Hyperion Cantos Discussion Thread

[EliminatorVenom]

First, there was the Word.​

Hello people! This is a general discussion thread, but more probably a CRT draft/help recruitment, for Hyperion Cantos, a series that once was one of the main figures of "overpowered fiction" in the wiki. but has been long forgotten. However, to actually describe it as such is a massive understatement on what it actually is. The Hyperion Cantos are a collection of four books (Plus a few short stories) of immensely epic, tragic proportions and a very striking piece of media. Even among many pieces of sci-fi and fantasy, the Cantos still strike me as one of the most artistic and original interpretations I've ever seen of the genre. Not to say that it doesn't have its faults - or, even better, that it isn't suited to a very particular niche of reading, (Because it is dense, assumes the reader to know and like classical literature and is fond of using a roundabout vernacular, not to comment on how many mature themes are discussed there)

In any case, I find the profiles incredibly... Inadequate. Lacking, which I can already tell they are despite having just finished the first book. As I read through the books, I will comment here about the stuff I find, and start structuring a CRT.

Welcome to Hyperion.

 

[EliminatorVenom]

I'll start by commenting that the Shrike is anything but Unknown in his ratings, (I've still not got to the part that his power is supposedly dependant on the MUI, but solely through its material composition and how it is treated technologically, the Shrike should be on the very, veeery least City level) and all characters have way more powers than what's actually there on the profiles.

Soon, I'll upload plenty of scans. Some interesting feats in advance:

• The feat that the Shrike sees light as frozen? Totally legit, but it's not through its base speed, I think? Anyone with a Phase Suit, or at least both Moneta and Kassad with said suits, saw light as almost frozen due to how slowly it moved. In that very same statement, it was made very clear that, as they perceived light frozen, the Shrike saw them frozen due to how slow they were in relation to him.
• All the protagonists and the Shrike are acausal and get resistance to hyper-powerful precognition. In particular, the Shrike has one of the strongest cases of acausality I've ever seen for a non 1-A; it is acausal for three or four different reasons, all of them giving him different sets of powers.
• Kassad's profile makes my head hurt. Everything there, except maybe the FORCE rifle thing (I haven't got there yet) is wrong. I think the images of the MUI and the TechnoCore aren't even from Hyperion Cantos. Shrike profile is lacking in many thing. That other character, Nemes, I still haven't got to see her, so I can't confirm whether the profile is good or not, but City level with at least Planet dura does not make me very confident of its quality.
• The Shrike also is one of the most detailed time manipulators I've ever seen in the wiki. Not powerful - but in the way it applies its powers.

 

[EliminatorVenom]

I finished uploading all scans of the first book, and soon to do the rest.

I'll already say that I'll finish Fall of Hyperion before really commenting it properly as even the very first few chapters of FoH already greatly expand upon the feats and capabilities of characters, however... It's safe to say that most characters are actually 10-B. Lamia, Kassad and those that scale to them are 9-C of a respectable degree. Way too many weapons are high 9-B to 9-A, and most combat suits, such as those from FORCE and comparable ones, are shown to be 9-A as well. Skinsuits like those used by Kassad and Moneta are easily 9-A as well, way higher than the previous ones, and the Shrike is on the very least 9-A, but is clearly waaaay above. (As I said, even a cursory reading of Fall of Hyperion would show the characters to be at least Tier 8-ish) The spaceships have solid Low 5-B feats, at least the strongest weaponry and defensive capabilities of them are. FORCE treats 7-B nukes that would be among the strongest nowadays as rather weak.

As for speed, most notable, non-power armoured characters would be Peak Human, possibly Subsonic. With FORCE suits, there are some Supersonic feats. Spaceships are Supersonic within the atmosphere, but in space, when they can safely activate the Hawking drives and go at full speed, they are easily MFTL+. As for the Shrike, Kassad and Moneta using their Skinsuits... They are a weird case. With time manipulation, oh yeah, they can easily go into MFTL stuff, but it is very unclear when time manipulation is happening actively, passively or not at all. I feel like they would be "only" FTL in base, only reaching higher degrees through time manipulation. They may be lower actually, but it is hard to exactly measure.

And for hax, the feats are already insane. The Shrike has multiple reasons for the acausality and has some of the most precise time manipulation I've ever seen, even random weapons are completely bonkers, and Hyperion spaceships hax is comparable to 40k's.

Some of the best feats:

• Spaceships from FORCE:space and from the Ousters duke it out, and they project lasers the size of small worlds, and defend from them with localized singularities that distorts space, so the beams would miss the target.
• Kassad, with the Skinsuit, sees the entire world frozen in time, explicitly because he is so much faster than everything around. He mentions that if he waited for long enough, an Ouster would finish to blink and, within minutes or hours, a bird could finish flapping its wings once. Otherwise, Kassad saw everything - the dust he kicked into the air by walking, the Ousters, the radio waves and everything as frozen. Kassad easily hurls stones at supersonic speed and elaborates on how much quicker he is than everyone else.
• The Shrike, just after the statements above, is noted to see Kassad and Moneta as being as slow as they saw the Ousters and the entire world around. The Shrike proves that point by repeatedly blinking in and out of existance from Kassad's point of view by how fast it moved. Kassad also dodges a laser there, even when he apparently didn't slow down time.
• The TechnoCore can basically predict the outcome of every single human, AI and physical action and reaction for the next two centuries with a precision of 98,9555%... But Hyperion and everything pertaining it, particularly the Time Tombs, (and implicitly the Shrike, as it shares its properties) is impossible to predict.

As soon as I'm finished with Fall of Hyperion, I'll organize the first CRT and some sandboxes.

 

[EliminatorVenom]

I'm proud to declare that the first two profiles are done! Fedmahn Kassad and the Shrike are here! I worked really, really hard on 'em.

 

[fiker]

Shrike's ability doesn't care about durability, right?

 

[EliminatorVenom]

Eh. Some do, some don't. Interestingly, it can't ignore physical durability through its attacks, AFAIC; it can drastically minimize the advantage of higher dura thanks to just how sharp it is and by abusing its time manipulation, but usually, having higher durability mostly protects you from it.

 

[Zaratthustra]

Huh, didn't expect to see Hyperion here.

I've read last year the first book, it was pretty interesting. The Soldier's tale was neat with all the "simulations" and reveal at the end. Scholar's tale was also good.

 

[EliminatorVenom]

Huh, didn't expect to see Hyperion here.

I've read last year the first book, it was pretty interesting. The Soldier's tale was neat with all the "simulations" and reveal at the end. Scholar's tale was also good.

I revised it a few months ago. I still need to finish my original thread, but it's mostly done. There are some feats I need to analyse too, which may bump up the more powerful charactes.

The Scholar's Tale is my favorite one! It is a very emotional, good read.

The first book is the most unique one, with the way the storytelling goes and how stuff is portrayed. The second one, personally, is better, but less original. Endymion is good enough, but Rise of Endymion.... oh man, I wish I hadn't read it. It was atrocious.

 

[Zaratthustra]

I did see people say that with each book the series goes down but till I read I can't say for sure.

 

[EliminatorVenom]

I did see people say that with each book the series goes down but till I read I can't say for sure.

I recommend ya to read the other books! I think Fall of Hyperion is the best one, but Endymion is certainly significantly worse than the two predecessors. The last book is straight-up offensive to whoever read the series up to that point.

As a standalone thing, it is fine, but it utterly disregards almost everything stablished up to that point.