Wokistan
Bioluminescent African American Working At The CIA
VS Battles
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Forum move's done, now I can dump a ton of shit onto the wiki all at once and this can be the first thread of that. If you don't want ward spoilers, avoid Contessa, Bonesaw, Grue, Scion, Legend, Victoria, and all the verse wide standard stuff.
Feel free to take this CRT one part at a time. Probably the safest way to do this.
Characters
Contessa's updated page is on the top of my sandbox. To summarize the changes:
Things in blue were things I had considered questionable.
Obviously other additions I made can be questioned, but I'm not expecting too much of that because of the references stuff. The other two things are more arguing based on context, and kinda need knowledge of the verse.
- Social influencing
- Pain resistance
- Mind resistance
- Memory resistance
- "Likely more" resistances
- A key for her as a Titan
Things in blue were things I had considered questionable.
Heard some arguments offsite against this, felt it fair to represent them here so threadgoers can decide. Italics will be summarized arguments against it.
Cracks don't necessarily have to immedately blitz Valkyrie to reach here here, they could be at any arbitrary speed faster than Valkyrie and eventually hit her. PtV bullshit has already been demonstrated and stated to allow users to successfully attack people much faster than the user through prediction and weird exploitations like light tricks and exploiting instincts and reflexes and blind spots and lapses in senses etc, point being that Contessa's bolts don't need to be super fast to hit Valkyrie because she's using the cheat power. We don't know when valkyrie would start to fly/run away, and we know the cracks can follow people around.
My old general response to stuff like that:
Valkyrie is the person in the setting best equipped to avoid these sorts of cracks. Doormaker and Eidolon let her hop to other universes, she has several teleportation capes, she has a few time alteration capes, she has many precogs of her own and her own personal clairvoyant powers, and perhaps most of all, she has Grue with her. Grue has already been proven to be able to nullify even the abilities of Titans, who can all degrade reality like this (Contessa's just the only one to really weaponize it intentionally.) I find it far more presumptuous to say Contessa's special cracks can now do stuff like override Grue's null and follow her between universes (this one actually creates a plot hole even, if it could already go between universes and thus breach that 4D barrier, the **** can Simurgh even do to stop Contessa?) than it is to say it was fast enough to catch Valkyrie off guard from such a far distance. Would probably just go with an "up to" speed rating anyways, since the cracks generally move at much more normal speeds and distances.
So yeah. This argument was a while ago, I'll ask the other party about how they feel with their representation here so may revise things, but with both sides in mind, discuss.
Cracks don't necessarily have to immedately blitz Valkyrie to reach here here, they could be at any arbitrary speed faster than Valkyrie and eventually hit her. PtV bullshit has already been demonstrated and stated to allow users to successfully attack people much faster than the user through prediction and weird exploitations like light tricks and exploiting instincts and reflexes and blind spots and lapses in senses etc, point being that Contessa's bolts don't need to be super fast to hit Valkyrie because she's using the cheat power. We don't know when valkyrie would start to fly/run away, and we know the cracks can follow people around.
My old general response to stuff like that:
Valkyrie is the person in the setting best equipped to avoid these sorts of cracks. Doormaker and Eidolon let her hop to other universes, she has several teleportation capes, she has a few time alteration capes, she has many precogs of her own and her own personal clairvoyant powers, and perhaps most of all, she has Grue with her. Grue has already been proven to be able to nullify even the abilities of Titans, who can all degrade reality like this (Contessa's just the only one to really weaponize it intentionally.) I find it far more presumptuous to say Contessa's special cracks can now do stuff like override Grue's null and follow her between universes (this one actually creates a plot hole even, if it could already go between universes and thus breach that 4D barrier, the **** can Simurgh even do to stop Contessa?) than it is to say it was fast enough to catch Valkyrie off guard from such a far distance. Would probably just go with an "up to" speed rating anyways, since the cracks generally move at much more normal speeds and distances.
So yeah. This argument was a while ago, I'll ask the other party about how they feel with their representation here so may revise things, but with both sides in mind, discuss.
Contessa being able to requisition basically anything isn't wrong, nor is Titan Contessa having control over basically every Titan at some point. It just seems kinda weird for some intangible reason. I'd support it CRT wise, but it should still probably get special mention since that's a lot of abilities.
Obviously other additions I made can be questioned, but I'm not expecting too much of that because of the references stuff. The other two things are more arguing based on context, and kinda need knowledge of the verse.
Likely Immortality 1: Jack says she could grant this.
Bonesaw herself is stuck looking twelve because undoing that is too much of a hassle and she says herself she might end up surpassing age 100 still looking like a twelve year old
There's also that Bonesaw and Mannequin working together resulted in Cherish's torment potentially lasting tens of thousands of years.
In total, I think it's plenty likely she's able to stop her aging if she wants.
Another thing was Enhanced Senses. Bonesaw's organs can detect invisible people.
Explosion Manipulation. One of Bonesaw's plagues makes people explode, with the gore that goes flying also transmitting the disease.
Power Nullification and Power Modification. She has that Trump rating for a reason. As for nullification:
Mod:
Also Cherish's ultimate fate and the cape hybrids.
Paralysis Inducement:
Regeneration negation:
9-C with cleaver. Chopped through Ashley Stillons' arm with two swings.
“ | “A romantic goal, one I might pursue if I were a younger man,” Nilbog said. “But even gods get older.” “They do,” Jack agreed. “Well, we could give you that youth. Bonesaw could grant you immortality.” | „ |
~ Sting 26.4 |
“ | Some of those structures were the same ones that kept her apparent age at twelve. She had never gotten around to undoing that, in part because it required her to overhaul so many systems that were hooked into it. She wasn’t sure she wouldn’t end up over a hundred years old and still postponing the change to her appearance. | „ |
~ Last 20.e4 |
“ | Cherish (Imprisoned) – Regent’s sister, has the ability to manipulate emotions and sense emotions in a distinct enough way to track and identify individuals at a distance. Attempted to use her power in a subtle fashion on the rest of the group, only to find that they knew what she was planning. Following the escapades in Brockton Bay, she was trapped in an impervious, life-sustaining shell of Mannequin’s design and sunk to the bottom of the derelict Boat Graveyard, where she is expected to live for several thousand (or tens of thousands of) years. | „ |
~ Worm Cast Page |
“ | She’s hooked up to the same systems that keep Mannequin going. Chances are strong she’ll live for a few thousand years. Maybe ten or twenty thousand, depending on the degree of wear from tides. | „ |
~ Wildbow comment |
Another thing was Enhanced Senses. Bonesaw's organs can detect invisible people.
“ | Sensory organs she’d implanted into her body activated. She was aware of movement, even though her eyes couldn’t track it. The tinker, she decided. “Are you coming after me?” Riley asked, quiet. “It would be a very, very dumb thing to do.” Two of the metal plates down the hallway lifted up, curious people looking in. The cloaking effect stripped away, pixels and lights peeling away to reveal the black-skinned girl. | „ |
~ Last 20.e4 |
“ | The man stumbled five or six steps before his body began to swell. His right arm bloated up to three or four times the usual size, turning crimson, before it exploded violently, sending shards of bone and a spray of blood into the people nearest him. He screamed, only for his cries to grow shorter and more frantic, as the rest of him reached that critical mass. In another ten seconds, the remainder of his body detonated. Bonesaw was already skipping over to the rest of their group, grinning wide, “Mannequin! Aww! Did the villain break you? Poor baby. Like a little girl with a ken doll.” A blade sprung from Mannequin’s remaining hand. Bonesaw tittered. Behind the child tinker, those in the crowd who had been struck by the blood and flying bone of her first victim were starting to scream as their bodies swelled as well. | „ |
~ Interlude 12 |
“ | Little Bonesaw, for her test, designed a parasite that would stay in her system for forty-eight hours and strip her of her powers for as long as it remained.” “Because it’s not fair that Hatchet Face didn’t get to give his test. And I wanted to break her out of her rut, so I made it so the parasite’s effects would be permanent if she didn’t drink lots of blood.” | „ |
~ Plague 12.4 |
“ | She tilted my head back and felt around the edges of my mask, trying to find the part where she could pull it off. “I’m really good at figuring out where the Corona and the Gemma are. I can even guess most of the time, if I know what powers the person has. And I can pry it wide open, make it so the powers can’t be turned off, or I can temporarily disable it, or modify it. The powder I blew into your face? It has the same prions I put in the darts I shot your friends with. Cripples the Gemma, but it leaves your powers intact. Can’t experiment with your abilities if I’ve fried your whole Corona Pollentia, right? Right.” | „ |
~ Snare 13.9 |
Paralysis Inducement:
“ | Bonesaw exhaled a second cloud of dust into my face. I held my breath for as long as I could, but there was a limit. When I did breathe, my chest seized up, and my ears immediately started ringing violently, a headache settling into place. The muscles in my arms and legs locked up. She sprayed an aerosol around herself, killing my bugs. Not that it mattered. My facility with my power was getting clumsier and clumsier as the headache increased in intensity. No, no, no, no, no, no. “Bring them,” she said. The mechanical spiders leapt to obey. Within moments, me, Tattletale, Trickster, Sundancer and Ballistic were being dragged inch by inch towards the dining hall. Towards Grue. No, no, no. It took long minutes for us to get there. I could hear faint rumbles of the ongoing battle and Bonesaw’s humming. It was all I could do to keep breathing. It was like my body had forgotten how, and it demanded my constant attention to maintain that simple rhythm. With the aid of her spiders, she stacked us like logs. Ballistic and Trickster went on the bottom. I couldn’t even grunt as the spiders leveraged me onto the pile alongside Tattletale. I stared down at the mask of the third person below us. Imp. She’d got Imp. Bonesaw crouched so her face was level with mine. “This is going to be fun.” | „ |
~ Snare 13.8 |
“ | Pagoda lurched backward and broke contact with Amy, her power no longer giving her an insight into what was happening with him. He sat down, using one hand to prop himself up. A moment later he slumped over, his eyes shutting. His breathing stopped. “A chemical trigger for something I already put in his DNA, when I was patching his regeneration abilities together. Reverses the regeneration so it does the opposite, starting with the heart.” | „ |
~ Interlude 11h |
“ | A heavy impact at her arm made her legs buckle, sharp pain shooting up to her shoulder and neck. A cleaver. Bonesaw had brought down a cleaver on her forearm. It had sunken into the bone. Ashley reached around with her other hand, and didn’t make it the full distance. Jack moved his hand, and the skin of Ashley’s arm split. A razor blade gleamed in the dimly lit living room. Jack had been holding it between two fingers. Bonesaw hauled the cleaver out, and Ashley dropped to her knees from the pain. The cleaver came down again, and cut the rest of the way through the bone. | „ |
~ Eclipse x.8 |
The shotgun should probably be 9-A or at least be listed as penetrating that sort of thing. On top of even regular 9-B bullets being able to pierce way further and shooting straight through Bitch's already bulletproof dogs, it seems like he was about to kill or badly injure Bastard (Who's 9-A off hurting him) with it.
9-A Undersider dura mag seem kinda high, but luckily we don't actually have to do that. Given it's a gun, penetration's important here. So, their costumes work well against that but not necessarily blunt force, easy fix. As for the irl analogues, look how real bulletproof vests aren't just blanket protection against everything (not even knives, oftentimes) and how even with plate armor and stuff you could still seriously injure people with maces and hammers where swords wouldn't do anything. It's a good penetration resistance and should still be wall level against force though.
Subsonic combat speed, probably. Firstly, bullet dodging.
Secondly, he can fight Battery at the same time as Prism. Prism's a duplicator, Battery's a speedster.
Battery is faster in the sprint than Assault, who caught Chariot, who can go at 100mph.
This doesn't mean subsonic Taylor. Her swarm sense has already acted much like a combat thinker ability in many aspects, off the top of my head her weirdly good aim with a gun despite barely shooting, nailing 3 S9 dudes with a pistol while running in particular comes to mind. Sensory input also helps for anticipation, before Taylor managed to really piss him off Mannequin probably wasn't trying to move as fast as possible, she's dealt with people faster than her before, was largely on the back foot when it came to actual melee, etc. No crazy scaling chains for subsonic regular humans here
Stealth Mastery: Broke into PRT headquarters and could evade Taylor's swarmsense.
“ | Bastard pounced on Mannequin, taking one of the villain’s arms in his jaws. Clenching, he began whipping Mannequin around like a rag doll. Twice, Mannequin’s lower body was bludgeoned against the nearby wall. Yeah, didn’t expect us to be that tough, did you? Mannequin turned the tables in a second. Between one of Bastard’s shakes and the next, the villain stopped flopping around. I realized he’d ejected the knives from his toes and staked them in Bastard’s neck and snout for leverage. His one free hand dangled at his side. Moving was agony, but I was lurching towards them in a half-run before I fully realized why. Mannequin raised his free hand and pointed it at Bastard’s left eye. I caught his arm and hauled it back in the same moment he fired. Bastard repaid my kindness by whipping Mannequin to one side, striking me. Both Mannequin and I fell sprawling to the ground. '' | „ |
~ Snare 13.3 |
Subsonic combat speed, probably. Firstly, bullet dodging.
“ | Bastard lunged for him, jaws snapping shut, but the Mannequin cartwheeled back and away. Vista fired her gun, sending a single green spark zipping ahead. Mannequin swayed to one side, bending his body at impossible angles to avoid the shot. The bullet hit the wall, then briefly flared, disintegrating a scab-covered vending machine. | „ |
~ Sting 26.3 |
“ | Mannequin was holding his own. The hits that did land seemed to have little effect, as he went limp and bent with them. It seemed he was keeping to the old adage of a supple willow bending in a hurricane that topples a sturdy oak. Even when Battery was moving at super speed, he was quick to take the advantage of a kick that went too high or a sweep aiming to knock his feet out from under him. He ducked beneath the former and hopped over the latter, then using his grappling-hook hands to haul himself a distance away. | „ |
~ Prey 14.6 |
“ | "There's a kid calling himself Chariot. Been racing around the city with a powered suit that lets him move a hundred miles an hour. Assault finally caught up with him last night, brought him into custody. Wound up calling the kid's mom, got him to agree to talk to our recruiter. You. You'll be meeting the kid in his home." | „ |
~ Sentinel 9.4 |
Stealth Mastery: Broke into PRT headquarters and could evade Taylor's swarmsense.
Just plain old regular resistance to Mind Manipulation, not just limited. Idk why fighting off her shard's overriding of her identity would be limited beyond her eventually losing to it, but there is also that one time she didn't kill herself despite Cherish.
It fits in with the general trend of Masters resisting Master effects, but I go more into that later. Even if that doesn't go through, this would work for her specifically.
More to her limited power null resist. Bonesaw did a thing that normally power nulls, but against Taylor her power just became very crude.
My personal theory is that this is due to her having double triggered, given when Grue second triggers his powers start working again and very crude bug control would apparently have been how Taylor's power functioned if she hadn't triggered twice at once, but I don't think this is solid enough to apply as some generalized resistance to all the 2nd/double triggers. This isn't just "bonesaw didn't do it right", as she specifically notes that it's weird that her shard's strong enough to just override the fact that Taylor at the time lacked the biology to use her power.
Maybe a limited resistance to Pain Manipulation, given that a past experience with that power screwed up her perceptions of pain giving her an unusually high pain tolerance. Panacea noted that her pain response was low for biological reasons.
Limited resistance to Information Analysis. Taylor can channel her emotions through her bugs.
She interferes with, among other things, Armsmaster's lie detector, and Cherish's emotion sensing. Quote is in response to someone asking who besides Alexandria had a bad read on her. This is a WoG, but a WoG based off referencing stuff that happened in the work itself.
Speaking of Alexandria, yet another WoG:
“ | I want to kill myself. My own voice, indistinguishable from the one in my head. **** me. She had a bead on me, now. It’ll be painless, a way to avoid all of the horror, so I don’t have to watch my friends die. So I won’t have to watch Bitch or Tattletale or Imp die the way Regent did. So I don’t have to watch Grue die. No, a moment’s consideration and the spell was broken. I’d stopped thinking of Rachel as ‘Bitch’ some time ago. “Aw,” Screamer whispered. “Golem’s refusing my deal, and Cherish says you’re not playing along with the rest of it, so I’m gonna have words with some of the others.”'' | „ |
~ Sting 26.2 |
More to her limited power null resist. Bonesaw did a thing that normally power nulls, but against Taylor her power just became very crude.
“ | I was scared. I could admit that. I could barely think straight, I couldn’t move, and whatever she’d dosed me with was rendering me unable to use my power. It was there, it wasn’t like what Panacea had done; it hadn’t shut it down entirely. I could sense what my bugs did, and I could maybe give them crude instructions, but I couldn’t do anything even remotely complicated or delicate. (...) She tilted my head back and felt around the edges of my mask, trying to find the part where she could pull it off. “I’m really good at figuring out where the Corona and the Gemma are. I can even guess most of the time, if I know what powers the person has. And I can pry it wide open, make it so the powers can’t be turned off, or I can temporarily disable it, or modify it. The powder I blew into your face? It has the same prions I put in the darts I shot your friends with. Cripples the Gemma, but it leaves your powers intact. Can’t experiment with your abilities if I’ve fried your whole Corona Pollentia, right? Right.” She angled my head and stared into my goggles with her mismatched eyes. “Dealio is, the Corona’s way too small to be doing what it’s doing. As parahumans, our brains are doing these amazing things. The framework, all the details our minds are using to decide what works and what doesn’t, the sheer potential, even the energy we’re using, it’s too much for our brains to process, and it’s waaaay too much for a growth that’s no bigger than a kiwi. All of that? It’s got to come from somewhere. And the other reason you can’t just carve out the Corona? If you do, the powers still work on their own. The person just can’t control them. It becomes instinctive, instead.” She began feeling around my mask for a seam, buckle or zipper, searching. She talked as she grabbed the part of my mask that bordered my scalp and tried to peel my mask down towards my chin. “So you can see why I find it very interesting that you still have the ability to control bugs, even when your Gemma is out of order.” | „ |
~ Snare 13.09 |
“ | “But I haven’t been able to find it. It’s not physically there, or it’s so small that I haven’t been able to track it down. If your ‘passenger’ is strong enough to let you work around a disabled Gemma, if your powers work without your say-so, maybe it’ll be easier to spot.” | „ |
~ Snare 13.09 |
“ | “Whatever,” Panacea said. “Works for me, actually.” Then she touched me, and the pain went away. I relaxed so suddenly I felt like I’d suddenly become part liquid. I’d been so tense my head wasn’t even touching the countertop, my legs and shoulders tense. “Thank you,” I said. “Thanks.” “You have a high pain tolerance,” she said. “One of Bakuda’s bombs, way back when,” I said. “I think it messed with my head, as far as my perception of pain. I found out what it’s really like to feel pain, real ten-out-of-ten pain. A part of me knew it was too much to be true, and other stuff’s affected me more because I knew it was tied with something real. Case in point, a burn is still a ************.” “Well, we’ll fix it,” she said.'' | „ |
~ Venom 29.9 |
“ | I was using my bugs to channel my feelings, even with my concerns about my passenger and how it might be merging with me. I was wearing that aura of indomitable calm, even though I wasn't sure I liked the Taylor of this past year and a half, who had been doing just that as a matter of both habit and necessity. | „ |
~ Extinction 27.3 |
“ | Armsmaster's lie detector. Cherish gets a partial read on Skitter, but extrapolates wrong. Jack remarks on this on two occasions, especially how (he feels) if the read had been correct, he could have convinced Taylor to kill Battery. Powers set aside, she expresses frustration at people misreading her motivations, especially at the meeting with Accord/Valefor/the Teeth. Virtually everyone around her has trouble grasping what she's doing and why: her dad, Emma (most recent encounter), D&D, Grue, even Tattletale at times. | „ |
~ Word of God |
“ | Wildbow - Had taylor broken, raged out, in the sense of chapter one, they would have had a scapegoat for everything that happened in Brockton Bay. She could have tapped Cauldron resources and been on the alert. But Taylor offloaded all cues to her shard. She appeared far calmer and more subdued than she was, Alexandria calibrated her approach with this in mind, and things tilted off differently. Wildbow - Taylor was absolutely not a killer at that stage, unless she had a reasonable target, and Alexandria presented herself as that target. Alexandria looked at Taylor, talked to her, and saw someone different. All of the profiling and information worked -against- her. | „ |
~ Word of God |
- I don't remember him having a pistol.
- New key, no Power Absorption, yes Power Nullification. Post Valkyrie rez. His clouds are still power dead zones and this even works against Titans with their unrestrained shards, but he explicitly can't copy powers anymore. (Last 20.6) It also works on Tinkertech, so both 2nd trigger and post rez get Technology Manipulation. Possible Inorganic Physiology, as the jury still seems to be out on exactly what the Flock are.
- Power Bestowal for 2nd trigger. He seems to have shared Crawler regen with the Undersiders and Travelers.
“ | He touched my hand, held it between his own. I could feel something thrumming through me, willing me to take hold of it. It took me a minute to figure out how. The exposed bone of my forehead itched, then sang in an exquisite agony as it mended. My skin was next. My seized up muscles were last. My power was last to mend, and I regained my control, though the diminished effect continued. | „ |
~ Snare 13.09 |
- Just put his lifting at athletic human for him being very athletic, taking a random instance of him picking up a thing while he's tired to list him as regular human seems weird considering he's already 9-C and that would give him weaker lifting than Taylor which just doesn't make sense.
- Sound Manipulation, he can do the wavelength thing with his darkness to modify sound in many more ways than just blocking it entirely.
“ | His voice echoed, reverberated, with a hollowness to the sound, like something alien and far away. He was using his power to play with the sound, “Tattletale, see to the door. Bug, with me.” | „ |
~ Agitation 3.7 |
- Edit the AP description a bit. He can copy physical strength, and he did copy Hatchet Face and Tyrant at one point, but killing Burnscar was actually from copying Siberian.
Entity gets FTL speed. It was put at unknown before because of the absurd number of powers it could use to make crossing universes not require anywhere near MFTL+, but there is a quote describing entities not caring about things that limit how fast light goes.
Also, MFTL+ when using Secondhand's power, because for whatever reason, they made someone in Worm of all verses that fast.
Thank you Wildbow, very cool
In all seriousness, he's moving fast enough that picoseconds are a long time. Reactions has anything less than 3.336 picoseconds classed as MFTL+. Secondhand's thing is basically a fake time stop, so as high as the number is, it doesn't actually break anything or even scale to anyone else besides full Entities for having this among their shards.
“ | Two beings spiraled through an airless void, past suns, stars and moons. They rode the ebbs and flows of gravity, ate ambient radiation and light and drew on other things I couldn’t perceive. They slipped portions of themselves in and out of reality to reshape themselves. Push further into this reality to ride the pull of one planet, shift into another to ride that slingshot momentum, or to find some other source of momentum elsewhere. Ten thousand thousands of each of the two entities existed simultaneously, complemented each other, drew each other forward. They shrugged off even the physical laws that limited the movement of light, moving faster with every instant. The only thing that slowed them was their own desire to stay close, to keep each other in sight and match their speeds. Yet somehow this movement was graceful, fluid, beautiful even. Two impossible creatures moving in absolute harmony with the universe, leaving a trail of essence in their wakes. | „ |
~ Snare 13.09 |
“ | He relied on the dense lines and numbers his lenses fed him to position his body and weave through the pockets of air and air currents. He approached a tough spot where something was burning on the far wall, and he adjusted settings, drawing on his battery for a bit of extra power. The benefit was slight, as the heat reached him less and the air worked with him a little more, and the battery power raced from a hundred to sixty in those long, long picoseconds. | „ |
~ Dying 15.y |
In all seriousness, he's moving fast enough that picoseconds are a long time. Reactions has anything less than 3.336 picoseconds classed as MFTL+. Secondhand's thing is basically a fake time stop, so as high as the number is, it doesn't actually break anything or even scale to anyone else besides full Entities for having this among their shards.
AP: At least High 8-C, likely/possibly 7-A: Legend can deal real damage to Titans, though his first titan fight had Dauntless explicitly hitting harder than him.
Blasting through Skadi's armor.
Destroys Ophion's needles, which are a part of his body.
Going all out and hurting Fortuna.
Legend hit Simurgh harder than Victoria had seen him do before, while she watched him carve into Titans.
Legend is apparently on the level of Titans, including Dauntless himself. (Fume Hood is a Titan in this scene.)
All 3 would need to be told to leave The Simurgh alone for her to win, as opposed to just Dauntless. (Fume Hood does dura neg and should have the same reality breaking characteristics as the other Titans.)
There are also some vague mass destruction things of him that are technically possible at High 8-C, but I think they'll still help. Also some assorted bit feats.
Legend's lasers could level city for miles around.
Phrasing here implies Legend's more notable in the fight vs Titans than Dragon, Defiant, and Narwhal, or at least on par. Dragon and Defiant actually manage to cripple a few Titans at one point, taking them out of action.
Legend destroyed a lot of the city.
Legend could destroy the entire Cauldron facility, which is city sized.
Legend having built up a charge due to being in a Khonsu field would have turned the battlefield to a smoking ruin, and seems to have vaporized his way through a mile of ground before vaping enough water that the resultant steam would have flash fried everyone. This should be calcable, but is a weird scenario and isn't 7-A, so it's better suited to this bit feat section.
Taylor describes Legend as having more offensive ability than 99% of the planet, and we already know there are enough High 8-Cs that that alone would not qualify.
Legend removes Alexandria's clothes. This sounds ridiculous, but parts of her costume endured her holding Echidna inside Sundancer's sun for a while, giving them a tier 7 dura feat.
(Here's the metal part of her costume surviving Sundancer.)
That last one was more just for fun
Durability: Unknown, at most Low 7-B: It's kinda complicated, but I think Leviathan 1 hit KO is either inconsistent, or explainable by different factors.
Here, Legend takes Titan hits while staying in the fight. At worst, titans are stronger than The Simurgh. Legend did go off to fight Cineral, who is the source of the High 7-C feat.
Legend's taken several hits from Titans.
Weapons stolen from Dragon, a top Tinker, wouldn't be able to beat Legend.
Legend was totally fine after he had heated up enough to burn Alexandria's clothes, a mile of landscape, and cause a gigantic steam explosion.
Legend takes a hit from Leviathan and isn't 1 shotted.
Finally, here's the OG Behemoth tanking quote.
The deeper into the Breaker mode he is, the less conscious he is. If he goes too far, he's unconscious, so KO'd. Behemoth can hit hard enough to one shot him (And he indeed does get taken out of the fight during Crushed), Leviathan's capable of doing so as well because of controlling massive amounts of water (Inferring this given he does take a Leviathan hit fine and takes hits from the physically stronger Titans), and it could cause issues if he's hit at a bad time, like with how the time Leviathan takes him out during Arc 8 seemed. Behemoth's a hard limit and he'll still be KO'd, so "at most", but Leviathan being able to take him out shouldn't invalidate him enduring Leviathan and several things that hit on par with or harder than Leviathan.
Regeneration: Mid.
Legend regens a smashed head.
Legend regenned from a face that was apparently opened before.
More on Legend's damaged head.
Range: Kilometers. See the above mass destruction quotes about "lasers destroying city for miles" and "Legend just leveled 30km2 of city to make sleeper go away".
Blasting through Skadi's armor.
“ | Traced by Oberon’s power, Skadi plummeted from the clouds, axe-hands swinging down. Legend unloaded everything he had on her as he flew straight down. Chunks of her armor came away, revealing what was beneath- more armor with sucking muscle holding each segment in place. | „ |
~ Radiation 18.7 |
“ | Ophion cast out needles. Legend blasted each needle out of the air before it could reach one of the giant flesh-beasts. | „ |
~ Infrared 19.4 |
“ | The fighting continued, Legend going all out. Titan Fortuna was taking damage, and she didn’t seem to care. | „ |
~ Infrared 19.4 |
“ | The room went from dark to bright as Legend used another laser. Hitting harder than I’d seen him do, especially in confined quarters. | „ |
~ Last 20.7 |
“ | I wished it was better. I wished I had confidence for this next phase, or that Fortuna would beat the Simurgh. Hopefully some combination of Legend, Dauntless, and Fume Hood working with Fortuna would stall her or scare her off.Last 20.7 | „ |
“ | “The Simurgh set all the pieces down. Everything went where she wanted it,” I said. “I don’t know if she wins, though. For that to happen, we need to tell Dauntless and Fume Hood to back off, tell Legend to leave her alone.” | „ |
~ Last 20.8 |
Legend's lasers could level city for miles around.
“ | Her weakness, if it could be called that, had always been that she had always been an ordinary, athletic person at her core. Now she was strong enough that lasers capable of leveling city for miles around weren’t slowing her down. | „ |
~ Infrared 19.4 |
“ | The heroes were spread so thin with all the Titans we had around us. There had been fifty or sixty, we’d picked up another thirty or so in reinforcements, which felt more like they were at least partially covering what we’d lost in the chaos and happenstance injuries. Now we had Titan Fortuna, Ophion, the Nemean, the Impaler, Shortcut, the Ashen, and the Custodian. Ten capes for each? Maybe? Granted, one of those capes was Legend, Dragon and Defiant and Narwhal were present too. And I wasn’t counting the Giants. But even so… | „ |
~ Infrared 19.6 |
“ | “Sleeper.” “Restless but still around. Earth Zayin in the palm of his hand. He started to emerge, Legend faced him down.” “How?” “Leveled about thirty square kilometers of city.” | „ |
~ Sundown 17.9 |
“ | “Very small, agreed,” Teacher said, unruffled. “But according to our precognitives, the Legend who thinks his side has lost on all fronts is going to lay siege to the facility, tearing it down with his power.” | „ |
~ Dying 15.x |
“ | It was impossible to say exactly how he did it, but Eidolon managed to catch the light before it could turn the battlefield into a smoking ruin. It condensed into a ball, swinging around past Eidolon as if he were a planet and it was in orbit, and then flew into Khonsu and Alexandria with a slingshot turn. It wasn’t a long, steady stream like the one in New Delhi had been. It was a white bullet sliding out in a heartbeat, cutting past Khonsu, Alexandria and a good mile of landscape, before driving into the ocean at the horizon’s edge. Steam billowed out explosively. Eidolon crossed the battlefield in a flash, weaving to the left of one of the two remaining columns of altered time, the right of the next, and erected a wall to keep the steam from frying the flesh from our bones. | „ |
~ Scarab 25.6 |
“ | He was conserving his strength. As much as both he and Siberian were powerhouses with more offensive capability than ninety-nine percent of people on the planet, this was a strategic battle. It was easily possible he was planning to keep this up for hours, harrying her, keeping her from getting her feet under her. | „ |
~ [Prey 14.7] |
“ | Alexandria had been stripped of much of her costume, but she fought on without a trace of modesty. Legend, too, seemed unfazed, unaffected by however many years he’d spent in Khonsu’s trap. | „ |
~ Scarab 25.6 |
“ | Alexandria was there in the midst of it, panting for breath. Her costume had burned away, and only the metal pieces remained, including helmet, belt and metal underwear, each so hot they were melting and running over her skin. | „ |
~ Scourge 19.7 |
Durability: Unknown, at most Low 7-B: It's kinda complicated, but I think Leviathan 1 hit KO is either inconsistent, or explainable by different factors.
Here, Legend takes Titan hits while staying in the fight. At worst, titans are stronger than The Simurgh. Legend did go off to fight Cineral, who is the source of the High 7-C feat.
“ | Skadi’s blade had clipped Legend. Flesh became lasers, radiating out, curling back into one another in loops. A defensive measure. | „ |
~ Radiation 18.7 |
“ | Legend was part of the perimeter around the Machine Army. He had taken a few too many hits from the Titans, and his ‘recuperation’ was floating in the sky near the portal, bombarding the area. | „ |
~ Infrared 19.z |
“ | “Very small, agreed,” Teacher said, unruffled. “But according to our precognitives, the Legend who thinks his side has lost on all fronts is going to lay siege to the facility, tearing it down with his power.” “We could defeat him,” Mischa said. “Shoot him down before he can.” “You could not. He is much harder to take out of action than many think.”'' | „ |
~ Dying 15.x |
“ | Alexandria had been stripped of much of her costume, but she fought on without a trace of modesty. Legend, too, seemed unfazed, unaffected by however many years he’d spent in Khonsu’s trap. | „ |
~ Scarab 25.6 |
“ | There was a crash as Leviathan whipped his tail toward Legend, a blade of water soaring through the air to strike the hero out of the air. The onslaught of lasers interrupted, Leviathan shifted from a crouch on one side of the road to being the midst of the defending heroes in one fluid motion, resuming the carnage in the span of a heartbeat. | „ |
~ Extermination 8.3 |
“ | Legend’s flight powers let him accelerate to a speed that exceeded sound and continue accelerating, to no hard limit. The soft limit was that he had breaker powers that kept the acceleration from tearing him to shreds, altering his body into something else entirely as he gained speed. The drawback to this was that his brain also shut down on a cognitive level as the transformation occurred. He had never let himself go so fast that he lost the ability to consciously control his movements. There were other benefits too. He was better at registering and processing light waves, regardless of which state he was in. He could see with perfect clarity up until the point that an obstactle intervened or the atmosphere occluded his vision. If an opponent attacked and struck him, he instinctively transitioned into his energy form for a split second. In that state, he absorbed energy of a variety of kinds, including the kinetic energy that was transferred with a punch or with a bullet. His opponents were forced to whittle him down, each attack only a fraction as effective as it might otherwise be. Even then, a share of that small amount of damage was healed a second later as he used the absorbed energy to mend his body. Conversely, his enemies could try to hit him with enough speed and force that even a hundredth of a second of contact was sufficient to take him out of the fight. Leviathan and Behemoth had managed to land blows of that magnitude. | „ |
~ Interlude 14.5 |
Regeneration: Mid.
Legend regens a smashed head.
“ | I floated up further. Legend wasn’t that far away. I could see him in the air, drifting slightly, the wound with loose, curving lasers unspooling out from his upper body and bleeding out in white and blue that contrasted with the dark sky. He was slowly knitting itself together. As more of his face formed into human features, I saw him grimace in pain. | „ |
~ Radiation 18.7 |
“ | Portals opened. Our ground troops arrived. Legend was in the air, healed from a recent injury, his face all closed up now, but for a single line of light blue. While mending he had tried to hold back the Machine Army after the Simurgh’s most recent visit. | „ |
~ Last 20.1 |
“ | Legend, approaching from the side, flew to the stage. When he looked over the crowd, a slice of his face shimmered in rainbow hues, with smokey waves rolling off the top and back of his head. An eye like a perfectly round white disk ringed by darker colors sat where his eye was supposed to be. “The Simurgh! Pay attention, even if you won’t be fighting her. You can’t know what will happen!” Legend announced, and he was confident, assured. If the head injury had impaired his faculties any, it didn’t show. “Our analysis of the Simurgh comes from years of experience! I can tell you, don’t let your guard down. She will surprise us. She will throw curveballs at us. In all the times we’ve engaged with her, she has had new tricks. Stay the course! | „ |
~ Last 20.1 |
Messed up on the durability, as bisection is still 9-C. Would probably go with "at least 9-C" to compensate for the dude being armored.
I would eventually like to rework her file, but for now:
- Victoria's powers aren't actually stronger in Ward, despite their better feats. As such, she'd lose a key. There's also another quote that negates maybe the last thing that could keep her having a 9-B key, being the bit where she's stuck in a fight with 5 of Bitch's dogs. She says she could have just torn through the dogs when reminiscing on things she could have done differently to maybe have ended up with a better family situation, which implies that her holding back from killing because it's illegal also extended to Bitch's dogs meaning they're not really a reason to keep her lower.
“ | “Both. By- by any of us paying more attention or communicating more, or paying more attention to powers and how powers work, or being a little bit more of an actual family. It could have been better if I’d fought better or harder and torn through some mutant dogs and gotten home sooner, if I’d dodged that one acid spittle or follow-up hit and avoided being taken out of commission, or if one less person had died maybe those of us who were grieving might have been clearer headed and we could have steered things away.” | „ |
~ Torch 7.2 |
- This also means she's not only locked into fearhax as opposed to general empathic, but due to events that happen in Ward, she wouldn't be anyways. Sorry guys I gotta rework her file
- 7-A and Speed of Light attack speed via the anti-titan laser Dragon made for her. As for the speed, beam's explicitly SoL.
“ | Just gotta get my gun in good enough shape I can shoot if I need to. We might have to go after Titan Fortuna. If she’s anything like her old host, she can do anything perfectly, and get the ideal outcomes. Raises the question: what can she do about a beam that moves the speed of light, fired from the clouds? I wasn’t being rhetorical, asking myself that. I was genuinely concerned. | „ |
~ Infrared 19.3 |
- As for tier, it damages titans a bunch, but here's an easy one. Also, Dragon, who made it, takes down two titans with other weapons of hers and was considered the biggest threat to the titans by Skadi (Titan who is forcibly teleported to whatever the biggest threat to it is), so it's not like anti titan gun from her is an outlier.
“ | Then I pulled the trigger. The beam cut into Ophion, and it did damage, this time. Its head was like chewed gum with spikes and metal contorting its shape, and that gum split and burned. Less than I would have liked, but I was carving into him. The gun shuddered, and the damage I’d fixed and pinched together was pulling further apart now. Handholds became gouges and furrows as I repositioned hands to hold onto the weapon. | „ |
~ Infrared 19.3 |
Core power null isn't actually power null for everything.
Reddit user provides an interpretation of how their core really works, Wildbow says they're right]
Instead of general power null, it messes with things that work around altering space, like Chevalier's expansion power.
Reddit user provides an interpretation of how their core really works, Wildbow says they're right]
Instead of general power null, it messes with things that work around altering space, like Chevalier's expansion power.
So this is probably a thing. Reminder that currently, Entities are accepted as 4D and they're the source of shards.
- WOG has shards as tesseracts, 4D
- Tattletale hypothesizes about shards existing across all the universes (fourth direction), theorizes their tiny area of influence in the human brain (the Corona Pollentia) is just where it's interfering with the base 3D space
“ | “Insofar as we’ve even thought about passengers, we’ve been sort of inclined to think about them as being pretty small. After all, the way Bonesaw talked about them, they’re these things that work their way into our heads, bond with our brains and then burn themselves off in the process of reconfiguring how our heads work. Right? But anything as small as what she’s describing wouldn’t possibly be able to do what we need to manage our powers. So what I’m asking is… what if they’re big? Massive. What if each and every passenger is picking us, for whatever reason, they find us and then they bind to us. They connect to us by rewiring a tiny part of our tiny brains, and through that extra lobe, they connect us to all the other parallel Earths, including the one where they reside? Maybe they’re physical, maybe they’re more ethereal, I dunno, they could be plant or animal, but they’re there. Lifeforms that could be titanic, the size of cities, continents or moons, lurking in some other parallel Earth and attaching themselves to us with a thread, a fine hair that stretches across dimensions to a lobe in our brain, sending and receiving all necessary data. And things like that are connected to each and every one of us who have powers and those of us who don’t, existing only to process our abilities, to absorb and channel the necessary energies, signals and information, and make each and every one of us into…” | „ |
~ Scourge 19.3 |
- Eden, an Entity like Scion, breaks down the barriers between worlds by crashing into the ground (WoG, Contessa's Interlude)
- Scion moves in extra directions, universe to universe (4D movement)
“ | I didn’t have the portal man, but I did have this as a means of traveling sideways, like Scion could travel in this direction that wasn’t up or down, left, right, forward or back. It didn’t let me cross all the way into other continents. Movement was analogous.'' | „ |
~ Speck 30.6 |
- Shardspace isn't aligned with the rest of the universes, the only point of entry (at the time) was Scion. As we'll see later, this is because Shardspace seems more to underpin all of reality in a separate existence, but here's the quote for it just being apart.
“ | The tinkers fired their weapon. An interdimensional ram turned into a gun. They’d finished it while they weren’t under my control. Defiant was the one ready at the switch. I discovered why he was concerned about the power. It kept things from being contained. I got a glimpse, a flash of a look into the world beyond him, a world he’d shut off, to which his body was the only conduit.'' | „ |
~ Speck 30.6 |
- A Shard tears through the ground in Shardspace, causing a seemingly infinitely deep chasm. Note that these arms have already been noted to extend much too far for Victoria to be able to keep track of if they want to.
“ | The hand dipped low, striking the damaged section of floorboards. It carved out a furrow, turning a hole into a ditch, a gap in the room with only ruined wood below, like it was broken floorboards or rafters with foot-wide gaps between pieces of wood, all the way down to ******* infinity. Which meant that when I shifted course to favor the smallest portion of the gap leaped the ditch, I was simultaneously going weak kneed, my mind wrestling with the idea that it might really be infinity, that what happened here could really be forever.'' | „ |
~ From Within 16.9 |
- Not 3D, phasing more arms into that space as opposed to multiplying
“ | “-It’s not three-dimensional,” Sveta finished her statement. Four dimensional? The closer we got, the bigger it was, and the more its arms multiplied. More joints existed in more shades of color, and the color that radiated out from those joints was mild, less than a candle might shed, but so numerous collectively that they made something brighter. They were the source of the seemingly sourceless illumination that made it possible to see in the rest of the room. I could map it from room to room, including that cold golden light that was apparently meant for me.'' | „ |
~ From Within 16.9 |
- More infinite drops in Shardspace and endlessly long arms
“ | Dark floorboards an infinity below me on three sides were illuminated only by the many green-tinted joints and digits that the endlessly long arm had at irregular intervals. I moved to back up, ready to leap again and retreat toward the back of the room, and an arm moved to block me. I turned another way, and an arm swept across that exit to sweep out and destroy floorboards between two of the penetration points. | „ |
~ From Within 16.9 |
- Shard isn't really abiding by 3D spatial norms, apparently size seems to vary depending on distance, Victoria getting close makes it seem huge and makes the space around it and her seem more and more warped
“ | I looked up, and I saw what I could imagine another planet might look like, if it were separated from our world by only a few hundred miles. A tangle of reaching limbs, recesses, never repeating, not a funhouse mirror or kaleidoscope, but wholly unique when I looked at any portion. Its dimensions distorted the dark portion of the room in retrospect, making it seem like the distance to the gate was miles, and those miles were punctuated by hundreds of arms that were planted on ground that had ceased to be floorboards and was now a plain of what looked like hard, packed salt, granular against my scraped knees and palms. | „ |
~ From Within 16.9 |
- Several quotes on Shards doing stuff of infinite length, all from From Within 16.12
“ | We emerged from the worst of the thicket to a spot where a tear across the landscape had felled most of the crystals and sent them somewhere else. And to our left, head the size of a house, was the thin, tall woman, with spikes radiating from her head to infinity in each direction, empty eye sockets staring us down. | „ |
“ | That was there. Here, spike-headed woman was still out there, struggling to reach across the chasm. Barring our way. In the background, I could hear another scrape, the raking claws of the giant woman with spikes that extended to infinity. | „ |
“ | Operating by different rules. Spikes and claws of infinite length and that seemed to extend to weird rules about reflections and placement. | „ |
“ | Because the agents were only one small part of a much bigger system, the crimson landscape had been the real system, and the smaller agents had been capable of reaching to what I could well believe was close to infinity. It was dizzying to consider the implications.'' | „ |
- Titan Fortuna's means to end The Cycle early was to spread Shardspace into reality. Note that ending The Cycle means destroying every single version of that earth (more than there are molecules in one universe), further supporting Shardspace being on another, more significant level than regular universes. Cracks can manifest anywhere, but they'll all lead to Shardspace. No specific quotes here because the Fortuna draft is higher on this CRT already and this stuff can be found throughout arcs 18, 19, and 20, but I could grab specifics if people really want it.
- Everyone who can directly interfere with shards/Shardspace gets a bump to their abilities. This includes, off the top of my head:
- Almost every Trump
- Several Masters, such as Khepri and Goddess
- Glaistig Uaine's death touch
- Some Strangers, like Imp and probably Blindside
- Alexandria and Contessa's mental resistances
- Titan Contessa and Dauntless' reality cracks
- Sting users (though this already kinda is)
Jack Slash social influencing can be wanked harder
- Shardspace people get some stuff, Entity scion should have "At least High 3-A in Shardspace" given that even a single shard is able to present itself infinitely in 3D and a not insignificant distance in 4D (just a tiny portion of it being able to manifest in every universe as per Tattletale) and he's made of waaaaaay more than just one. This is limited to Shardspace however as almost none of the shard is usually phased in to the normal set of universes. For regular Scion, besides his Trump powers this just means he's unlikely to run out of mass to regen from any time soon. I suppose this could be listed in his durability, like "Unknown, High 3-A in total due to infinitely large mass supplies" or something.
- Composite Tinker gun/Interdimensional Ram gets "Likely/Possibly High 3-A for destroying Scion's form in Shardspace and doing serious damage to the place, the prefixes being present because it was aided by Sting.
Dargoo contested a bunch of this shit on discord, so expect some sort of alterations.
Suggested Standards
Things referred to as lasers are treated as light speed. This stems from a few main things: Some laser people explicitly being SoL, Defiant remarking on a difference between how fast laser hit him and other random energy projection, and that it doesn't actually get any weird outliers and shit because all the lasers that are dodged are either off prediction or from one of the explicit lightspeed people so it makes no sense either way.
As for the SoL statements, This is for Legend, the laser man.
And this is for a laser beam Dragon made for Victoria to be able to damage Titans.
This is Defiant, someone who would certainly be able to tell real lasers apart from generic energy beams, noting a difference in their travel time.
Now I'll post every time I can remember where a laser is dodged or blocked (not just tanked), and explain either how it's not an issue or that it would be weird either way because Legend did it. Sometimes both.
The Legend group:
The calc itself says it's an outlier and was just done for a laugh. However, since this is Legend, it's an outlier whether or not we take SoL lasers as a standard because Legend's got a direct statement.
This isn't even blocking in the regular sense, Legend's already shooting and clone Alexandria is just flying where the beam already is to shield others.
Several things here: Alexandria's a high level Thinker with a great body reading thing, and can anticipate attacks with ease (aimdodging), Legend's partly into Breaker form given the acceleration, meaning his cognition is diminished, Legend's also preoccupied with blasting waves of other clones because they can't let even one leave this fight, and Alexandria clone is still getting hit fairly often. Wouldn't make Alexandria crazy fast, does mean her Thinker power is very good but we knew that already.
So, several things with this one. First of all, this shit's an auto targeting thing stolen from Dragon, the current top Tinker. She could just have stuff that fast, and has other lasers.
Second of all, this halo thing shoots lasers itself, so if laser scales this actually makes more sense.
And finally, it can't actually protect against Legend perfectly. He damages Mischa's suit a bit earlier, and tears it apart when he's not distracted.
So it's a combination of precog software, being fairly reasonable to actually be that fast, and relying on Legend being preoccupied.
Now, for the only non Legend laser dodge I can think of:
Would like to note that in the actual text the word "laser" is in italics, because Finale is very impressed with this. Not major but it does sell the laser dodge as exceptional.
As for why this is fine, Five is a clone of The Number Man. Same dude who aimdodged 10^90 attacks that one time in the Cauldron Bunker. Amazing math means he just knew where the robot would shoot before it did itself. Thinker power that eclipses Alexandria's.
So yeah, I think things called lasers should be Speed of Light attack speed.
As for the SoL statements, This is for Legend, the laser man.
“ | Echidna tried to move to one side, but Legend’s beams followed unerringly, swelling in size and number. Thirty, forty, fifty… each cutting their way through her flesh as though she were made of little more than snow. Smoke or steam billowed around her as her flesh charred and boiled. The lasers might have been affected by the time distortion, but that didn’t matter when the lasers were moving at the speed of light in the first place. | „ |
~ Scourge 19.5 |
“ | Just gotta get my gun in good enough shape I can shoot if I need to. We might have to go after Titan Fortuna. If she’s anything like her old host, she can do anything perfectly, and get the ideal outcomes. Raises the question: what can she do about a beam that moves the speed of light, fired from the clouds? I wasn’t being rhetorical, asking myself that. I was genuinely concerned.'' | „ |
~ Infrared 19.3 |
This is Defiant, someone who would certainly be able to tell real lasers apart from generic energy beams, noting a difference in their travel time.
“ | He took evasive action as more of the Machine Army’s lasers sought to cut him to pieces. Where he could, he flew back, kept his distance, even though it made his effective responses worse. When he fired his own energy weapons, the sheer distance between himself and the robots added a time lag. The lasers didn’t really face the same lag. | „ |
~ Last 20.a |
The Legend group:
“ | Legend’s lasers tore into the spot where Madcap had been a half second ago. The villain sprinted toward Jamie, moving faster with each step. | „ |
~ Interlude 12½ |
“ | The Alexandria-clone floated up, interjecting herself between Legend and his targets. He adjusted the beam’s orientation, and she moved to block it. He divided it in two shots that she couldn’t block, and she charged him. Legend broke off to flee. | „ |
~ Scourge 19.5 |
“ | Legend and Alexandria still fought above us. I could, when he passed into my range, note how he got faster the longer he flew, giving him the ability to put distance between himself and Alexandria, but he couldn’t stop to take aim and shoot without losing that acceleration and giving her a chance to close the gap. The result was that he was flying in loops and circles, using the turns to find opportunities to take aim and fire on her. She dodged most, but the hits that did land bought him distance and time to stop and laser down clones who were attempting to escape.'' | „ |
~ Scourge 19.6 |
“ | Mischa had known he was risking an all-out attack from Legend while his targeting was diverted, but he had assumed it was a risk he could see coming. The forcefield pyramid would go down, Legend would fire, Mischa would throw the switch, and the halo would counter the incoming fire. | „ |
~ Dying 15.x |
“ | Good. He tapped on his screen, adjusting the halo’s auto-targeting. Map to stress, draw up a three-dimensional map of wavelengths and patterns, adjust, adjust- | „ |
~ Dying 15.x |
“ | Mischa adjusted settings. He had to reserve some of the halo’s power for any of those slingshot stones. That limited his offense, potentially, he had to exclude Saint himself, control the power so he wouldn’t fry the Victory I’s cockpit, which was ironically more difficult and required more power for the control systems than the full-strength laser would alone… (…) To make sure the hero knew the danger, he focused the halo’s lasers on the section of wing that still flew on trajectory to strike the platform, demolishing it.'' | „ |
~ Dying 15.x |
“ | But that didn’t do anything for Mischa, and the lasers were reaching around the wing to rake the Isaiah. Damage to some cameras, damage to movement trackers, making the halo defense five percent less accurate against moving targets. Damage to armor plating and overall structural integrity. One piece of ‘arm’ on the Isaiah hung free and tore slowly at everything it hung off of. | „ |
~ Dying 15.x |
“ | And Mischa- he had to pilot to avoid Legend’s assault, as Legend focused beams on targeted areas. The Halo protected against some, but there was nothing to distract Legend now. Controls, weapons, the halo itself, flight systems, oxygen- all were surgically burned away. | „ |
~ Dying 15.x |
Now, for the only non Legend laser dodge I can think of:
“ | He calculated trajectory, shifted his weight, and took a quick step to the right. The laser beam was invisible, and raked a line across the street, carving out a furrow that had glowing orange edges to it. “What? How!?” He frowned a bit. “Dude, Five!” Finale raised her voice. “You just dodged a laser!” Five sighed. | „ |
~ Last 20.e3 |
As for why this is fine, Five is a clone of The Number Man. Same dude who aimdodged 10^90 attacks that one time in the Cauldron Bunker. Amazing math means he just knew where the robot would shoot before it did itself. Thinker power that eclipses Alexandria's.
So yeah, I think things called lasers should be Speed of Light attack speed.
I don't think we should be assuming souls exist for this verse.
Firstly, Our resident soul manipulator isn't actually manipulating souls.
On a similar note, no magic either. Furthers the idea of mystical stuff like souls not really being a thing.
Here we have Amy make reference to this idea of the soul as a culmination of one's self, being their body, awareness, and unconscious feelings, and then immediately say "It's not actually a soul but I like that name".
Also, the function of the soul as this immortal essence of a person that can be used for the afterlife/reincarnation is taken up by Shards. This is one of those things that is rather pervasive, but generally a lot of this stuff comes up within the Eclipse Interlude arc, Arc 16, and Arc 20. Spoilers, but off the top of my head:
So why not equate shards to souls you may ask? Well, that would be incredibly bizarre. For one thing, this implies that only a certain type of alien and powered humans have souls, so you'd still get unpowered people being soulless on top of this being strange. Shards are also just blatantly not souls despite fulfilling these functions. They're parts of extremely powerful aliens distributed to species for a research cycle those aliens run, and they'll bond to the studied species, grant them powers, and influence their actions. It'd be like my cells all being able to be parasites and saying I have very high end soul manipulation because of those cells doing weird stuff relating to death.
Ultimately, given that the role of the soul is filled by a thing that is explicitly not a soul and would make no sense to be equated to a soul, alongside a different view of souls also being explicitly stated to be not there, I do not think we should be assuming soul manip works on Worm characters. I guess we'd just put a note on the verse page or something.
Don't worry i'm not pulling weird bullshit to be annoying in threads this also kinda locks worm out of interacting with "normal" souls
Firstly, Our resident soul manipulator isn't actually manipulating souls.
“ | “She collects souls of dead and dying parahumans,” Marquis replied. “Or the souls of any living soul that gets on her bad side. But they’re not souls, really. Teacher says they’re psychic images, photocopies of a single individual’s personality, memories and powers. She can have a handful active and doing what she wants walking around at any given time.” “They’re not faeries. Or souls, or psychic images. Our powers aren’t part of our bodies, exactly. I would be able to alter them or take them away if they were. What I saw when I touched glass-“ “Glaistig Uaine.” “Her. I feel like I just got clued into a missing piece of the puzzle. They’re sentient. Maybe they’re sleeping, like she said. But they’re not dumb, and I think I’m getting an idea of what happens when they wake up.” | „ |
~ Interlude 16 |
“ | There were capes who were deluded enough to think that their powers were actually magic. There were capes who were neurotic in a way that didn’t shut them down or leave them unable to function. Glaistig Uaine was one who fit both categories, and she was powerful enough to make people listen to her. He’d never thought he could benefit from it. | „ |
~ Interlude 16 |
“ | "I know the tension in your shoulders. I know how your eyes are so fatigued you probably can’t read the print above the elevators. I know that you have a sense of awareness of yourself, the hum of your own body, the nimbus of feelings you’re not aware of… I tend to think of it as the soul, even though it isn’t. Yours is weary.” | „ |
~ From Within 16.y |
- Glaistig Uaine/Valkyrie can bring back dead people she's claimed, with the help of Bonesaw (Very end of Worm, pretty much any place she, Clockblocker, Sarah Pelham, Kid Win, and Grue are in Ward)
- Ashley 1 lives on in a way within 2 and 3 (Eclipse in general)
- March fully intends to spend eternity with Foil after killing her, reasoning that they'll be together forever in the shardspace data logs (Heavens 12.all, lot of it)
- Ashley 3 is scared of being overwritten by Ashley 2 after the latter dies
“ | Choose, I remembered. That had been our Ashley standing there beside her in the dream. You don’t have to hide that you’re hurt, Damsel. I knew Ashley, and I had a good sense of how she thought and processed things. Seeing the dream, I knew what was on her mind. She thought, given the chance, we’d get rid of her and get Swansong back. I wasn’t so sure we would, but it didn’t matter, because she was convinced. I could tell. | „ |
~ From Within 16.10 |
- Ashley 2 (who is already dead) temporarily possesses Ashley 3 when she's acting erratically and about to harm Kenzie because they're technically the same person so her shard memory can just do that (Last 20.10, it's kinda long but I can post the specific on demand)
- The still dead Ashley 2 is out and about in the Shard Network afterlife (Last 20.11, another long one) and is chatting with others who've taken Bonesaw's dreaming death plague
- Kenzie somehow found a way to communicate with the dead Tristan Vera, who's in that shardspace himself (Last 20.e5)
- Tristan's able to be "revived" by connecting him to an earthly robot and hologram
“ | Someone else, with his head almost shaved at the sides, the hair at the top a deep red. “If this is a joke-” Byron said, barely audible. “Nah,” Tattletale said. “But-” Byron was already breaking the hug, with an apologetic look to Missy. Not that that was in any way warranted. Obviously this took priority. Byron moved to hug his brother, and as he touched Tristan’s shoulder, Tristan fritzed. The camera and the attached prehensile tentacle with the claw at the end was briefly visible. | „ |
~ Last 20.end |
Ultimately, given that the role of the soul is filled by a thing that is explicitly not a soul and would make no sense to be equated to a soul, alongside a different view of souls also being explicitly stated to be not there, I do not think we should be assuming soul manip works on Worm characters. I guess we'd just put a note on the verse page or something.
Don't worry i'm not pulling weird bullshit to be annoying in threads this also kinda locks worm out of interacting with "normal" souls
Characters should generally get a resistance to their own abilities. This is shown to just be a trait of several power subsets.
Precogs interfere with others, which would give precogs a form of precog resistance (Contessa, the speaker, is special, but that's not important to setting a general trend)
Coil can't use Dinah within his power because of the weird precog interference thing
Victoria resists emotion stuff specifically due to her own emotion stuff
Regent is resistant to several things. He becomes important for the later bit as well though.
Regent just getting his powers makes Heartbreaker, a rather powerful emotion manipulator (and his dad) have trouble affecting him, showing resistances coming from the powers as well as his overexposure
Wildbow talks about having emotion powers giving you emotion resists
Gallant can't get a good read on Victoria, who notably has her aura
Sundancer has her secondary power to normalize all heat differences around her, so she doesn't get burned by her own power but also others
There's also the entire concept of the Manton Limit, where the powers manifest in a way that makes them not harm the user. However, a few things show this as actually providing a more generalized resistance as opposed solely to being an intrinsic thing.
The Ashley Stillons clones can't harm one another with their powers, despite being different individuals
Citrine notes how these resistances are a thing she can play around with
Ingenue can cancel Ashley 2's resistance. Ashley ends up dying due to this, and Ashley's is the one already noted to work on the other EE.
Ultimately, we can see that a resistance to powers like one's own due to having those powers is a standard set by the verse itself. Therefore, people who aren't breaking the manton limit should resist their own stuff, for the most part.
Precogs interfere with others, which would give precogs a form of precog resistance (Contessa, the speaker, is special, but that's not important to setting a general trend)
“ | “My power is a form of precognition,” she said. “Unlike most such powers, other precognitive abilities do not confuse it. That said, there are certain individuals it does not work against, the Endbringers included.” | „ |
~ Crushed 24.2 |
“ | Coil's powers get discombobulated by other causality interference, which is why he can't just have Dinah give every answer in Coil-generated universes that he discards. | „ |
~ Word of God |
“ | As someone with the ability to control emotions, I was supposed to be harder to read and affect. It was why I’d deflected Crystalclear earlier. | „ |
~ Daybreak 1.5 |
“ | Ulzgorothefinitely aren't. She uses her power on him more than anyone else, probably. Insofar as it's a targeted thing. Wildbow: This. Immunity to powers via. relationships isn't a guaranteed thing. Alec isn't 100% immune to Cherish, or vice versa, but they're both resistant enough to one another that it isn't really worth the effort. Remember, Cherish had a dead man's switch bomb bike-locked to her neck in case Alec got into a position to hijack her. | „ |
~ Word of God |
“ | She reached for the three people who stood between her and her brother, manipulated their emotions towards Alec. Filled them with suspicion, paranoia, hate. They didn’t budge. “Cut it out, Cherie,” Alec said, “I’m controlling them.” “If I remember right, you lose control if they’re hit by enough emotion,” she smiled. She turned up the intensity. “If I’m farther away. Seriously, stop. It’s irritating.” One of the men fell to his knees. His hands were clenched at his sides. Beads of sweat rolled down the faces of the other two, tears appearing in their eyes. “While I’m doing this, you can’t tell them to attack me.” “Unless I’ve gotten stronger over the past few years,” Alec answered. The man who was still standing reached for a knife and started walking towards Cherish. She hit the knife wielder with fear and indecision, saw him stop. For nearly a minute, they engaged in a tug of war over the three subjects. | „ |
~ Interlude 11g |
“ | His emotions were so muted. Dim. How much of that was Jean-Paul or Alec’s personality, and how much was his natural immunity, built up over years of exposure to Daddy? She couldn’t get a sense of what he was feeling, which was disappointing. | „ |
~ Interlude 11g |
“ | “Come after me, I go after them. You may be immune, but they aren’t.” | „ |
~ Interlude 11g |
“ | Alec shrugged, “So yeah. I worked for him for three or four years. We did jobs, I learned the family trade. Called myself Hijack at first. He started to get on my case. I think maybe he was having trouble affecting me the same way he did before my powers kicked in, so he compensated for that by riding me. Pushed my limits, made me do stuff that was dangerous, stuff that was hard on my conscience. Wanted me to break, beg him to stop, so he’d have leverage to get me to do what he wanted.” | „ |
~ Buzz 7.1 |
“ | Having emotion manipulation usually appends a degree of emotion manipulation resistance. They'd probably both be pretty darn resistant to one another. That would include Gallant fuzzing Cherish's emotion map. His blast could theoretically knock her on her ass but wouldn't do much more than that (and against those she was controlling, would probably dash whatever effects were present to the winds, or sufficiently confuse/paralyze them to stop whatever Cherish had them doing). When I say 'pretty darn resistant', I'd really say that the 80-100% resistance they had would veer one way or the other depending on how in concert they were with their passenger at the time of the encounter. | „ |
~ Word of God |
“ | 20:05 Ridtom: I wonder what Dean sees when she uses her aura? Just a spotlight? 20:05 Prothean: A really angry/impressive/sad/whatever person 20:05 Prothean: ? 20:07 Wildbow: Maybe he's interested in her because he can't get a perfect read on her | „ |
~ Word of God |
“ | There’s other limitations or advantages that come with the powers. Sundancer over there can’t be burned. Temperature completely and one hundred percent normalizes within a certain range of her body. | „ |
~ Scourge 19.3 |
The Ashley Stillons clones can't harm one another with their powers, despite being different individuals
“ | It was reassuring to see the only other person left in existence that understood, that she couldn’t hurt with her power, should a freak accident happen. It was terrifying. | „ |
~ Eclipse x.8 |
“ | "More gravity, less gravity, more intense temperature variation, less intense temperature variation. Friction, light intensity, the progression of time… More possibilities than I can count, many so minor you wouldn't notice. But if someone powered is in the area, and I find the right attunement, as though I were searching a radio station, I can cut off their powers. If I'm exact enough, which never takes more than twenty or thirty seconds to narrow down, I can use my power to cancel out the filters that keep someone's powers in their control. I can also remove the filters that keep their power from affecting them." | „ |
~ Imago 21.4 |
“ | Swansong used her power to blast the nearest bugs. She pulled away as though she had touched a hot stove. He didn’t look away from Ingenue, trusting smaller eyes at the side of his neck to see the essential details of this ongoing conflict. Two of Swansong’s fingers crumbled, falling to pieces. “She gave me my control back,” Swansong said. “To think I had some respect for her. She’s an idiot.” She gave you that control back at the cost of your immunity to your power, Spawner thought. | „ |
~ Dying 15.z |
Feel free to take this CRT one part at a time. Probably the safest way to do this.
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