Seriously awesome interlude. Chevalier is such a badass. And Scion was pretty great too. I can't wait for an interlude from Scion's perspective.
I wonder how this will affect the wormverse.

If Behemoth is destroyed, which I think he is, then that leaves Leviathan and Simurgh. Leviathan I could see being taken down in a similar way. A big attack by a powerful parahuman to strip him of armor, then Scion finishes him off.

Simurgh will be much less susceptible to this tactic. Unless Scion is able to destroy the Endbringers on his own, in which case they're both done for the next time Scion gets to them.

edit:
Someone raised a good point in the comments, I think. Might have been on Spacebattles.

Basically, how close was the Pretender-possessed Alexandria to the healing light from Scion?
Because that might mean that Alexandria's brain damage is healed by Scion.

 

I fear that there may be some negative result now that an Endbringer has been slayed.

Yeah, this was one of my favorite chapters of this story so far.

 

On Chevalier, I like how the chapter sort of explained how he got owned so badly in the previous interlude, because of the distracting effect of the multiple Yangban powers on his power. Interestingly, that same perceptive power didn't notice a passenger on Behemoth or Scion.

 

It is interesting.

Scion is known to be power immune though, so it's a bit iffy in his case. Also, Wildbow could just have messed up there.

OTOH, it does make sense for the endbringers to not register a passenger for Chevalier, given how likely it is that the Endbringer's creators (if it's not the doctor) are actually the passenger's enemies.

Still, i am doubtful Chevalier actually notice the passenger themselves, and not the expression of someone's power/mentality. EG, capes are 'open'.

 

Some of the Shadows we saw are more like that, but Skitter's in particular seemed very Passenger-like to me:

On the Scion thing, I wonder if he's a projection. I'd like to have known what Chevalier's power made of Genesis or Siberian, as a basis of comparison.

 

Scion's power works to constantly repel dirt, water, blood, etc. from his suit, but it isn't an instant process; it takes time. If the suit gets soiled badly enough, then that dirt and blood sticks around long enough to be seen at the next emergency or two.

That's a theory based on how we see Scion and his suit dealing with rain in The Most Powerful Man interlude.

I've been wondering the same thing. It's possible that the tramp had a trigger event when he was being physically abused by his ex-girlfriend. If that's the case, then the tramp's passenger would be the one driving the projection about the place.

Normally, when Kevin Norton, the tramp, dies that'd be it. No Scion anymore. But he attempted to pass Scion off to Lisette, and we've got a precedent for transference with the Butchers and the fairy in the Birdcage.

 

I really don't understand why Scion didn't heal Norton. The glow that surrounds him healed the people on the passenger ship that first found him, Norton should have been fine when he went to Scion again in his interlude.

I really doubt that Scion is his projection for that reason.

Also: what really worries me is that Scion has the directive to help people, and never fought to kill the Endbringers until Norton specifically asked him to. It's difficult to imagine, but maybe the Endbringers served some greater purpose and after Scion destroys the other two, it's what begins the end of the world scenario?

 

I don't think Scion was glowing enough during his interlude to reach the tramp.

Scion didn't heal him on his own initiative because of his autistic behaviour. He can't relate to others well.

 

Just checking in again, ignoring your posts and the spoilers so don't worry. Finished the fight with Leviathan earlier today, which was intense. While I'm not necessarily glad that all those people died (well, I'm not complaining about people like Kaiser), I liked how the author didn't pull punches much with the level of destruction. It added the necessary weight to the arc.

At the same time, I'd have thought one of the Undersiders would die there. Not Taylor of course, preferably not Grue or Tattletale either, but I think Regent and Bitch could've been candidates. They're both the worst people on the team (not for their powers, just as people -- Regent is a sociopath and Bitch is, well, a bitch, and her powers giving her autism don't excuse anything for me) and I think we've gotten all we can get out of Bitch's character. I mean she's not very deep. How much more can you draw from her?

While I'd gotten the impression before, it's pretty clear that real heroes are few and far between. Even Scion's a raging cunt apparently, assuming Taylor was right about interpreting his look at the other hero as like looking at dog shit. So I'm not that disappointed that Taylor doesn't join them. And this "Sentinel" arc I'm on now, seeing things through the Wards' eyes, gives that needed perspective anyway. I am glad though that she isn't becoming a real villain. She's more like a rogue hero, and in this world I'm very much fine with that. So far at least. I'd like her to seek out some of the better heroes at some point, maybe like this Flechette.

Sorry if all this is old news or if pretty much everything I'm saying has been said at some point before. But if I don't posts my thoughts thus far now then by the time I'm caught up I'd probably forget about them. And like I said, I don't expect responses and it's better that I don't read posts here anyway.

 

You have no idea how amusing your post is, Red Aviary.

 

There's a precedent set for projections not being able to affect their creators; Siberian had to make the van invincible and not her creator within the van etc.

 

The dirty look that Scion gave Eidolon during the Levithan fight was definitely a great touch. Nobody likes that guy

 

I'm beginning to wonder if that's a regular thing because he's just unlikeable or because his Passenger is interfering. He's a Cauldron cape, and one of the older ones, so perhaps the synchronicity between human and Passenger is a bit skewed by a bad formula, allowing the Passenger to affect the world a bit more than it should.

 

I think it's really just an aspect of his power, rather than the result of a "bad formula." We now know from this arc that it's his passenger that chooses the powers that he gets. Since Weaver's passenger also seems to exert a fair amount of subconscious control over her powers, this probably accounts for Echidna's smell about the two of them.

I like Eidolon as a character. He brings up another aspect of the whole "image is paramount" issue. I've read in comments that Scion's dirty look at Eidolon was because he was a Cauldron cape. Kinda wish we had a point of comparison with a trigger cape...or really, just Scion's interlude.

 

Considering how Scion is there has to be something really wrong with Eidolon for it to be capable of invoking emotion from him.

 

Echidna described him as smelling off. I think something went a little bit wrong when Eidolon drank his formula, like how something went wrong with Noelle and Oliver, or maybe the "booster shots" Cauldron has been giving him. I suspect that's also why Eidolon gave Chevalier headaches. And probably why Eidolon's powers have been getting weaker.

 

That reminds me of something: Do the newer generation of capes tend to be weaker than the first generation?

If you took the first 1000 capes and compared them to the last 1000 capes, would that first generation have comparatively stronger powers?

You've got the likes of Alexandria, Eidolon, and Lung, who're all going toe to toe with Endbringers. There have been tens of thousands of capes since those three entered the scene, so why haven't there been hundreds of capes of equivalent and greater power? The young generation aren't shaming the old generation with awesome strength and power, and instead they're still relying on these grandparent capes to do the heavy lifting against the Endbringers. The new bloods might get a strike in, but they're nothing more than glass cannons.

I know that it could be written off as Cauldron using stronger trigger formulas or power boosting, but that doesn't feel satisfactory to me. The older generations of capes just seems so kick ass compared to the newer sets of powers.

 

Cauldron does have a way of altering the level of power that a cape receives, we saw that in Battery's interlude. Even then you've got the most powerful precog in Dinah, very solid A rankers in Taylor and Vista, and hell, just look at Echidna. There's also Bonesaw and Panecea to think of.

So no, while outside of Echidna there isn't a Superman class that I can think of off the top of my head there are plenty of heavy hitters.

 

Well those heavy hitters are literally the best of the their time as well. We're seeing the ones that have survived those fights, so we're seeing that time's best.
10 years from now only some of the characters now will have survived and they'll be the top tier.

Its selection.

 

Who's to say the best of the best are visible heroes? We have everything to believe that people who naturally trigger become rogues or villains - people unlikely to be prevalent so far in the story. The "cold" capes all hide underground in Inida, just like any sane criminal would do in the US. If the ones that trigger naturally are stronger (a decent enough hypothesis) than cauldron-makes, then it's a given they will stay in the shadows. Furthermore, the stronger you are, the more likely it is you'll survive, but it's also more likely you'll see conflict that could kill you (I imagine weaker capes might be spared or go unnoticed more easily). Endbringers and other natural occurences could result in you dying or going to birdcage, if you let yourself stand out or make dumb decisions. There could be plenty of strong heroes locked away or dead.

I don't think there's enough evidence to suggest one way or the other.