Forgot the healing. He doesn't have super powerful abilities though. Everyone else has nerfed ones.

 

On the contrary, his precognition is way beyond anyone else's. He does not see probabilities or what is likely to happen he sees all possible futures within the range he desires. He burned a single year out of thousands and it was described at least two completely different situations, one where he killed Jack and wondered about him, one where Jack died and he eventually came to the same conclusion.

In his words:

 

Point. So full precognition that he doesn't use very often because it saps his lifespan.

 

Someone in IRC a long time ago made this:
http://www.reddit.com/r/Parahumans/comments/1ejlwa/scion/

Check the comments for a list of comparisons between Legend's powers and Scion's powers. Scion is obviously far more powerful and has more powers, but there are definitely similarities.

I'm pretty much convinced that Legend does have the other passenger's "Scion" shard, which was originally for travelling through space for long periods of time.

 

He did the healing with a specific frequency of radiation, I believe, so that would be tied in with his laser powers.

 

I've been think and I think it's likely that Eidolon has got the same shard skitter though much less damaged. The administrator shard would explain the way his passenger is able to chose different powers depending on the situation. Though I'm not sure what his loss of powers signifies. Perhaps his connection to the second entity is much stronger then any of the other cauldron capes. This would explain Scion's disgust and the murderous rage echidna felt towards him.

 

I read the last 5-6 updates today and I've got to say I'm underwhelmed by Worm now and has lost a lot of interest in it now.

Characters and time skip: Worm has always been like an shounen manga with more and more powerful villains appearing after the last one has been dealt with. It had awesome action laced with good interaction between the Undersiders and awesome interludes which further enhanced the Wormverse. But ever since the prison arc,the character interaction has taken a backseat for action sequence and the ending of world plot. Of course most of the interludes are still awesome.Then, the Time Skip further exacerbated the situations. Familiar characters have changed.Information on Undersiders are scarce. Taylor has also changed from a bad-ass with a little questionable morality to a baby murdering whatever she is now. It would have been a little fine, if she at least felt guilty or bad about it afterwards, but there are no mentions about it other than vague thoughts about it. I hope Taylor dies. :|

The whole Scion reveal : The introduction of the whole entity god creature who is Scion has been a disappointment. It may fit all the pieces and backgrounds, but I've never really liked such types of plots. It reminded me of Galactus from Marvel >_>. All of this could have been a minor issue if Scion didn't become a villain. I have become bored of reading all powerful villains in novel who wants to destroy the world. Their death almost always feels like a cop-out. Since there are only 3 arcs remaining including this,Scion looks like the last villain and Wildbow did say this was the climax in the chapter comments.

Too many fucking characters :Worm as a whole has been bad recently with the introduction of so many new capes who all seem the same. The Delhi arc introduced a lot of characters. There was also the introduction of cannon fodder that is the Slaughterhouse 9000. I have no idea what the power of most of the new capes are. I never really liked the way they got access to Slaughterhouse Nine's dna and a cape who can manipulate them. And Bonesaw being able to clone them this successfully was another point I didn't like. Anyway since they now have Bonesaw on their hands, I expect to see clones of the major capes who died as the cannon fodder. If the Cauldron doesn't use her to make more clones of the major capes like Hero or Alexandria, I'll be disappointed in them.

Anyway, let's see what will happen tomorrow and how it ends.

 

I don't want to bother with defending Worm since it all boils down to your opinion anyway(though I'm also feeling underwhelmed but for different reasons) but I will address your point about Taylor.

Taylor has actually grown but somehow remained the same in the sense that she always has a defining goal that well defines her. At first it was joining the wards, then it was saving Dinah now its her doing what she was told she was going to do by Dinah, that is save the world.

So she adjusts to this goals and now she's basically operating under the whole "for the greater good" thing we she knows that she's basically "the chosen one" and unlike other stories where the protagonist would rebel against that she's embraced it because that's who she wants to be. The girl who saves the world even if it means shooting babies and not the girl who gets shoved into a looker full of tampons by her best friend.

The too many characters is basically a direct consequence of the end of the world scenario. Wildbow has to show that there are other people living in this world other than those who interact with skitter.

 

Yeah, there are some things I don't like about Worm's later chapters after Alexandria's death, such as the time skips and the S9000 arc. But the end of the world scenario is done very well, I think, and Scion's origin and motivations were done well, I think.

I'm very happy with the way Wildbow handled the gradual escalation of threat levels, but the S900 arcs do bother me. It makes sense, and it doesn't feel like a cop out, but it did feel like a bit of a rehash.

I do like the morality of Taylor, actually-- its rare and refreshing to see a protagonist who accepts a utilitarian worldview to the extent that killing a baby isn't seen as out of line. Cauldron is another example in that vein, and is one of my favorite parts of the series.

 

Yeah I'm with Garden. I was thoroughly enjoying Scion as a golden idiot, and Cauldron/ the Endbringers as the greater threat. I didn't particularly enjoy the latest update for a lot of the reasons mentioned above. With that said, I think I like that Scion doesn't seem to be interested in straight up destruction.The fact that he's targeting specific capes is noteworthy. I'm actual curious if these are the same capes that the Endbringers were targeting.

That actually brings me to a revelation which I think is becoming more and more likely. The endbringers aren't passengers, they're the proto-passengers we saw in the interlude. The ones who tore apart their own world. I'm guessing that they developed out of the corpse of the first of the two passengers (maybe like carrion), but since they had no direction they essentially went feral and begun competing for resources (the shards inside capes). It makes sense that both Scion and the Endbringers would target capes if doing so would increase their own strength. This is also why Scion can slap down Endbringers so easily. He's like a human with an AK-47 against some guy who just figured out how to tie a sharp rock to the end of a stick. A bit exaggerated, but I think the point stands.

I would like to point to the Cauldron meeting as a good example of a bit of a return to the character action both klackerz and I seem to like. I was getting little flashbacks to when the Undersiders walked into that bar where they were totally outclassed way back when Coil was still big mystery.

 

I think the Endbringers are part of the Third Entity's plan. From what I gathered in Scion's interlude, they're not usually a part of the cycle that One and Two set up on each planet, so I figure they're probably part of the Third's. It said that other Entities had different methods of self-improvement, after all.

 

Fair point, Aekiel. That third entity is no doubt important, and you're right that it seems like Cauldron is tied closely with the second passenger. Which leaves the Endbringers open to be tools of the third.

It'll be interesting to see where this goes, but I'm slightly sad that there don't seem to be that many secrets left.

 

There are still some secrets:
What is 'Project Terminus' and why were Coil and the Undersiders important to it?
Endbringer Origins
Cauldron Origins
And those are just the big, metaphysical mysteries.

Latest update was good. Didn't like the cliffhanger-ish nature of it, but it was pretty cool to get some background on some Birdcage members. Glaistig is fascinating. It seems strange to have a shard designed to kill and absorb other shards. So she seems like maybe her origins are special compared to others.

 

On the action parts; they're definitely Wildbow's weakest sections. He's incredible for the most part at character interactions and drama, but much of the action makes me want to go back to where people were talking, plotting, or musing. The whole end of the world arc is also weaker than any other arc but for Echida as well; it just doesn't flow as well due to the timeskips and how out of it Taylor feels

 

From what I've been hearing Wildbow does have a plan to go back an add an arc (maybe an interlude arc) to the time skip, which should hopefully flesh out what Taylor was up to for the last year and a half and her acting like a stone cold bitch to her teammates. It's necessary.

Personally I'd like to see 2 arcs added - one featuring Taylor and detailing one of her campaigns against the villains in and around Chicago, and the second being an interlude arc, preferably focused around the Chicago Wards.

That's my ideal, anyways, and I hope it would take away some of the disjunction that occurred in the last few arcs.

 

Well fuck. String Theory's weapons was pretty cool though. Able to push him out of orbit, even for a few seconds, is beyond impressive.

 

Damn. Grue dead, just like that, and Taylor the one who told him to stay.

 

I honestly missed that on the first read through. Fuck, that's really gonna build up on her if she makes it.

 

She kinda has to make it since we know we have more story beyond this and I am not sure Grue actually dies here since it would be a huge blow if most people here died.

 

Pretty sure Grue isn't dead. Well, unless Scion killed him at the very end of the chapter, Grue made it back with his group from their attack on Scion. See this:

Grue and Clockblocker were in different groups, Taylor was asking them both if they'd left anyone behind. Grue shook his head and said no, unless I'm mistaken.