Worm WORM/Parahumans: Explaining, Discussing, Complaining. Lets do one or another!

[Agent23]

As somebody who read it, and enjoyed most of it?

If you can't even get past the first ark?


SHUT UP ABOUT IT!





I get it! You don't like it, so you'll shit up any thread about it! You've done that, so could you now bugger off!




Leave it to those who like it to talk about it. We care, you just want to shit on it.

I am pretty sure the first few posts in the thread were sitting on it,too.

 

[Simonbob]

I am pretty sure the first few posts in the thread were sitting on it,too.

I got sick of it, after the first 5 pages.

A bunch of it wasn't accurate, too. Not so much about people not liking it, that's ok.


But when people were describing it, more often than not, they got things wrong.

 

[ShadowArxxy]

Superheroes is a surprisingly hard genre to get right. Especially once you start trying to add rationality into the mix, because inherently Capes are reliant on the highly irrational notion that the best way to fight crime is to dress up like a bat and patrol until you see a criminal in an alleyway, at which point you punch him in the mouth.

I'd argue that in the Worm universe, that highly irrational notion is built on top of a *absolutely massive* pile of Cauldron manipulating society at large to *promote* that notion as a prelude to the oppressive "parahuman feudalism" that they want to enact over future humanity. I think in line with this, Cauldron intentionally engineered the Ellisburg debacle *and* subsequently the Slaughterhouse Nine, with the specific goal of "teaching" humans that only parahumans are allowed to resist parahumans.

 

[mrttao]

I'd argue that in the Worm universe, that highly irrational notion is built on top of a *absolutely massive* pile of Cauldron manipulating society at large to *promote* that notion as a prelude to the oppressive "parahuman feudalism" that they want to enact over future humanity. I think in line with this, Cauldron intentionally engineered the Ellisburg debacle *and* subsequently the Slaughterhouse Nine, with the specific goal of "teaching" humans that only parahumans are allowed to resist parahumans.

It is less that Cauldron wants super feudalism, and more that they believe it is inevitable.
So they are explicitly performing "social experiments" to test it out years before so they can adjust things.

 

[Agent23]

The more I listen to you guys(and occasionally google some of the stuff), the more it feels like someone tried to turn something like Evangelion into your run of the mill, 9000 issues capeshit Marvel/DC garbage but in book form, and also rationalize the irrational weirdness that is there due to NuWave/aesthetic influences ala what happened in The Prisoner.

AKA massively derivative and unoriginal crap that still tries to pretentious and full of low-grade grimderp.

 

[Simonbob]

As somebody who's read the whole thing?

It's a pretty good, if somewhat dark, superhero-esk series. I don't consider it Grim-anything, because there's almost never the feel that there's no chance. It always feels like enough desperate thought and struggle can make things better. And, guess what? That's what happens.

Are there puppy-kicking-evil bad guys? Yes, a few. (And some dog fighting rings, that's not nice either.) But, mostly? There are real, existing groups, right this minute, that are like the bad guys, and good guys, in Worm.



There's a reason why a lot of people liked it. It's pretty well written, and Taylor, and many of the others we get some details on, feel like people, (Might not be great people, but people non-the-less) so it, to a fair degree hold together. It's not a HEROS GOOD, VILLAINS BAD story, no, both hero's and villains are people, and can do good and bad things. The main groups fighting every bad guy who isn't an Endbringer? Villains.

At no point within the story itself do chariters change part way through without a proper explanation. Sometimes there are rep issues, where the rep isn't even close to the reality, and mind control is a real thing in Universe.



To sum up? Good, but not perfect. Better that most crap that is currently out there.

 

[ShadowArxxy]

It is less that Cauldron wants super feudalism, and more that they believe it is inevitable.
So they are explicitly performing "social experiments" to test it out years before so they can adjust things.

That's the official line from Wildbow, I'm aware. I find that take on their motives highly implausible given Cauldron's supposedly "perfect" actions via Path to Victory, and find it far more logical from their actions that they don't believe it's inevitable, but want to impose it on society for their own benefit.

 

[Simonbob]

That's the official line from Wildbow, I'm aware. I find that take on their motives highly implausible given Cauldron's supposedly "perfect" actions via Path to Victory, and find it far more logical from their actions that they don't believe it's inevitable, but want to impose it on society for their own benefit.

It's pretty clear that Path to Victory just isn't that powerful. It's near unbeatable in person, but those massive, long-term plans? Almost none of them work out that way.

And, when superpowers are a thing, you are going to get those with powers taking over, whenever they want. Even when they're dumb bastards.

 

[ShadowArxxy]

And, when superpowers are a thing, you are going to get those with powers taking over, whenever they want. Even when they're dumb bastards.

In my opinion, a realistic superhero setting would be regularly demonstrating that properly trained hero capes with combined-arms military and law enforcement support effectively have an "I win" button against self-styled supervillains. That's why it's critical to not allow a PRT/Protectorate split; sanctioned capes should be commissioned as federal agents and working in direct integration with law enforcement and/or military units.

Basically, at any time the "heroes" should be able to tell the villains, "I see your street gangbangers with AKs and raise you our friendly local National Guard company." If someone like Squealer wants to play Mad Max, they should be eating Hellfires from orbiting Reapers.

 

[Simonbob]

In my opinion, a realistic superhero setting would be regularly demonstrating that properly trained hero capes with combined-arms military and law enforcement support effectively have an "I win" button against self-styled supervillains. That's why it's critical to not allow a PRT/Protectorate split; sanctioned capes should be commissioned as federal agents and working in direct integration with law enforcement and/or military units.

Basically, at any time the "heroes" should be able to tell the villains, "I see your street gangbangers with AKs and raise you our friendly local National Guard company." If someone like Squealer wants to play Mad Max, they should be eating Hellfires from orbiting Reapers.

I understand the idea, but.... Look, there's dangerous gangs out there now. It's very, very rare, that even with the worst of them, the cops send in SWAT for much. They don't want an open war on the streets. Most of them are often known, but stopping them means giving up legal limits, and just sending out kill squads.

Nobody wants that.


There was a time in Worm where the National Guard were called in. It didn't help as much as it might. There's multiple reasons why, inc the lack of parahumans intergrated with the NG, but.... Part of it, I think, is it did work, but not for the more dangerous Capes. A minor guy, who can double his strength, he didn't mess with the guys with guns. The E88? The gang members, well, they didn't do anything on their own, but with Cape backing, sure. Half the Capes of the E88 could deal with the NG troops, up to and inc tanks.

Most of the Capes of the Bay could deal with guns, unless somebody really good goes after them. Grue, making it impossible to see, Taylor, not even being on the same block, Bitch, giant monster dogs who could tank hits from Leviathan, Regent, who can make you shoot your friend..... That's just of the top of my head, and just from the Undersiders.




All of this, however, ignores the simple local cultural fact, that most local groups don't want to escalate that much. There's exceptions, sure. But, we're talking Brockton Bay, one of the worst cities in the US, and even there, most weren't killing random people. However, half the major Capes can kill hundreds in very short order. So, arrest them, if you can, sure. But, think twice about turning up with a bunch of heavly armed combat troops, because a bunch of the capes could easly kill everybody around. On the other hand, the same Capes might well end up dead themselves, so it turns into a uneasy balance, where damaged people keep themselves from going to far, and the PRT doesn't declare you somebody to kill on sight.



Kill Orders were a thing. That's when they go too far, that's when the best Gov killers come out.

 

[Agent23]

In my opinion, a realistic superhero setting would be regularly demonstrating that properly trained hero capes with combined-arms military and law enforcement support effectively have an "I win" button against self-styled supervillains. That's why it's critical to not allow a PRT/Protectorate split; sanctioned capes should be commissioned as federal agents and working in direct integration with law enforcement and/or military units.

Basically, at any time the "heroes" should be able to tell the villains, "I see your street gangbangers with AKs and raise you our friendly local National Guard company." If someone like Squealer wants to play Mad Max, they should be eating Hellfires from orbiting Reapers.

Yeah, a few problems with that approach.

First off, capeshit character powers vary by a huge margin, as do things like age and motivation.

The angsty teen kid that can shoot a proton beam out of his belly button might be too scared to let his identity be known.

Second, supervillains, and any disposable criminal flunkies they might attract around them will basically be fighting asymmetrical warfare in that they will not have conventional ewuient and infrastructure you can easily target and just like the Taliban they will converge on an area, hide in the crowd, rob the bank or do some gangbanger activity, then fuck off.


Oh, and some of these capeshit supers fly or teleport, or at least run very, very fast, or can dhapeshift.

So, yeah, heroes fighting alongside conventional forced to fight criminals and supervillains might not be all it is cracked up to be.

And I am talking in general, not about WORM specifically.

 

[mrttao]

Nobody wants that.

Correction, the drug cartels and their govt allies don't want that.
The CIA must ensure a steady flow of trafficked children

 

[Blasterbot]

Correction, the drug cartels and their govt allies don't want that.
The CIA must ensure a steady flow of trafficked children

Excuse me they also rely on it for their cocaine.

 

[ShadowArxxy]

I understand the idea, but.... Look, there's dangerous gangs out there now. It's very, very rare, that even with the worst of them, the cops send in SWAT for much. They don't want an open war on the streets. Most of them are often known, but stopping them means giving up legal limits, and just sending out kill squads.

That's real life. Parahuman-led gangs in Worm are *far* worse than the worst RL gangs, and in Brockton Bay they are explicitly stated to be so powerful that they compromise the authority of the government. Empire 88 and Lung both "outgun" the Protectorate/PRT, which are reduced to a precarious existence of "maintaining the balance" rather than "being the authorities".

Also keep in mind that the Protectorate/PRT being split from 'regular' law enforcement means that the parahuman gangs are essentially immune -- the police are forced to hand over jurisdiction to the PRT "because parahumans are involved", but the PRT won't actually arrest any of the non-parahuman gang members. This is a huge underlying reason for how prolific and aggressive the gangs become, they are literally legally protected from consequences.

Nobody wants that.

Nobody wants that, but declaring a civil insurrection and sending in the Marines is the government's job when things get this bad. It's also vastly preferable to standing back and letting literal neo-Nazis openly all but take over a major city.

There was a time in Worm where the National Guard were called in. It didn't help as much as it might. There's multiple reasons why, inc the lack of parahumans intergrated with the NG, but.... Part of it, I think, is it did work, but not for the more dangerous Capes. A minor guy, who can double his strength, he didn't mess with the guys with guns. The E88? The gang members, well, they didn't do anything on their own, but with Cape backing, sure. Half the Capes of the E88 could deal with the NG troops, up to and inc tanks.

Yes, because Worm was badly written in order to enable this outcome. Much like World War Z was badly written so that the zombies "won". It's not a realistic outcome in the slightest.

Most of the Capes of the Bay could deal with guns, unless somebody really good goes after them. Grue, making it impossible to see, Taylor, not even being on the same block, Bitch, giant monster dogs who could tank hits from Leviathan, Regent, who can make you shoot your friend..... That's just of the top of my head, and just from the Undersiders.

If push comes to shove, "blow up the entire neighborhood" is a viable counter-tactic. And is even part of the canonical playbook for sufficiently powerful capes, the PRT just doesn't actually use that option effectively because they are badly written to be malicious and incompetent to justify Taylor' delusional BS.

All of this, however, ignores the simple local cultural fact, that most local groups don't want to escalate that much. There's exceptions, sure. But, we're talking Brockton Bay, one of the worst cities in the US, and even there, most weren't killing random people.

The Empire 88 *does* engage in regular mass murder, which should be absolutely intolerable to the government. Again, literally Nazis.

Kill Orders were a thing. That's when they go too far, that's when the best Gov killers come out.

The problem with Kill Orders in Worm is that they're a bait-and-switch -- a kill order is described as an assassination order, i.e., "The government has flat out sanctioned the cold-blooded killing of this person by any means necessary, by all parties public and private." But what we see in practice is that the PRT/Protectorate is rendered helpless by not being allowed to use even potentially lethal force at all unless a kill order is in play, which is moronic and serves only to enable supervillains to always get away.

In the absence of a kill order, PRT/Protectorate should be operating under law enforcement rules of engagement. Less-than-lethal force is preferred, but lethal force is absolutely sanctioned if necessary for officer self-defense and/or protection of the public.

 

[Simonbob]

The problem with Kill Orders in Worm is that they're a bait-and-switch -- a kill order is described as an assassination order, i.e., "The government has flat out sanctioned the cold-blooded killing of this person by any means necessary, by all parties public and private." But what we see in practice is that the PRT/Protectorate is rendered helpless by not being allowed to use even potentially lethal force at all unless a kill order is in play, which is moronic and serves only to enable supervillains to always get away.

In the absence of a kill order, PRT/Protectorate should be operating under law enforcement rules of engagement. Less-than-lethal force is preferred, but lethal force is absolutely sanctioned if necessary for officer self-defense and/or protection of the public.

Sure, it's a bit stupid.

That's nothing new. We've got kids mutilating themselves IRL, and pointing it out is something that can get you all sorts of trouble.

You think Worm is full of smarter people than that? I don't.

 

[Simonbob]

I thought a bit more.

Note, the Gov in Worm is so short on resorces that they sometimes abandon cities. Think about how fucked up things would be for that!

 

[ShadowArxxy]

Sure, it's a bit stupid.

It's more than a bit stupid, and really only makes sense in the context of Cauldron maliciously fucking society up to 1) preserve parahumans at all costs, 2) "teach" normals that they should be legally and socially inferior to parahumans, and 3) undermine the authority of the government.

Like seriously, handicapping the police that hard goes far beyond even what "soft" European powers do. The PRT literally gets shot at with lethal weapons and WMD-grade superpowers and isn't allowed to return fire with anything but the weakest possible less-than-lethals.

For example, London police are famous for not even carrying pistols, but that's because they're backed up by Armed Response Units that carry MP5 submachine guns and/or G36K assault carbines. Similarly, the Germans may brag about how few police shootings they have compared to America; a significant part of that is that the Bundespolizei ALL carry MP5s at a minimum and German criminals know better than to mess with that.

 

[Agent23]

That's real life. Parahuman-led gangs in Worm are *far* worse than the worst RL gangs, and in Brockton Bay they are explicitly stated to be so powerful that they compromise the authority of the government. Empire 88 and Lung both "outgun" the Protectorate/PRT, which are reduced to a precarious existence of "maintaining the balance" rather than "being the authorities".

Also keep in mind that the Protectorate/PRT being split from 'regular' law enforcement means that the parahuman gangs are essentially immune -- the police are forced to hand over jurisdiction to the PRT "because parahumans are involved", but the PRT won't actually arrest any of the non-parahuman gang members. This is a huge underlying reason for how prolific and aggressive the gangs become, they are literally legally protected from consequences.



Nobody wants that, but declaring a civil insurrection and sending in the Marines is the government's job when things get this bad. It's also vastly preferable to standing back and letting literal neo-Nazis openly all but take over a major city.



Yes, because Worm was badly written in order to enable this outcome. Much like World War Z was badly written so that the zombies "won". It's not a realistic outcome in the slightest.



If push comes to shove, "blow up the entire neighborhood" is a viable counter-tactic. And is even part of the canonical playbook for sufficiently powerful capes, the PRT just doesn't actually use that option effectively because they are badly written to be malicious and incompetent to justify Taylor' delusional BS.



The Empire 88 *does* engage in regular mass murder, which should be absolutely intolerable to the government. Again, literally Nazis.



The problem with Kill Orders in Worm is that they're a bait-and-switch -- a kill order is described as an assassination order, i.e., "The government has flat out sanctioned the cold-blooded killing of this person by any means necessary, by all parties public and private." But what we see in practice is that the PRT/Protectorate is rendered helpless by not being allowed to use even potentially lethal force at all unless a kill order is in play, which is moronic and serves only to enable supervillains to always get away.

In the absence of a kill order, PRT/Protectorate should be operating under law enforcement rules of engagement. Less-than-lethal force is preferred, but lethal force is absolutely sanctioned if necessary for officer self-defense and/or protection of the public.

Yeah, sounds like this novel is written by a retard.

 

[ShadowArxxy]

Yeah, sounds like this novel is written by a retard.

It's written by someone who thinks he's far cleverer than he actually is; it's meant to be a deconstruction of the superhero genre and does have some fairly good concepts (hence its enormous popularity as a basis for fanfiction), but itself falls apart on examination because there's enormous plot holes in the setting itself.

 

[mrttao]

There was a time in Worm where the National Guard were called in. It didn't help as much as it might

This is false. It was a resounding success.

> Authorities organized. Swept through boston. Arrested ALL supervillains with overwhelming force. Put them in super prison you CANNOT escape from ever.
> Supers from other cities had a gang war over the now "free" territory". And now boston has more super criminals than before.
> Lesson learned! Never again will authorities arrest the gangs. any time someone asks in universe why they are told about the lessons of boston.

Except... this is utterly and completely retarded.
Because the numbers of villains in the USA WENT DOWN. meaning it was a stunning success.

Not only would vast majority of villains not be stupid enough to go there and start shit immediately after such a sweeping show of force. (its called laying low)

But even if they did, that means they leave their old city!
A bunch of cities saw the gangs suddenly lose super-villain support as their super-villains abandoned their city to go hang out in the more profitable boston.

And the thing is, you could have had a competent explanation. something like
> our precogs predict that if we try to concentrate force like that, then villain / foreign nation will find out thanks to their own precogs, and will then strike in force against weakened locations that have been stripped of their defenses.

Not that hard. But instead he went with the dumbest explanation possible.