#chapter 14.i2

[krixwell-liveblogs]

Arc Thoughts: Prey

In which everyone hunts everyone else.

There’s one big question Arc 14 of Worm has left me with: How do these Arcs just keep getting better?

I mean seriously, let’s look back at the progression in this Arc:

14.1: In which we got attempted mind games from Cherish and learned that someone among the Undertravelers (probably Trickster) has a potentially lethally upsetting secret. Only one of the weakest chapters in the Arc because the rest were so good.

14.2: Solid rescue operation of one of my favorite characters from Siberian.

14.3: Epic chase scene, and excellent Amy development.

14.4: In which Jemily Piggot is delightfully devious and Amy continues to be fantastic with her latest contribution of Atlas the giant beetle.

14.5: Taylor and Weld fighting together nearly seamlessly, big asshole kitty getting some much-needed attention, fantastic tension as the Undertravelers try to escape the blast zone, Taylor learns to fly... So much good stuff.

14.6: That Amy and Victoria scene was so good! Honorary mentions: Taylor’s tangent about eating bugs and Regent being beautifully on the ball.

14.7: Some pacing/tension issues drag this one down, but the descriptions of the Bakuda barrage was amazing.

14.8: AND THIS IS WHERE THE ARC WENT FROM GOOD TO FUCKING AMAZING. The miasma is one of the best concepts Bonesaw could drop on the city and I love it so damn much. Honorary mention: Sundancer’s spiel on being alone and the way it ties in beautifully with what was about to happen to her and everyone else.

14.9: AND THEN IT JUST GOT EVEN BETTER (even if I was being a bit of a dunce)

14.10: Really good dialogue between Jack and Amy as he tried to get her to betray her morals and join up, followed by a pretty good hallway knife/gun-- wait a minute. Jack. Literally brought a knife to a gun fight. Or was it Taylor who brought a gun to a knife fight?

14.11: Well that’s certainly a way to go about curing Rachel and Lisa! And then there’s Jack’s parting message and Cherish’s fate.

Interlude 14: Sierra Interlude? Don’t mind if I do! I had some trouble getting through the earlier parts of the Interlude but once Taylor showed up things got really good.

Interlude 14.5: LEGEND IS SO GOOD FOR KID WIN. Shame they’re probably not getting another chance to talk. ...oh yeah, and the Triumvirate are working with Cauldron despite two of them apparently knowing what’s up. That’s a pretty good curveball reveal. BUT KID WIN GUYS

In short, really fucking good Arc. Quite possibly the best one so far, even!

This was the climax to the Slaughterhouse Nine plotline (though Jack at least will likely become relevant again when we find out how he dooms the world), which has been going for 3.5 (or 5, depending where you count from) Arcs now, and I really think Wildbow nailed it. The miasma was a really amazing way to end this sequence, and I appreciate just how unwilling the Nine were to give in, how much they had to be whittled down before they left - it made it feel like this was an amazing accomplishment by the protagonists even though the core of Nine ultimately got away.

Even if Taylor doesn’t feel that way. Taylor is weird about acknowledging her accomplishments, though it all makes perfect sense with regards to her character.

The Arc title

Everyone was indeed Prey, except maybe the Protectorate. And even they were caught in the miasma.

The Undertravelers hunted Siberian, who hunted Amy. The PRT/Piggot hunted the Nine and the Undertravelers, and when parts of the Nine slipped away from the Protectorate, the Undertravelers took up that hunt (after being Crawler’s and the PRT’s prey at the same time), while Legend was hunting Siberian. And so it went on until the miasma struck and made everyone downtown the Nine’s prey in a sense (not that that’s much of a change from the norm), as well as feel like everyone else’s prey. Jack tried to prey on Amy’s insecurities. Then we had Taylor hunting the Nine again at the end, though they ultimately got away.

Sierra and Charlotte avoided the miasma and even they ended up as prey for the metaphorical ravens.

Prediction review

Rolling over all the way from Arc Thoughts: Infestation:

And, if someone attempts to kill Jack Slash, they will either fail, or do it too late.

Yeeah, nobody succeeded at that. Anyone who manages to do it later in the story will be too late according to Dinah. I’m going to consider this one proven correct.

And now for predictions from Arc Thoughts: Snare:

Due to an accident while writing the End of Interlude 13 post yesterday, I know the title, or original title if it has been changed, of Arc 14: Prey.

Who’s the prey, exactly? After hearing Piggot’s plan, I’m inclined to think it’s both the local villains and the Slaughterhouse Nine. The Nine are at the bottom of the parahuman food chain for a change, being hunted by the Undertravelers and the Protectorate, but the PRT is also hunting the Undertravelers and other local villains.

I suppose there’s still civilians under the Nine on the overall food chain, but the Nine have already been preying on them quite a lot, so that shouldn’t be enough for an Arc title.

…oh. Oh, right.

I was already going to predict that Siberian was going to be in the spotlight next Arc, because of the focus she got in Interlude 13. Of course that ties in with the title Prey. She’s probably the next tester, which means the nominees are going to be her prey.

That doesn’t invalidate the other interpretation, though. I’m inclined to think both are correct.

I think I was right here, except I was thinking too specifically. I later added that everyone’s prey, in the chapter thoughts of 14.1.

So is the next Arc going to give the spotlight to only Siberian, among the Nine? The Nine’s numbers have been reduced enough that Wildbow can do that now, especially if they continue being reduced.

No. At the time I was writing this, I still thought the plotline might go on for a bunch more Arcs.

I don’t think the Undertravelers are going to let up on their ongoing assault against the Nine, but Taylor might start being a tad more cautious thanks to Grue’s input. Maybe that’s what ends up saving them from the Protectorate’s explosive backstab?

I haven’t really seen her be that notably more cautious, really. And the thing that ended up saving them was Piggot tipping her hand while making sure they’d all go into the blast zone.

And finally, I think there’s a good chance we’ll finally learn what the Travelers’ deal is. Hell, if my theories on that are anywhere near right, that might even be another reason for the title.

Not yet, but we’re definitely building up to it, what with the massive secret and the Sundancer development. Roll over.

From a post made shortly after Arc Thoughts: Snare:

Oh yeah, one more prediction for Prey: I suspect one or more of the minor protagonists is/are going to die to Siberian, or at least get mauled. Maybe even one of the major protagonists. This would mirror the Case 01 video, perhaps even closely.

The Nine have actually been remarkably non-lethal to the named characters. They’ve slayed hundreds, maybe thousands of redshirts civilians, but only, what, five characters whose names we knew? Four of which were incredibly unsympathetic? Though some more may have died in the miasma.

Predictions for Arc 15 before reading the title

This is a hard one. There’s not much to go on as far as where the story is headed next.

It’s possible we’re about to learn more about the Travelers, but I doubt that’s the main plot. Likewise, I don’t think dealing with the Chosen is that big of a deal for Taylor at this point, especially since they’ve lost their leader.

It is also very possible that we’re heading into the second boss battle Arc, though it’d be a bit curious that no strong indication of that (except Eidolon mentioning that another Endbringer strike was due soon) appeared at the end of Prey like what happened at the end of Buzz. If we are heading into that territory next Arc or in Arc 16, I think we’re in for the Simurgh attacking Brockton Bay.

If she does, we might see some of the characters start to question why two Endbringers would attack the same location in a row like that, lending more credibility to Coil’s “Noelle draws Endbringers” theory.

I suppose it’s also entirely possible that the miasma was the boss battle of this section and we’re not getting attacked by all three Endbringers like I’ve been theorizing, in which case we’d be moving into an Interlude Arc.

But that’d feel kind of anticlimactic, even though Prey was a fantastic climax to the Slaughterhouse Nine plotline, and unless the chapters in the Interlude Arc were themed like the ones in Sentinel, it’d call into question why we had two Interludes in Prey. Though that can still be explained by thematics and threads, wanting Legend’s Interlude to be clearly tied to Prey.

So yeah, I’m not really sure what to expect. Let’s see if the Arc title gives me any ideas, shall we?

Predictions for Arc 14: Colony

Colony. That, to me, sounds like we’ll be focusing on the rebuilding of Taylor’s territory and its community for a while. Maybe all the territories, even, turning the city into the Undertravelers’ colony?

But that sounds like a really anticlimactic premise on its own. We may focus on that, but something needs to not go smoothly to make the Arc interesting. It needs more conflict than just “how do we fix up this building”. Dealing with the Chosen still doesn’t sound all that interesting after tangoing with the Nine.

I’m not saying I expect the upcoming Arc to be boring. I’m saying that if I’m right about what the title implies, I don’t really know how Wildbow is going to prevent that. I do trust that he will, though, in some way.

Perhaps the title is less literal. Maybe it’s about the cohesiveness and cooperation as the heavily hurt and fractured people of Brockton Bay band together to defend their colony, their home, against the Simurgh or another threat?

Or maybe it’s a colony in the sense of an additional area taken and controlled from afar? But I can’t imagine Taylor wants to take another piece of territory, away from her current one.

This next Arc is very hard to speculate on, jeez. In any case, I’m looking forward to starting on it and finding out what’s actually going on. See you soon!

[krixwell-liveblogs]

...fuckin’ tinkers.

[krixwell-liveblogs]

“That’s the best case scenario?” Alexandria asked.

It’s interesting that he seems to think a 51.4% population reduction is better than a 33% reduction. Maybe he’s accounting for overpopulation? (Someone get Thanos in here.)

The man shrugged.  “It’s unlikely it will occur.  The bare minimum of people would have to die, there couldn’t be any bodies, and there wouldn’t be anything left unattended that could cause uncontrolled fires or nuclear incidents.

Oh wait, I see what he means now. That best case scenario is what would happen after a third of the population dies to the apocalypse.

If I were to ballpark a number, talking about events that could kill one-third to nearly all of the world’s population, I’d say roughly seventy-two percent of the earth’s population are likely to die.  That leaves one billion, nine hundred and fifty million alive.

Damn.

Also, while I don’t think fast math is the full extent of his power, it does seem to be a part of it.

More than half of those individuals would die over the following twenty years, and more than half of those who remain would die in the ten years following that.  Keeping in mind these are estimates, of course.”

So then after thirty years we’re down to a quarter of 28%, i.e. 7%.

“Of course,” The Doctor said, “Precogs are unreliable.  I’m surmising this girl doesn’t know exactly how this occurs?”

I think I’ve got a better idea due to the kind of future vision I try to avoid.

[krixwell-liveblogs]

Those doubts had become quiet conviction after he’d gone to see Battery in the hospital.  One of Bonesaw’s mechanical spiders had cut her suit.  He knew exactly the kind of disorientation, hallucination and waves of paranoia she would have experienced as the gas took hold.

So he found out about Battery’s secret mission, did he?

While she reeled and tried to get a grip on reality, she’d likely left herself open for further attacks.  Whatever the case, one of the spiders had injected her with a poison Bonesaw had devised.

Uh oh.

Her death had been slow, painful and inevitable.

Fuck. RIP best Brockton Bay Protectorate member.

It had been engineered to strike those notes in a way that millions of years of evolution had yet to refine a plant’s toxin or an animal’s venom.  Lying in the hospital bed, still delirious, Battery had used halting sentences to tell him about Cauldon, about buying her powers, and about Cauldron asking her to help Siberian and Shatterbird escape.  She’d planned to pursue the Nine, to offer assistance and then kill one or both of the villains.

So she didn’t intend to go along with their mission, even if that meant Cauldron would come after her. Nice.

Battery had begged him for affirmation that she’d tried to do the right thing, that he would find the answers she didn’t.  He’d reassured her the best he could.

You did, Battery. You did.

[krixwell-liveblogs]

“And you don’t know anything about how William Manton is connected to all this?”

“I’m as mystified as you are.”

LIE.

Yeah, they definitely knew this one.

He knew what came next, with the conversation fresh in his memory.  He didn’t want to press the button again, but there was little choice.

“I’ve trained myself in kinesics.  I can look at a person’s face and body language and know if they’re lying.  And I can tell you the Doctor is telling the truth.”

The red text popped up as the last four and a half words appeared.  LIE.

Called it!

So why is Alexandria backing up the Doctor? Did she also get her powers from Cauldron, for that matter? Did they all?

Alexandria knew.  Of course she had.  Her ability to read people, her vast troves of knowledge, her ability to see patterns.  And she was the most willing of their group to take the hard, ugly road.  Had been since Siberian had hospitalized her.

Ouch. Before that, she was the one who seemed most reluctant to harm Siberian’s victim.

I can’t say this doesn’t also feel like a parallel to Taylor’s development, even if Taylor does surround herself with others that are more willing to take the hard, ugly road than herself.

Click.

His own voice.  “I’m sorry to accuse you.”

Hah. I was kind of thinking it too that I wasn’t sure he actually was sorry.

LIE.

Had he been lying?  He supposed he had.  He didn’t like the Doctor, and he hadn’t truly felt sorry for his suspicions.  Ever since he’d seen William Manton with the Slaughterhouse Nine, he’d harbored doubts about what was going on.

It’s the kind of lie almost everyone tells from time to time, just to be polite.

[krixwell-liveblogs]

So, is Legend the only good adult hero in Worm so far and do you think he is a better person than Taylor?

Battery was also pretty good.

I think Legend might be a slightly better person than Taylor, though Taylor herself would probably not agree with the “slightly”. I put a lot of stock on intentions, and Legend so far has only had pure intentions of wanting to make the world better with his presence and help people out. Meanwhile Taylor has had mostly good intentions but definitely had to make some shady decisions on her path.

Including the Decision - that was her deciding to go down a path of villainy for her own benefit (in the friendship department). The Decision was sympathetic and narratively satisfying, but I wouldn’t say it was morally good. But even so she did have some good intentions there too, what with Coil’s promises of a better Brockton Bay.

The “slightly” comes from our knowledge of the two. We know more about Taylor’s path, the decisions she’s had to make along the way, her intentions behind those decisions. Chances are Legend has had to make some of those himself, that we don’t know about yet, and maybe never will. So I think they probably come out as about even, short of some big secrets in Legend’s backstory.

Taylor, as mentioned, would probably disagree, because her philosophy is consequence-based. Failing to protect people, or causing unforeseen consequences that harm people, are morally bad in her eyes, and she’s done that a lot. I’m sure Legend too has had such days, but we don’t know about them yet, so it’d just be guesswork and extrapolation if I were to base this on that.

[krixwell-liveblogs]

Instead, Legend descended on the rooftop of the NYC Protectorate offices.  A tinker-made scanner verified who he was and opened the doors for him in time for him to walk through.

Yep. Protectorate HQ.

Is this where he finds out the Simurgh is swooping down towards Brockton Bay?

He nodded a greeting to everyone he passed.  When people asked him how things had gone, he offered them a response that was polite but short enough that it was clear he wasn’t looking for further conversation.

Relatable.

He reached his office and closed the door.

He was careful to start up a virtual operating system preloaded with the standard PRT databases and software.  Nothing that would leave a trace on his regular OS.

...alright. Secrecy required?

He unplugged the fiber-optic cables and disabled the wireless.

The precautions were little use if he was already being watched, but it made him feel better.

Who’s watching you? The PRT?

Once his computer was isolated from outside influences, he withdrew a USB cable from one drawer, plugging one end into the keyboard.  He reached up to one ear and withdrew an earbud.  The other end of the USB cable connected to it.

ASCII art of Kid Win’s face popped up as the earbud connected to the computer, along with the text, ‘thank you’.

Oh right, this part of the chapter’s plot. The thing he had Kid doing.

I love how cheeky Kid can be sometimes. :P

But also... he’s saying “thank you”, not “you’re welcome”. He took a moment to add this thanks for their conversation before saying he was done. Aww.

[krixwell-liveblogs]

We have heard about The Number Man before, in a context that might explain some influence if Legend know of that other job of his. From 6.8 when the Undersiders met Coil face to face for the first time, "And before I forget, I arranged individual accounts for each of you with a supervillain banker by the name of The Number Man, as paying for tonight’s job in bills, naturally, was unfeasible."

Oh! Yeah, it did seem vaguely familiar.

So this means Cauldron has (indirect?) ties to Coil and the Undersiders as well, even if the latter don’t know it. Interesting.

I suppose The Number Man - and by extension Cauldron, depending on how tightly he works with/for them - has the option of freezing the accounts of many supervillains at once if they feel the need to some day.

I also suppose The Number Man has a hand in making sure the payments to Cauldron aren’t trackable.