9.9 KiB
[RT][FF] Panopticon (Worm)
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Author: u/None *
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URL: https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/panopticon-worm-rational-au.370424/
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Score: 12
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Created: 2015-12-30T18:18:13
Post:
Comments:
u/None [+3] (2 minutes later)
Enjoy, and please feedback! This is my most complex story yet, and I feel like I might be missing a lot of things. Any reasoning errors, logical errors, where the theme could be pushed more, or where the story seems to contradict its own themes etc. would be great.
u/Running_Ostrich [+3] (18 hours later)
How did you model the combination of Coil and Dinah's powers? It seems like Coil could ask Dinah questions all day to figure out all of his enemies. Eg. "Chance the person who will pose the largest threat to me is in North America / will attack today", etc. Coil seems like he should be in the same position that young Coil mentions of taking down all enemies. I know Wildbow restricted it somehaw but that seemed hand-wavy to me.
Worm is a universe where people who try to work together or to make things better are inhibited by the powers that be.
- Shards influence parahumans towards conflict and reward those who participate. (Eg. Rewards of shards budding and stronger powers.) Shards also influence parahumans to not look too much into shards themselves. (Panacea avoids brains likely for this reason)
- Contessa is focused on keeping Cauldron a secret at almost any cost. This means anyone who would reveal Cauldron and their wrongdoings gets taken out or scared off.
- Endbringers destroy anyone who looks to improve the world. Eg. Sphere's family was attacked by the Simurgh, turning him away from helping the world and making him into Mannequin.
Etcetera. If you don't have these, it might be nice to know why things don't just snowball into massive factions that can beat the Endbringers, ala Weaver 9 or Amelia. Also how Contessa's goals are different (if she's being rational) and why you can't just produce a bunch of Eidolon / Kherpi-level parahumans to take down Scion. In canon, the dilute the vials with Human shard, but if Contessa knows how it'll turn out, she could Path or dilute less to produce a proper parahuman.
u/None [+2] (19 hours later)
Contessa is acting against Scion, but Scion and the Endbringers are her only blindspot. She does not have prior knowledge how Scion is going to react to her actions, so she cannot go too far too fast. Anti-Endbringer defenses are much stronger in this story, but the Endbringers are also much stronger. On balance, for industrialised countries, it is as if the Endbringers are more destructive natural disasters. Simurgh is still free to sabotage humans. Factions don't necessarily unite against Endbringers due to co-ordination problems (e.g. if one faction loses most of their parahumans to Endbringers, they cannot defend themselves.)
As for Dinah, I forgot to consider her in-story. But my first impression is that it still depends a lot on Coil asking the right questions, and thinking of the right interpretations (e.g. largest threat can be political or military, ten years from now as opposed to now, if he takes out the largest threat that might cause an even greater threat to emerge that the previous largest threat had been suppressing, etc.). Coil might also not bother to spend one or two hours every day checking for every threat. Five minutes asking questions like 'am I going to die today?' I can imagine, but it's probably not productive to check for every contingency.
u/Running_Ostrich [+2] (19 hours later)
Coil might also not bother to spend one or two hours every day checking for every threat.
Yeah, maybe he just didn't ask chance of dying a week from now. (Pulling a Panacea) If you have that power combo, it should your main strength if you are using it at all intelligently.
Eg. When planning your next move, you'd find anyone who's likely to be a threat to you in the next month, 6 months, and year through questions. Then you work to take them down or turn them away. Then, Tattletale wouldn't have been able to target him because then he'd see that the Protectorate has X% chance of capturing him in the next month -> determine that a main player is a new parahuman or someone who isn't on their roster -> someone born in north america, etc. And he can also use this asking how his recruitment actions pan-out long term for Tattletale.
u/None [+2] (20 hours later)
You're right, it's a huge flaw. Dinah had not initially been in the chapter, and I added her at the last minute, so I failed to consider her, in the midst of all the other variables. Coil can probably spend five minutes checking the probability of his death in the near and middle term, since his death or lack thereof is fairly straightforward. One slightly cheat-y way Sarah might have around it is to just have Dinah lie. But I suspect Sarah can probably find another way around it, I just haven't thought of how.
I'll have to fix it, but that'll take some time, and will probably have to be done after the next chapter.
u/okaycat [+1] (21 hours later)
Well it all depends on the timeline in your story. In canon Coil didn't acquire Dinah until the bank heist arc. He didn't have the opportunity to kidnap her before because he needed a distraction for the PRT.
You can just have Coil not in being in possession of Dinah yet. Whose to say that Dinah didn't do the rational thing and told her parents and the PRT all about her powers. That neatly sidesteps that problem.
u/Peragot [+1] (2 days later)
Isn't Eidolon a blind-spot for Contessa?
u/None [+1] (2 days later)
I didn't like that Eidolon is a blind spot in canon. It seems super arbitrary. So he isn't in this story.
u/TennisMaster2 [+2] (3 days later)
Eidolon has an unfettered shard, and the restrictions block Contessa from viewing unfettered shards - of which Scion is but an amalgamation.
I'm uncomfortable trusting you as an author if you're going to change things because they don't fit with your plot.
u/None [+1] (3 days later)
Eidolon, as is, doesn't fit rational stories. Eidolon use his Thinker powers, for example, even though Thinker powers has the greater utility. Given that he has Thinker powers, and has less restrictions than Contessa, why is he following her? There is nothing Contessa can do that he cannot do. Rational!Eidolon, as is, is going to stomp the setting.
Changing aspects of the story is inevitable. There's a lot of things that I like about Worm, but let's not pretend it's perfect, in terms of character development, internal consistency etc.. If Worm is perfect, it is still more interesting to branch off it, building on some aspects and not others. If I develop aspects has no been developed in canon, our interpretation of canon and out extrapolation from that canon is going to differ, because on our different models of reality. Then other things have to change to accommodate prior changes, so that the change has meaningful impact, yet the story doesn't become unbalanced.
I hope I still have your trust in this story. The story may be flawed (coughtoomuchtellingcough), but I plan to go interesting places. Chapter 1's POV is going to be Lily, and is going to jump straight to a Leviathan battle. Lily's powers are going to be expanded a bit, and I hope to greatly expand her psychology. I also hope to greatly expand the organisation/politics of Endbringer battles
u/TennisMaster2 [+2] (3 days later)
Okay - well reasoned.
If you want more internal consistency, fetter Eidolon's shard. That resolves Contessa being able to view him in her Paths, as well as enables you to make Eidolon a rational character, in that the psychological limitations that prevent him from optimizing the use of his power (arbitrarily defined "need" and use-limited power access) become hard-coded restrictions on his shard's power.
An in-universe explanation to explain the now-fettered power follows.
His shard has always-on foresight that determines Eidolon's actual future need for the next x amount of time, and unceasingly offers powers for Eidolon to take up. If he accepts a power, then his shard starts accessing the borrowed shard's power. He can borrow more power the first time he accesses the shard; subsequently, the borrowed power's shard more quickly identifies, fights against, refuses, etc. Eidolon's shard's attempt to access its power. Eventually, the borrowed shard becomes so immunized against Eidolon's shard that in no situation will the borrowed power be what Eidolon needs, and so his power stops offering it up for potential access.
When the Beings reform and collect their shards, the rearranging process wipes clean shards' immunity, thus the lack of lingering effects from use of Eidolon's shard in previous cycles.
u/None [+1] (3 days later)
That's a pretty good explanation, actually! I can use that.
u/Peragot [+1] (2 days later)
Does your story explain the existence of the Endbringers?
u/tactical_retreat [+2] (5 hours later)
Pretty good so far, good writing and the story is interesting.
My only nitpick is that spoiler
u/None [+1] (5 hours later)
Thanks! I missed that. Because that person was a late addition, completely forgot about to add consequences to that person being there.