The Trolley Problem is interesting to contemplate but it seems to become hopelessly muddled as soon as your insert any context. I mean, if we have a simple scenario where five people die if I do nothing, one dies if I pull a lever, I'd pull the lever.

But what if these five people are all fifty years old or so, and the one person is a young child? Then I would let the five die. But what if it was five single mothers or one child? No fucking idea what to do then. In that case I see why people like to try and believe that doing nothing leaves them as innocent, since having to commit to killing real people is a lot different than a statistic.

I do agree that the Trolley Problem isn't suited for fictional scenarios like this though. If humanity is annihilated if I do nothing, or one million children are tortured to death/spend eternity in some pedophile heaven or some bullshit, well, you really got to step the fuck up and save humanity, even if you kill yourself afterwards.

As for Armsmaster VS Leviathan, I got the impression that he specifically set the villains up to be murdered. He did EMP Taylor's armband after all. So, I don't think he decided to sacrifice them to give him a chance at the Endbringer, I think he just tried to use the Endbringer to murder them when he did not need to. Taylor's POV could be biased though.

 

I won't deny that Armsmaster broke the truce by setting up villains to die. My argument is that to get himself into position to fight Leviathan head to head, he had to lead Leviathan off, and to accomplish that, someone had to die. Why not remove some of the heavy hitting assholes from his city that had been a thorn in his side to do it? He scrambled Taylor's armband on the off chance that she didn't get taken out because her warning would have ruined his one on one fight scenario, which Taylor understood once she saw the fight begin.

Again, given Armsmaster's personality I don't think it was a question of "to kill people or not to kill people," it was a question of which people needed to die, given the selection.

Edit:

Let me clarify a little. I don't think that anyone in the context of the story looked at Armsmaster's actions and thought, "Armsmaster killed those people." If that were the case Taylor would have had a lot stronger feelings about Armsmaster than simply thinking he was a giant dick. What he did is knowingly put them in harm's way in order to give himself the opportunity to kill Leviathan, which is one hell of a lot more hands off than what Khepri did to kill Scion.

 

FUUUuuuuckkkkkkk

 

I didn't expect her to be the first Epilogue, but this works pretty well, actually. Nice to see inside her head.

 

I didn't realise the first epilogue chapter had been posted because it doesn't seem to be showing up on the table of contents (which I have bookmarked). For anyone else who didn't see it, here is a link.

The epilogue chapter was pretty interesting. I liked the stuff about the Wardens and what New York is like now with all those portals. The mention of Khepri was a bit of a tease - definitely not enough said about her for my liking.

 

I must admit that I had goosebumps when they called themselves the Wardens, the same name as the group in Eden's vision. I wonder how it will play out

 

Really liked it, was rather interested in the mention of Khepri and it revived my hope in her survival. As Howdy says, Cauldron wouldn't threaten with something they couldn't do, Contessa would be one of the people who could pull it off, not to mention that she of all people wouldn't need two shots to kill someone and lastly the mention of another Triumvirate.

With Legend and Valkyrie being the two named members, making me suspect that Taylor might be the third. I mean, if they throw together the three strongest capes, even if Taylor's powers are crippled to a certain degree, would make sense to include her, although it would probably make as much sense to distance themselves from them. Or was the third member already named?

And holy shit, do the Goblin King, the Faerie Queen and Bonesaw make for an awesome trio.

Edit: okay, that makes way more sense xD

 

New Triumvirate is Legend, Valkyrie, Chevalier, I believe.

 

Hey, Valkyrie will have to work her way up like everybody else, starting in the Wards. Come to think of it, isn't she a lot older then 18? Why is she in the Wards?

Nice to see Glaistig Uaines PoV, but not a wham chapter like the last few. All we really know is that the world really isn't ending, Glaistig, Nilbog and Bonesaw are still on the good guys side and the Protectorate was reborn, in a way.

(I'm not really interested in Glaistigs possible maybe revival powers since first, revival is stupid and second, Worm is ending anyway.)

 

I just remembered, didn't Chevalier do something with Endbringer remains? Did anything happen with that?

 

He used Behemoth's leg and Simurgh's wing as material or reference or however his power works for his sword and armor. That's how he could slice straight through Scion and withstand blasts from him.

 

She is not in the Wards. The new name for their parahuman organization is the Wardens. Like the Eden perfect future interlude.

 

Wardens.

The name is interesting.

In Eden's vision, "Wardens" is the name adopted by the faction we would recognize as the Protectorate - having the likes of Chevalier, Defiant and Miss Militia.

In that world, Cauldron didn't come into existence, and thus neither did the Triumvirate and the Protectorate.

Is the name something that Chevalier, or Defiant, or Miss Militia, came up with? Does it means something to one of them, perhaps, leading to it being adopted for use in both the Worm-verse and in Eden's future?

 

Eden future is completely derailed, since Eden herself, Richter and the Black Knight (Jack Slash alternate) died.

 

Which interlude had the Eden future? I don't remember reading it at all.

 

It was nice seeing Imp again. The mention of Tattletale calling a meeting sounds like the setting for the next epilogue chapter. Fuck Teacher.

 

Didn't particularly like this chapter actually. Imp was interesting, but overall her interactions with the Heartbreaker kids seemed off.

Also, what the hell is Teacher's goal? All we've ever seen him do is interfere at absolutely the worst times, be it with Scion,Dragon or now this.

 

Pretty much the opposite for me--really liked Imp and the kids. Wish we'd seen more of them, actually.

 

Same here, love Imp and the three kids were interesting. Awesome to see Imp maintaining Taylor's and Regent's legacy.

Also makes you remember how broken her power can be, since it is one of the less flashy ones. In a setting like this? Imp is one of the top dogs, and that is if they can remember her.