She already can sense taste and smell through the bugs, it just gets expressed weirdly due to biological differences (it was mentioned some last chapter)

 

That would be an incredibly difficult state for Wildbow to write, I think. Taylor would have to deal with, physically, being a complete non-entity - both from her own perspective and from the perspective of people around her.

I don't think it's the direction he wants to take worm in...

But I think it would be awesome x_x

 

I thought about that, but she'd be an S ranked threat regardless of intentions there; only thing really holding her back right now is that a good sniper can take her out. Distributed consciousness bug god would be a pretty radical change and one of tremendous consequence.

 

That's actually pretty terrifying but awesome concept. You can't even kill something like that.

 

I am totally going to interpret the last two Endrbinger attacks (Simurgh attacking a plane above water, and this one with a teleporter) as designed to make sure Weaver can't be in the fight and kill them, because she is a scary motherfuker.

 

It is an interesting concept for sure - could Skitter actually die if her consciousness were transient among bugs? But then... what houses her consciousness if she has no body? Can a single bug do it? Or does she "die" when she loses enough bugs (which results in her losing consciousness)? Is she like Legion from Mass Effect, then? Or can she remanifest herself after an entire swarm has been dispersed?

Either way, it's a cool concept for a kind of "bug god".

 

She'd be a ghost in the swarm.

 

Someone commented in the latest chapter with an interesting theory - Endbringers are MEANT to terrorize, perhaps for the sole purpose of awakening more parahumans or parahumans with specific powers.

 

That's what I've thought for a long time now. I figure Leviathan attacked BB to try and release Echidna, thereby causing a ton of new (cloned) parahumans to be made.

I think the reason Jack is the catalyst, lowering the timescale for the apocalypse done fifteen years to two is because he had caused Bonesaw to make a bunch of new fucked up parahumans, which will end up terrifying people into having more trigger events.

I think that the passengers "wake up" (as Amy and Glaistig Uaine put it) when some critical mass of parahumans is reached.

 

I have been wondering if all parahumans "die" when their passengers consume them or something? Hm, maybe not. But another explanation that's similar... maybe a percentage of the world is turned into parahumans? Maybe they kill each other off...? I imagine if a large % of the world's pop got superpowers... it'd cause a global revolution of some kind. Skitter could reduce that by presenting the "good way" to use super powers...? Well, only a theory.

 

The endbringers making more parahumans really doesn't make much sense. If their goal was to get more to show up, then why the hell are they killing hundreds of them throughout the years? Hell, it could be in the thousands by now.

 

It could easily be that their goal is a higher ratio of parahumans to normal humans or somesuch. In essence, that it doesn't matter how many people have powers, but what percentage of the populace has powers.

Or maybe the short term loss in numbers is judged acceptable losses to increase (and maintain) the rate of parahuman production.

 

Wasn't the rate of natural parahuman generation an exponential curve? I remember the Doctor Mother or Alexandria mentioning that there would be hundreds of thousands of capes 50 years from when Alexandria came up with her plan. If you accept the Endbringer parahuman theory as fact, that would likely mean a highly increased rate of parahuman generation.

Of course that doesn't answer the question of why, which is the important one in this case. It could be that having the Endbringers around is acting as a unifying force for the capes that live through the fights (I don't find it coincidental that the Triumvirate have done so well if this is the case), though if they're aiming to create heroes they're going the wrong way about it. The only thing that follows on from an Endbringer attack is more misery. Or Skitter.

 

This chapter was fucked up.

Also, why no Kid Win/Clockblocker status? They were mentioned in the last chapter in the past tense, but they weren't referred to in a way that suggested they were dead. So, I guess they're okay?

It's a little troublesome that Khonsu's powers are kinda like Clockblocker's? The implication that Endbringers are created from humans is troubling, but, also unlikely, since Tattletale said they were never human.

 

His power is more like Dispatch's than clockblocker's.

 

An amazing chapter. It seems like Khonsu's biggest advantage is actually winning the endurance war, between healing himself and popping around at random. An hour of Khonsu could be equivalent in damage to 20 minutes of one of the others, but it doesn't matter because they can't make him stop.

 

Wow, this is a great chapter. That African Warlord sounds incredibly scary, Cauldron is deliciously ambiguous, and there are so many hints of a greater conflict ahead.

 

They've already saved the world once. Time travel? Alternate universe? Simulations using a precog? Lots of new questions, as well as a big shit on the Cauldron-created the Endbringers theory. I'd just been starting to accept that idea as well.

EDIT: On little problem I had with it. As a glasses wearer it just seemed odd to me that Taylor would sleep with them away from her bedside. I mean, I get that she can use her bugs to navigate, but force of habit should have had her pick them up at least.

 

Plus Faulline being able to make planets. That's pretty badass.

 

Planets?
I think you mean portals.