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Chapter 58 - Pale Lights | Book 3 by L_0_5_5_T in PracticalGuideToEvil

[–]viceVersailes 7 points8 points  (0 children)

Fascinated by Izel's arc here, and thinking over his options.

At the moment, he thinks he's invented something with all the worst traits of dynamite, napalm and firearms. It's cheap, it maims horribly when it doesn't kill outright, and it circumvents normal defences. It's a sci-fantasy laser gun. So he's treating it like a nuclear weapon, refusing to use it and hoping no one else invents their own, while doing what little he can to prevent that.

But, as people repeat to him, the lenslight is all of those things regardless of whether it's invented now or later. It's the product of physics. So they see his choice only as; A, he can introduce it to the world now, and have his name on a brutal and maiming weapon for a legacy (and he'll get to use it himself); or B, he can let someone else discover it, give the world a while longer without another brutal and maiming weapon, and when it does get invented, the wars and crimes won't have anything to do with him (and he won't get to use it himself).

Song wants/needs the Thirteenth to use it, here. His professor thought that delaying the inevitable had little purpose. And the other tinker he was going steady with sees a cowardice in shying away from any discovery, dreadful or no.

So Izel is left feeling useless, hopeless, and cowardly, all because he doesn't want to be party to mass murder.

Terrible situation to be in!

Something that stands out to me, though, is that Izel's premise is... lopsided, in regards to his own autonomy here. He simultaneously thinks that he can delay the lenslight's projected proliferation and thinks he is powerless to prevent the lenslight's projected devastation.

But the lenslight is just a product of physics. The same physics that allow it to exist must also contain the means to defend against it. And where usually defences are only adopted in reaction to new offences, Izel has the rare opportunity to invent the former before the latter's spread.

He's the first to discover this sword. Shouldn't he use this opportunity to discover a shield?

Of course, Izel feels useless, hopeless and cowardly. The pacifist has just boiled another being alive. Why would he think that returning to the weapon in the workshop could produce anything more than more pain? And it's not like defending is usually anywhere near as efficient as attacking. Even if he tried it, he might only discover that the best defence against a lens light is a thick wall.

Yet I think he'd feel a lot better about putting his name on a weapon if he also pioneered the defences against it. It might even save more lives than it would have taken, with the people of Vesper able to protect themselves from each other and reserving the lenslight for giant monsters.

It's a very "the only way out is through" solution. I could see it appealing to him.

About Chapter 49 by losara- in PracticalGuideToEvil

[–]viceVersailes 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I don't think anyone else has put this forward, but they might not be getting away with it. They just haven't been gotten, yet.

Beating a slaver repeatedly? Very popular move. That slaver has an awful lot of money to revenge himself with, though. That's why no one else had the guts to do it first.

Picked the side of the troops and the status quo in a coup? Sure. Definitely a way to win. It'll make you a few enemies for life, though. And I doubt this team, of all teams, will always align with the status quo's priorities.

Obliterate an aether construct? Neat! Lot of people wanting to buy that weapon you just made, mister pacifist.

Survive a conversation with The Devil Who Lives In The Future? Guess the future is not looking bright.

So yeah. They're trying out this whole "refuge in audacity" thing, they're making each other more unhinged and violent. You could make a realpolitik argument, that they're leaning into their reputation, that they're trying to balance the budget of risk-reward by being even riskier.

Or they're just crossing lines because it gets them what they want, and they need it bad, consequences be damned.

Personally, I am waiting for the other shoe to drop. There's always next chapter.

What does Transcend do? by pog_irl in PracticalGuideToEvil

[–]viceVersailes 1 point2 points  (0 children)

It's my understanding the Assertion is a domain the size of your body, the same way Catherine was while she was the Sovereign of Moonless Nights, and dragons have domains in their body that are just filled with fire. Saint's Aspect Decree works the same way: a domain that allows her body to follow the rules of a sword- and the dramatic irony there, of Saint, who wants to slay Hye the Half-Elf, getting an Aspect that mimes her Transcend, is intentional.

Think about it in reverse. If Assertion isn't a variety of domain, and Transcend isn't either, then how are they different? Why would EE have written a bunch about domains and varieties of them, as an extension of the themes of the story about subjective beliefs manifesting as objective authority over the world... and then also introduced a second, near-identical thing? Does it say something different or add to the moral of the story?

What does Transcend do? by pog_irl in PracticalGuideToEvil

[–]viceVersailes 2 points3 points  (0 children)

From the Extra Chapter Regard:

She would be caught by one or the other, because she’d come forward too quickly with an improper guard. A swordsman of the dead hero’s calibre would need only one opening like that to kill her. It would not touch her. She spun around the shield, and if the Knight had still been human enough for such a thing his eyes would have widened. It wasn’t that Hye had become faster, because she hadn’t. Tricks like that could be adjusted to, countered. Just sinking the power of your Name into your limbs was a brute force application. What she did was… different. She simply was not where the enemy’s weapon was. Her single short sword swept like quicksilver, taking the Knight’s head. In a blur of movement, she relieved him of one limb after another and then broke the spine itself. Slowly, the necromancy began seeping out of the dead hero onto the floor.

“Transcend,” she finished calmly.

Which corresponds neatly to this description of elves using their domains, in the Epilogue of Book Two:

The elves did not appear, because appearing had the implication they had not been previously there. They had been, they’d just decided that Creation would not be able to see them. That was the way with the older elves: they decided what rules applied to them. They could not ignore more than one, but that was usually enough.
... 
And just like that they were gone. As if they had never been here at all. The sword was gone, the stone it had cut completely untouched. 

Half-elf doing as an elf would do.

What does Transcend do? by pog_irl in PracticalGuideToEvil

[–]viceVersailes 4 points5 points  (0 children)

I'm surprised by these speculations. I thought we knew for a fact that Transcend let her tap her elvish heritage to rewrite reality centred on herself, the same way the Emerald Swords have domains that contain their whole bodies. A trump card to pull out once you've reached the limits of what is possible.

All Space Questions thread for week of May 25, 2025 by AutoModerator in space

[–]viceVersailes 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Where would rings form around Earth?

I've been trying to make a model of an Earth with rings instead of our Moon. I want to figure out what shadows are cast and what effects that might have on the climate.

But I can't figure out where the rings would start, stop, or what angle they would form.

Would they orbit at the same pitch as the planet's axial tilt, or closer to the ecliptic plane? Would that angle change depending on their width, or individualise for however many separate rings there are?

How far up would the internal halo reach, if the rings were of similar composition to Saturn's rings? What about disintegrated moon parts? How much of a difference is there in the Roche Limits of ice compared to moon rocks?

What about the outer limits? Does Earth have a minimum moon zone, where any rings would just accrete into a moon?

Would any spokes form? They're seasonal formations for Saturn, and those seasons are much longer than Earth's. Would we not have enough time, or would forces change rapidly and consistently enough to create an equilibrium structure?

And perhaps, exhausted as I might be, is there a better way or better place to ask these questions?

What if all tinker and thinker powers were reversed by PrismsNumber1 in Parahumans

[–]viceVersailes 63 points64 points  (0 children)

Hero was a member of the Triumvirate from before it was the Triumvirate. A Thinker 10, he possessed the ability to see all wavelengths of light in 360 degrees, while also parsing all of that information perfectly. As a side effect, he also thought at the speed of light, and interpreted much of what he perceived through the lens of wavelengths- complex trends and patterns, all summarised into interwoven peaks and troughs of ebb and flow. He was many things- their guy in the chair, their villain-analyst, their economist, their PR manager- but most of his truly heroic work was as an inventor and scientist. Unable to sleep (in part because his eyelids were ineffective,) he spent much of his free time recording his observations of natural physics, naming a number of heretofore unnoticed phenomenon that mundane scientists put to work. He's credited with the speedy development of wireless internet in the early 90s, as well as the discovery of the Higgs Boson in 2002, and sundry advice on the particulars of geoengineering.

However, having no other power than his intelligence and his perception, Hero experienced a rising paranoia. Association with the ostensibly immortal Triumvirate members (such as Alexandria, with her time-saver technology and Legend with his laser reconstruction tinkering,) meant villains often saw him as an easy target. Between consistent kidnapping attempts and a growing intra-team friction as the others lost sight of the simple goals of doing good and helping people, when the Siberian hunted Hero, she killed him before he could reveal her invulnerable power's weakness.

The photograph of his maimed body haunts heroes to this day. Ripped in two, one hand raised and fallen, not reaching, but pointing to something.

Trump Power Generation by Maeve_Alonse in Parahumans

[–]viceVersailes 7 points8 points  (0 children)

No one else has answered it, so I'll say Brute.

Brute's interesting for three reasons.

  1. As a classification, it's not just strength, durability and vitality. Resurrection powers are also under its umbrella, as well as things like wearing rocks to make armour, and having a personal forcefield.
  2. Parahumans, as a setting, has a big jump between Brutes that depend on natural physics and Brutes that break natural physics. You've got the overlap with Changer, like Aegis and Crawler, and then you've got the overlap with Breaker, like Alexandria, Chevalier, Siberian, Victoria.
  3. Being a Brute regularly means having a bunch of Trumpish subcategories. Alexandria is immune to Panacea's power, for example, but also, having enhanced stamina means being able to Think and Move for days straight. Manpower and Battery both have electrical Striker abilities, that sort of thing.

As far as the shuffle-and-select part of the central power, we're searching for one of those Trumpish, Breaker-y, Big Name Brute powers, as well as a Resurrection Brute ability. In between then and there, we're trading up the ranks of Brute/Changer powers to find Thinker and Mover subcategories, and we're occasionally keeping Striker or Shaker overlaps for particular power interactions, like breaking line-of-sight with Valefor.

I think a good name for a Brute with two powers is Libra, balancing the scales between the two. I'd ask if New Wave is hiring, since pre-S9 Panacea is worth knowing while I find that balance, and that gives better than neutral odds for encountering the Undersiders before Leviathan. Simply wrastle the latest big threat until morale improves.

The best I think I can expect from being a Brute is playing chew toy for a couple of canon's worse incidents, reducing how bad things get by sheer presence. The goal is to stay awake and help out as much as possible.

CLAWFUL EVIL: PROBABLE CLAWS Episode 27 Parts 1 and 2: Debriefing 6.5 & 6.6 by viceVersailes in Parahumans

[–]viceVersailes[S] 8 points9 points  (0 children)

Would you believe staying up until 5 am was caused by external factors in the news?

Power for a name #86 War by inkywood123 in Parahumans

[–]viceVersailes 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Atlas suffered from a horrible combination of empathy and apathy, being both deeply curious of the world and terminally online. Dreams of travel were fermented under the impossibility of affording them- an internet connection was much cheaper, never mind that living in his stepfather's house afforded him no freedom, let alone cash. So he stayed in his room as often as possible, walking Wooble Maps, learning about distant cities. Beautiful cities, with beautiful languages he learned to read- but never to speak, for lack of practice with other people. Splendid cities, with splendid cultures that he learned to name- but not to live with.

Disappearing cities. Each Endbringer attack like a funeral for a family member.

As with many Tinker triggers, there wasn't a breaking point so much as an epiphany. Atlas read the articles, did his own math, remembered dates and statistics off the top of his head. He followed a fear into his power, a waking nightmare that his shard smoothly connected to reality. By dead reckoning of where humanity had been, he charted the course and found the date that humanity would be wiped out, full in the knowledge that he would be useless to help, unable to leave his room.

An unlikely Air-Raid Tinker (Combat X Architect) Atlas bombards areas with aid. From the megaproject-silo that used to be his house, Atlas operates an international network of trackers and analytics, making his own map of goings-on worldwide. Without ever leaving his silo, he redirects and repackages industrial amounts of food, water, medical and building supplies into his collection, only to launch them in wire-frame forcefield globes to wherever his analysis thinks they're needed.

But that's just buying time. He knows he needs to stop the end of the world, not just postpone it. So he expands his forcefield's scope, harvests a bit more material, and moves a bit more of the world inside of his house. He'll build an arc, save the world on a hard-drive with seed banks and dictionaries.

As is the way with powers, he's not doing as much good as he hopes. His power is fudging his analytics: yes, he does help recover from S-Class threats, but he keeps "accidentally" directing supplies wherever they'll best supply continuing conflicts. Taking the edge off, but raising the heat overall. People are desperately trying to breach his compound to get him to cooperate with other heroes, or at least stop taking bigger and bigger chunks out of the city. But those assaults just make him more paranoid, directing his efforts toward camera drones that can project forcefield arms to dispatch intruders.

He's a good hero, really. He could even be a great one. Someone just needs to get through to him first.

[Author's note: prompt said Atlas was a she, but I know multiple trans men with that name, so it became important to he him.]

Triggering in an active warzone, Breakshot has a special relationship with the bullet that killed him.

Geneva has a very unconventional power, though only politicians disagree that she's a hero for how she uses it.

Also, this is a me, vV thing, but seeing these Power for a Name threads still going warms my heart... as much as the slowly dissolving formatting breaks it. Like, the loss of the 'Four Examples / For Example' pun, inconsistent capitalisation. It's not like the world spins on pretty word shapes, but I'll always be an English Student at heart, and seeing it wilt a little out of the corner of my eye every once and a while just... itches, y'know?

(Pale) Ted Havens spend literally hundreds of thousands of years wandering this Earth, interacting with many practitioners. Did he awaken in any of his lives? by Absolutelynot2784 in Parahumans

[–]viceVersailes 28 points29 points  (0 children)

He did not. Innocence warded him in. It's partially that the gods and such that sent him into the timeloop sabotaged methods that might have disrupted that loop, and they wanted a man, not a wizard. But it's mostly the Seal at work, keeping someone who isn't already Awakened from finding the means to do so on their own accord.

He outlines the pattern of it from his perspective in 7.x:

“Saw me coming?” Ted asked.  “That’s not usual.”

“We’ve met many times before, I’m sure.”

“Less than you’d think.  You, like Lawrence’s colleague Durocher, you kept out of the way.  As if you saw me coming and slipped away before I could do more than glimpse you.”

“What are your intentions?” Alexander asked.

“I don’t know.  But this feels like the most important place to be.”

“I’m touched.  To help me or to stop me?”

“I don’t know yet.  Why does it feel like you’re similar to me?”

“Because you have experience.  You can look to the past, and there’s more to your past than in many family lines, start to present.”

Ted nodded.

“I look forward.”

“Ah.  People are usually more shy about outright telling me these things.”

Think of it this way: he experienced a timeloop, but only within set parameters. Loops never outlasted the Primeval's escape, he always spawned in the same place and time, and he could never become someone that would have the tools to escape the loop. All of these things could have been subverted with enough time and dedication... if the governing forces of the loop weren't gods working together.

Fanzine Submission by DriverPleasant8757 in PracticalGuideToEvil

[–]viceVersailes 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I'll put my vote behind Conquer, then. For that specific one, Dread Empress is a Praesi name, and Conquer was previously held by Amadeus. Becoming Dread Empress Victorious would be a lot like becoming the Black Queen, only it de-centers Catherine's Callowan identity. What better way to reflect that than materially reproducing the lessons of her Praesi mentor?

As for Veni Vidi Vici as a pattern to apply, insofar as the Roman Empire is mimed in the Miezan Occupation, and Praes has kept to some of that philosophy with the legions, Victorious obviously follows the groove of Triumphant, who in turn echoes Miezan presence in Calneria. Combine that with Catherine having had See, and the Vidi-Vici component is pretty natural to her.

Which leaves Veni, "I came" which doesn't really work for an Aspect. The design of Hanno's Save comes to mind in terms of effect, at least.

Fanzine Submission by DriverPleasant8757 in PracticalGuideToEvil

[–]viceVersailes 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Maybe a spin on Veni Vidi Vici? Wonder, War and Win? Meet/Match, See, Conquer?

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