I'm not really convinced that's Lisette and not some crazy. First off, we don't have any evidence that Scion has started listening to her. Second, what's really the point of telling anybody that? Just tell Scion what you want him to do and presumably, he'll do it.

Though he hasn't killed off any more Endbringers, so even that's questionable.

 

Did he? Seems like he investigated everything but the Endbringer cultists.

 

That Lissete chick is really stupid, she's just painted a giant bullseye on herself, especially with people who can know she's telling the truth.

 

All those people amount to one homeless guy in Britain. Who has probably died by now.

 

Well the last chapter went about as poorly as imaginable. Though I don't think Nilbog has as big of a role in the end of the world as Taylor assumed.

 

Poor Nilbog just got the shit kicked out of him in about 10 seconds flat. It's a strange thing when one of the supposedly scariest characters in a very, very scary universe becomes a mere pawn to the other players.

 

Alexandria didn't do so well against Taylor's suffocation death attack once she got out the zone of control herself. Nilbog could in fact just be dead, though Bonesaw could probably bring him back to life (although her motives are suspect, so she might intentionally botch it).

 

One way or another we will see Nilbog and his goblins again. This was pretty much a total loss for the good guys as far as I'm concerned.

But... Nilbog now seems like a threat that can certainly be dealt with by the crew that Taylor and the Protectorate have assembled.

Echidna was much more foreboding.

 

In all reality, Echidna was probably much more dangerous. Even though Nilbog did lead both Jack and Taylor right to his body, I can't see why he couldn't have been wiped off the map by the Triumvirate.

Maybe they were waiting till his minions were worn down by the lack of resources.

 

I think the reason that Nilbog is an S-class isn't just the fact his creations can make more.

But also the fact they seemed to be, at least, semi-autonomous. The way the lizard boy reacted to actions, but not speech, made me think that Nilbog can give out some basic commands ("kill violent intruders", "remove weapons from visitors", "don't eat the other goblins"), and then just leave them to work by themselves.

If he'd been directly supervising, then he'd have been able to react to Weaver's words, not just her actions.

Which, in a way, makes him kind of like Jack. He has an army of monsters under his rough command, and they aren't just going around killing everyone for the fun of it, but only because they are mildly controlled.

This makes Nilbog long-term dangerous. If one of his replicating goblins gets out, and hides in the sewer system, it could take years to flush them all out.

 

It's a little unclear how autonomous Echidna's clones were. If the deleted interlude has any bearing, they were able to function pretty much completely on their own. I think the real doomsday scenario would have been Echidna capturing Nilbog though: limitless evil(er) Nilbog clones!

 

Contessa and the Number Man making a brief appearance - highlight of the chapter. Also, Thanda!

Anyone else think the siberians went down too easy?

 

Siberian was as scary as fuck because she was mysterious, enigmatic, and appeared to have no weaknesses. Now that her weak spot is known, and it's a very squishy Manton roleplaying as his super powered daughter, it's a much less terrifying threat.

Expose the squishy operator and crush. Job done.

 

It seemed to me that Jack was setting the "extra" Siberians up to fail, with so little support given. Someone in the chapter speculated he was bored of them, I think that's right on the mark.

I think Manton's projection distance is probably pretty awful (compared to say Genesis, who was never fucking about on the edges of the batlefield); that would explain how he was killed so quickly after Brockton Bay, and why they went with a defend-the-Mantons rather than a hide-the-Mantons strategy. It's amazing the original kept the secret as long as he did, good work on his part I guess.

 

The Mantons were all rather stupid, to be honest.

Having a Siberian on the outside was a good idea.

Having one outside carry it, but not use the immovability power at all, even on itself, then put another inside and extend the power over itself, the box, and the one outside.

There.

Indestructable.

...

Did the text actually mention how many they saw, and how many there are? Because thinking about it, that seems a remarkably quick way of killing all of them.

 

They saw 8 Siberians. If I'm remembering it right there should have been 9.

 

Isn't the ninth one with Jack wherever they escaped to through the portal?

I don't know about you guys but I feel kind of underwhelmed by all this. Yes people are dying gruesomely by the hundreds but there just isn't that sense of foreboding I had when the nine hit Brockton bay or maybe its because I knew Brockton bay and it kind of felt like a minor character on its own and now since its happening everywhere I honestly can't empathize.

 

Well the sheer number of them kinda detracts from the fear factor for me. The S9 was a lot better when there was well 9 of them.

 

Well, the major players, exluding the Triumvirate and Cauldron, just went to confront Jack, Bonesaw, one Siberian and Nilbog. And maybe Greyboy. And the over 200 clones that wern't mentioned before.

I don't really like this plan.

 

The S9000 was always kind of doomed to suffer from Conservation of Ninjitsu, even moreso because being clones of each other each individual power is having its epicness spread sort of thin, story wise. I'm thinking there will end up being a battle against one of each Nine member (including Grey Boy) but that this will somehow be yet another distraction from the thrust of whatever Jack is trying to do (It's almost like he's genre savvy enough to understand his clone army isn't really going to do as well as one might logically guess it would).

One dumb thing stands out in particular though: why the fuck isn't Clockblocker on Skitter's team? He's a hard counter to Siberian, Jack's main heavy hitter! Also, holding back Imp would have been much more defensible if she wasn't demonstrably one of the only reliable counters to Nice Guy (not to mention I think Strangers are generally something you don't want to go into a big cape fight without one of).

Team List for reference:

Who on that team deals with Nice Guy or Siberian? Maybe the Dragon's Teeth can take Nice Guy, but if Nice Guy's power has a range and works by targeting specific people the Dragon's Teeth could conceivably still be crippled by it. Maybe Taylor's range will let her kill Manton, but Siberian strikes me as being able to kill Taylor first or at least cause a lot of havoc.