Bre Karn
(Very Slow) Writer of Glorious Smut
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Just a question here (forgive me if it's not the appropriate thread) but are there good crossovers with Grrl Power?
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Just a question here (forgive me if it's not the appropriate thread) but are there good crossovers with Grrl Power?
Alright, forgive me for the necromancy, but why do people like to bash on Cauldron so much? I mean, sure, they're quite horrible, but at least they are trying to genuinely help the myriad worlds.
Alright, forgive me for the necromancy, but why do people like to bash on Cauldron so much? I mean, sure, they're quite horrible, but at least they are trying to genuinely help the myriad worlds.
I thought it was 'because he'll drive people to join the protectorate'. At least, originally.We see in canon that Cauldron is willing to let Manton keep on killing because 'they may need him at some point'.
I thought it was 'because he'll drive people to join the protectorate'. At least, originally.
I think it's pretty consistent-ish?Except we never see examples of this. Wildbow's worldbuilding isn't very consistent. As in: at all.
Yeah, I didn't really buy that one either.
The reason that Cauldron were willing to let Manton keep murderhoboing is the same reason they were willing to let every other bad thing keep happening. Higher Trigger rates means more parahumans they can throw at Scion. Cauldron isn't on an unconditional "make the world a better place" plan.
The reason that Cauldron were willing to let Manton keep murderhoboing is the same reason they were willing to let every other bad thing keep happening. Higher Trigger rates means more parahumans they can throw at Scion. Cauldron isn't on an unconditional "make the world a better place" plan.
Well, they do create new and interesting capes, which might help Cauldron find a silver bullet. But in terms of raw parahumans created to parahumans killed, the math is pretty dubious, IIRC.The s9 kinda kill them all even if they trigger don't they? Except for the ones they recruit. So that kinda seems self defeating.
On the other hand, certain doom for humanityAs for the thing on Cauldron stabilizing the world, we also have the Edenverse interlude. Ironically, it seems like the world would be more stable, for certain values of stability, if they hadn't managed to kill Eden and she had recovered.
Heh.As for the thing on Cauldron stabilizing the world, we also have the Edenverse interlude. Ironically, it seems like the world would be more stable, for certain values of stability, if they hadn't managed to kill Eden and she had recovered. On the other hand, certain doom, so.
Heh.
Yeah, Cauldron has two conflicting goals. On the one hand, they want things generally crappy, so that trigger rates are high and more parahumans are available; on the other hand, they want society and government still intact, so there's some infrastructure for getting all these people pointing in the same direction.
In the end, though, their strategy for beating Scion mostly came down to "pray for another golden BB". And, well, it worked.
Alright, forgive me for the necromancy, but why do people like to bash on Cauldron so much? I mean, sure, they're quite horrible, but at least they are trying to genuinely help the myriad worlds.
Alright, forgive me for the necromancy, but why do people like to bash on Cauldron so much? I mean, sure, they're quite horrible, but at least they are trying to genuinely help the myriad worlds.
It's more the fact that people think they are doing pointlessly evil things that actually backfired on them horribly.
The case 53s for example. For one, why the hell are they labeling them? For two, why the hell did they keep an army of resentful and dangerous beings in their fucking base? That's bond level of incompetence.
Basically, they wanted Cauldron to be more effective than it was. it doesn't help that they were built up as a defacto evil organization at first and then the "They were good guys all along" got shoein near the end there... at least from what I remember. Haven't touched the actual worm story in a very long time.
I think much of the hate stems from the fact that they were made stupid.
They were told to make an army by their cheat plot device, but they never asked the question of how to make a loyal army which would have solved a lot of issues. Then there is the fact that they are following a path by a tampered with shard that got it's previous host killed when she was texting and driving at the same time.
So they have this wonderful plot device adn don't realize things that it's telling them to do are making things even more shitty. But then it's a catch 22.
The plan that Contessa first saw to kill Scion was their only their only hope or something.
So they needed to risk using said compromised shard even though it can't predict what is needed to truly counter Scion and not to mention, seems to focus on short term gain more than long term gain.
Short term gain= Army of resentful Case 53s
Long term gain- Army of loyal case 53s.
Basically.
Though really, this is all speculation on my part and I don't have any evidence to back it up and I am not going through over 2 million words to look for cites or over every single thing Wilbow said or clarified or used to troll his fan base.
Cauldron kept Bet together on the whole but on individual smaller pictures they encouraged or let happen real atrocities. The reason being that Earth Bet was the designated frontline of the Golden Morning, both where Scion was active and the "default" Petri dish for Shards, so that is where they could dump the mass of their parahumans without it being weird, and have the best chance of gathering an anti-Scion force. So they let some S-class threats roam because the opportunity cost of removing them was too high, or for other factors, and from the perspective of Skitter and other POV characters that's something to understandably take offense with.
Now if we take the perspective of one of the trillion denizens of Earth Dalet or Nun or what have you, Cauldron would appear to be the heroes trying to make sure an interdimensional genocidal threat is contained before it reaches their world, in exchange for maybe some dying guys from our hospitals and battlefields.
I'm partial to the idea that Cauldron is supposed to be hypercompetent, but they just end up ballsing it up 90% of the time we see them because THANKS WILDBOW.like I said: the broad strokes are interesting even if the details are flimsy.
A couple of points:They're so grossly incompetent at everything they attempt that basically all of their plans come out useless in the end. Even their big overarching goal to create an army of capes to fight Scion turns out useless because they're so incapable of understanding how anyone other than their own twisted minds think that they didn't consider that if they created a world where capes are divided into constantly fighting factions that all don't trust each other, then when they wouldn't be able to work together at all.
A couple of points:
1. Various Cauldron plans did indeed turn out tolerably well. Founding the Protectorate worked out pretty okay, and in fact ended up being crucial to the continuation of civilization after Gold Morning.
2. The "army" of Case 53s wasn't particularly intended as an army. Their goal there was to desperately hunt for another golden BB single cape who could maybe take out Scion. You can say "relying on luck is a bad plan", but if it's the only thing you have to rely on, well, maybe the horse will sing. This ended up failing and being pretty pointless, but hey.
3. The "army" of capes in normal society was probably about as good as they could get, given their constraints. Shards spawn conflict, so making all the capes in society actually united would be impossible; however, by maintaining civil order in at least some of the world, and by giving all the capes a stake in the existence of that order, they did create the circumstances that let the final win happen. (And they also significantly reduced the general awfulness involved in the whole process, not a minor consideration.)
Basically, Cauldron was up against impossible odds, and the jackpot win that let them defeat Eden got invalidated at that point. Their only plan -- the only plan they really could have -- was to shape circumstances to maximize the chances of another jackpot win, and pray really hard. One can quibble with the details, but I don't think there's much about their overall approach that could be improved on easily.
kamenhero25
Your moral qualms are duly noted, and I share them to some extent. Do I have the stomach to sacrifice a million to save a billion? I sure hope that I never have to find out. One thing is for sure, though: if push ever comes to shove, I hope the guy that do have to make the decision is able to make that controversial move, because I am a thousand times more likely to be in that billion than in that million. You don't get my vote for president of anything, sorry.
Do note that utilitarianism in real life is indeed mostly impossible to apply to that extent, simply because it is impossible to ever get such a clear-cut decision with such certain results. But a lot of Wildbow's work on Cauldron was precisely done to invalidate these concerns.
Out of curiosity, when did Cauldron's plans ever sacrifice billions of people?Personally, I find that the sheer scale of Cauldron's machinations simply overrides good intentions. Once the number of people you're sacrificing hits ten digits, it's simply gone too far to be anything other than abhorrent.
Out of curiosity, when did Cauldron's plans ever sacrifice billions of people?
I mean, billions did die in Gold Morning, but it's not as if Cauldron could have done anything to stop that, in particular.
On the one hand, they want things generally crappy, so that trigger rates are high and more parahumans are available
They're not responsible for China or Africa as they didn't do much work there (I think?).That means that everyone on Bet who has ever suffered from cape violence, everyone who triggers because of how hopeless they encouraged the world to be, everyone who any of the villains they encouraged to run loose ever hurt, is on their shoulders. China is a dictatorship even worse than anything in our history with an army of mind controlled super humans, America has a strike team of violent serial killers who slaughter towns for fun and have for years, Africa is a wasteland filled with warlords and a giant raging abomination of fire and explosions... this list just keeps going and all of it is because they wanted the world as bad as possible to find their imaginary golden goose that they had no reason to believe would actually appear other than desperation.