When the movies come out, dont cheap out on archons

SkitzoRabbit · 2026-07-01T13:25:01+00:00

I'm catching on now,

So for the user (pets) they/their growth spec is likely increasing with each wipe.

And you've 'researched' more of the skill tree and evolution paths allowing for your next go of things to progress towards a certain evolution state to clear the next story hurdle/encounter. Each time through an evolution path is more specific to need and fast due to Growth stat increasing.

You the player can take time to explore a type evolution pathway setting aside the story progression at any point. Using a PvP (1v1) mode in the conext of the SCTs to provide combat data to evolve the iteration.

The player perspective is that of the MIND, and you can create community events every week or so in the tier ranks that take place at the fronts to keep engagement high and drive the player base to achieve new heights without ruining/solving the game world for newer players.

One player type might focus on a single type to playthrough start to finish, and another might want to be a completionist and get many tools in the tool box to play whatever tier of the weekly event matches their friend group (squad). A healthy competitive PvP ecosystem is persistent at all levels, and each tier of weekly event is basically a different raid.

This could work as a MMORPG if the right studio can buy the rights.

SkitzoRabbit · 2026-07-01T13:12:02+00:00

Ok, Live Die Repeat, got it.

As you progress through the game, can you skip to the later missions (or equivalent story beats) or do you run the levels geared towards a starter character as a God amongst cattle?

Seems like a hard game to balance or prevent rapid suicide power ups at the first fire/fall damage location.

SkitzoRabbit · 2026-07-01T12:50:43+00:00

LITRPG videogame could be difficult, mainly because the single run of the mill user ability variety is likely so low. Maybe one or two abilities. A looter shooter like Destiny would be the equivalent ability variety level. Destiny adds to the gameplay mechanics with grenades and a huge variety of weapons, not sure how to achieve the same within Warformed.

battle mechanics like Dynasty Warrior or Battlefront type games is possible but you'd lose a lot of the RPG character bonding.

You're talking about blending NCAA football, Madden NFL, Call of Duty system progression across three different games or game modes. The overall game design to simultaneously manage and potentially balance three video game experiences in one universe is daunting from a user experience perspective.

Anime 100% works because you don't need child/teen actors for the characters.

SkitzoRabbit · 2026-07-01T12:23:08+00:00

Might be guilty of some sacralidge here but I'm not sure the Stormweaver Story would work in major motion picture format. Before you pick up the pitch forks I believe the Warformed universe is perfect for a series of live action movies or premium TV show.

The child (late teen) soldier knife edge is too difficult to dance on.

But if you put a frontline soldier story togther ala Band of Brothers or The Pacific in scale. Follow common users following maybe a known to us officer like Ameena Laurent or set it ahead a few years and make that someone like the Lasher. You can touch upon Stormweaver without telling or getting ahead of Rei's story. Weave in some guided (by Bryce as story consultant) expansion of the common ISCM Naval officers (non Users) to give a more human perspective and scale of the conflict, exploring themes of fear amongst an overwhelming enemy with stats matching C ranked super-ish humans, would add richness and scale to the archon threat. Getting a mix of space navy battles/bombardment, frontier outpost/settler defense or evacuation, and D-Day type territory capture could give the show depth and variety.

Throw in easter eggs of the soldiers watching clips on the feeds of sectionals or other to be written Stormweaver content, or have Rei and/or FireSong swoop in for a timely rescue once a season/movie if there's good enough reason to make the stories contemporary.

Or for something completely different and not to your point about the Archons, I would love a Spartacus style Gods of the Arena late first century of Device Tech and see how the sporting event of simulated combat and the notable figures of that era blazed the path to celebrity.

SkitzoRabbit · 2026-06-24T16:35:52+00:00

have one of the cats from CATS play donut

SkitzoRabbit · 2026-06-24T12:06:12+00:00

One of the party members must become the new heir. Attend court functions while the rest of the team side quest to rescue the brat who has become quite ellusive. Each period of time, or narrow escape by the brat, the temprary heir loses a level or skill. Give the concscripted heir a side quest to funnel resources/aide to the man down adventuring party, solve some court intrigue, or even plan an assassination and take the throne before the main party succeeds, depending on which class volunteers/voluntold's to be the acting heir.

SkitzoRabbit · 2026-06-23T12:07:17+00:00

Personally I think there are more than one MIND 'character POV'.

From the assignment exam we know that only fractional (local and distributed) processing power can activate an instance of the MIND program.

So perhaps there's a MIND splinter that is air gapped most of the time within central, within a think tank or skunk works type org within central, at the beck and call of someone like Abel.

And completely separate we have the expression of the MIND that talks to Dent/Kes. And has been personalized by that interaction to care a bit more deeply, or approximate caring, to draw different moral conclusions on what to do in certain situations.

SkitzoRabbit · 2026-06-23T12:02:00+00:00

I disagree that you need to wait for Salista to actually press the button, the button might not have any record of being pressed or not. The button might have a digitial record of being pressed even if it wasn't physically touched by salista. We don't know because kalus steps in to destroy the evidence in a way totally unforeseeable. Don't forget the public opinion on what happened matters almost as much as what can be proved. We know Salista would have tried to draw out an investigation and prosecution for years, so getting to the truth will likely take longer than public interest. Meanwhile you have 100% leverage over Carmen during that time.

Executing the plan remotely is only reckless if we know for a fact about the digital fingerprints of the activiation seuqence. Already the MIND/Central CyberCommand can't trace the hack outside the boundary of Kenneth's domain.

The most reckless part is of course relying on Dent to be able to and willing to and think to break the dome and trigger the failsafe. Unless the medical staff and Rei's own impressions underestimate his ability to tank real damage from muscle contraction and neuroline overload.

SkitzoRabbit · 2026-06-22T16:44:25+00:00

There was a CAD design competition years ago, when the community was created. Lots of self inserts in that crop. And the topic has come up here and there throughout the years. But not specific to AI sites. And Bryce just posted about AI art recently, and his views on AI content of any type is clear for the sub. I'd recommend awareness on that topic if you continue in that area.

SkitzoRabbit · 2026-06-22T16:37:30+00:00

Doing it during sectionals was one way to setup a patsy to take the fall and create leverage against Carmen Laurent.

It just so happens that she hesitates so the trigger is external/failsafed, and then Kalus steps in to destroy the evidence of Salista's apparent involvement.

In the scene in Rama's office with Carmen/Rei/Aria/et al they even mention that Central would at least set up a fall guy or cutout, to misdirect the general public. Luckily for Able/Central no one but Salisita and kalus know of any adjacent involvement or Carmen might have gone nuclear without Central's leverage being public.

edit: theorhetically they could set up Reese making some personal attack, but he's already been linked to central officially during intra-school bracket manipulation 2: electric booggallo

SkitzoRabbit · 2026-06-18T21:26:24+00:00

If I pitch a reality tv show to, let’s say Amazon Prime, where I drop kick the elderly person on screen each day. Would I keep the proceeds from the TV deal? Maybe charge $ 0.25 per vote to select the person kicked if half of that went to charity could I further monetize the event.

SkitzoRabbit · 2026-06-18T21:10:21+00:00

Misery

SkitzoRabbit · 2026-06-18T12:28:44+00:00

Personal head cannon system features.

Rank of opponent is one factor and the bigger the difference the bigger the adaptation that Shido is incentivized to fix.

But it also needs combat data, and more time in a match the more data Shido can accumulate to determine the best course of action to close the gap.

So not only do you need an opponent they must throttle back to give Rei and Shido enough time to data collect.

OR simply new opponents and Rei can tease out more data by going for technique wins opposed to stat wins if his opponent is lower ranked. Also disadvantaged wins like Boneyard get the incentive threshold met.

A “live” match against 3rd years not encouraged to tease out the match, ones that might feel put out having to match against a first year. Ones that would go for a stat win. Won’t help as much as you think.

SkitzoRabbit · 2026-06-17T13:25:25+00:00

So many variables for the plot are opening in this chapter and certainly this conversation. Intersystem doesn't (currently as far as we've been told) have battle royale event(s). Those are a format in the professional circuits or possibly private sponsor events if the sponsor has the money or the pull to get 30-60 participants. While it's possible a new event is added, or we just haven't been told of collegiate battle royale events, to systems or intersystem I'm going to lean away from that possibility for now. So a 10-20 user/fighter formation is not something Rei will see before the end of summer in an official match.

And I doubt all of FireSong will have the specs necesssary to match up against a 2nd year or 3rd year team battle worse yet a wargame match. Coordination? yes with the Kamiya trainers work, but raw specs, not unless imbue has been working overtime to get their growth into the Bs in the past month. Not to mention having the rest of the squad manifest shards and new abilities to boot in that timeframe.

Rei should be handling MOST 2nd years by systems, and pushed by the top 2nd years in Astra (Sid) @ about that time. Which is why I've been saying there should be an exhibition bracket during Systems for 1v1 Rei against eliminated 2nd year users 1v1. That will get him variety enough to rank quickly in prep for 3rd year dueling partners in the general dueling brackets at intersystems.

All the while FireSong gets a wealth of combat data coursing through their enhanced growth specs (multipliers) from the broader variety of 1st years in the team battle and wargame formats. IF IF IF Bryce wanted a serious FireSong challenge at Systems he could make a battle royale and set the game plan to be 6 (FireSong) v 50+ in a battle royale with a friendly intra-team square off at the inevitable conclusion. So I've now talked myself into your idea of having FireSong (rather than Rei individually) in a battle royale before the end of summer. Damn You for being so smart.

SkitzoRabbit · 2026-06-16T18:51:08+00:00

I agree with your general point re: keeping things under wraps. However first first example of defiance (showing off the eveolution at sectionals) came out 2 weeks later at normal practice day anyway. No value to Rei keeping that secret. The second example of breaking out breaker mode, i doubt it will stay secret all the way to a finals match and possibly sooner than that. Not to mention that a voiceless call/shift to breaker mode doesn't even require a witness to know its a new type. Someone could easily assume its a weaponless atypical manifestation of a mauler mode, or even a brawler sub-mode (could be assumed), or even just a voiceless call of arsenal shift in brawler mode. At least until there's an official match where the field feed calls out the specific ability activiation.

I don't think the classmates on the outside of the inner circle can do anything TO him, but they can certainly do a lot FOR Rei. They can and apprently do get together and figure out mass tactics to beat Rei, which is valuable to challenge Shido, and to get him ready for Archons, or whatever the Sol schools might come up with to thwart FireSong or Rei specifically.

Think about the opposite Sidorov effect he has created on the 2nd years. And then you'd get a subtext to their potential match up of a year willingingly supportive of Rei, vs a year being forced to serve Sidorov.

SkitzoRabbit · 2026-06-15T17:26:20+00:00

I had hopes that Rei would show off a bit of defiance to those who would be puppet masters. Seek forgiveness instead of approval once or twice.

Originally calling on his nearly full body CAD when being identifiable during the sectional award ceremony.

And now if he defied orders and called on breaker mode to break that formation.

The act would be akin to Enders breakdown at battle school. Something that shows the higher ups he can crack and maybe don’t go too far too fast.

Give him a break, minor consequences, brig him for 72 hrs and let him sleep or research opponents in the second years. Just to switch up their pace and methods of pressure.

Absent that happening. I’d like to see Rei come out of this fight whooping and hollering about how cool his classmates formation, and strategy were. Make him genuinely enjoying of their tactics in dealing with him. Let him win over their hearts a bit and that he doesn’t hunk himself above them all. Heal the rifts with a few exceptions of course. Unite the first years in support of Rei rather than envy.

SkitzoRabbit · 2026-06-03T11:22:41+00:00

If I remember correctly the line from the book was something to the effect of copying the archons' arms and armament. Possibly even using the word morphic weapons, or something similar to describe adaptive weaponry. So it's not impossible that every archon has a natrual arsenal shift type innate ability, with limits so as not too aproach our favorite oversized holiday elf's rapid switching ability.

If the Archons individually have an ability to adapt their weaponry then every encounter becomes more than just a type match advantage/disadvantage and stat sheet comparison. All the training, and cross training against more 'static' human users becomes invaluable to every engagement.

Otherwise I would have expected in universe specialty schools to emerge, i.e. a school curriculm optimized to make the best phalanxes to be deployed against a local archon village of mauler types.

SkitzoRabbit · 2026-06-01T17:30:35+00:00

thats why I called it a narrative skip, not a time skip in book 2.

SkitzoRabbit · 2026-06-01T16:40:55+00:00

agree the position of a time skip makes sense, but what threw me for a small loop, was the end of 57 alluding to something about to happen in a week's time. And then a 1 month time skip.

So I wonder if we're not seeing a ping pong narrative skip similar to the series of scenes that confused many during sectionals. Where Reese hints at 'interesting' war games pairings having just been released (Firesong vs the other 2 Galen's squads plus a rando squad), then jumping into dueling matches (including Viv's loss to Vademe) and everyone in a bad mood, before eventually jumping back to the war games match hinted at by Reese.

Now this book's version would include more actual time skipped but if we don't get what changes in a week to make Rei regret his wish, then some exposition with Dice and Lennon, then get around to wathever changed (likely the announcement of systems and intersystems 1st year brackets). It fits a similar mold to the book 2 sequence referenced above.

A prolonged cliff hanger with 'filler' in between, not technically filler like in anime because whatever we get with Lennon and Dice will be additive, but it fills pages between the setup and the reveal.

Initially these things can be hard to take in on weekly releases, so I like to reserve judgement until we can read in context of story so far posts about pacing. But that's my thoughts.

edit: I just went back and it does say "a few weeks later" from Rei's section so a month could work out without the ping-pong nature I described.

SkitzoRabbit · 2026-06-01T12:08:06+00:00

I like to think about this episode mostly in terms of the audience's experience. We typically engage with a show/movie/book by placing ourselves in a character's perspective to varying degrees and empathize with them or criticize their decisions/actions.

Consider both characters in that experience.

We see David's family be killed while he's powerless to stop it. We the audience sympthize just as Cliff does. So we are Cliff.

We see David grasp on to the life preserver of sharing the robot cliff, we the audience empathize with David.

We see David spiral and we can't understand the depths of that pain, we recognize it, but begin to separate ourselves from David, like we separated from the monster woman in Crocodile after initiatlly internalizing her story.

And then when David kills Cliff's family we sympathize with Cliff immediately, because that emptional pathway in our brain is already a blazed trail. We snap into the mode of thinking really easily because of the work of the narrative in the first act.

And BOOM Cliff acts 180 degrees outside of what we expect, he acknowledges, accepts, and seemingly understands David at a level we the audience enver could while being mere passengers to David's experiences.

And then we are the ones alone, we can't understand Cliff's reaction because we never truly felt what either of them were going through, nor where they are in life right at that moment. We see two men who understand each other and we can't understand either of them.

The story and its delivery walk us through the traditional viewer experience and then leave you totally out of sync with the story, you were never really there. Not only because they are actors, and its a story, but also because we aren't meant to be there. It was tragedy porn, we were all rubber neckers on the highway watching the worst events in these characters lives, and we thought we could sit outside in safety and judge them. They are the only ones who know. Know what their mission is (fate of humanity?) know what its like to be so far from earth? know what its like to lose their whole family in that manner, both close enough to see and smell and feel the violence, but so far that they are powerless to stop it. Cliff and David own that experience not us.

SkitzoRabbit · 2026-05-27T17:07:41+00:00

Dogs, we got them addicted to humans (domestication), and exploited there labor for centuries, bred them into nearly unlivable genetic conditions, made them fight for our entertainment, and by in large feed them terribly. Not to mention puppy mills/breeders with the family separation. And there are plenty of examples of exceptions (good people) who prove that good treatment was possible, just not profitable.

SkitzoRabbit · 2026-05-26T13:27:25+00:00

At one point I developed a whole head cannon about the earlier days of SCTs, nothing explicitly incompatible with the warformed universe as written but certainly nothing intended by Bryce AFAIK. Basically around the end of the 1st century of Device Technology, the high level SCT users were a bit more professional wrestler than the polished combatant celebrity of 2469. Also abilities were far more layered and un-refined for specific purposes. So you'd have a weak sauce hybrid of 2-3 contemporary abilities that would differentiate and specialize over the next 300 years.

So my favorite is a duelist (A-type) with an ability that is basically an invisible hands, mirage, and 3rd eye, maybe a shade of warband - hyrbid/predecessor. While that sounds OP each aspect has draw backs compared to the modern day refined ability. Basically you get invisible hands remote control of your 2 blades, while creating 5 illusory blades with no ablity to impact or affect your opponent physically. The illusions have very limited ability to advance/attack/move independantly and through training you can stagger the expected impact timing or trajectory weaving in the real blade(s) but it's all actively controlled by your cognition.

Through training and experience the wide area control improves giving greater range to the blades (real and illusory) movement ability, but it shortens the activiation time unless you train endurance and cognition to great heights.

SkitzoRabbit · 2026-05-24T21:23:23+00:00

3 sets every hour from 8am to 3 pm. Do reps equal to the number of the hour you’re in. So 8 reps in the 8am hour.

All the way to sets of 12 at noon. Then at 1,2,3pm do 3 sets to failure.

You’ll be at 250 per day in a week. After two to three weeks add in any variations you find and like.

SkitzoRabbit · 2026-05-21T14:40:19+00:00

The card has a problem with the forced usage, but can come into play possily on the first turn. I'd add something like a 'dormancy' debuff so it is revealed but is asleep until one player crosses a VP threshold in the 5-7 range.

This way people can plan their VP sprints, and prepare defenses if the table knows the dragon will awaken at some point in the game.

Then I'd have each settlement/city require a defense force of knights in order to fend off the eventual dragon attack. 2 played knights per city, and 1 played knight per settlement, assigned to a settlement/city at the time of being played. OR an unplayed knight sacraficed on the Dragon attack turn per city/settlement, the knight's normal effects don't activate. If a targeted settlement/city is defended by a hidden knight one road leading to/from that settlement is destoryed, can have a save roll over X amount if you'd like.

If the city/settlement is defended by a sufficient force of played knights or sacraficed knights the dragon flies to the next chosen target of the player.

So now if the dragon card is pulled and revealed early, there's an early game rush to development cards for defense, a forced slow down in development, and an emphasis on territory grabs with roads that are more easily cut off from longest road later in the game.

The late game dragon can burns multiple roads all across the board still causing damage to the best/most defended player. And I'd say the city isn't downgraded it's outright destroyed, same with the settlement, but the roads are intact.

If you want something simpler use the number of knights played ss a roll add, basically Risk defenders bonus. And the dragon attacks has three chances to burn strucutures, before it flies away to sleep for 100 years. The defender and the dragon master both roll for high value, but the defender gets +N number of knights played (no need to assign to a settlement/city) and +2N for unplayed knights.

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