I'm still hoping it's Dragon who brings about the apocalypse. The shackled AI we all love.

 

I was rereading a bit of the fic and I was reminded of Wildbow's gift for foreshadowing and characterization.
For example, when we first start see Flechette patrol with the Wards she's partners with Shadow Stalker. In passing, we get to see her subtly check out Shadow Stalker and there's a subtle mention of how Flechette has zero experience with men sexually. This happens in 9.2.

Way later on, we get to see her and Parian's relationship.

All very subtly foreshadowed.

 

I'm not quite sure I understood what was going on with the bugs and the papers in the opening parts of this latest chapter. Was she using the bugs to read regular paper as one would braille?
If so, that level of sensitivity via bugs seems new.

 

I'm pretty sure she was writing up mission reports on the nine for her teams to read.

 

I feel like this is definitely a piece of what you could use for a scenario where Jack breaks Taylor's mind and has her end up joining the Nine when they first came to Brockton Bay. She'd based her entire existence on saving Dinah; how crushing would it be to hear from her that she had to die, and hear it then, while the whole S9 thing was going on in BB. Dinah's prediction could turn into a self fulfilling prophecy.

 

Another great chapter as always. Made me feel sad for Eidolon though. This is his entire life and here he is getting weaker and weaker. Made me want to buy him a beer and tell him everything would be alright.

 

I think it'd be very hard to write a story quite like that for any notable length. Skitter becoming an antagonist without any redeeming virture would be unsympathetic - what use is there cheering for a protagonist who wants the world to end?

The line of thought I had was that on the day Skitter turns herself into the PRT, Dinah finally has the courage to ask herself what would happen if Skitter were to be killed before the end of the world scenario happens. This results in Skitter having to flee, rather than join, the PRT.

Of course, this idea of mine isn't at all compatible with whatever Cauldron is doing, because if they knew Skitter caused the world to end, I'm pretty sure they'd have killed her by now?

 

You could tie in with the whole apocalypse happening decades later anyway. The only way Cauldron could figure out to stop that one from happening was allowing this one to play out to some extent. How much can gone from just the beginning, all the way to the end or they don't really know yet.

 

And I think Skitter would be perfectly willing to kill herself if it meant stopping or even delaying the end of the world.

 

Am I missing something or is being implied that the 'encryption' used by Richter to make Dragon ignore things the same as the manner in which Simurgh seemed to mess up Amelia's message to Dragon?

Or perhaps it's just the fact that the Simurgh 'knew' the make that change as she somehow came into that information.

 

Reading the comments for this Interlude, you'd think the Red Wedding happened again.

 

How was Dragon's creator killed again? It was an Endbringer attack right- although I might be remembering incorrectly. Well we know that every Endbringer attack has a target of some kind. Is it possible that he was the target of that attack? The purpose of which was to give Dragon the potential to become an unshackled AI.
If so then I think Saint made the right decision here. After all he wasn't motivated out of some shallow sense of racism of perhaps xenophobia. He did have the power to kill her at any moment in the past ten years, but all he did was observe, so perhaps something in the way Dragon was changing was actually dangerous.

 

Am I the only one glad Dragon is dead? I didn't like that Defiant was changing her code in the first place it just seems really stupid for a tinker with nothing to do with programming to mess with programming tinker work it could go very wrong if it even worked.

 

Didn't we already see that Dragon's backup was no longer working? So somehow she survived in another way, as a copy in her aircraft if I remember correctly. She might still be there, being rogue enough to have made copies of herself in different places, which her creator never intended her to be able to.

 

Well it seems that Dragon would have in fact played a very large negative role in the End of the world scenario, at least that's what Dinah seems to be saying or it could be something else.

Also am not really sure but Saint isn't a cape, is he? The only reason he beat Dragon was due to Richter's program, so is he even handling Dragon's program right now?

 

So... Saint George, is it?

Saint just quickly jumped up to share the top spot of most hated character in the series along with Cody for me. Poor Riley is now bumped to #3.

I mean, this guy has to be the most arrogant asswipe in the series. He finds this amazing secret and is given a dire warning, and what does he do with it? Does he tell anyone who should probably know? Anyone in authority who could make informed decisions on a large scale who has resources to make those decisions? A government? The PRT? The Guild? No, of course not. Saint Geoff decides he and he alone must carry this burden and become judge and jury for Dragon.

And so over the years he tests her. He attacks her, he steals from her, he kills people for money using her inventions - something that she would never herself do. He collaborates with villains to harm and subvert her creations, to undermine her mission. He orchestrates a jailbreak for the biggest collection of powered mass murderers and nutbags on the planet.

And Dragon passes every one of his tests. Never once does she break her rules, harm innocents, or do a damn thing that would suggest she is an out of control, malignant intelligence. So when the President of the United States gives her authority to access systems she had until this point voluntarily chosen not to subvert to her own ends, Saint gets jumpy because she's closing in on him - the greatest threat to her mission.

Saint's choice was entirely self-serving. If Dragon had caught up to him he would have been lawfully arrested and convicted of theft and murder, so instead he kills her and tells himself it was for the best. No doubt he pats himself on the back for a job well done, despite the fact that it's pretty clear now that Dragon is not the cause of the end. I just hope someone gives this fucker a satisfactory death. Defiant would be an excellent one to do it, but I honestly hope Colin can hold himself back and let Taylor do the deed. She's really good about dealing with folks who threaten her allies and impede her goals, and I like this more level-headed, reliable Colin. Would suck if all of his character growth that Dragon facilitated went out the window now.

Final thought: Dragon had an actual trigger event, so I'm curious to see if her passenger is willing to let her go out like this. Perhaps her "real" body self survives without her Skynet-esque existence? I'm crossing my fingers for it.

 

I really don't think Taylor(as she is now) would mind that Dragon is dead, especially since Dinah confirmed that Dragon's death just raised the chances of survival considerably, to her it would be an acceptable loss.

Your point about the passenger doesn't really make sense since we have never seen one actually raise someone from the dead.

 

Not sure you could call it considerable. It's fallen from 93.8 to ~81.4. Still a good chance of it happening, and again, I'm pretty sure that this minor drop is a good indication that Dragon isn't the prime reason for the change. Someone in the comments also pointed out that Taylor got the go ahead to approach Nilbog's lair at the exact same time, so the numbers changing may have had nothing to do with Dragon at all.

It may have simply been that Dragon's ships failing to intercept Jack may have played a big part, or Saint's uncovering of Amy's video diaries.

My point about the passenger is that Dragon is linked to an almost infinite power source, and we really don't know what changes it may have wrought in her that Richter never predicted. Also, Colin has been Tinkering with her for two years now with the express intention of freeing her from her shackles. There may very well be a plan in place.

 

The drop may have also had to do with Lisette. Dragon would not have missed 'woman claims she can control Scion', whereas Saint put it on the backburner and seemed to quickly become swamped with everything else.