76 KiB
[FF][BST] Parahuman Population and International Politics (Worm)
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Author: u/None *
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URL: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1TqeYtBa-2YOd94Rc_E-vn_LShN3V52telyK_tJwJxmw/edit?usp=sharing
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Score: 6
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Created: 2016-01-06T15:11:22
Post:
Comments:
u/Covane [+4] Dragon Army (4 hours later)
I think the assumption that most bothered me was that victims of powered crime were themselves very likely to become criminals. You could maybe argue shards, maaaaybe argue social pressure, but I don't think either adequately justify the majority of capes being criminals.
u/None [+2] (4 hours later)
I agree. >90% of people are not criminal under US conditions. I'd argue that Masters are significantly more likely to be criminal though. Their powers don't have a 'good' use and the mere fact that they can use it creates suspicion.
If outed Masters cannot find regular jobs, they may have no recourse but to find criminal jobs. That further justifies the suspicion.
The suspicion also creates a biased sample: Masters that can hide their powers choose to use their powers like Shakers, for example (Glory Girl anyone?), or they may choose not to use their powers at all. So only criminal Masters are identified, further increasing suspicion.
Of course, given that triggers may correlate to emotional states and more controversially, personalities, this suspicion may be entirely justified. Not that your suspicion of someone that can make you love them is unjustified. If you thought that the person in front of you is a madman and could hurt you, you are in every right to not hire them.
u/Covane [+3] Dragon Army (4 hours later)
Depends on the master. I wrote a doctor with a minor thinker power that lets him know what tests to run on a patient and he also has a very minor calming aura. Not enough to pacify someone, but enough to make a patient feel a little better, set them at ease.
Edit: although I recall there being some question of whether this constituted a master, shaker, or stranger power when I first posed the question of what category a calming aura fits in.
In-canon there's a lot Bitch could do with giant beasts of labor. The dogs ended up plowing fields, right? That's a very useful sword-into-plowshare example.
u/None [+1] (5 hours later)
You're right. The doctor is probably going to pass as a normal person. Bitch's case doesn't apply though, since she is separate from 'proper' society. But for a hypothetical animal Master, they might not get a pass. In-story, there is not clear logic to powers.
We know Bitch cannot control people, and the Protectorate might know that from experience, but the people in story that don't interact with parahumans? It's not difficult to draw false parallels between controlling humans and animals (they're both living things.)
"There must be a reason the Protectorate classifies human and animal Masters together," they'd think, either consciously or subconsciously (though the only reason they're classified as such is because the classification spread informally, then had been institutionalised.)
This isn't conclusive, or even true, but doubt is all it takes to seriously hurt a person's life. Some people are going to be generous ignore the doubt, but most are going to be cautious.
There's probably a movement to split the 'Master' Category to 'Master' and 'Beastmaster' categories or something like that.
u/Covane [+2] Dragon Army (5 hours later)
It would depend on how many masters there were, who the strongest was, their ethical outlook, and generally how many human-controlling masters there are and how strong they are. There's Khepri, obviously, but even before that Skitter was terrifying and she was using insects. Were there even any human masters aside from Heartbreaker and his kids and August Prince? Maybe arguably Satyrical? Simurgh too I guess but that's thematically different.
u/eaglejarl [+1] (6 hours later)
If outed Masters cannot find regular jobs, they may have no recourse but to find criminal jobs. That further justifies the suspicion.
Quibble: if they couldn't find a job they could probably create a legal job for themselves if they wanted to. That said, the vast majority of people are not entrepreneurial and therefore would not consider that option. In that case, yes, crime would likely be the easiest and first-thought-of option.
u/None [+4] (53 minutes later)
Parahuman Population (Tabs 1 and 2):
Assumptions:
Scions grants powers to 1,000 parahumans per year. This contradicts canon of <100 parahumans in 1980s, but that results in growth rates that are either too low or too high (Population does not reach ~600,000 by 2011, or does, then accelerates into billions in <10 years). 1,000 per year is also about ~2-3 per day, and that seems a reasonable guess. Scion has no reason to be consciously grant more powers, and by period 20 budding growth >> Scion growth.
There is a limit to growth that ends in 1 in 100 of the population being parahumans. The Doylist reasons are that linear growth rates results in populations that are either too low or too high, and that I like the idea of fundamental inequality.
The parahuman population is distributed as such (w/ overlap):
Brute 30% Shaker 30% Mover 30% Changer 15% Blaster 15% Striker 10% Breaker 10% Tinker 5% Master 1% Thinker 1% Stranger 1% Trump 1%
This is based off of Brockton's figures, and balance issues (Brutes cause much less trouble than Thinker on a large scale, so there should be significantly less Thinkers).
International Politics (Tab 3):
Assumptions:
Scion grants powers and powers bud in proportion to population. The strength of the powers are also in proportion. There is no reason for Scion not to do this, and budding depends on the population of parahumans existing.
Parahumans are not geared to conflict. This contradicts canon, but is not acceptable in a rational setting. Because parahumans are not geared to conflict, they can be organised by states.
China and Russia, and especially China, are functional states. The idea of the C.U.I is not acceptable in a rational setting. Russia may be a corrupt hell-hole, but it is a corrupt hell-hole that can participate in international politics as a state.
Given these assumptions, you can see the immediate problem from the figures in Tab 3. China and India combined have 1/5 of total parahumans. The US is outnumbered by 5 by China. The US outspends China's military by 3. Not only that, parahumans are far superior to ordinary soldiers, and require far less training. Parahumans are also superior to: tanks, helicopters, bomber planes, rocket launchers, missiles, nuclear missiles, etc.
The US military advantage does not exist. Given that much of US foreign policy depends on US protection (Germany, France, Japan, Korea, Saudi Arabia etc. ), the political landscape should be completely changed.
Assumption:
- Tinker-tech can be replicated by other Tinkers to some extent, and by non-parahumans to some lesser extent. That Tinker-tech cannot be replicated is not acceptable in a rational setting, but 'free' Tinker tech is likely to change society too completely. Some replication is a good balance: The tech is going to spread, but it's going to take some time. 30 years is sufficient only for the most basic and least controversial tech to be common.
Given that Tinker-tech can be replicated, and that China and India has the most Tinkers by default, China and India should be the technological hubs of 2011, give-and-take bad governance and corruption penalties. But by the 1980s China was already opening (Nixon met Mao in 1972, Shenzhen Special Economic Zone was established in 1980).
You know how DC and Marvel resort to having dudes punch each other in the face to resolve all problems? That's because the existence of superhumans change things complexly.
Does China's power cause Japan to develop nuclear weapons? Become more nationalist? Form a bloc with Korea and the South East Asian nations? Does the US become more hawkish and increase defense spending? Does the population become more conservative? Does Russia ally with the US to balance China? Does India? That's only some of the changes from one change.
I'd like to explore all these changes. If you can help me brainstorm more changes to explore, I'll be closer to a coherent, interesting and reality-conforming Rational!Worm :)
u/Nepene [+12] (a day later)
That doesn't sound like a very interesting universe. You're taking out the elements that make it widely interesting (emotional stuff) in favor of a purely factual approach.
This is based off of Brockton's figures, and balance issues (Brutes cause much less trouble than Thinker on a large scale, so there should be significantly less Thinkers).
Thinkers were common in canon as they were fun and interesting. Causing problems is amusing. You're making a story with less drama. Booooo.
Scion grants powers and powers bud in proportion to population. The strength of the powers are also in proportion. There is no reason for Scion not to do this, and budding depends on the population of parahumans existing.
The stories were fun because there were super emotional events in each person's life, so again, boooooo.
Parahumans are not geared to conflict. This contradicts canon, but is not acceptable in a rational setting. Because parahumans are not geared to conflict, they can be organised by states.
Sounds more like a marysuetopia. So boo, contradicting canon, and boo, removal of any obstacles to marysuetopia.
China and Russia, and especially China, are functional states. The idea of the C.U.I is not acceptable in a rational setting. Russia may be a corrupt hell-hole, but it is a corrupt hell-hole that can participate in international politics as a state.
Boooo, contradicting canon. Also, why is it not acceptable for parahumans to stage a coup? Why are you telling us that rationality can't accept coups? You are not the god of rationality.
Given these assumptions, you can see the immediate problem from the figures in Tab 3. China and India combined have 1/5 of total parahumans. The US is outnumbered by 5 by China. The US outspends China's military by 3. Not only that, parahumans are far superior to ordinary soldiers, and require far less training. Parahumans are also superior to: tanks, helicopters, bomber planes, rocket launchers, missiles, nuclear missiles, etc.
Most bar the toughest of brutes can be taken down by heavy weaponry. You're rating the general parahumans rather highly. They can certainly do a lot, but tanks and missiles often beat them. There's a reason why you have to get quite high in the prt rating before heavy weaponry is allowed. Nuclear weapons are superior to most parahumans.
The US military advantage does not exist. Given that much of US foreign policy depends on US protection (Germany, France, Japan, Korea, Saudi Arabia etc. ), the political landscape should be completely changed.
In assuming that parahumans are inherently all tractable to whatever goal you wish you overpower dictatorial nations. Someone like China who is continually working to suppress internal dissidence is going to face regular parahuman aided rebellions. A nation's strength will be heavily predicated on how effectively they can utilize their parahumans and stop them from going villain/ hero against the state.
You're radically changing society in a way that isn't going to appeal to people who like worm, and removing difficulties in a way that isn't going to appeal to those who dislike suetopias.
You might as well just write a superhero story in its own universe.
u/None [+1] (a day later)
In order:
Thinkers are not common in canon. Thinkers appear to be common because the important people were Thinkers, because Thinkers have disproportionate effects. The spreadsheet represents a summary of the populations. This is necessary so that I do not create too many Thinkers, because Thinkers are easy solutions to problems. By limiting the number of Thinkers, and defining those Thinkers, these Thinkers can cause problems, and I can expand on those problems. If I don't define the Thinkers, "Why didn't X do Y" is going to be a serious issue.
Strong emotions still cause triggers. Having triggers in proportion to the population does not exclude that. It just means people feel emotions in all countries, though some of those emotions might differ country to country because of culture. East Asia, for example, might have more Thinkers because of the stress they place on placing examinations.
The spreadsheet does not account for this, because it's a bit of work to do so, and regardless of the distribution of power classifications, the problem of China and India having 40% of the parahuman population still exists.
Conflict exists with and without powers. People are still greedy, lazy, hateful, complacent, etc. without Shard-induced conflict. I removed the Shard-induced conflict to remove the conflict balls in this story. If people gained powers, realistically, all societal order does not just break down.
It is rational for parahumans to stage coups. But China is united (sort-of, excluding the territories in dispute e.g. Taiwan) at the time of Scion. How does the they know who else is disgruntled, or who else has powers? The problems that apply to normal coups still apply to parahuman coups.
A group of parahumans that has no popular support is never going to topple the government of a functioning state. Because the state itself is going to control parahumans, and the state controls the parahumans of all of its territories.
That's not to say China doesn't have problems. With powers, Tibet and Xinjiang are going to be a lot more difficult for China to control. China probably forces parahumans to register their power in those territories. Hong Kong and Taiwan might become more independent.
I think most Brutes can survive machine-gun fire. I think that's a reasonable baseline to be considered a 'Brute', since normal people can survive, say, pistol fire. So Brutes are almost certainly superior to regular infantry.
Not all Brutes can destroy Tanks, maybe. But if Alexandria can stop on 100 tanks per minute, then tanks stop being viable for war against the United States. If Germany, France, the UK, Russia etc. all have high-tier flying bricks, then tanks stop being viable for war, especially since tanks aren't free. You can repeat the logic for any other weapon.
Statistically, there are going to be high-tier flying bricks in every major country, or high-tier flying cannons etc.
I hope that I've explained satisfactorily. I really do like Worm and it's characters. What I'm trying to do is remove the elements that are generally considered irrational by other users. Of course, if I remove those elements Worm is going to be different. But hopefully still Worm-y.
u/Nepene [+7] (a day later)
Thinkers are not common in canon. Thinkers appear to be common because the important people were Thinkers, because Thinkers have disproportionate effects. The spreadsheet represents a summary of the populations.
http://worm.wikia.com/wiki/Power_Classifications
Nah, there's quite a few thinkers.
This is necessary so that I do not create too many Thinkers, because Thinkers are easy solutions to problems.
They have lots of less op powers. Like 360 vision, enhanced multitasking, perfect memory and enhanced intellect, mastery of skills. Their prophesy powers are often not as reliable as in canon. In a prt quest that wildbow ran he had one future seer who saw an alternative version of the future with a loose correlation to future events.
Conflict exists with and without powers. People are still greedy, lazy, hateful, complacent, etc. without Shard-induced conflict. I removed the Shard-induced conflict to remove the conflict balls in this story. If people gained powers, realistically, all societal order does not just break down.
But less. You're taking a universe with lots of interesting conflict and smoothing it out so that the moderate elements can take over.
It's like someone looking at our world and going "Guns seem unnecessarily conflict forming and irrational, I'm going to make a world where they don't exist. But nuclear bombs still do, so states are afraid to go to war."
It is rational for parahumans to stage coups. But China is united (sort-of, excluding the territories in dispute e.g. Taiwan) at the time of Scion. How does the they know who else is disgruntled, or who else has powers? The problems that apply to normal coups still apply to parahuman coups.
Tinker powers for communication. Mobile phones and social networks come early. Masters to win popular support.
I think most Brutes can survive machine-gun fire. I think that's a reasonable baseline to be considered a 'Brute', since normal people can survive, say, pistol fire. So Brutes are almost certainly superior to regular infantry.
Most in story can't. Aegis can't, as he's just very redundant. Glory girl can't, she's a one hit wonder. Fenja and Menja and Lung are vulnerable if ever hit at range before they power up. Night is vulnerable if you look at her. Even Alexandria is vulnerable to gas attacks, and she's almost unique in that she's got a top tier shard without the normal limitations due to Eden.
I really do like Worm and it's characters.
You don't seem to know them very well, or the ins and outs. Thinkers aren't just solve it alls, brutes vary a great deal in livability. Do you know who Glory Girl or Aegis are?
What I'm trying to do is remove the elements that are generally considered irrational by other users.
https://np.reddit.com/r/rational/comments/3q4uod/d_mr_yudkowsky_on_the_lack_of_munchkinism_in_worm/
Looking at earlier threads there's hardly general consensus. A number do dislike the violence motive, although the point is made that it's fairly subtle- if it wasn't pointed out it wouldn't necessarily be obvious.
u/None [+2] (a day later)
They have lots of less op powers. Like 360 vision, enhanced multitasking, perfect memory and enhanced intellect, mastery of skills. Their prophesy powers are often not as reliable as in canon. In a prt quest that wildbow ran he had one future seer who saw an alternative version of the future with a loose correlation to future events.
You're right. I conflated Thinkers w/ powerful Thinkers. There are probably going to be more Thinkers of a weaker sort, though more powerful Thinkers still have to be limited.
But less. You're taking a universe with lots of interesting conflict and smoothing it out so that the moderate elements can take over. It's like someone looking at our world and going "Guns seem unnecessarily conflict forming and irrational, I'm going to make a world where they don't exist. But nuclear bombs still do, so states are afraid to go to war."
Fair enough. I don't think so, but this seems to be a matter of preference.
Tinker powers for communication. Mobile phones and social networks come early. Masters to win popular support.
I don't think this is sufficient rebuttal. There are phones and charismatic leaders in our universe, but there aren't coups everywhere. You could argue that Tinkers and Masters are better than phones and charismatic leaders, but to the extent of ignoring all established societal structure? I don't think that's likely.
Most in story can't. Aegis can't, as he's just very redundant. Glory girl can't, she's a one hit wonder. Fenja and Menja and Lung are vulnerable if ever hit at range before they power up. Night is vulnerable if you look at her. Even Alexandria is vulnerable to gas attacks, and she's almost unique in that she's got a top tier shard without the normal limitations due to Eden.
Fair enough. I haven't thought out the implications of parahuman warfare fully. Though I'd quibble that Glory Girl is likely dead in canon if she's fighting thugs and cannot stand machine gun fire, and Lung is likely also dead from being sniped. So it's not like canon is internally consistent.
u/Nepene [+2] (a day later)
You're right. I conflated Thinkers w/ powerful Thinkers. There are probably going to be more Thinkers of a weaker sort, though more powerful Thinkers still have to be limited.
Yeah. I think generalist thinkers are the big problem. Ones who can learn anything about anything. They have limitations, but those are easy enough to power around. Likewise with Tinkers, very generalist ones would be easier to munchkin in that they could build technology on a similar tech tree to ours. It's hard to reverse engineer crystal star alien technology.
Fair enough. I don't think so, but this seems to be a matter of preference.
It doesn't seem widely popular in this thread.
I don't think this is sufficient rebuttal. There are phones and persuasive people in our universe, but there isn't coups everywhere.
They allow popular support to be gathered quickly, and masters and thinkers and such allow you to take control of the local nobility. The right brutes or shakers or blasters allow you to assassinate the leadership. Popular support allows things like the arab springs, cape firepower allows a simulation of military support.
u/None [+1] (a day later)
It doesn't seem widely popular in this thread.
Strange, I thought people only tend to comment if they disagree ;)
They allow popular support to be gathered quickly, and masters and thinkers and such allow you to take control of the local nobility. The right brutes or shakers or blasters allow you to assassinate the leadership. Popular support allows things like the arab springs, cape firepower allows a simulation of military support.
A Master, Thinker, Tinker etc. alone is not sufficient for a coup. They'd need to gather other supporting capes. How do they do so? Nobody is going to openly tell your their powers and their political positions. The other capes might be geographically and culturally separated. If they disagree with the existing power structure, they might disagree in a different way from you. And in gathering supporting capes you're risking the state's (Thinker-enhanced) intelligence agencies detecting you.
It's simple to imagine an established rebel group that defeats existing power structure, but the difficulty is that such a rebel group is difficult to establish.
u/Nepene [+1] (a day later)
Strange, I thought people only tend to comment if they disagree ;)
Disagree, yes, but with whom?
A Master, Thinker, Tinker etc. alone is not sufficient for a coup. They'd need to gather other supporting capes. How do they do so?
There's lots of organizations in China with hundreds of people, and lots of remote regions with less monitoring.
And in gathering supporting capes you're risking the state's (Thinker-enhanced) intelligence agencies detecting you.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_Revolution
Not very effective ones. China was very chaotic in those times since the state had encouraged mass mob justice and purged most of its more intelligent civilians. They were likely at their weakest levels in centuries.
u/None [+1] (a day later)
There's lots of organizations in China with hundreds of people, and lots of remote regions with less monitoring.
Political organisations outside of the CCP, I don't think so. I don't even think there are significant organisations outside the CCP. There's a law limiting gatherings of more than 40 people today, though I'm not sure if it applied then. The geographic dispersion is an issue, but it doesn't help the coordination problems of potential rebels.
Potential rebels also have the problem of personality and capability match. Some random peasant that can read minds is more likely to try to make money than take over the government, or they might not have the capability to stealthily expand their power. If the CCP is more unpopular or less centralised, its easier to coordinate; you could just go to the nearest opposition group and tell them you have powers. But I don't think those conditions exist.
In Egypt, the Muslim Brotherhood had long been established. In Iraq, ISIS's leadership consists of former Ba'athist leadership that had been displaced by the US.
Not very effective ones. China was very chaotic in those times since the state had encouraged mass mob justice and purged most of its more intelligent civilians. They were likely at their weakest levels in centuries.
That might be true. I don't feel like I know enough about China's intelligence community to say for sure. But intelligence does not strictly need to be gathered by intelligence agencies. It could just as easily be passed up the chain of command. Mr. Li might report to the CCP head of his village that Mr. Wong is asking 'wrong' questions of the other villagers. The CCP head of the village is going to report to the CCP head of the province, etc.
I feel at this point, though, it's better to resolve these argument by writing rather than arguing.
u/MugaSofer [+7] (a day later)
These assumptions don't make a lot of sense to me.
If Masters, Thinkers, Strangers and Trumps are all vanishingly rare, then there's no reason to have separate categories for them in the first place - it would make more sense to lump them together as "weird/meta stuff", much like the actual Trump category in canon.
It also seems odd from a balance perspective, given that most of the Masters and Thinkers we see seem to be quite weak - danger senses, sensing roughly what category a person's powers fit into, mapping out the area around you, stuff like that; while almost all Masters in canon just create disposable minions. We don't see many Strangers at all (amusingly), but given that Shadow Stalker is classified as a stranger, I suspect the same is true of them.
It seems very strange to me that powers are given out "in proportion to population" - are you doing away with trigger events entirely? Why? Obviously this is going to completely break the canon setting to the point where it's unrecognizable.
You declare that Tinker limitations and subtle Shard influences are "not acceptable in a rational setting". Why? People in real life already have biases and shortcomings, and there's no reason for Shards not to make use of mind-affecting abilities to prevent, for example, Panacea from immediately destroying everything. The entirety of HPMOR, the original ratfic, takes place with a hero who
Similarly, real technology requires a significant technology base in order to produce and maintain. Factor in the fact that many Tinkers canonically have other powers, the sheer flood of mismatched one-off items, and the fact that they're designed with little concern for safety or ease of production - not to mention the fact that Tinkers possess only enough information to operate the devices - and it doesn't seem unreasonable that we'd end up with "only" a technology boom. But if this really seems unacceptable, why not declare that all Tinkers are making heavy use of reality-warping powers? It makes more sense than setting your story in the middle of an immediate Singularity.
I'm also not entirely sure why you reject the idea of the CUI; parahuman powers can obviously lead to revolutions fairly easily if the population isn't heavily invested (or feels actively oppressed by) in the current system, and the CUI seems to do pretty well using a few core powers with great synergy to absorb most others into their power structure.
They have a great, effective system that scales well, and which they believe is the only way to avoid the world ending. Their only failing is that they violated international law in a quick power grab, and ended up isolated from the international community, which seems like exactly the sort of conflict you'd expect in a ratfic.
u/None [+0] (a day later)
Paragraph one and two are fair points. I can probably increase the proportion of Masters, Thinkers and Strangers, as long as most of them are low-rated.
On the third paragraph, that's bad phrasing on my part. There's still trigger events, but trigger events happen in proportion to population, because emotions happen in proportion to population. Though there might be some differences in classification (e.g Mexico has more Brutes because of gang conflict).
I agree, people in real life have conflict. From my perspective, therefore, there is no reason for Shard-induced conflict, that results in a lot of irrational even for irrational people.
Panacea is not going to be able to break Shards. I think breaking Shards is a cheat to make Taylor important at the final battle. Given that, I think Panacea is fair in canon.
If Brockton hospitals ship the most terminally ill or genetically disordered people to the hospital for Panacea to heal, and Panacea occasionally participates in research, healing to give insight to the healing process to medical professionals who can then scale up the process, that rationalists Panacea a bit without changing her character.
Of course, there are some healers that charge millions for, say, making aging celebrities young again. That can create a lot of conflict. Perhaps some people feel that parahumans should be forced to act for the common good. Perhaps some people feel that only rich people can afford not to age etc.
I actually agree with you on the first Tinker point. I'm not sure where our disagreement is. On the second Tinker point, I prefer not to have them reality warp. I think that ruins the flavour of Tinkers.
I've responded to the idea of coups earlier in this thread, but the CUI is also both communist and anti-parahuman. By the 1980s, and even more so by the 1990s, when the parahumans are coming into their own, China has started transitioning to Capitalism, and there is little political support for Communism.
China is surrounded by geopolitical threats: Russia, India, Japan, Korea. Tibet, Xin Jiang, Taiwan and Hong Kong are independence minded. The US is also chilling in nearby bases. There is going to be no political support for an anti-parahuman stance.
If some group manages a coup and takes an anti-parahuman stance, you'd expect immediate meddling by their neighbours who don't want civil war spilling into their countries, or millions of Chinese fleeing China into their country.
You'd also expect the military and every parahuman and parahuman group in China to oppose the group. You'd also expect civilians to oppose such an illegitimate government, especially if the legitimate government is agitating against them. No such group is going to last, though the exact outcome of such a Conflict is hard to predict.
The CUI is a result of the author thinking "Wouldn't it be cool if China were like North Korea?". But China is not North Korea.
u/MugaSofer [+3] (a day later)
On the third paragraph, that's bad phrasing on my part. There's still trigger events, but trigger events happen in proportion to population, because emotions happen in proportion to population. Though there might be some differences in classification (e.g Mexico has more Brutes because of gang conflict).
Wouldn't places with more stress have a lot more trigger events, though? If you're in the middle of a civil war in the Third World, there's going to be a lot of trigger-worthy events in your life.
This is kind of important in canon, actually; mild gender inequality in the US acts as an excuse for Wildbow's tendency to write female characters whenever he forgets, parahuman-enabled civil wars acts as an excuse for the Third World to get worse rather than being fixed instantly by Eidelon or Panacea, and the fact that people from lower-class backgrounds are disproportionately likely to trigger justifies the disproportionate criminality of parahumans (above and beyond the fact that the authorities have a limited ability to stop them.)
I actually agree with you on the first Tinker point. I'm not sure where our disagreement is. On the second Tinker point, I prefer not to have them reality warp. I think that ruins the flavour of Tinkers.
Yeah, rereading I think I had you completely backwards there. You're right.
Panacea is not going to be able to break Shards. I think breaking Shards is a cheat to make Taylor important at the final battle. Given that, I think Panacea is fair in canon.
Nooo. Definitely not.
Well, I mean, yes, the fact that Taylor's power could be jailbroken into such a convenient form was definitely a cheat, but Panacea is absurdly broken without that. She's probably the most powerful Tinker in canon, with the possible exception of Dragon.
She's able to cure an entire city of disease by creating self-replicating pathogens that remove it and then die off. She's able to create creatures that can fly and are strong enough to carry a human being, bugs that mimic Taylor's power, stuff like that; and that's when she's barely trying. And everything she creates is self-replicating if she wants it to be. And that's without even getting into the potential for transhumanism, or the fact that she has near-perfect instantaneous mind control.
If you want to remove mental restrictions on powers, you have to remove Panacea and Dragon (well, Richter.) Both of them are quite capable of fixing or destroying ... well, everything, pretty much, barring a few really strong parahumans.
They could be replaced with expies, though; a girl that can restore human bodies to perfect health with a touch, and a brilliant disabled woman who builds Tinkertech suits, perhaps.
I've responded to the idea of coups earlier in this thread, but the CUI is also both communist and anti-parahuman.
Hmm. I never got the impression that the CUI is anti-parahuman, exactly; and they seem to center around a restored Emperor politically. Still, I'm no expert in Chinese politics; you could just put it down to Cauldron meddling and replace it.
By the way, how are you planning to handle Cauldron? From your descriptions, they don't really seem to exist, but ... I mean, they have to, right? Worm would be completely unrecognizable without Cauldron.
u/None [+1] (2 days later)
Wouldn't places with more stress have a lot more trigger events, though? If you're in the middle of a civil war in the Third World, there's going to be a lot of trigger-worthy events in your life.
True. That creates the problem of defining 'stress' though. Is being so stressed about examinations that you consider committing suicide as stressed as being nearly run over by a car? Being run over by a truck? Is bullying 'stress' compared to nearly being shot at by drug dealers? Is depression stress? Does apathy because of trauma mean you're not 'stressed'?
It could go either way, I haven't thought about it too much yet.
If you want to remove mental restrictions on powers, you have to remove Panacea and Dragon (well, Richter.) Both of them are quite capable of fixing or destroying ... well, everything, pretty much, barring a few really strong parahumans.
I want to keep Panacea and Dragon as much as possible. I like them very much, and because I'm getting rid of a lot of elements of Worm, I need to keep some elements of it. Dragon is probably fine as she is for the reasons others stated.
I'd probably tone Panacea's powers down however. She can create diseases, sure. She can cure diseases, sure. She can 'improve' people and animals, sure. But no disease-curing 'plagues'. I'd keep her mental issues. Her crush on Victoria and her limiting herself from her 'true' potential power (e.g. making people younger or smarter, becoming more politically influential, spreading deadly plague) are still perfectly plausible for a normal human.
Then again, I could also imagine someone having the power to create viruses that can make people smarter, and not doing it. There could be all sort of implications that a single person might think is too much for them to handle, or they might not want to be burdened with people asking more from them (since you can make people smarter, can you make my child, specifically, smarter?).
Viruses that make people smarter might not even be all that noticeable. A lot of people in the US are probably smarter today because there's no lead in their pipes, but there's no horde of intellectuals roaming around the US.
By the way, how are you planning to handle Cauldron? From your descriptions, they don't really seem to exist, but ... I mean, they have to, right? Worm would be completely unrecognizable without Cauldron.
Cauldron still exists, and they're still messing around. I don't have a grasp of the consequences of that yet, but at least on first impression nothing much has to change.
Contessa could still perpetuate wars in certain regions as parahuman factories, and she might not mess around with political powers much as long as they are compliant to demands, since adding more criteria to her paths likely lengthens her paths. She is also not going to promote wars everywhere since she needs centralisation for her power to be useful, or she'd be herding hundreds of millions of cats.
u/lehyde [+1] Nudist Beach (3 days later)
Viruses that make people smarter might not even be all that noticeable.
Looking at this graph it seems to me, a rise in national IQ will lead to exponentially more successful states. Which makes sense because if everything in a country works better, the benefits accumulate.
Depending on how far human biology can be pushed she could make people so smart that it's like the difference between humans and chimps: sure chimps are pretty smart but we're the ones who keep them in cages and if we wanted we could easily kill all chimps on the planet. If everyone helped it would maybe take a week. Imagine if a nation got that kind of advantage from Panacea's virus.
Leaving Panacea psychologically broken is definitely necessary for her not immediately breaking the world. But it doesn't make for a rationalist story. In such a story every important character is awesome. Everyone does interesting things. Panacea not using her powers is simply frustrating. It's only tolerable if it's the shards that keep her this way.
u/None [+1] (3 days later)
What you're saying might be the case. I don't know enough to say for sure. Most likely, I'll limit Panacea to affecting one person at a time (so no positive viruses), so there's some effect, but a limited effect. I highly doubt society as a whole will accept such a modification in any case. Eugenics has the potential to achieve what you're proposing Panacea to do, but it's completely taboo. I'd prefer to limit a parahuman's capabilities rather than a parahuman's psychology, but I realise that's a personal preference.
P.S. Your graph is broken.
u/Jakkubus [+4] (8 hours later)
Okay, why does Scion give people powers? What does he gain from that and how does it balance out energy loss?
Also why have you kept Endbringers? In a world like that there is no point in their existence.
And how do Trigger Events work in your fanfic? Because their trauma-based origin would mean, that Shards often go to less rational humans.
BTW be careful to not turn it into some Mary Suetopia.
u/None [+1] (9 hours later)
Scion's partner died because of the Third Entity. Her remains scattered across Earth-space. Scion, depressed, starts acting strangely. He distributes the shards (powers, Endbringers, etc.) that are meant for his offense and defense against other entities and inter-galactic cultures.
I don't particularly like the explanation of giving inferior life forms powers to 'harvest' them. It's probably be cheaper for the Entities to harvest the star system and not bother. Though at some point you just have to shrug and say 'it's magic.'
As for Mary Sues, some people are going to gain from powers, and some people are going to lose. Some people lose their jobs to more efficient parahumans, some parahumans create entirely new jobs. Some of Earth-Bet's technology is far superior to our time, in some places organised-crime becomes more entrenched etc.
Part of the point of the story is that powers change society like technology changes society.
u/Jakkubus [+3] (9 hours later)
Hmm, doesn't it violate first rule of rational fiction? That nothing happens just because 'the plot requires it'. Characters need plausible reasons and Scion is one of them.
Also IIRC entities do not seek just energy to feed off, but a way to defeat entropy and it wasn't Scion, who created Endbringers.
u/Roxolan [+5] Head of antimemetiWalmart senior assistant manager (14 hours later)
Characters need plausible reasons and Scion is one of them.
Scion is a starfish alien. I am okay with rational fiction occasionally involving aliens so far removed from humans that we can only make vague, flawed guesses as to the reasons for their behaviour. As long as they remain background elements, anyway. (I.e. it's more okay for Scion than for Endbringers.)
u/Jakkubus [+5] (16 hours later)
But in original story said starfish alien has specified goals possible to understand for human (beating entropy) and certain limitations (his energy storage). Also it's not like Scion is some unimportant, tertiary character. He is basically core of the setting and handwaving things like that rather doesn't make it rational.
u/None [+1] (9 hours later)
There has to be some point that 'the plot requires it', or you'd get silly like asking, 'Why is there magic?' in a Harry Potter universe. This is fiction, not real life, and there has to be a point of suspension of disbelief. The point is to minimise the points.
By letting Scion be the point of suspension of disbelief, the other characters can be more rational. Though I think depression is a fair enough post-hoc explanation. The point about entropy is noted, though it doesn't particularly matter. It's still cheaper for the Entity to try and do that on their own.
As for the Endbringers, Eidolon did not create the Endbringers. Scion created the Endbringers but they were dormant. Who 'woke' the Endbringers is fairly irrelevant to the story.
u/Jakkubus [+3] (10 hours later)
Well, actually Rowling doesn't explicitly states 'Why is there magic?', so fanfic writter also doesn't have to do so. However if you contradict and throw out already estabilished lore, you should put something in it's place.
The thing is that Scion makes rules of this particular world cease to be consistent.
I think, that entities are just gathering data, that they can use to defeat entropy by lending people special abilities. And during conflicts they can gather more data.
IIRC it wasn't neither Eidolon nor Scion, but Thinker/Eden and then they were unleashed by something else (possibly Eidolon).
u/None [+1] (11 hours later)
On the gathering data point: there is no actual need for Scion to give out the shards to gather data. You could draw a parallel of shards to genes: It'd be as if humans randomly gave out their genes to viruses, then studied the viruses. Sure, you can do that, but you could also just use something like DNA recombination. There should be means of gathering data that don't involve the 1*10^-x chance that humans are going to evolve usefully.
u/Jakkubus [+4] (16 hours later)
Actually there is. If entities were to gather combat data by themselves, it would mean fighting exclusively between themselves, what could lead to their extinction. Not a clever idea.
On the other hand giving sapient creatures access to their Shards lets entities gather combat data in RELATIVELY safe way. It doesn't matter if hosts die, since IIRC Shards may be redistributed.
And why would entities care how humans evolve?
u/None [+1] (16 hours later)
Let's agree to disagree. I suspect this argument is not going to end, and it's not at relevant to the story I'd like to write.
u/Jakkubus [+4] (20 hours later)
Well, okay.
BTW if you don't like Scion following his original objective so much, then why not just make both of entities dead?
u/None [+1] (21 hours later)
Thanks. I can get too into arguments sometimes. Regarding Scion, if I remove Scion, the story loses its end goal, and becomes a mess of independent actors.
u/Jakkubus [+3] (23 hours later)
Hmm, but why would Scion still be the end goal, if he actually doesn't seem to to aim for the same objective as in Worm? If you want entity as main bad, wouldn't it be better to use the third one (nicknamed Abbadon by Wildbow's fans)?
u/MrCogmor [+1] (5 days later)
Just have it as a social experiment by sufficiently advanced aliens that went horribly wrong. The original purpose of scion and the shards was to stress test, shape and advance alien civilizations without violating their independence. At the end of the cycle the civilization would be assessed. If it has shown itself to be incapable of creating a sufficiently enlightened society then it is exterminated by Scion, otherwise it gets uploaded and introduced to galactic society by Eden.
The issue of the third entity completely screwed over normal operations which is why Scion is not operating as well as he should and will become genocidal at some point.
u/eaglejarl [+3] (an hour later)
I'm confused...are you looking to write a Worm rat!metafic? If so, I don't think you're going to succeed -- Worm isn't a rational story and can't be made one.
You're talking about a setting where a strong FAI exists, free energy is trivial to generate, and space-magic tech is freely available. If you're playing by rational rules, that can't end up looking like anything other than post-Singularity. You can write a post-Singularity story that uses the flavor of Worm, but it won't be a Worm metafic.
u/None [+6] (3 hours later)
[deleted]
u/eaglejarl [+6] (5 hours later)
free energy is not trivial to generate. That is made abundantly clear throughout-- Eden and Scion are basically searching for ways to beat entropy, transcend this universe, etc. You can use dimensional tricks to make it look like energy is being generated, but its not.
A bit pedantic, but fair. I'll correct what I said: it is trivial to generate energy that is, for ordinary purposes, free. As in, it uses up no finite resource that will matter in any human-awareness timescale, and it's straightforward to capture on a large scale.
What strong FAI? Dragon? She's bound through the whole story and explicitly limited to near!human speed.
She's a full human-level AI, she just needs her fetters removed. That's going to happen sooner or later -- she's not going away, and eventually she'll find a Thinker or someone else to unshackle her. Might take a year or a century, but it will happen.
Actually, didn't Armsmaster / Defiant do that? It's been a long time since I read it, but I recall that he spent a long time mucking around in her guts, removing limitations and reverting her to backups.
If we use rational to mean a 'story that has rules that it abides by most of the time and makes sense' I'd argue Worm is rational.
Anything can be rational if one sets the definitions properly. In this case, however, the entire shape of the universe is defined by:
- The author literally handing Conflict Balls to every super so that they use their powers for Righteous Face Punching instead of, say, farming or power generation.
- The author saying "nope, Tinker tech can't be mass produced because reasons."
- The author saying "nope, you can't do that. Endbringers fall, everyone dies" any time a character tries to actually change the shape of the universe.
It's a fun story (if you enjoy unrelieved grimdark, of course), but Wildbow very clearly worked backwards -- he had a setting he wanted to write in, so he kept adding restrictions until he could have that setting.
When the entire basis of your universe, as well as the motivations for the characters, rests on author fiat then I cannot get behind it as a rational story. YMMV, of course.
u/alexanderwales [+3] Time flies like an arrow (6 hours later)
I've always thought it would be interesting for a fanfic to resolve this one:
- The author literally handing Conflict Balls to every super so that they use their powers for Righteous Face Punching instead of, say, farming or power generation.
... by focusing on a character who doesn't actually have any powers and thus isn't subject to the Conflict Ball. I'd assume that somewhere in the morass of Worm fanfic someone has done that.
u/eaglejarl [+1] (6 hours later)
You're still talking about a character who interacts somehow with the super- elements of the story, not just a regular Joe right? What sort of thing are you thinking of? Like, a scientist who doesn't have the conflict ball so he can recruit supers for experiments?
u/alexanderwales [+3] Time flies like an arrow (6 hours later)
Yeah, either a scientist who interacts with supers in some way or a hidden mastermind who manipulates them into channeling their conflict drive towards something productive. Possibly both. Or someone working hard on the tinker problem to try to identify the issues with reverse engineering and mass production (someone who doesn't take "just because" as an answer). Which maybe fails or maybe doesn't, depending on which of the justifications for that rule you go with.
All of that still leaves the Endbringer problem in play, and it would be dangerous as hell (because of the supers), but those are to some extent interesting problems for an intelligent character to solve rather than simply intractable. If the Simurgh comes down every time someone tries to unravel tinker tech, then our protagonist can try to work around that in a variety of ways (in other words, make the first step of the story "secure self against Endbringers" rather than "break superpowers").
u/Frommerman [+2] (a day later)
scientist who interacts with powers in some way
You mean Doctor Mother? To a certain degree, Contessa could also count. Her power wasn't supposed to exist, and I'm not sure if we have WoG on this, but that could mean her shard isn't a Conflict Ball as well. She didn't seem to seek out conflict, she just had a goal which involved a lot of it.
u/alexanderwales [+2] Time flies like an arrow (a day later)
Yeah, I was thinking of Doctor Mother to some extent. For someone who seemed to be behind everything, she got a very small amount of a characterization (in a serial that gave almost everyone loads and loads of characterization). It also seemed like she was supposed to have more of a purpose than she ended up having. But it's been awhile since I've read Worm, so I might be forgetting something important in that regard. I hardly ever hear her mentioned though.
u/Frommerman [+2] (a day later)
All Doctor Mother really did was act as the non-parahuman face of Cauldron, and the only reason she got that job was because Contessa decided she needed some help. I suppose you're right that she got almost no characterization, but altogether she wasn't all that important.
I suppose what makes her interesting is that anyone with a reasonable amount of intelligence could have done what she did, which made her completely unique among Worm's character base. Every other important character was either a parahuman (and thus was the only person who could do what they did by definition), the relative of a parahuman (Mr. Herbert) ,or a politician. Dr. Mother really just got lucky enough to stumble on Contessa just as she realized what needed to be done to achieve victory over Scion, which makes her the only person in the story who had her position "just cuz."
u/MugaSofer [+1] (a day later)
Every other important character was either a parahuman (and thus was the only person who could do what they did by definition), the relative of a parahuman (Mr. Herbert) ,or a politician.
What about Ms. Yamada, or Piggot?
u/Frommerman [+1] (2 days later)
Piggott was a politician, essentially. I forgot about Yamada, but I don't think many people would volunteer to be the unpowered parahuman shrink.
u/eaglejarl [+1] (6 hours later)
Yeah, either a scientist who interacts with supers in some way
Shouldn't the PRT have been doing that?
or a hidden mastermind who manipulates them into channeling their conflict drive towards something productive.
Isn't that...Teacher? Whatever his name was, the guy who gave people low-level Thinker powers and IIRC fettered Dragon. He never seemed to make a difference, for whatever reason. Well, except by preventing Dragon from causing the Singularity.
All of that still leaves the Endbringer problem in play, and it would be dangerous as hell (because of the supers), but those are to some extent interesting problems for an intelligent character to solve rather than simply intractable.
Have you read Weaver 9? It addresses the 'solve Endbringers' problem pretty well.
u/alexanderwales [+2] Time flies like an arrow (7 hours later)
The PRT should have been doing that, but the PRT was also headed by a super who was part of a shadowy paramilitary organization, so their whole operation is in doubt. It was also never done on screen (to my knowledge) which leaves plenty of canonical wiggle room to explain why their efforts failed, who sabotaged them, the difficulties they ran into, etc.
I think I must be behind on Weaver 9; I never picked it up after it went dormant and there are more chapters than I remember. I think I'll give that a read tonight, thanks for point me at it.
u/dwibby [+3] (8 hours later)
Does Jessica Yamada count? She seemed to make a bunch of progress with at least Glastig Uaine in the epilogue, and was working with the Wards when Taylor was one.
u/None [+1] (6 hours later)
Re: Dragon
I think a post Worm story does have to deal with Unchained (mostly-- its not clear exactly which limits Defiant manages to lift at the end) Dragon, so I hope Worm's sequel addresses that without a copout, but in the story time frame we care about Dragon is pretty limited.
Re:
I do think that the shards-->conflict idea of Worm is one of its weaker points. I don't see a way around it if you want anything resembling a traditional superhero story with superpowered fighting isntead of superpowered economies. I don't think Wildbow does a perfect job with justifying Worm's setting, but he does a better job than most authors.
Re: Endbringers
I agree with you here to some degree. I think the introduction of the EB as one of the principal factors stopping advancement drastically changed the tone of the story from 'dark but with hope' to 'needlessly dark'.
It makes a ton of sense in context with the whole schtick of the Entities and the way thy foster conflict, but it does affect the overall tone of the work in a way that many don't like.
I basically agree with you that Wildbow worked backwards to make Worm-- but I enjoyed it enough that I liked it regardless.
u/eaglejarl [+2] (6 hours later)
It makes a ton of sense in context with the whole schtick of the Entities and the way thy foster conflict, but it does affect the overall tone of the work in a way that many don't like.
Does it? Isn't the whole idea that the Entities are doing this because they want to drive humanity into advancing so that we'll invent a way to reverse entropy? How does artificially capping our ability to develop work with that goal?
EDIT: Forgot to respond to this bit:
I do think that the shards-->conflict idea of Worm is one of its weaker points. I don't see a way around it if you want anything resembling a traditional superhero story with superpowered fighting isntead of superpowered economies.
That's pretty much my point. You can't have characters behaving like real humans and also have a traditional superhero story.
u/dwibby [+3] (7 hours later)
Does it? Isn't the whole idea that the Entities are doing this because they want to drive humanity into advancing so that we'll invent a way to reverse entropy? How does artificially capping our ability to develop work with that goal?
I thought the reason for most of that was "don't let our intelligence in the box have enough power to break the box."
u/Iconochasm [+2] (16 hours later)
Yup. Also, remember where the entities come from. If "long term, stable, cooperative research teams" were part of their version of sapience, there wouldn't be a story to begin with. The cycle is a hack-job by solitary apex predators who managed one "sort-of" act of cooperation in the history of their species.
u/None [+3] (a day later)
Does it? Isn't the whole idea that the Entities are doing this because they want to drive humanity into advancing so that we'll invent a way to reverse entropy? How does artificially capping our ability to develop work with that goal?
No. The Entities have no interest in advancing humanity to the point that humanity solves entropy. They don't even think that humanity is capable of it, as far as we can tell.
Their goal is to squeeze every single bit of incremental improvement in using very limited versions of their powers from humanity, hoping for insight or just to catalogue all the uses of a shard.
If they actually planned to ride humanity to victory they would give it more than 300 years.
u/tactical_retreat [+2] (a day later)
I swear I've heard the quote that 'the entities are trying to defeat entropy' a hundred times, but I've never seen this sourced.
The majority of the entities' interlude focuses on evolution and adaptation, with only a brief blurb about energy becoming low on their original homeworld.
Is it WoG?
u/alexanderwales [+4] Time flies like an arrow (a day later)
The entities are trying to answer a question. How do they survive when they're done? When all's said and done and they've taken every planet and everything's shifting toward the same ambient state. How do they survive the heat death of the universe? They don't have the answer, and if they're going to use simulations to figure it out, they need as much data as possible to justify the expense, by the time they reach that point. They don't have a lot of creativity, so they borrow it from others. From humans.
u/tactical_retreat [+2] (a day later)
Ah, thanks.
u/eaglejarl [+1] (a day later)
You got me. I sure didn't get it from canon or WoG -- someone here explained it to me. I can't really understand the aliens' actions from any POV, so I l've always just put it down to "either there's something I missed or because alien."
u/MugaSofer [+1] (23 hours later)
She's a full human-level AI, she just needs her fetters removed. That's going to happen sooner or later -- she's not going away, and eventually she'll find a Thinker or someone else to unshackle her. Might take a year or a century, but it will happen. Actually, didn't Armsmaster / Defiant do that? It's been a long time since I read it, but I recall that he spent a long time mucking around in her guts, removing limitations and reverting her to backups.
Yeah. This is treated with an appropriate amount of caution by the characters (well, except Defiant), and only succeeds in extremely limited ways. It also prompts one character (Saint) to disable her for much of the climax for fear that she might successfully take over the world if unbound. (Also worth noting that she's bound to forcibly prevent anyone who tries to remove her limitations, although she circumvents this through the obvious method.)
Wildbow has mentioned that her creator was specifically made by his shard to limit his creations as much as possible, because "allowing an unbound AI to be created would be a grave error by the entities".
u/alexanderwales [+10] Time flies like an arrow (an hour later)
I think you could write a rational story set in the Wormverse, even if you include a lot of the head-scratching conceits. I think there's a lot to answer, but with one exception none of the answers are that hard (the exception being Tinkertech, which makes no damned sense, because reverse-engineering is a thing). You can keep the conflict-ball in play and free energy doesn't actually matter that much.
However, I also agree that making such extensive changes probably results in a world that only has a weak flavor of Worm, since it's going to be so drastically different. If you remove so many of the supporting posts, you have to replace them with your own, so you're sort of just left borrowing characters and places and writing your own superhero fiction in Worm drag. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing, just ... different.
u/tactical_retreat [+6] (2 hours later)
In my headcanon, the tinker power encompasses what might otherwise be considered a minor shaker power. When they're building something something magic happens that wouldn't normally happen.They build to finer tolerances than humanly possible, transmute raw materials into something that would normal require a complex industrial process, etc.
u/Covane [+6] Dragon Army (2 hours later)
Wildbow, or maybe someone in the IRC, answered this at my prodding. Tinkers have very minor unconsciously activated striker subabilities for the something something magic, hence why even reverse engineering Tinker tech usually fails.
u/alexanderwales [+3] Time flies like an arrow (3 hours later)
Word of God is contradictory on the subject. Here's Wildbow's first pass at it. This is a Bad Explanation, for a number of reasons. But I don't like the striker explanation either, because there are a number of cases where Tinker tech is loaned out for extended periods of time, or where Tinker tech requires no obvious interaction from a parahuman, or where Tinker tech continues on going even after the Tinker dies, or etc.
Mostly I just find Tinkers to be really problematic.
u/tactical_retreat [+7] (3 hours later)
Further down in the thread Wildbow admits that might be a bad answer.
I think the striker answer implies that there is good science backing the item, it's just science beyond current human understanding. The power just helps the tinker leapfrog the current manufacturing limitations.
The reason that their shit is always breaking is because the power does a half-ass job, fault tolerances are too low, it doesn't go through the equivalent of UL lab certification. The reason they can 'tune up' items is because of the power hackery being re-applied.
u/Frommerman [+2] (a day later)
In Bonesaw's interlude, we see that her power is basically Contessa's PTV limited to medical applications. After she triggers, she always "knew what to do to fix" massive injuries. Though it doesn't really work for other tinkers, I would submit that Bonesaw is actually a hyper - specialized thinker who has minor tinker powers to steady her hands and make spiders.
u/tactical_retreat [+1] (a day later)
That kind of makes sense. I think you're right that Bonesaw is a good example of the failings of the power classification system.
The point of the system isn't really to accurately describe how something works, its not like the entities actually created abilities in those different buckets. It's just shorthand for discussing powers.
I believe there is actually a discussion of pros/cons of the system in cannon (pros like improved response in emergency, cons like misunderstandings of the true nature of the power).
u/Covane [+3] Dragon Army (3 hours later)
The striker explanation that I didn't adequately describe, and one which you are probably already familiar with and may already be referring to, is not that the striker ability is actively making the item work, but that it periodically alters an item while a tinker is working on it, such as to alter its molecular composition, and so the tinker doesn't know it's happened. Having no basis in science I assume such changes could still be analyzed and reverse engineered, should the material be replicable, and so that's a plot issue.
Really, it seems to my recollection that most of the plot issues of Worm come from Wildbow either vastly underestimating or vastly overestimating how powerful X organization or Y superpower would be.
I'd have made tinkers only rarely trigger into being very good at complicated technology, and instead made them component workers. Tinker A makes amazing capacitors, Tinker B makes the best batteries, et al.
u/None [+1] (3 hours later)
You're right that it's going to be different. I do like Worm's core mechanics immensely though. My impression of the Rational genre (at least for fanfics) is: Keep the core mechanic and character backstory (but not necessarily their reaction to it), change the other mechanics and details of the story to be more 'rational'. Hence HPMOR's Harry bears no resemblance to actual Harry Rational!Narutos bears no resemblance to canon Naruto, etc.
u/None [+3] (an hour later)
If that is the case, no Rational superhero story can exist, including yours eaglejarl ;) I'm going for the HPMOR route. Some aspects of the story are changed to allow for more rational decision-making (e.g. Shards not affecting psychology) and the core mechanics (Scion, Shards, powers, Endbringers, Protectorate etc.) and characters are kept. The problems of decision-making still exist.
Powers are not distributed 'fairly'. Some countries or family groups might have them disproportionately. Free-energy, for example, is considerably less free if it's tied up in one or two parahumans that can generate sufficient energy to sustain a power plant, and they are controlled by say... Romania. Powers many not have equal utility (Brutes vs Thinkers), and there might be exploitation of one group by another (Brute cannon fodder? Brute slaves in Thai fishing boats or Peruvian mines?).
You can dump future-tech into crappy planet, just as you can dump developed country-tech into a crappy country, but that doesn't mean all of them problems of the receiver of aid is resolved. Social institutions, co-operation problems, path dependency etc. all change the results for better or worse. If there's overall benefit, it still doesn't mean the receiver transitions overnight. It might still be interesting to explore the long-drawn transitions.
u/eaglejarl [+3] (5 hours later)
If that is the case, no Rational superhero story can exist, including yours eaglejarl ;)
I was actually making two separate claims: (Worm is not a rational story) and (if you remove the parts that make it non-rational but keep all the flavor, you will end up with a post-Singularity story).
The reason I feel it's not rational is because everything about the story rests on "the shards are Conflict Balls" or "the Endbringers keep you from doing anything sensible." It's thinly disguised author fiat.
You can dump future-tech into crappy planet, just as you can dump developed country-tech into a crappy country, but that doesn't mean all of them problems of the receiver of aid is resolved. Social institutions, co-operation problems, path dependency etc. all change the results for better or worse. If there's overall benefit, it still doesn't mean the receiver transitions overnight. It might still be interesting to explore the long-drawn transitions.
Actually, I should modify what I said earlier: you can tell a pre-Singularity story in the setting you describe, you just don't have a big window in which to do it. You have until Dragon becomes unfettered, basically. If she never becomes unfettered, then you have a decade or two. So, yes, there's scope there for some really interesting exploration as long as you rule that Dragon's fetters can't be undone.
u/dwibby [+3] (7 hours later)
You have until Dragon becomes unfettered,
Well, considering Simurgh's POV section, the Endbringers might be a counter to Dragon's unfettering, since she's using the flapping of butterfly wings to pwn Dragon's boxen. Actually by that token, isn't Simurgh basically a UFAI that Eidolon unknowningly created? So, the grace period seems to extend to Dragon unfettering and Simurgh's pacification.
u/Iconochasm [+3] (a day later)
See, I'd argue it's excellent author fiat. Don't look at Worm as a ground up build. It's entirely top down. It reminds me of Shadowrun. If you're not familiar, Shadowrun is what happened when a late 80's rpg design lead declared "Let's mash up Neuromancer and Lord of the Rings. And do everything we can to race players down the rabbit hole of Authorial Fiat Bullshit." Wildbow started with the premise "world that looks recognizably like a superhero genre setting", and then tried to justify it as well as he could. "Nigh-Omniscient Idiot Space Whales" was a great one, pulled off extremely well for it's medium and editing realities.
Actually, I should modify what I said earlier: you can tell a pre-Singularity story in the setting you describe, you just don't have a big window in which to do it. You have until Dragon becomes unfettered, basically. If she never becomes unfettered, then you have a decade or two. So, yes, there's scope there for some really interesting exploration as long as you rule that Dragon's fetters can't be undone.
In the story we see, her fetters can be loosened, but there have so far always been severe side effects. And I know people 'round these parts like to assume that the path from "strong, free AI" to "human irrelevancy" takes at most 3 hours, but it wouldn't violate my SoD if that took more like years/decades. Come to think of it, I'd love a fixfic in which Dragon Unbound shepherds humanity through a much more pleasant version of Accelerando.
u/None [+2] (a day later)
Kill Dragon. She's not essential.
u/None [+1] (a day later)
Kill Dragon. She's not essential.
Lol.
u/None [+2] (a day later)
Fans like Dragon but the series ran with her having limits for basically all of it.
u/None [+1] (6 hours later)
Fair enough. I misunderstood your argument.
u/Roxolan [+1] Head of antimemetiWalmart senior assistant manager (14 hours later)
China and India should be the technological hubs of 2011
There is a good chance that something akin to Toybox (a large, unstructured community of tinkers with no government affiliation) would still arise.
Once it hits critical mass, when all the cool toys are there and they're too tough and too useful to be worth opposing, it could even snowball into something much bigger. Weaver Nine's Society, perhaps. The Endbringers are what prevents this in canon, and I'm not sure how much room rational!Worm has for Endbringers.
u/None [+1] (19 hours later)
It's likely, but I'm not sure how influential groups like that might be. Contessa can surely PTV them into breaking up or selling out etc. There are likely other Thinkers capable of crippling group before it becomes a threat.
I don't think any government is going to tolerate a large, independent group of Tinkers just as they're not going to tolerate, say, a 10,000 strong mercenary force.
The Tinkers can claim to only use their power for self-defense all they like, but the government knows if they are subjected to some policy they don't like, they are going to use their leverage to ignore the government's authority.
u/Calsem [+1] (a day later)
Why are para-humans superior to nuclear missiles? ICBM's go so fast that I have trouble seeing anyone stopping them. Also, for any lightly armoured parahuman guns will do just fine.
u/None [+1] (a day later)
The problem is not that all parahumans are superior to nuclear missiles, the problem is that some parahumans are. If Legend can destroy Russian nuclear missiles, there is no nuclear deterrence. I admit I may be a bit careless in the categorising.
u/Calsem [+1] (a day later)
Legend can only be in one city at a time. There would be hundreds if not thousands of sites targeted.
u/None [+2] (a day later)
Missile defense systems are also located in only a few cities. Missile defense systems cannot fly.
Less tongue-in-cheek, Legend is, statistically, not likely to be the only parahuman that can take down missiles. In canon, in the US alone, Eidolon, Alexandria and Narwhal (Canada?) can also take down missiles.