Honestly we did not get much about Docmom, which is a real shame because if you think about it, beyond unbound shards and the machinations of celestial beings, she is a normal who killed a god. I wanna see more of that; like, the dress she was wearing kinda implies to me that she was out partying, then the sky tore open, she climbed through the hole (probably while drunk) and then chose violence for thirty years.
>she was out partying, then the sky tore open, she climbed through the hole (probably while drunk) and then chose violence for thirty years.
Life goals
Doctor Mother is a hard character to read because she relies on Contessa whose shard can tell them how to manipulate people. She is good at lying and manipulation, e.g.:
[Alexandria's interlude in Arc 15 when Doctor Mother tells her that they need to keep the Siberian active because "people will be flocking to join the Protectorate"]
> The Doctor’s eyebrows were raised in uncharacteristic surprise.
> If Alexandria saw a hint of falsehood in the Doctor’s body language, she convinced herself it was the strain of one eye compensating for the job she’d used to perform with two.
[Eidolon's interlude in Arc 27]
> [Eidolon:] "I was content to be second place in the Protectorate, because it’s what you needed.”
> [Doctor Mother:] “What Alexandria needed.”
> Eidolon shook his head. “Let’s not pretend.”
> The Doctor paused, then nodded slowly. “Fair enough.”
which is impressive because both Alexandria and Eidolon had Thinker powers. However, it's not clear whether it's a native skill or whether it's the PtV shard at play. My guess is that she was good at it even without PtV's help because she remained unflappable during the final confrontation at the Cauldron base.
That's a good point. I'd forgotten that she's apparently capable of manipulating multiple Thinkers.
I do wonder whether she's had Contessa run a "Path to maximising Doctor Mother's utility to Cauldron". It feels like an obvious thing to do - Get a list of teachers, trainers and resources that will help increase her knowledge, develop the skills she needs to run Cauldron, and just generally perfect her. She'd had 30+ years to do it by the time of canon.
You probably don't want to learn directly from Contessa (her time's too valuable, if nothing else) but putting together a lesson plan would take only so long as it took to write down.
The problem with the PtV shard is that it's an enormously powerful tool -- especially when used by a host who controls abnormally strong Eden-derived powers -- but its answers are only as good as the questions that you ask. If you don't have the background to ask the right questions, it's more like [the monkey's paw](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Monkey%27s_Paw).
Obviously, Contessa asked the PtV shard a lot of questions over the course of 30+ years and she probably got better at phrasing them and avoiding unintended side effects, but we don't know the specifics. Certain things that we see Cauldron do in the canon look like they could be useless or counterproductive -- the BB experiment, the Nemesis program, etc -- but without knowing the questions that Contessa asked the shard, there is no way to be sure.
The BB experiment by itself cost Cauldron nothing and would have potentially provided useful information for rebuilding the world Post-GM.
The Nemesis program gets overstate, there are barely three digits of C53's on Bet as it is so it can't have been two prevalent.
Also we have no reason to believe PtV was Monkey's Pawing Contessa.
I outlined the problems with the BB experiment [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/WormFanfic/comments/l4fktc/literal_parahuman_feudalism/gkoeas5/).
Re: the Nemesis program, we have the following scene in Alexandria's interlude:
> Thirty cells, filled with subjects. **Thirty-one now**. The cells didn’t appear to have doors, but the individuals within were all too aware of the dangers of stepping beyond the perimeters of their cells, or of trying to harass Alexandria as she strode by.
> Only two-thirds of them were monstrous, affected by the formulas. Others would go free with alterations to their memories. **Some would have fatal weaknesses inserted into their psyches, reason to hesitate at a crucial moment against a certain foe.**
So we are looking at "some" subjects out of a sample size of 31 or at least 5-10%.
However, the numbers are not the issue. The issue is the usefulness of the program. Sure, Cauldron can stage fights, which will likely make their clients look good and facilitate their careers in the cape organizations of their choice. However, that's just asking the [Peter Principle](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_principle) to rear its ugly head and bite their clients in the butt when they get promoted beyond their "level of incompetence". Perhaps the PtV shard had an answer to that, but it's also possible that Cauldron didn't think through the ramifications of what they asked the PtV shard to do.
Also the obvious one: precog isn't perfect - if it was the cycle wouldn't be needed.
How to beat her in a fight: attach a quantum random number generator to the triggers of some guns, give the guns to some people, tell them to point them at her.
Even if it was unpredictable, it not would be a weakness. At least not at the escale humans work.
Oh, youre gonna use a quantum flip coin in order to decide what to do? Well, Sam made arrangements for both outputs years ago.
That's with a single quantum decision. Not a system that generates hundreds of interactions a day that a government or even individuals could use to make or assist with decisions that need to be accounted for.
Even just used in combat to delay an attack occasionally, it would be noticeable as they could see "she tried to block that attack just there but the quantum timer told me to hold and she blocked the actual attack too" would allow them to flood her defenses with potential attacks.
Well i agree. The thing is, im fairly sure shards are very capable of abstract thinking. Oh, you are a unpredictable in combat? Well ill just blow up the room thank you. I mean, you might be able to be random, but you are still human. Randomness dont evade well aimed bullets.
Oh, you are doing random decision making? Well, you still working towards a target that you want to achieve, so i'll make a path to blow up that instead, metaphorically or literally.
No, to her they're fundamentally unpredictable. PtV *knows its own blindspots*.
(Assuming of course that quantum randomness is actually a blindspot to PtV, which is far from guaranteed)
no, they aren’t lol?
first off her power wouldn’t even be affected like this and even if it was she would still be aware the guns are dangerous and wouldn’t be by
man you don’t know anything. You are aware powers can straight up see the future if need be and there’s no indication either way if ptv is calculating or just ripping the future right?
There's no indication either in text or in WoG that the Wormverse is deterministic.
That's just a common assumption used to explain how the "simulation" portion of Worm precognition (and yes, precog is both future sight and simulation, the idea that it's only simulation is also fanon) can have an essentially perfectly track record on-screen.
If you know the exact position and movements of particles you can with 100% accuracy predict the future. However this is impossible due to quantum randomness in our universe. The entities of worm either don't have to deal with it or have a way around it. Worm precognition is using a glimpse of the future and then filling in the blanks using this method. Considering that ptv and other precognition powers can actually compute this in worm quantum randomness doesn't exist
>He started building a quantum random number generator, because that was definitely a thing he knew how to do.
It's called a geiger counter, it's not hard to buy one off the shelf.
>However, he did not get very far in his construction before he was tapped on the shoulder. He turned around, it was a gun. He looked past the gun, it was Contessa. "Hm," she said.
PtV can't deal with randomness, to her it would look like any stick attached to a rock.
I guess a path of "how to avoid being shot by a gun using quantum uncertainty" is one that Contessa runs more often than a path "How to avoid crashing into a planet?" was run by an entity preparing to crash into a planet.
There are thousands of people out to get her every day, the path prioritizes the ones that are a threat according to it.
>(even supposing that the entities can't account for quantum phenomena...which...they...obviously can???)
If they could then they would realize that the easiest way to beat entropy is to hibernate until a new multiverse pops into existence.
It's not perfect, just exceedingly good. Scion noted that predicting the entire cycle could still have mistakes, rendering the gathered data useless and turning the massive computation into a catastrophic setback.
Considering that Doctor Mother and Fortuna have been a team since the beginning, and Fortuna was rather young at the start, I don't think it's unreasonable that she saw Doctor "Mother" as a somewhat maternal figure and I could totally see PTV used as a training tool along with boosting her directly. Contessa clearly likes her, and paths like "Path to making Doctor Mother confuse Thinkers" or "Path to making Doctor Mother intimidate Alexandria and Eidolon" wouldn't be surprising.
In fact, using PTV to train people or find people is probably one of it's most underutilized (at least in canon) abilities that's quite powerful. Sure, you'd need to word the path very carefully to avoid accidentally psychologically scarring those affected, but something like "Path to making Field Agent XYZ fluent in French, Mandarin, and Russian as fast as possible" is enormously powerful.
> which is impressive because both Alexandria and Eidolon had Thinker powers.
But less impressive in that both Alexandria and Eidolon seem rather unintelligent outside of those powers.
It's not like we see her manipulating someone who is otherwise shown to be a sharp thinker, she manipulates Mr. "I never thought to ask my power how to restore itself" and Ms. "Letting Hero's killer run free will definitely make people think we're capable of protecting them".
We're told that Alexandria's intelligent, and certainly she's *knowledgeable*, but with the myriad blatant flaws in the PRT she doesn't exactly come across as a thinker, just a Thinker.
> Ms. "Letting Hero's killer run free will definitely make people think we're capable of protecting them".
That was Doctor Mother's suggestion, not Alexandria's, and Alexandria actually specifically objected to the idea. Per 15.z:
> “The sample he took, F-one-six-one-one, it tends to give _projection_ powers. I suspect his real body is unchanged. But I’m wondering if we shouldn’t leave him be.”
> Alexandria stared at the doctor, wide-eyed. “_Why_?”
> “So long as he’s active, people will be flocking to join the Protectorate-”
> Alexandria slammed her hand on the stainless steel table beside her cot.
> Silence rang between them in the wake of the destruction.
> “I will _not_ condone the loss of life for your ulterior motives. I will not let monsters walk free, to profit from the fear they spread.”
> “You’re right,” the Doctor said. “I… must be more shaken by Manton’s betrayal than I’d thought. Forget I said anything.”
> If Alexandria saw a hint of falsehood in the Doctor’s body language, she convinced herself it was the strain of one eye compensating for the job she’d used to perform with two.
Of course, exactly _why_ the two of them appeared to immediately forget that conversation in 2000 and go on letting Manton do his thing for the next 11 years _despite_ Alexandria's objections is a completely separate question.
> It's not like we see her manipulating someone who is otherwise shown to be a sharp thinker, she manipulates Mr. "I never thought to ask my power how to restore itself"
What gives you the impression that his power is capable of that, or that he never thought to ask it in the years his power was declining? What is more likely, that asking one simple question would solve the problem, but Eidolon and literally everybody who knew about his powers fading were just too incredibly stupid to think to ask it, or that asking that one simple question does not actually solve the enormous problem they are facing?
In interlude 27.x Glaistig Uaine tells him to look for a power that will allow him to recharge, he does so (after at first dismissing her suggestion) and it works.
So yes, it seems like he never thought to search for a power that would let him recharge, because **when he does so it works**.
He needed Glaistig Uaine to tell him that he could drain the shards of living capes, and then he needed to actually see her do it with the right power active in order to be able to mimic her.
I'd forgotten about the fact that his draining power (which works nothing like her shard-stealing power on any human-understandable level) was enabled by mimicry. It's a bit of an oddity, but you're right that without Glaistig to mimic it wouldn't have worked as easily as it did.
Personally I think that accessing it requires him to be both in significant danger and to repeatedly refuse any other power his shard offers.
It's understandable that he might be wary of trying an experiment that involves making himself defenseless in the presence of a significant threat.
>It's not like we see her manipulating someone who is otherwise shown to be a sharp thinker, she manipulates Mr. "I never thought to ask my power how to restore itself"
Eh. I'm not so sure that this reflects badly on Eidolon. Remember that he had to drop all his powers multiple times in Scion's presence to get a power-restoring power. It was basically a Hail Mary, because nothing else was working. I suspect that he had to both be in danger and refuse to accept any other power before his shard would give it to him.
I can see why he'd be a bit reluctant to drop all his defences in the presence of Endbringers, which is what it would probably have taken.
For some reason, I always had the impression that contessa and doctor mother originated from the same world, and thats part of how they knew each other.
Probably because, iirc, Contessa guiding Doc Mom on how to kill Eden is canon.
What I _don't_ remember is whether or not there were any references to dimension hopping fuckery during that process
You're remembering Interlude 29.
The important bits (for this discussion)
>They’d come from different worlds. There were gates or doorways here and there. When the entity had fallen, it had left gaps.
____
>Strangely dressed, wearing a dress so short it might well be indecent, showing the calves, and a fair amount of the upper chest. Her skin was the strangest black color, her hair bound in thin, glossy braids.
>One of the monsters? No. She knew right away it was a stranger from a distant land. A land much like the one she had glimpsed in her fever dream.
>The woman said something in a strange language.
>Fortuna strode forwards anyways. Her special knowledge let her push her way past almost effortlessly, choosing the right spot, the right amount of strength. The godling was in a chasm, a crater caused by the impact. It stretched out in every direction, a pool of flesh, and it reached into several worlds at once.
______
>“Please,” the woman said. Though she begged, “My life just turned upside down. I’ve been lost here for three days.”
_____
>“You’re getting a sense of humor. I’ve done like you asked. I bought the land with the doorway, using the money you got. Are you sure you want to keep it a secret? People could study that thing.”
___
>“Well, the area is secured, people have found their way home, or at least, to other worlds they can call home. There was only one doorway people might find easily, and I blocked it off.”
When Eden crash-landed, it created a whole load of breaches to other worlds. People came through, including Doctor Mother. She found Contessa, helped her kill a god, and then took her back to her world. They then bought the land with the doorway to Contessa's world so that it wouldn't be found.
I think the fanon of her being from a bronze-age world stemmed from [The Warcrafter], though that might have just been repeating bad fanon because the author loves to bash Cauldron so much.
I think a large part of it (aside from racism and sexism which is definitely a factor for at least a few of the "Bronze Age" comments I've seen) is that Worm has a lot of fans who hate Cauldron and Contessa and like to portray them as idiots who had no idea what they were doing, actively made the world worse, and any *rational* person (them) would have done better.
Of course it's bullshit, we know from Word of God that at least from a utilitarian PoV Cauldron where a net gain and that Cauldron had *very good reasons* to think "human" solutions would have absolutely no effect on Scion. Like, one of the visions they saw literally showed the Entities pretending to human Heroes just like Scion was doing except more sophisticated due to the presence of the Thinker.
Like, disregard metaknowledge for a second, what would *you* bet on, stumbling across a power Scion hasn't accounted for because it was never supposed to be handed out through repeated testing (which is something you already know is possible) that can act as a silver bullet and all the while stabilizing and reinforcing you're frontline with more bodies for Scion to chew through. *Or* that Scion might have gone native and fully immersed himself in his human psyche simulator and you can manipulate him into giving up (keep in mind none of you're Thinker powers can analyze him).
Oh and if you fail then more Earths than there are atoms in the observable universe will be destroyed, no pressure.
Also, people need to remember that Fortuna got a sense of Eden's mind and felt her enjoyment of the chaos and destruction the Entities were causing. Cauldron knew the Entities were malicious and had done this thousands of times before.
Their theory was good, but their execution sucked. Most of their crimes were completely unnecessary and counterproductive.
For example, they were actually getting *better* results from their vials before they went all crazy and started kidnapping and mindwiping people. Before that, they got powerful and sane capes like the Triumvirate, Hero, Doormaker, and Clairvoyant. After that, they either got weak capes or crazy ones like Grey Boy or Mama Mathers.
Eh, the original Grey Boy was more like Labyrinth on a bad day, expect instead of running into Faultline's Crew he got picked up by King and then Jack, not that Cauldron dumbing him in the middle of nowhere was a *good* idea.
Also it seems a lot more likely that the early successes were flukes or gave diminishing returns and after a certain number of years without anyone getting powers on the Triumvirate's level they started branching out, and well, it *kind of did work*. Siberian's Clone and Grey Boy's Shade *did* slow down Scion a bit after all and the Custodian is a one women army *and* loyal to Cauldron despite the whole *buying her* thing.
Yeah, but they made no effort to bring Manton and Gray Boy under their control.
I mean, they could have just wiped Manton’s brain with Slug. It would have been the easiest and most sensible thing to do.
Even if they were having diminishing returns, it would still make more sense to just have Contessa go ‘path to writing down list of X people and their locations who are dying and fit our desired psychological profile.’ Selling vials was dumb.
Or: you do actual science and start figuring out how powers work. In 30 years one planet with a billion people went from war being done on horseback to nuclear bombs.
That's how long they had and wasted all that time on 'silver bullets'.
I think it's inaccurate to assume they weren't trying to figure out how powers really work.
The problem is that the actual methods that the entities were using to generate powers were so far beyond current human understanding of science that it simply was not possible for them to figure that all out in 30 years.
If you went back in time and gave medieval people cellphones and a lifetime supply of batteries to recharge them from, do you think they'd figure out how to create cell phones in 30 years? I don't.
The gap in knowledge is far too wide. The entities were so far ahead of humans technologically that the best they could hope for was understanding how to use the technology. Replicating it was out of the question, but humanity (not just Cauldron) definitely tried their best to understand them.
>If you went back in time and gave medieval people cellphones and a lifetime supply of batteries to recharge them from, do you think they'd figure out how to create cell phones in 30 years? I don't.
They don't need to understand how mobile phones work, they need to understand how to set lithium batteries on fire.
I mean ignoring the metaphor, Cauldron figured out a lot of stuff. Like how to give people powers in a relatively safe and stable way. They went from no knowledge, to replicating a small part of the Entities' cycle.
I'd say that's on par with setting batteries on fire. They experimented with powers a lot and learned how to use them toward humanity's benefit.
I'm not sure what more you're expecting from them, realistically speaking.
>I'm not sure what more you're expecting from them, realistically speaking.
A basic portal gun since all shards require dimensional effects to work. Once you have that the main advantage of Scion is gone.
But they don't understand how portals work. They don't understand the beginning steps of understanding how portals work.
Just because you know something can be done, doesn't mean you can instantly replicate and mass produce it.
Just like those medieval folks wouldn't instantly figure out how to create electricity just because they have batteries. Science doesn't work like that. They're missing quite a few steps inbetween the discoveries necessary to figure out portal technology. Without first developing those inbetween steps, they don't even have a framework to begin to develop the rest.
They *have* portals between dimensions, but all the dimensions where the shards reside in are walled off and cannot be accessed by anyone or anything save the Entities themselves.
How the Hell would you even start reverse engineering something like Sting? It's like asking a Roman metal smith to recreate a ray gun without even letting him open it up. (Remember Shardspace wasn't even unsealed until Scion's death).
>you'll never be able to visualize a multidimensional object
I don't need to imagine it, I have some rather trivial maths to describe it:
[[0, 0, 0, 0],
[0, 0, 0, 1],
[0, 0, 1, 0],
[0, 0, 1, 1],
[0, 1, 0, 0],
[0, 1, 0, 1],
[0, 1, 1, 0],
[0, 1, 1, 1],
[1, 0, 0, 0],
[1, 0, 0, 1],
[1, 0, 1, 0],
[1, 0, 1, 1],
[1, 1, 0, 0],
[1, 1, 0, 1],
[1, 1, 1, 0],
[1, 1, 1, 1]]
Behold a four dimensional cube, an object beyond human understanding, in one line of text.
It was quite a while before I found out Doctor Mother and Contessa came from different worlds.
For a long time I thought she was a scientist hanging around watching Contessa tribe. Which led to believe she was always morally questionable and doing weird experiments on some indigenous tribe in South America or something.
I thought it added a weird creepy layer to her and Contessa’s relationship. But it turns out we know nothing about one of the most influential characters in the story.
We do know that her French accent is due to growing up on the Ivory Coast. But spoke English so if I had to guess she probably studied in London.
Multiple characters refer to her as "Doctor Mother" in the canon.
When she introduces herself in 25.5, she says:
> Thank you for coming. I go by Doctor Mother, and I am the founder of Cauldron.
After that Taylor thinks of her as "Doctor Mother". She calls her "Doctor Mother" during her conversation with Glaistig Uaine in 27.4:
> “Doctor Mother,” I said, without even really thinking about it. “Can I ask what role she plays on this stage?”
Later, Tattletale refers to her as "Doctor Mother" in 28.1:
> It’s the Irregulars. They’re actively fighting Cauldron, despite Cauldron’s extensive resources, and they haven’t been wiped out or assassinated. Arguably the strongest precog out there, arguably the strongest clairvoyant, countless other resources, and they’re actually stressing Doctor Mother out.
Saint also calls her Doctor Mother in his interlude in arc 26:
> No powers, yet Doctor Mother had seen fit to invite him to her secret meetings as an information source and ambassador.
Here is Eidolon during his interlude in arc 27:
> Eidolon thought back to that conversation he’d had with Doctor Mother, six months ago.
I stand corrected. I guess whoever once told me that was very much incorrect. I know they had been going by other incidences, during meetings between Cauldron members and during Scion’s attack on Cauldron, where she’s just called ‘the Doctor’ but I checked your quotes and they are definitely there.
In one of my fics, her name was Motha and she took on the Doctor prefix when dealing with the remains of Contessa’s contemporaries. Her purpose was to heal the infection of the parasites.
Of course in a different fic of mine (heh), she was actually Sophia Hess tossed backward in time through the gate —located in Brockton Bay and purposefully built over in the train yard where a large battle took place. Shadow Stalker phased into ground after being shocked and never reappeared on Bet —but passed through the buried gate (Stargate theme music) to find Fortuna and Eden. It was then a phased knife that bypassed Eden’s protections.
I’ll let you figure out which was which. On SV.
Honestly we did not get much about Docmom, which is a real shame because if you think about it, beyond unbound shards and the machinations of celestial beings, she is a normal who killed a god. I wanna see more of that; like, the dress she was wearing kinda implies to me that she was out partying, then the sky tore open, she climbed through the hole (probably while drunk) and then chose violence for thirty years.
>she was out partying, then the sky tore open, she climbed through the hole (probably while drunk) and then chose violence for thirty years. Life goals
The real power fantasy in Worm was being a successful, powerful, beautiful black woman with a secret council of hunky gay dudes at her disposal.
Doctor Mother is a hard character to read because she relies on Contessa whose shard can tell them how to manipulate people. She is good at lying and manipulation, e.g.: [Alexandria's interlude in Arc 15 when Doctor Mother tells her that they need to keep the Siberian active because "people will be flocking to join the Protectorate"] > The Doctor’s eyebrows were raised in uncharacteristic surprise. > If Alexandria saw a hint of falsehood in the Doctor’s body language, she convinced herself it was the strain of one eye compensating for the job she’d used to perform with two. [Eidolon's interlude in Arc 27] > [Eidolon:] "I was content to be second place in the Protectorate, because it’s what you needed.” > [Doctor Mother:] “What Alexandria needed.” > Eidolon shook his head. “Let’s not pretend.” > The Doctor paused, then nodded slowly. “Fair enough.” which is impressive because both Alexandria and Eidolon had Thinker powers. However, it's not clear whether it's a native skill or whether it's the PtV shard at play. My guess is that she was good at it even without PtV's help because she remained unflappable during the final confrontation at the Cauldron base.
That's a good point. I'd forgotten that she's apparently capable of manipulating multiple Thinkers. I do wonder whether she's had Contessa run a "Path to maximising Doctor Mother's utility to Cauldron". It feels like an obvious thing to do - Get a list of teachers, trainers and resources that will help increase her knowledge, develop the skills she needs to run Cauldron, and just generally perfect her. She'd had 30+ years to do it by the time of canon. You probably don't want to learn directly from Contessa (her time's too valuable, if nothing else) but putting together a lesson plan would take only so long as it took to write down.
The problem with the PtV shard is that it's an enormously powerful tool -- especially when used by a host who controls abnormally strong Eden-derived powers -- but its answers are only as good as the questions that you ask. If you don't have the background to ask the right questions, it's more like [the monkey's paw](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Monkey%27s_Paw). Obviously, Contessa asked the PtV shard a lot of questions over the course of 30+ years and she probably got better at phrasing them and avoiding unintended side effects, but we don't know the specifics. Certain things that we see Cauldron do in the canon look like they could be useless or counterproductive -- the BB experiment, the Nemesis program, etc -- but without knowing the questions that Contessa asked the shard, there is no way to be sure.
The BB experiment by itself cost Cauldron nothing and would have potentially provided useful information for rebuilding the world Post-GM. The Nemesis program gets overstate, there are barely three digits of C53's on Bet as it is so it can't have been two prevalent. Also we have no reason to believe PtV was Monkey's Pawing Contessa.
I outlined the problems with the BB experiment [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/WormFanfic/comments/l4fktc/literal_parahuman_feudalism/gkoeas5/). Re: the Nemesis program, we have the following scene in Alexandria's interlude: > Thirty cells, filled with subjects. **Thirty-one now**. The cells didn’t appear to have doors, but the individuals within were all too aware of the dangers of stepping beyond the perimeters of their cells, or of trying to harass Alexandria as she strode by. > Only two-thirds of them were monstrous, affected by the formulas. Others would go free with alterations to their memories. **Some would have fatal weaknesses inserted into their psyches, reason to hesitate at a crucial moment against a certain foe.** So we are looking at "some" subjects out of a sample size of 31 or at least 5-10%. However, the numbers are not the issue. The issue is the usefulness of the program. Sure, Cauldron can stage fights, which will likely make their clients look good and facilitate their careers in the cape organizations of their choice. However, that's just asking the [Peter Principle](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_principle) to rear its ugly head and bite their clients in the butt when they get promoted beyond their "level of incompetence". Perhaps the PtV shard had an answer to that, but it's also possible that Cauldron didn't think through the ramifications of what they asked the PtV shard to do.
>the monkey's paw On a totally unrelated note, i loved that take in Dominion.
Also the obvious one: precog isn't perfect - if it was the cycle wouldn't be needed. How to beat her in a fight: attach a quantum random number generator to the triggers of some guns, give the guns to some people, tell them to point them at her.
There's no reason to believe quantum stuff is unpredictable to Entities, at least in the Worm universe
There is no reason to believe it is either.
If it was a demonstrable weakness to say, the Simurgh, it would be brought up.
Even if it was unpredictable, it not would be a weakness. At least not at the escale humans work. Oh, youre gonna use a quantum flip coin in order to decide what to do? Well, Sam made arrangements for both outputs years ago.
That's with a single quantum decision. Not a system that generates hundreds of interactions a day that a government or even individuals could use to make or assist with decisions that need to be accounted for. Even just used in combat to delay an attack occasionally, it would be noticeable as they could see "she tried to block that attack just there but the quantum timer told me to hold and she blocked the actual attack too" would allow them to flood her defenses with potential attacks.
Well i agree. The thing is, im fairly sure shards are very capable of abstract thinking. Oh, you are a unpredictable in combat? Well ill just blow up the room thank you. I mean, you might be able to be random, but you are still human. Randomness dont evade well aimed bullets. Oh, you are doing random decision making? Well, you still working towards a target that you want to achieve, so i'll make a path to blow up that instead, metaphorically or literally.
she would simply never be in the area where those guns are lol
To her the guns are duds.
No, to her they're fundamentally unpredictable. PtV *knows its own blindspots*. (Assuming of course that quantum randomness is actually a blindspot to PtV, which is far from guaranteed)
no, they aren’t lol? first off her power wouldn’t even be affected like this and even if it was she would still be aware the guns are dangerous and wouldn’t be by man you don’t know anything. You are aware powers can straight up see the future if need be and there’s no indication either way if ptv is calculating or just ripping the future right?
Worm runs on a deterministic multiverse so no this wouldn't work. In our universe this works but not worms
There's no indication either in text or in WoG that the Wormverse is deterministic. That's just a common assumption used to explain how the "simulation" portion of Worm precognition (and yes, precog is both future sight and simulation, the idea that it's only simulation is also fanon) can have an essentially perfectly track record on-screen.
Couldve sworn there was a word of God on it.
Whats a deterministic universe?
If you know the exact position and movements of particles you can with 100% accuracy predict the future. However this is impossible due to quantum randomness in our universe. The entities of worm either don't have to deal with it or have a way around it. Worm precognition is using a glimpse of the future and then filling in the blanks using this method. Considering that ptv and other precognition powers can actually compute this in worm quantum randomness doesn't exist
[удалено]
>He started building a quantum random number generator, because that was definitely a thing he knew how to do. It's called a geiger counter, it's not hard to buy one off the shelf. >However, he did not get very far in his construction before he was tapped on the shoulder. He turned around, it was a gun. He looked past the gun, it was Contessa. "Hm," she said. PtV can't deal with randomness, to her it would look like any stick attached to a rock.
Wait, do you literally think Contessa's power doesn't work around radiation?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schr%C3%B6dinger%27s_cat Ask her to buy kitty litter if the cat is alive and she won't be able to tell if she should.
Yes she could
whoa where did you learn of this highly advanced scientific concept
My physics degree.
[удалено]
I guess a path of "how to avoid being shot by a gun using quantum uncertainty" is one that Contessa runs more often than a path "How to avoid crashing into a planet?" was run by an entity preparing to crash into a planet.
[удалено]
before anything else, precommit: iff scion saves a life in the western hemisphere tomorrow, I will try to kill contessa.
There are thousands of people out to get her every day, the path prioritizes the ones that are a threat according to it. >(even supposing that the entities can't account for quantum phenomena...which...they...obviously can???) If they could then they would realize that the easiest way to beat entropy is to hibernate until a new multiverse pops into existence.
PtV is perfect, just less energy efficient than actually doing the Cycle.
It's not perfect, just exceedingly good. Scion noted that predicting the entire cycle could still have mistakes, rendering the gathered data useless and turning the massive computation into a catastrophic setback.
If it was perfect the story wouldn't have started with drunk driving into a planet.
No matter how perfect the GPS if you're not paying attention you're gong to miss the turn.
Considering that Doctor Mother and Fortuna have been a team since the beginning, and Fortuna was rather young at the start, I don't think it's unreasonable that she saw Doctor "Mother" as a somewhat maternal figure and I could totally see PTV used as a training tool along with boosting her directly. Contessa clearly likes her, and paths like "Path to making Doctor Mother confuse Thinkers" or "Path to making Doctor Mother intimidate Alexandria and Eidolon" wouldn't be surprising. In fact, using PTV to train people or find people is probably one of it's most underutilized (at least in canon) abilities that's quite powerful. Sure, you'd need to word the path very carefully to avoid accidentally psychologically scarring those affected, but something like "Path to making Field Agent XYZ fluent in French, Mandarin, and Russian as fast as possible" is enormously powerful.
> which is impressive because both Alexandria and Eidolon had Thinker powers. But less impressive in that both Alexandria and Eidolon seem rather unintelligent outside of those powers. It's not like we see her manipulating someone who is otherwise shown to be a sharp thinker, she manipulates Mr. "I never thought to ask my power how to restore itself" and Ms. "Letting Hero's killer run free will definitely make people think we're capable of protecting them". We're told that Alexandria's intelligent, and certainly she's *knowledgeable*, but with the myriad blatant flaws in the PRT she doesn't exactly come across as a thinker, just a Thinker.
> Ms. "Letting Hero's killer run free will definitely make people think we're capable of protecting them". That was Doctor Mother's suggestion, not Alexandria's, and Alexandria actually specifically objected to the idea. Per 15.z: > “The sample he took, F-one-six-one-one, it tends to give _projection_ powers. I suspect his real body is unchanged. But I’m wondering if we shouldn’t leave him be.” > Alexandria stared at the doctor, wide-eyed. “_Why_?” > “So long as he’s active, people will be flocking to join the Protectorate-” > Alexandria slammed her hand on the stainless steel table beside her cot. > Silence rang between them in the wake of the destruction. > “I will _not_ condone the loss of life for your ulterior motives. I will not let monsters walk free, to profit from the fear they spread.” > “You’re right,” the Doctor said. “I… must be more shaken by Manton’s betrayal than I’d thought. Forget I said anything.” > If Alexandria saw a hint of falsehood in the Doctor’s body language, she convinced herself it was the strain of one eye compensating for the job she’d used to perform with two. Of course, exactly _why_ the two of them appeared to immediately forget that conversation in 2000 and go on letting Manton do his thing for the next 11 years _despite_ Alexandria's objections is a completely separate question.
> It's not like we see her manipulating someone who is otherwise shown to be a sharp thinker, she manipulates Mr. "I never thought to ask my power how to restore itself" What gives you the impression that his power is capable of that, or that he never thought to ask it in the years his power was declining? What is more likely, that asking one simple question would solve the problem, but Eidolon and literally everybody who knew about his powers fading were just too incredibly stupid to think to ask it, or that asking that one simple question does not actually solve the enormous problem they are facing?
In interlude 27.x Glaistig Uaine tells him to look for a power that will allow him to recharge, he does so (after at first dismissing her suggestion) and it works. So yes, it seems like he never thought to search for a power that would let him recharge, because **when he does so it works**.
He needed Glaistig Uaine to tell him that he could drain the shards of living capes, and then he needed to actually see her do it with the right power active in order to be able to mimic her.
I'd forgotten about the fact that his draining power (which works nothing like her shard-stealing power on any human-understandable level) was enabled by mimicry. It's a bit of an oddity, but you're right that without Glaistig to mimic it wouldn't have worked as easily as it did.
Personally I think that accessing it requires him to be both in significant danger and to repeatedly refuse any other power his shard offers. It's understandable that he might be wary of trying an experiment that involves making himself defenseless in the presence of a significant threat.
I think we also have wog that Thinkers were on average less intelligent than non-Thinkers pre-trigger.
>It's not like we see her manipulating someone who is otherwise shown to be a sharp thinker, she manipulates Mr. "I never thought to ask my power how to restore itself" Eh. I'm not so sure that this reflects badly on Eidolon. Remember that he had to drop all his powers multiple times in Scion's presence to get a power-restoring power. It was basically a Hail Mary, because nothing else was working. I suspect that he had to both be in danger and refuse to accept any other power before his shard would give it to him. I can see why he'd be a bit reluctant to drop all his defences in the presence of Endbringers, which is what it would probably have taken.
For some reason, I always had the impression that contessa and doctor mother originated from the same world, and thats part of how they knew each other.
Probably because, iirc, Contessa guiding Doc Mom on how to kill Eden is canon. What I _don't_ remember is whether or not there were any references to dimension hopping fuckery during that process
You're remembering Interlude 29. The important bits (for this discussion) >They’d come from different worlds. There were gates or doorways here and there. When the entity had fallen, it had left gaps. ____ >Strangely dressed, wearing a dress so short it might well be indecent, showing the calves, and a fair amount of the upper chest. Her skin was the strangest black color, her hair bound in thin, glossy braids. >One of the monsters? No. She knew right away it was a stranger from a distant land. A land much like the one she had glimpsed in her fever dream. >The woman said something in a strange language. >Fortuna strode forwards anyways. Her special knowledge let her push her way past almost effortlessly, choosing the right spot, the right amount of strength. The godling was in a chasm, a crater caused by the impact. It stretched out in every direction, a pool of flesh, and it reached into several worlds at once. ______ >“Please,” the woman said. Though she begged, “My life just turned upside down. I’ve been lost here for three days.” _____ >“You’re getting a sense of humor. I’ve done like you asked. I bought the land with the doorway, using the money you got. Are you sure you want to keep it a secret? People could study that thing.” ___ >“Well, the area is secured, people have found their way home, or at least, to other worlds they can call home. There was only one doorway people might find easily, and I blocked it off.” When Eden crash-landed, it created a whole load of breaches to other worlds. People came through, including Doctor Mother. She found Contessa, helped her kill a god, and then took her back to her world. They then bought the land with the doorway to Contessa's world so that it wouldn't be found.
Good to know my memory hasn't failed me too badly considering I've only read that interlude _maybe_ twice lmao. Thanks!
There were, the area they were in was peppered with interdimensional portals.
I think the fanon of her being from a bronze-age world stemmed from [The Warcrafter], though that might have just been repeating bad fanon because the author loves to bash Cauldron so much.
I think a large part of it (aside from racism and sexism which is definitely a factor for at least a few of the "Bronze Age" comments I've seen) is that Worm has a lot of fans who hate Cauldron and Contessa and like to portray them as idiots who had no idea what they were doing, actively made the world worse, and any *rational* person (them) would have done better. Of course it's bullshit, we know from Word of God that at least from a utilitarian PoV Cauldron where a net gain and that Cauldron had *very good reasons* to think "human" solutions would have absolutely no effect on Scion. Like, one of the visions they saw literally showed the Entities pretending to human Heroes just like Scion was doing except more sophisticated due to the presence of the Thinker. Like, disregard metaknowledge for a second, what would *you* bet on, stumbling across a power Scion hasn't accounted for because it was never supposed to be handed out through repeated testing (which is something you already know is possible) that can act as a silver bullet and all the while stabilizing and reinforcing you're frontline with more bodies for Scion to chew through. *Or* that Scion might have gone native and fully immersed himself in his human psyche simulator and you can manipulate him into giving up (keep in mind none of you're Thinker powers can analyze him). Oh and if you fail then more Earths than there are atoms in the observable universe will be destroyed, no pressure.
Also, people need to remember that Fortuna got a sense of Eden's mind and felt her enjoyment of the chaos and destruction the Entities were causing. Cauldron knew the Entities were malicious and had done this thousands of times before.
Their theory was good, but their execution sucked. Most of their crimes were completely unnecessary and counterproductive. For example, they were actually getting *better* results from their vials before they went all crazy and started kidnapping and mindwiping people. Before that, they got powerful and sane capes like the Triumvirate, Hero, Doormaker, and Clairvoyant. After that, they either got weak capes or crazy ones like Grey Boy or Mama Mathers.
Eh, the original Grey Boy was more like Labyrinth on a bad day, expect instead of running into Faultline's Crew he got picked up by King and then Jack, not that Cauldron dumbing him in the middle of nowhere was a *good* idea. Also it seems a lot more likely that the early successes were flukes or gave diminishing returns and after a certain number of years without anyone getting powers on the Triumvirate's level they started branching out, and well, it *kind of did work*. Siberian's Clone and Grey Boy's Shade *did* slow down Scion a bit after all and the Custodian is a one women army *and* loyal to Cauldron despite the whole *buying her* thing.
Yeah, but they made no effort to bring Manton and Gray Boy under their control. I mean, they could have just wiped Manton’s brain with Slug. It would have been the easiest and most sensible thing to do. Even if they were having diminishing returns, it would still make more sense to just have Contessa go ‘path to writing down list of X people and their locations who are dying and fit our desired psychological profile.’ Selling vials was dumb.
Or: you do actual science and start figuring out how powers work. In 30 years one planet with a billion people went from war being done on horseback to nuclear bombs. That's how long they had and wasted all that time on 'silver bullets'.
I think it's inaccurate to assume they weren't trying to figure out how powers really work. The problem is that the actual methods that the entities were using to generate powers were so far beyond current human understanding of science that it simply was not possible for them to figure that all out in 30 years. If you went back in time and gave medieval people cellphones and a lifetime supply of batteries to recharge them from, do you think they'd figure out how to create cell phones in 30 years? I don't. The gap in knowledge is far too wide. The entities were so far ahead of humans technologically that the best they could hope for was understanding how to use the technology. Replicating it was out of the question, but humanity (not just Cauldron) definitely tried their best to understand them.
>If you went back in time and gave medieval people cellphones and a lifetime supply of batteries to recharge them from, do you think they'd figure out how to create cell phones in 30 years? I don't. They don't need to understand how mobile phones work, they need to understand how to set lithium batteries on fire.
I mean ignoring the metaphor, Cauldron figured out a lot of stuff. Like how to give people powers in a relatively safe and stable way. They went from no knowledge, to replicating a small part of the Entities' cycle. I'd say that's on par with setting batteries on fire. They experimented with powers a lot and learned how to use them toward humanity's benefit. I'm not sure what more you're expecting from them, realistically speaking.
>I'm not sure what more you're expecting from them, realistically speaking. A basic portal gun since all shards require dimensional effects to work. Once you have that the main advantage of Scion is gone.
But they don't understand how portals work. They don't understand the beginning steps of understanding how portals work. Just because you know something can be done, doesn't mean you can instantly replicate and mass produce it. Just like those medieval folks wouldn't instantly figure out how to create electricity just because they have batteries. Science doesn't work like that. They're missing quite a few steps inbetween the discoveries necessary to figure out portal technology. Without first developing those inbetween steps, they don't even have a framework to begin to develop the rest.
How does having a portal gun beat scion? They have one in doormaker and they still need to do everything in canon to attempt to beat scion.
They *have* portals between dimensions, but all the dimensions where the shards reside in are walled off and cannot be accessed by anyone or anything save the Entities themselves.
How the Hell would you even start reverse engineering something like Sting? It's like asking a Roman metal smith to recreate a ray gun without even letting him open it up. (Remember Shardspace wasn't even unsealed until Scion's death).
im pretty sure chauldron had access to eden’s shard space
They had access to her body, not shardspace.
[удалено]
Yes, exactly. A dozen people invented the atomic bomb over 20 years by thinking really hard and then a few thousand build it in 5 years.
[удалено]
The Simurgh didn't exist for the first 20 years of the story and only does because they went for silver bullets instead of science.
[удалено]
Ant's aren't sentient. You can ask them to rub two sticks together and you'd have as much success as asking them to build a nuclear reactor.
[удалено]
>you'll never be able to visualize a multidimensional object I don't need to imagine it, I have some rather trivial maths to describe it: [[0, 0, 0, 0], [0, 0, 0, 1], [0, 0, 1, 0], [0, 0, 1, 1], [0, 1, 0, 0], [0, 1, 0, 1], [0, 1, 1, 0], [0, 1, 1, 1], [1, 0, 0, 0], [1, 0, 0, 1], [1, 0, 1, 0], [1, 0, 1, 1], [1, 1, 0, 0], [1, 1, 0, 1], [1, 1, 1, 0], [1, 1, 1, 1]] Behold a four dimensional cube, an object beyond human understanding, in one line of text.
It was quite a while before I found out Doctor Mother and Contessa came from different worlds. For a long time I thought she was a scientist hanging around watching Contessa tribe. Which led to believe she was always morally questionable and doing weird experiments on some indigenous tribe in South America or something. I thought it added a weird creepy layer to her and Contessa’s relationship. But it turns out we know nothing about one of the most influential characters in the story. We do know that her French accent is due to growing up on the Ivory Coast. But spoke English so if I had to guess she probably studied in London.
Edit: Deleted I was apparently misinformed by somebody, it seems.
Multiple characters refer to her as "Doctor Mother" in the canon. When she introduces herself in 25.5, she says: > Thank you for coming. I go by Doctor Mother, and I am the founder of Cauldron. After that Taylor thinks of her as "Doctor Mother". She calls her "Doctor Mother" during her conversation with Glaistig Uaine in 27.4: > “Doctor Mother,” I said, without even really thinking about it. “Can I ask what role she plays on this stage?” Later, Tattletale refers to her as "Doctor Mother" in 28.1: > It’s the Irregulars. They’re actively fighting Cauldron, despite Cauldron’s extensive resources, and they haven’t been wiped out or assassinated. Arguably the strongest precog out there, arguably the strongest clairvoyant, countless other resources, and they’re actually stressing Doctor Mother out. Saint also calls her Doctor Mother in his interlude in arc 26: > No powers, yet Doctor Mother had seen fit to invite him to her secret meetings as an information source and ambassador. Here is Eidolon during his interlude in arc 27: > Eidolon thought back to that conversation he’d had with Doctor Mother, six months ago.
I stand corrected. I guess whoever once told me that was very much incorrect. I know they had been going by other incidences, during meetings between Cauldron members and during Scion’s attack on Cauldron, where she’s just called ‘the Doctor’ but I checked your quotes and they are definitely there.
In one of my fics, her name was Motha and she took on the Doctor prefix when dealing with the remains of Contessa’s contemporaries. Her purpose was to heal the infection of the parasites. Of course in a different fic of mine (heh), she was actually Sophia Hess tossed backward in time through the gate —located in Brockton Bay and purposefully built over in the train yard where a large battle took place. Shadow Stalker phased into ground after being shocked and never reappeared on Bet —but passed through the buried gate (Stargate theme music) to find Fortuna and Eden. It was then a phased knife that bypassed Eden’s protections. I’ll let you figure out which was which. On SV.