6.4 KiB
[Worm FF] Monster: "Effective Altruist" Taylor With Night's Power
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Author: u/4t0m Chaos Legion*
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URL: https://forums.sufficientvelocity.com/threads/monster.29235/
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Score: 2
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Created: 2016-06-16T13:11:26
Post:
Comments:
u/UltraRedSpectrum [+9] (5 hours later)
I've read chapter one and part of two, and I'm not getting much of a rational vibe to it, let alone anything to do with Effective Altruism. The protagonist is a superhero who fights bad guys, and the story thus far consists of one really, really long fight scene.
u/4t0m [+1] Chaos Legion (5 hours later)
Yeah that's fair. It starts en media res with a fight against Nilbog, which I'll absolutely grant doesn't demonstrate the most interesting facets of the story. Once you see more of Taylor's thought processes in daily life it does end up seeming rational-ish, imo. The "Effective Altruism" bit is that Taylor has a power in the story that is unsuited to normal heroics, and has thought explicitly about what she can do with her power to have the greatest positive impact on the world, the result being a list of S-Class threats she plans to assassinate. Predictably, her actions have consequences she doesn't predict.
u/UltraRedSpectrum [+8] (10 hours later)
Really, though, is the superheroic equivalent of EA really about fighting the most evil supervillains? That seems akin to deciding to curing the most painful diseases in cute puppies, rather than actually trying to get the most bang for your buck.
I don't really get how Night's power isn't suitable for a conventional superhero. Sure, she turns into a horrible monster, but since no one can actually see said monster, that doesn't really matter from a PR standpoint. Throw in a stage magician theme and you could practically do birthday parties.
u/chaosmosis [+1] and with strange aeons, even death may die (5 days later)
Cameras, clawmarks, trauma to the flesh.
u/4t0m [+1] Chaos Legion (10 hours later)
Well, no, the superheroic equivalent of EA is more like what your Taylor is doing in Fling A Light (though still not really), but this fic got a gold star from me for having Taylor actually think about what her advantages were and how they could best be used to make the world better, rather than just defaulting to joining the Wards or the undersiders or something. I'm not really sure there's a better thing to do with Night's powers than kill a bunch of evil people that nobody else can kill, but maybe there is something obvious that I'm missing.
I do think that readers would like this Taylor a bit more if they read a bit more than the first chapter, but it isn't your faults if the story doesn't grab you, and it this recommendation was generally pretty unsuccessful.
u/Gurkenglas [+6] (13 hours later)
that nobody else can kill
What she did to Spoiler sounds like something any decent stalker could have done with her luck budget.
u/PlaneOfInfiniteCats [+6] (8 hours later)
I sampled 1st chapter and part of the second.
There are hints of effective altruism, but not much.
Also, this Taylor is stupidly straightforward. One would think that utmost priority for a parahuman whose power stops working when she is seen would be ways to prevent being seen. The obvious idea is making a lot of smoke bombs, making suit out of them, igniting them all. If someone sees you, you turn into smoke-spewing teenager. As soon as smoke obscures you, you gain your powers back. Once smoke dissipates, you turn into smoke machine again. That's the idea I got by thinking about cheats for a minute. Taylor who lives this, whose life and death depends on it, would think of a hundred more cheats. She did not. I am disappointed.
Also, I feel compelled to ask the questions:Spoilers about ending of Worm
u/dysfunctionz [+2] (a day later)
To be fair, this Taylor probably doesn't have the budget for smoke bombs or flashbangs. Though the fact that she hasn't even been shown to have thought of them yet would put an upper limit on her rationality and/or out of the box thinking.
u/4t0m [+1] Chaos Legion (10 hours later)
This criticism is totally fair and one I have mentioned myself. That said, it doesn't really apply in this first battle, as Nilbog's creations don't revert her to her human form.
u/Nighzmarquls [+1] (2 days later)
I'm getting a distinct impression that this is actually more of a case of 'everyone but the protagonist' are actually pretty rationalist.
Taylor in this is seriously messed up by her power, but in a different way then she is in canon. Instead of the collected omniawareness of the insect control she is being more and more focused in depressive self loathing due to her dual form power.
I'd hazard this might be rational fiction but more because it could turn into a character learning to be more rational from a pretty low depressed and paranoid teenager on the internet baseline not rationlist to a more intelligence and rationalist teenager with super powers bad ass.
This remains to be seen however in the fiction so far.
u/4t0m [+2] Chaos Legion (2 days later)
Again I pretty much agree. Or at least, the world mostly makes sense. I don't think it's the problematic that Taylor isn't currently super rational. It seems like she's trying, that the author is aware of the mistakes she's making and that she'll be punished for them, and that she'll learn as the story goes on.
I guess I just like the story/concept/writing and am more willing to stick with it and give it a chance than most. It is clear though that it isn't a central example of rational fic.
u/Nighzmarquls [+1] (2 days later)
I do like me some monstrous protagonists and alien body forms myself. But that's not precisely the purpose of this reddit. Incidentally do you know a reddit that might be appropriate for that? because I totally need that in my life.
u/Liberticus [+2] (2 days later)
Incidentally do you know a reddit that might be appropriate for that? because I totally need that in my life.
You could create your own subreddit.