nilbog, but bad enough that it's hard to put down.

It isn't hopeless, but it's grim. Points of light in a broad swathe of darkness. There is a way out, nobody's actively trying to stop them from finding it, but it's an uphill battle every step of the way.

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https://forums.spacebattles.com/thr...ussion-thread-38.309181/page-35#post-15024820​

 

[Dakkaface]

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.

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His defense against 'random gun' is 'Bonesaw enhancements.' His defense against anything worse than that is 'hold hands with Siberian and become invulnerable.' An additional defense is the fact that he simply appears to be a guy with a knife. Every single other member of the Number-themed Murderhobos is flashier, more attention grabbing, and more of a threat than Jack appears to be at any given time.

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.

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I'm reasonably certain that doesn't happen in ACP, but in a different fic. And even in that fic, Crawler and the Siberian should have survived that.

 

[Guardian54]

His defense against 'random gun' is 'Bonesaw enhancements.' His defense against anything worse than that is 'hold hands with Siberian and become invulnerable.'

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1. No, there is easily more than enough kinetic power available to anyone in the US with its large number of private guns to mulch his thinkmeat or whatever the hell he uses regardless of Bonesaw's efforts.

2. That requires he have enough warning to do so

3. Hmm? It was another fic? Perhaps I need to reread ACP then if the sheer amount of STUPID starting at the Bakuda fight must be smogging up my memory of it.

And Siberian would have popped if Manton was caught in the blast. He would not have had the time to react to the event. Crawler would be another story, but every other member of the Nine would have been wiped easily.

 

[Prince Charon]

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

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Jack was murderhoboing around since the late 1980s, IIRC, well before Manton took the vial, and before Jack made Bonesaw trigger. Somehow, he didn't get killed by a cop or a random farmer with a shotgun in that time. How this happened is highly questionable, since this was also well before Ziz manifested, and indeed, a few years before Behemoth did.

If it wasn't Contessa keeping him alive, then it was someone else. One answer that really annoys me, but does actually fit how his shard has been described as working, is that his shard has all other shards in the area make sure Jack doesn't get killed by anyone or anything, regardless of whether the person or thing that would kill him has any existing connections to parahumans. Another annoying option is that all or most capes have a power that they aren't consciously aware of, that influences the minds around them to make non-parahumans less competent and threatening when opposing parahumans (so, pretty much what Jack's shard does to parahumans, but generally weaker, and with a wider focus); given the Entities' lack of intelligence and logic, I can see such a thing being instituted to prevent unSharded natives from interfering in the experiment. These ideas annoy me for much the same reason that Ziz and Contessa do: they remove the characters' agency.

 

[Nekraa]

Or maybe it's just chance and competence.

 

[redfog]

IIRC the S9 M.O. was to hit small towns in the midwest. Brockton Bay was the exception to the norm and only really considered because it had already been hit hard by Leviathan.

 

[magic9mushroom]

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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Death of the Author actually has some issues when discussing serially-published works. Wildbow is literally still writing Ward and editing Worm for possible publishing; he can, in fact, change the text.

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.

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It can see its shards showering down from above like meteors traveling the void. The first to arrive.

It can see the shards of the counterpart.

Not all are intact.

Dead shards. Damaged ones. Vital shards, even, going to hosts.

The entity destroys these on sight. They are corrupt, ruined. They will fail to provide usable results.

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Eden is the source of dead shards, but not all Eden shards are dead. I don't see any other way to interpret it.

(It's possible, I suppose, that all Cauldron capes have dead or damaged shards. There might be something somewhere else saying yea or nay, but I don't know of it.)

 

[MissileTeatime]

IIRC the S9 M.O. was to hit small towns in the midwest. Brockton Bay was the exception to the norm and only really considered because it had already been hit hard by Leviathan.

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That can't be the entirety of it, because the S9 came to Brockton roughly a decade ago and were driven out by Marquis. Both Marquis and Jack talk about this incident. (Citations to be edited.) Maybe if we want to get into headcanons, this was early after they picked up Siberian and there was overconfidence involved, but in my opinion that just raises more questions.

Spoiler: Citations!

I started with an easy one, and added more after getting more creative with my searching.

From 14.10, where Jack talks to Amy:

"Go ahead," Panacea's voice was small, almost defeated.

"What's holding you back? You're capable of so much, of changing the world, of destroying it, but you're so very small, Amelia Claire Lavere."

His voice was almost mocking as he said her name.

"That's not my name."

"It's the name you were born with. Imagine my surprise when I found out your relation to Marquis. In my last visit to Brockton Bay, I crossed paths with each of the major players. I met the man. I must tell you, Amelia, he was a very interesting character."

"I don't really want to know."

"I'm going to tell you. And I have another motive, but I'll get to that in a moment. Marquis was a man of honor. He decided on the rules he would play by and he stuck to them. He put his life and limb at risk to try to keep me from killing women and children, and I decided to see if I could use that to break him. I admit I failed."

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Another time Jack mentions having been in Brockton Bay before. No direct mention of Marquis, so I'd probably have to synthesize when the Teeth were driven out of Brockton relative to when Marquis was arrested to support Marquis driving off the Nine.

"I'm remembering now. Kaiser. His name in costume was Kaiser. I met him once, don't you know?"

"I didn't know."

"Years ago. Allfather still ruled Empire Eighty-Eight then. They held a big meeting between all of the factions. We stopped by. Great fun. I don't think they accomplished a thing that day. We provoked a bidding war instead. Group called the Teeth wound up hiring us to kill some members of the Protectorate team. We did it, and then we wiped out the Teeth before leaving the city."

The Slaughterhouse Nine must have been new, then. People today would know better. Hopefully.

Jack chuckled lightly, "I digress. I do remember your father. He was older than you are now when I saw him. He talked in a way that made me think he was an athlete."

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(Super off-topic, but I find it interesting to note a few paragraphs down that Brockton Bay used to be worse.)


This one doesn't do anything to support the point I went looking for citations for, but it does support my main point. So.

"Not one killer," Kid Win answered, "Nine bodies, each for different killers."

"The Slaughterhouse Nine," Clockblocker leaned back in his seat, groaning, "Fuck, that'd be all we needed."

"Wouldn't be the first time they've arrived at a location in the wake of an Endbringer event," Flechette pointed out.

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These last two citations just raise more questions, and they're different "just raise more questions" than my postulation about the Siberian being why the Nine came to Brockton!

 

[TRm]

I realize this was a few pages ago but I remembered one scene to do with the following:

That reminds me, is there any canon evidence to support the fanon that Taylor is a well read teenager? While her mother can be presumed to have been well read and intrested in books, I can't recall anything in canon that indicates Taylor inherited that interest, or that Taylor's parents managed to get her to read a lot.

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here:

Spoiler: the opening of Queen 18.2

"They won't take me back."
"They will."
"I saw it," Dinah whispered. "Before I ever met Coil. The fear in their eyes. When I said the numbers and I was right. They're scared of me. They were relieved when I got taken. They won't want me now that I'm free."
"They will want you. Just wait," I said. "They'll welcome you with open arms, and there won't even be a hint of fear."
"I look weird. My hair's all dry and dull, and I haven't been eating that much. I always felt sleepy, or edgy, and was never hungry, even when my stomach was growling. And maybe I didn't eat some because it was my only way of fighting back, the only time I could choose something, even if it was bad for me."
"It doesn't matter."
"It does!" There was a note of desperation in her voice. "They'll see me and I'll look different and they'll think about all those moments when I left them feeling nervous and how there's a bunch of stuff I haven't even mentioned because it's that bad. I'm not even human anymore."
"You're definitely human, Dinah."
"Then why do they call us parahumans? Doesn't the 'para' part mean half? Paraplegic, only half your body works. Parahuman, half human."
"Not exactly. It means beside, which is how it's used with paraplegic, or paragraph. It can also mean extra or beyond, like paranormal. We're next to human, or more than human, depending on how you look at it. I think it's pretty apt. Powers, in a lot of ways, make the best and worst parts of our humanity stand out. And that depends on the choices we make. Your parents can't judge you for stuff you didn't choose."
"How… how do you even know that?"
"Which?"
"The meaning of the words."
"My mom taught English," I said. "So I was always sort of introduced to that stuff. And after she passed away, I maybe started paying more attention to it because it's the sort of thing she would have done. A way of remembering her."

[/quote]

While not a major thing for reading, it does show that Taylor has an above average knowledge of English Language

 

[Azerick]

Okay I need a cite.
Ive heard people say again and again that wildbow said that Worm lacks souls, and I've heard people respond that he didn't say that, he just said that whether they exist or not doesn't matter in setting.
Does anyone have access to the original quote for this?

 

[Nekraa]

Okay I need a cite.
Ive heard people say again and again that wildbow said that Worm lacks souls, and I've heard people respond that he didn't say that, he just said that whether they exist or not doesn't matter in setting.
Does anyone have access to the original quote for this?

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This is what I can find.

Does Wormverse have any way of harming souls?​

Souls don't come up. When it comes down to winning vs. her with soul harm/death/manipulation, same general answer as probability/fate manipulation. The soul manipulator is vulnerable on the manipulator side of things, not elsewhere.

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Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/whowouldwin/comments/5jmo6d/featured_character_contessa/dbnr64k

 

[RedStarMini]

Hey I have a question, is it ever mentioned if bonesaw has more or less trouble cloning vial/cauldron parahumans when compared to natural triggers?

 

[Valor]

Hey I have a question, is it ever mentioned if bonesaw has more or less trouble cloning vial/cauldron parahumans when compared to natural triggers?

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Nope. She cloned Gray Boy just fine.

 

[Heaven Canceler]

Jack was murderhoboing around since the late 1980s, IIRC, well before Manton took the vial, and before Jack made Bonesaw trigger. Somehow, he didn't get killed by a cop or a random farmer with a shotgun in that time. How this happened is highly questionable, since this was also well before Ziz manifested, and indeed, a few years before Behemoth did.

If it wasn't Contessa keeping him alive, then it was someone else. One answer that really annoys me, but does actually fit how his shard has been described as working, is that his shard has all other shards in the area make sure Jack doesn't get killed by anyone or anything, regardless of whether the person or thing that would kill him has any existing connections to parahumans. Another annoying option is that all or most capes have a power that they aren't consciously aware of, that influences the minds around them to make non-parahumans less competent and threatening when opposing parahumans (so, pretty much what Jack's shard does to parahumans, but generally weaker, and with a wider focus); given the Entities' lack of intelligence and logic, I can see such a thing being instituted to prevent unSharded natives from interfering in the experiment. These ideas annoy me for much the same reason that Ziz and Contessa do: they remove the characters' agency.

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Now this may just be me.. but maybe he had just dumb luck on his side?

Like, just like how in real life sometimes people (Even important, rich and powerful people!) die to insanely silly things like choking on a chicken bone, sometimes people survive insane odds over and over.

Of course that does bring up the amusing image of people trying to shoot him, run him over with cars, drop heavy objects on him... and him tripping every time and barely avoiding the attack^^

 

[MissileTeatime]

Nope. She cloned Gray Boy just fine.

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Two factors:
First, that could just be something about Grey Boy. He has crazy time powers, and was pretty severely restored by his shard when it re-connected.
Second, I don't recall any evidence one way or another that Grey Boy was a Cauldron parahuman. Which probably means that it's an offhand mention someplace weird, but.

 

[RedStarMini]

Two factors:
First, that could just be something about Grey Boy. He has crazy time powers, and was pretty severely restored by his shard when it re-connected.
Second, I don't recall any evidence one way or another that Grey Boy was a Cauldron parahuman. Which probably means that it's an offhand mention someplace weird, but.

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Well when I first posted the question gray boy wasn't the one I was thinking about, it was the Siberian who is explicitly a cauldron vial cape

 

[Chastity]

Ignis Fatuus (the Eidolon clone Echidna makes) admits that Cauldron made the Gray Boy, Nyx is another cloned S9 C53, Shatterbird was a Cauldron cape, and Siberian is Cauldron too. I don't think there's any mention by Bonesaw of them being harder, but you can probably check the relevant chapter for that.

 

[Guardian54]

Here (and the next 20 or so posts) is me ripping Purity's Interlude a new one:

https://forums.sufficientvelocity.c...io-of-blue-steel.32456/page-206#post-10908582

If you are so incompetent that you can't navigate a city of 350K (whether metro or just city core, neither version will have too many skyscrapers) with a well-defined and highly distinctive coastline right next to said downtown after a DECADE of 2AM AND daylight flying in the general downtown region (e.g. crossing E88 turf), then I'm not surprised Kaiser let you go.

Purity, if she had been blonde with floofy twintails, would totally be "Pool: Lost Gambier Bay" material at that rate.

 

[MissileTeatime]

Guardian, those posts are from back around the same time as Ack starting this thread. Please help me understand why you're bringing them up now?

 

[Guardian54]

Guardian, those posts are from back around the same time as Ack starting this thread. Please help me understand why you're bringing them up now?

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Someone on SB asked me about a place to discuss Worm's plot holes.

I pointed them at this thread, then couldn't remember if I'd discussed the nav failures on this thread. So I went and pulled the resource over just in case.

 

[litaispe]

Taylor actually has curly black hair. It's mentioned in Brian and Emma's interludes as well as by the secretary at Arcadia.

Spoiler: Official art of Taylor

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That isn't remotely what curly hair should look like.

 

[Guardian54]

That isn't remotely what curly hair should look like.

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Agreed.

I always imagined Hermione Granger's frizzy, curly hair to be basically a massive afro unless she tries very very hard to tame it... and after the next bath it's right back to being a huge afro.

Taylor's hair is described as curly, the art cited is wavy. Huge difference. The lower bounds of what can be called curly hair... well, it's like more than an order of magnitude shorter wavelength (and thus 10x more bends for a given length) than... that.

 

[Prince Charon]

That isn't remotely what curly hair should look like.

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Agreed.

I always imagined Hermione Granger's frizzy, curly hair to be basically a massive afro unless she tries very very hard to tame it... and after the next bath it's right back to being a huge afro.

Taylor's hair is described as curly, the art cited is wavy. Huge difference. The lower bounds of what can be called curly hair... well, it's like more than an order of magnitude shorter wavelength (and thus 10x more bends for a given length) than... that.

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Maybe Wildbow doesn't know what 'curly hair' really means, and thinks wavy hair counts?

 

[Guardian54]

Maybe Wildbow doesn't know what 'curly hair' really means, and thinks wavy hair counts?

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When an author fails to have a basic understanding of traits he assigns to his characters... let me guess, he never took time to consider what an English prof's kid's early upbringing ("YOU WILL LIKE BOOKS!" is pounded in extremely early, in fact if she learnt to read simple books on her own any later than 3 I'd be shocked) is going to be like either?

Yeah, explains the canon idiot Taylor.

 

[Nekraa]

When an author fails to have a basic understanding of traits he assigns to his characters... let me guess, he never took time to consider what an English prof's kid's early upbringing ("YOU WILL LIKE BOOKS!" is pounded in extremely early, in fact if she learnt to read simple books on her own any later than 3 I'd be shocked) is going to be like either?

Yeah, explains the canon idiot Taylor.

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... Or, Annette might have not been a parody of a character?

And children aren't clones of their parents anyway, so Taylor not having perfect English or whatnot isn't strange.

Also, trying to force kids to "like" something is more likely to backfire than not

 

[Guardian54]

Also, trying to force kids to "like" something is more likely to backfire than not

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Are you serious? Small children like just about whatever their parents like.
Don't believe me? Even after you go to university, hell even after you have kids of your own, your mother's cooking is going to taste the best when you come home. And guess what Mom makes? A compromise between what she likes and what's healthy. So you like most of the foods your mom likes.

Getting small children to like something when they're still young is easy, which is why indoctrinating them into reading and independent learning before they are three is a huge deal. Letting them run wild until they're three is going to get you kids who are more active, but when reading and knowledge acquisition is a good predictor of prosperity (given one controls for starting socioeconomic status)? Well, good luck.

An Arts prof is almost certainly going to go for early habituation of reading. It might start as "Mommy, whatcha doin?" and reading together, but eventually when Mom's not at home Taylor's going to pick up a book on her own. Given the background you'd have to contrive it to oblivion to keep Taylor from being bookish and actually learning something from them.

Conclusion: Taylor's background is just flavour text with no bearing on her character.

 

[Azerick]

Maybe Wildbow doesn't know what 'curly hair' really means, and thinks wavy hair counts?

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Or the guy who drew the picture didn't?
It doesn't have to be Wildbows fault

 

[Nekraa]

Are you serious? Small children like just about whatever their parents like.
Don't believe me? Even after you go to university, hell even after you have kids of your own, your mother's cooking is going to taste the best when you come home. And guess what Mom makes? A compromise between what she likes and what's healthy. So you like most of the foods your mom likes.

Getting small children to like something when they're still young is easy, which is why indoctrinating them into reading and independent learning before they are three is a huge deal. Letting them run wild until they're three is going to get you kids who are more active, but when reading and knowledge acquisition is a good predictor of prosperity (given one controls for starting socioeconomic status)? Well, good luck.

An Arts prof is almost certainly going to go for early habituation of reading. It might start as "Mommy, whatcha doin?" and reading together, but eventually when Mom's not at home Taylor's going to pick up a book on her own. Given the background you'd have to contrive it to oblivion to keep Taylor from being bookish and actually learning something from them.

Conclusion: Taylor's background is just flavour text with no bearing on her character.

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Taylor does read though. She just isn't some bookworm stereotype. And while our parents have great influence over us, it is far from a perfect "control". You overstate it.

Honestly, rereading your recent posts I'm not sure of your point. You think that Taylor is an idiot, and blame Wildbow for her backstory being "flavor text". The important backstory for Taylor is her lost friendship with Emma, the loss of Annette, the bullying. That's what largely defines Taylor. Not reading (which is something she does too though).

 

[Chastity]

When an author fails to have a basic understanding of traits he assigns to his characters... let me guess, he never took time to consider what an English prof's kid's early upbringing ("YOU WILL LIKE BOOKS!" is pounded in extremely early, in fact if she learnt to read simple books on her own any later than 3 I'd be shocked) is going to be like either?

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Are you serious? Small children like just about whatever their parents like.

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My mother is an English professor, and I didn't learn to read until first grade because I refused to because I thought it was dumb and I didn't care what my mom said, until I realized all the other first graders could read and got on it. Children don't work the way you think they do.