Barker CRT - Remove "Potentially Far Higher"

[Agnaa]

Barker has "potentially far higher" despite never going above 10-A, and never being implied to be brought above 10-A, and never being given the possibility of going above 10-A.

After asking Iapitus about the page, my impression that I got was that she was put there because Barker's a tool from a creator deity that's 1-A, so she could be brought up, at least to Low 1-A, if her creator, Rimple, wanted her to. Iapitus wanted to make it clear that this isn't what he believes, but he can't clarify until another time.

I disagree with this since it was never suggested that any manifestation of Swann or any narrative circumstance/structure would ever put her above 10-A, and any theoreticals which are never canonically suggested, theorized, or implied should not be included in a page.

 

[Tllmbrg]

This makes sense if the possibility wasn't even ever brought in canon

 

[Agnaa]

Bump.

 

[Tllmbrg]

Bump

 

[Antvasima]

This is probably fine, but you should ask some other staff members listed in the SCP Foundatio verse page to comment here.

 

[Sir_Ovens]

This makes sense. Though, I want to see Iapitus' argument before making a decision.

 

[Lawiegg]

Need laptus opinion b4 i comment

 

[Antvasima]

Is somebody willing to ask Iapitus to comment here please?

 

[Tllmbrg]

I did it

 

[Antvasima]

Thank you.

 

[Iapitus_The_Impaler]

First I'll start by directly refuting "never being given the possibility of going above 10-A." She can assume the forms of MTF agents depending on the context, which has already been irrefutably proven, which have been in turn easily shown to go up to wall level.

Barker exists purely as a piece of a narrative, as a means to further its purposes; nothing more, nothing less. Unlike a tool which has some set usage or default setting, she is purely an extension of the will of the author. While one could say "Aren't all characters merely however powerful the author chooses?" the important difference is that this is all Barker is. The extent of her adaptive abilities can only be measured by what the given narrative or author require of her, bound exclusively by her author's whim. While she happened to appear within a select few of the narrative of OM within the tier range listed on her profile, that just arbitrarily happened to be so; From a narrative perspective, it would have been no different from her appearing as town Level, or star Level, or below average human level, as long as it fits its purposes. Her abilities happen to often manifest with changes in power, but its not what her abilities are about. Going from the doctrine set from characters like Gagamaru, characters with abilities like this need a mechanism for their abilities to work on if they don't want to be regarded as NLF. We very clearly have the mechanism for her abilities here, so there is no risk of NLF at all, since the mechanism and source of her abilities is laid out plane as day.

Speaking of theoreticals, It is even directly raised as a possibility in Operation OverMeta that her narrative adaption is a product of the meta-narrative (which is Low 1-A to 1-A btw) she is placed in. I wholeheartedly disagree that this is a matter of "would," instead a matter of "could," as even in even more cut-and-dry cases such as where characters self-limit, we rate them based on how powerful they can become, not how much power they would use. We are first and foremost an indexing wiki, so excluding the information that she can potentially become stronger for the sake of some cognitive bias towards compulsively listing only what has been explicitly spelled out, only runs counter to the purposes of this website as a whole.

 

[Agnaa]

Oh, my bad on the first part, shouldn't she be 10-B to 9-B then?

But we've never seen her be those tiers, and the story never mentioned the possibility of her going to those tiers, so they shouldn't be in the profile. I disagree with your thoughts on NLF.

The difference is, with those characters those possibilities have been explicitly mentioned as possibilities for those characters in the text, while that hasn't happened in Operation Overmeta. All we've been told is that Barker adapts based on the narrative that she's in, that is way too flimsy to assume she can go up to the Low 1-A-ish range.

 

[Iapitus_The_Impaler]

Nah, because the point of the tier list on the profile is for her notable manifestations.

Yeah, we aren't gonna be putting Town level, or star level, or bellow average human level on the profile, and no one was asking that we do last I Checked. Those aren't my thoughts on NLF, that's wiki policy

See, this is what I meant when I said a compulsive need to exclusively go with what is explicitly mentioned, and nothing more. No one claimed that it was explicitly spelled out for her, but it doesn't need to be. We've also been shown that she changes on the whim of her author and acts as a means to progress the narrative, and that is all she is, she cannot be defined by anything else. Don't conveniently ignore the other information I presented.

 

[Agnaa]

Varies goes from lowest to highest, not for a character's most notable forms. Even if a character has a notable form between a top and a bottom on varies, we only list the top/bottom and can't even use the middle one for battles.

It doesn't need to be explicitly mentioned. It can be implied, theorized, suggested, hinted at, or anything. It just needs to exist in the text SOMEWHERE instead of being headcanon. I'd rather go with what's included in the text, than some lofty headcanon about what the character means in a meta context.

 

[Iapitus_The_Impaler]

Varies goes from lowest to highest, not for a character's most notable forms. Even if a character has a notable form between a top and a bottom on varies, we only list the top/bottom and can't even use the middle one for battles.
It doesn't need to be explicitly mentioned. It can be implied, theorized, suggested, hinted at, or anything. It just needs to exist in the text SOMEWHERE instead of being headcanon. I'd rather go with what's included in the text, than some lofty headcanon about what the character means in a meta context.

Variable tier characters have most common and notable manifestations listed in most cases, especially for those with high variance like TATARI, Kingprotea, or her. It just so happens that the most notable tiers are often high ends and low ends. What characters do you know that have extremely notable forms within their variable range that are intentionally left out? That sounds like it runs directly opposite to the indexing purposes of this wiki

Well it was, so no issue there, it just wasn't painted with a big red arrow pointing at it like you made it clear you expect in the OP. Ironic mentioning headcanon given the character we are discussing lol, but I digress. The events of the story make it clear that she has no default state, even "Barker Sullivan" isn't it. They make it clear during the infection part that she just functions to progress the narrative, and right before the end they again make it clear she is just a convenient plot device. Given that her variable identies and power levels work on the same principle, concluding directly from in text evidence creates the clear picture. Also, again, trying to analyze her outside of her meta context is impossible, so idk why or how you begin to attempt it.

 

[Agnaa]

Oh, I must have been misinformed then. I can't find any rules I thought I read on it on the site. The closest thing to an example I'd have is 682 pulling off a 7-B feat once, and 2747 most commonly being shown as 11-A, with only one showing at 11-C, but idk if those would be considered extremely notable. I guess The Foundatio page too, where a lot of their notable stuff in-between the top/bottom tiers is ignored.

I'm not sure who TATARI is and a search won't bring up anything. I'm not familiar with Kingprotea so I can't argue much there, but 5-B doesn't seem much more notable than 3-A, especially since they seemingly come from the same statement, so idk how valid that example is.

But regardless, would it be best to list Barker as something like "10-B to 10-A/9-B", then? Even then I'm not sure I should buy "She became a MTF once and showed 10-A feats, so she scales to every MTF in the foundation, some of which get up to 9-B", idk if we scale all MTFs to each other. Only Samsara has physical feats on the level of 9-B.

Being called a "plot device" twice in such a meta-heavy story isn't enough for me to think that the possibility of going to star level or into tier 1 should be included on the profile. That just has to do with my bar for evidence.

Also, again, trying to analyze her outside of her meta context is impossible, so idk why or how you begin to attempt it.

That's not what I meant but my point there doesn't really matter to the thread, so I'll drop it.

 

[Hl3_or_bust]

Not all MTFs have the same purpose or even recruitment pool. Comparing the physical abilities of Red Right Hand or Hammer Down to ones like Cythereans or Bibliographers makes no sense. They are made to do completely different things that may or may not even remotely involve direct combat.

Moreover, I highly doubt that enough combat and non-combat MTFs have 9-B feats for them to feasibly scale to every MTF, especially for reasons stated above. The vast majority are very specifically not superhuman. They may use magic, they may use some bullshit tech, they might even be whatever the hell Ora Arun is, but very few are meant to be physically superhuman. Samsara is a good example of one that's very clearly designed to be superhuman.

 

[Tllmbrg]

I'm not sure who TATARI is and a search won't bring up anything. I'm not familiar with Kingprotea so I can't argue much there, but 5-B doesn't seem much more notable than 3-A, especially since they seemingly come from the same statement, so idk how valid that example is.

For refrence Kingprotea is basically a charcter who can get up to universal through growing alone (in the Key relavant to this thread)

https://vsbattles.fandom.com/wiki/Kingprotea

 

[Antvasima]

So what are the summarised conclusions here?

 

[Another_Entropy]

Think it is remove potentialy far higher but move Barker to 9-B.

 

[Antvasima]

Okay. That is probably fine then, as long as Agnaa agrees.

 

[Iapitus_The_Impaler]

We haven't reached any conclusions yet. I'm just rather busy atm, I'll be responding later

 

[Antvasima]

Okay.

 

[Agnaa]

I can maybe agree with what Another Entropy says (although I still have some issues with it), but Iapitus disagrees, and no-one else has really weighed in since Iapitus presented his arguments himself.

 

[Another_Entropy]

My conclusion is peak mtf abilty.

 

[Another_Entropy]

Well, 9-B has been shown, but until it has been shown he can go farther than that, i have changed my mind to be 9-B potentialy far higher.

 

[Agnaa]

The only issue is that most MTFs aren't 9-B, they're usually around 10-A or 9-C. It seems weird to say that just because she transformed into one MTF she could transform into any. Pretty sure she transformed into a researcher once, so could she transform into any researcher we canonically know, like Dr. Bright or Dr. Clef? Some of those researchers have SCPs in them, so she can get any SCP, including any 1-B ones...

I don't think that's a very good path to go down with this little evidence.

 

[Another_Entropy]

The highest mtfs are 9-B, but Barker has shown to be able to transform into any mtf.

 

[Agnaa]

You sure about that? The only statement of her transforming into mtf members is:

Following extraction, Barker has assumed the form of a battle-hardened Jack of All Trades type, formerly the head of MTF-╬║-19. The narrative requirement for this form is unknown.

She was the head of one unnamed MTF team which was never used before or since in any other article on the scp-wiki. The closest is MTF K-2 (a different k, and a different number) which was mentioned briefly in SCP-3510, but no description of it is given and it has no feats. And MTF K-10 (again, a different k & number), from the AIAD hub, an MTF largely formed of AICs and researchers keeping them in check, with the goal of preventing other organizations from developing AI tech.

There is no statement or demonstration that Barker can transform into any mtf. And the one that she has transformed into is featless and never mentioned anywhere else.

 

[Antvasima]

I have to unsubscribe from this thread due to time constraints. You can notify me later via my message wall if you need my help after you have reached a conclusion.

 

[Agnaa]

Now that the last SCP CRT is concluded, I shall bump this one.

:3

 

[Sir_Ovens]

Can someone summarize the issue again, and the current arguments?

This stands in the way of my Part 2.

 

[Rikimarox2]

Please no more downgrades

 

[Agnaa]

The last times I tried giving a summary Iapitus got angery at me and said I was misrepresenting him, so that ain't gonna come from me unless you read the thread.

 

[Sir_Ovens]

Maybe Iap should come on and reiterate his stance.

 

[Sir_Ovens]

I've read both sides of the argument and I think it's pretty clear cut.

If Barker has never shown the capacity to be anything higher than 10-A, I don't think a "far higher" tier is necessary. I think we're overcomplicating things here. This can be answered in a simple yes or no.

Has Barker shown the ability to be more than a 10-A MTF agent?

Yes? Proof.

No? She doesn't get "far higher"

Also I'd like not to bring up other MTFs unless they're directly linked to the article. MTF scaling is very tricky business since most authors don't really take into account that some MTFs are reality benders or infospheric constructs.

 

[Agnaa]

Bump.

 

[Iapitus_The_Impaler]

I am going to be very busy for the next few days, and even when we do sit down to debate it, I unfortunately do not see Agnaa, Ovens, and I resolving this in one or even two sittings. Agnaa was not aware that I would be busy when he bumped this thread, and this CRT is going to be very long for a minor change in the grand scale of SCP. For the sake of not holding up the other CRTs, I would recommend that we like "unbump" this thread or otherwise move it back in the Queue, since we are only supposed to have 1 CRT active at a time atm. Alternatively, as this is such a minor thread in the grand scheme of things, perhaps we could not count it towards the total active CRTs towards this verse?

If that's not acceptable then it is unfortunate but SCP is probably gonna be on CRT hold again for the time being unfortunately. I apologize for the inconvenience.