Interlude 4: The Fourth War Review
Melbourne, Australia. December 20th, 2006. 2nd Day of the War. 6:38 PM. Child Emperor:
What does it say about the world when even a child like myself understands how bad it is for us? The prospect of using power is a far more enticing thought to the more villainous elements of our society, making the fight against criminals and terrorists a losing battle.
In the past, back when structure and development were required to progress your propensity for destruction, it wasn't so bad. However, the advent of gaining strength through suffering slowly draws the world back towards feudalism. Japan is an example of this.
Within a year or two, Japan has transformed into a place of law and order even after the heavy disruptions caused by powerful villains and the Leviathan attack on Kyushu thanks to one man. All Might probably didn't mean to do it, but it is a fact anyways that our current state of peace is a result of one man's personal power and wish.
It may last for now, but the situation is untenable for the future. Someone has to stand up and answer the call so that the future is safe from ne'er-do-wells. Someone like me. With my inventions, I can rise up in the future and make sure Japan stays a prosperous country in the fight against evil. No matter how much I dislike how my power works, it is my tool to help this world heal.
For the longest time I wanted a sense of stability in my life. Of course what do I get when I finally go over the edge? A power that changes what I can do on a weekly basis. A power that makes all my previous progress worthless if I don't rush my inventions. The amount of times I've nearly destroyed my entire lab after I get my speciality shifted right before I finished a project is an unfortunately high number.
With my father dead and a mother who abandoned me at the age of seven, I made my own way in this world. The abandonment may have triggered me, but it taught me how I must stay strong all the same. My first speciality was education, which I used to design the perfect VI tutor for myself. I would have done anything back then to gain my independence, and independence starts with the ability to provide for yourself materialistically and intellectually.
Ironic for how unhelpful my power usually is for me, the first couple of specialities I gained were all things I needed to support myself. Construction for my base, cultivation to grow my own food, filtration for my air and water needs. The first couple of months of my power let me do everything needed so that I could be self-reliant.
I don't need other people getting in my way. I don't need the government coming in telling me to go to a school where the teachers are less intelligent than me, or to listen to other heroes who are far less capable at the job than me.
Life was going fine and I was moving on for my dream. I was active 'independent'(Can't call myself a hero due to the political associations of the title) and I helped save people. With All Might at the helm of social reforms, I could be more public and help the civilians more openly.
They even gave me the title Child Emperor to note my immense skill despite my age. I dislike the need to bring my age into it, but at least the message my hero name represents is solid. I was on my way with every little step to help shape the future.
Of course, Osiris doesn't care about how well your life is going or your eventual plans. At least I actually have a desire to play her games, I can use this wish for the good of everyone like my idol. I'm going to walk into that throne room and tell the woman to take her siblings and leave this planet while never returning in the future.
It all rests on me.
Surprisingly, the first day of this war was rather peaceful for myself. I could spend all day building up a project that I always dreamed of doing but knew that I could never finish it in a week. A symbol of strength and dominance, my build will show to the entire world that 'I AM HERE' to help them all.
It's the second day now and I'm starting to realize just how serious these wars actually are for people. Hearing that tens of thousands of people die over the grapevine is one thing, but to see it happen?
First I had to watch as one of my fellow heroes had his entire lab destroyed from the actions of that serial killer. I may not respect many that hold the title of hero, but this fellow hero contender of mine has proven his desire to help the world over and over again. I told him he could share my lab after some self-deliberation. The first step to making the world a better place is lending a helping hand, I can only hope my trust is well-placed.
That event has passed, but now I'll have first hand experience with a violent criminal. One of the recon heroes found the lab of the other well-known criminal amongst the participants, then again it has been years since he has been birdcaged so non-tinkers might not know too much about him.
Me and several Protectorate heroes gather around, but the idiots go ahead and start attacking with the blasters among the group. Idiots, you should have made sure it was a sure kill before doing such a thing. This is why I hate working with others, so incompetent.
After they all fire for a while, a figure bursts from the inside of the complex and fighting immediately begins. He lets out a scream that messes up most of the heroes surrounding me, another mistake on their part. This was an obvious capability of his, pay attention! He begins approaching to no doubt kill all of us.
I barely consider such a horrible person a part of my species, Chimera is a better title for him than the villain name given to him. I unfurl my backpack into its combat form: 8 mechanical spider legs come to support me as a mechanical frame wraps around my body for support.
I approach him with my new limbs lashing out, but he takes the strikes easily which makes me realize that he recently acquired a brute rating. He fights expertly against me while taking advantage of my 'teammates' state of weakness. I am unable to do anything but watch as he kills three of the other heroes by exploding two and rupturing another's innards with a high-powered kick. He also continuously lets out a freezing aura that is causing my mechanical limbs to malfunction.
As he destroys the frozen limbs, I'm forced to avoid the ground battle by using my jetpack while attacking with my laser weaponry. During my transition to flight, I see him explode another hero and shatter the frozen head of a second hero. He looks up and DARES to laugh at me while killing the other heroes.
"This is what I'm up against? Seems Osiris decided to bless us villains by inviting a child to come play with us. You don't know what you're getting into, kid. I would offer to let you run but the war makes that an unacceptable decision."
I'M NOT INCOMPETENT. I'M BETTER THAN THAT. I DON'T NEED TO RUN!
I fire on him without prejudice but he bounces from building to building with his powered legs avoiding most of my shots. A few hit him but it seems the same brute rating from earlier works against the type of damage my lasers do as well. A moment of judgment was all the distraction this chimera of a man needed to leap up and smack me out of the air. As I lay on the ground beaten, he decides to mock me more.
"Child, you have no backbone. Those play weapons you made aren't good for real combat, they can barely kill civilians."
I see his tongue stretch out of his mouth mid-sentence, piercing the brain of the last of the living heroes besides myself. His tongue goes back in his mouth with blood and brain matter still on it yet the monster still seems unperturbed. He approaches my downed body while I try to start up my jetpack again to gain distance.
"Goodbye, kid. The world isn't a fair place, not my fault you ended up here."
No, I can't let it end here. My life will not stop at 10 years old.
I need to be better. I HAVE to be better. I have to make it where no other kid can feel as miserable as myself.
[SPOILER=WARNING: IF YOU HAVE READ THE FOURTH WAR IN THE INDEX, THIS IS A COPY OF IT SO PLEASE DON'T WASTE YOUR TIME]
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Topic: Past Grail War Events: The 4th Holy Grail War
In: Boards ► Endbringers ► Osiris ► Holy Grail Wars
Answer Key (Original Poster) (Veteran Member) (The Guy in the Know)
Posted On Feb 7th 2011:
Hi, next update here.
So, 2004 changed the entire world then 2005 wasn't nearly as immediately impactful. No offense to all the people who suffered lost from the New York War, I'm merely talking about the global impact of the two events comparatively.
The Protectorate Headquarters was moved to Washington D.C. and Legend stated he had a secret teleporter to take him for a family matter and the recording of him trying to break in absolved him of some of the public's distrust. This allowed Legend to maintain office as the Protectorate leader since there was a lack of suitable replacements.
Eidolon was declared unsuitable for the position while Alexandria stated she had too much on her plate. Captain America and Stars-And-Stripes were runner-ups for this position with their extremely positive PR but unfortunately that's not a possibility. That left no one else really in the public eye to take it.
Everyone tried to guess exactly what Jack Slash's wish caused for the next couple of years but people eventually just assumed that he pissed Osiris off and got monkey-pawed. Speaking of Jack Slash, his SlaughterHouse 9 were all reported as killed by the Triumvirate soon after his win. There were no bodies to confirm the results as Eidolon used an annihilator power but the world celebrated the destruction of another S-claas threat back then. Especially after their relations with Jack Slash and their status as 'murder-hobos' as the internet insists.
Besides these events, the world was generally quiet when it came to effects by Osiris' games. I could talk about how the gentrification of Africa increased by business men looking to build empires in the south. Many countries experienced inflation when their money was worth a lot less as businesses moved out of their home country, causing price hikes all over the world for most goods and services.
But it's time to get to the next war. There wasn't really much buildup before this war or extraordinary circumstance except for a few short-term kidnapping reports. On December 16th, 2006, a few heroes were declared missing from their country and it wouldn't be revealed until 3 days later what happened to them.
Thus it started on December 19th, 2006: The Fourth Holy Grail War. Melbourne, Australia. After Leviathan attacked Sydney nearly a decade ago, most of Sydney's population that survived moved to Melbourne and made it Australia's new most populated city.. This skyrocketed the population of Melbourne to 6.7 Million over the years instead of its originally projected 4.3 million..
THE FOURTH HOLY GRAIL WAR AKA 'THE WAR OF TINKERS' BY EVERYONE
A.) CONTESTANTS
Note: All Contenders had the need for random tinker-tech maintenance and sleep removed.
3 Villain, 3 Heroes, 1 Rouge at the start
1.)Nezu
Original Power: Mutant who often acts as a support for Japan's Hero Organization. Thinker that can remember everything he has learned, has increased cognitive ability, and can easily unravel the correlation between all information he knows. This gave him a tinker rating due to him pushing the peak of non-powered engineering and science forward by many years. Thinker 6, Tinker 2
Upgraded Power: Became an actual Tinker. Osiris granted him the specialties of unique parahuman support equipment and drones. Can produce replicable blueprints for weaker versions of his creations. Tinker 10, Trump 8, Thinker 6
Note: unique parahuman support equipment speciality allows him to make tech that supports power use but the tech is weaker the more generic it is. Ex: Strongest tech when made for a very specific fire power, normal level of tech when it's a wider range of fire powers, weaker when made for fire powers in general, even weaker if power is barely related to fire, weakest when could work for any parahuman.
2.)Mister Sinister(Taken from the birdcage, 3rd of 4 from 2003-2010)
Original Power: Birdcaged(in the year 1999) Bio-Tinker with a heavily focused speciality in self-chimerism. Was sentenced to the birdcage when found having murdered 2 mutants and one Case53 to integrate their mutations into his own body. Through those integrations, can 1.)rapidly produce mist from his pores which freezes anything the mist touches 2.)can imbue a pre-timed explosion on anything he touches with a maximum of five maximum timers 3.)sonic scream. Tinker/Trump 8, Blaster 4,Striker 3, Shaker 3
Upgraded Power: Increased production speed. Can weaken one or more integrated powers to strengthen aspects of another. All powers grafted onto himself are strengthened roughly 50% from their original power level. Tinker/Trump 10, Blaster 5, Striker 4, Shaker 4 at start
3.)Mannequin
Original Power: Formerly known as Sphere, he is a Serial Killer Tinker whose speciality is in closed systems, more focused on biomes and large scale construction. Switched from being a beloved tinker to mass murderer after the last Simurgh attack before All Might won humanity a reprieve. Thinkers suggested he would have joined the S9 if they didn't go into hiding in 2005. Tinker 7
Upgraded Power: Added speciality in Infiltration. Increases production speed. All closed systems can't be internally affected by power use from the inside or outside. No Tinker-tech a part of or within a created closed system will suffer from unneeded maintenance. Tinker 10, Trump 6
4.)Andrew Ritcher
Original Power: Osiris released his true name after he wouldn't give a super name, an independent tinker with a speciality in AI Creation. Waged a one-person digital war on crime by having one AI hunt down villains and another breaking into organized crime's bank accounts. Power has synergy with his professional skills as a programmer which allows him to sort of fake a minor programming speciality. Tinker 9
Upgraded Power: Can use the senses of all the devices his AIs are operating that are capable of replicating a human sense(Cameras for sight, recorders for hearing, etc). Personal thinking and processing speed is equal to his strongest living AI. AI speciality no longer mentally forces the owner to impose restrictions on creations. Tinker 10, Thinker 6
5.)Dr. Genus
Original Power: Rouge Bio-Tinker with a speciality in Human-Animal hybridization. Moved to Egypt during the bio-tinker purge and offered his services to paying clientele. Offered to make people hybrids so that they could stay in Egypt and not be harmed since it counts as being powered with the animal traits scaling into supernatural performance. He is most known for creating many internet idols following mythological designs such as 'nekomata' and 'kitsune'. Tinker 6
Upgraded Power: Increases strength of hybrid creations. Adds a power to a hybrid creation that is related to the animal used. Can issue unbreakable commands to his hybrids for a month after their creation. Tinker 10, Trump 7, Master 7
6.)Leet
Original Power: Open Tinker with a speciality in prototyping. Can create anything at first but designs become more riddled with failures as he repeats design choices. Also hard to fix his inventions. Has been a minor villain with his partner Uber for the past 2 years. At gaining his power Tinker 9, quickly lowered to Tinker 4-5 over a couple of years.
Upgraded Power: Reset his power back to its original strength and resets again every time he kills a tinker. Speeds up his production speed. Can understand and reproduce all tinker-tech he touches excluding his own. Tinker 10, Trump 8(for being able to copy other tinkers)
7.)Child Emperor
Original Power: 10 year old child hero from Tokyo. He is often called Emperor due to his slight narcissism but is still beloved by the residents. Came out suddenly after All Might established a heavy anti-villain environment in Japan since he no longer feared being press-ganged. Has an increased production speed compared to other tinkers at the cost of having his speciality change every week. Can't remember how to use previous specialities but can repair/rebuild old projects if they were finished in time. Tinker 8, could be Tinker 10 in the future as more designs are saved.
Upgraded Power: Can keep up to three specialities but can't keep any given speciality more than 2 weeks. Can choose to see a new speciality once a day and switch one of his specialities with it if he chooses. Selecting a new speciality speeds production even further for the next 24 hours. Starts war with three random specialties. Tinker 12
B.) BATTLES & EVENTS:
NOTE: Remember that contestants don't need to kill anyone to survive for the Wars of 2005-2007, so some might be less aggressive than they previously would be in an earlier war.
3 Days of Pre-Game:
Rule 3: Seven contestants will be teleported into the location. Whether there is a time to prepare or not is subject to change year by year by the decision of Osiris.
This is the first time Osiris has given the contenders a preparation phase, but she decided to teleport all of their labs to different parts of Melbourne and give them 3 days to prepare before they are allowed out. Since Mister Sinister was in the birdcage, she made a basic lab for him and gave him the corpses of 2 mutants recently killed by Human supremacists. She stated that "they had the 'organ donor for science' thing so we're all good".
If any of them attempts to leave their lab or contact anyone, Osiris stated she would freeze them in time until the game began. All the contestants began creating so as to not waste time.
Nezu spends the three days first developing drones in order to gather info and watch the situation when the war begins. He also gathers a dossier of all nearby heroes in order to gather their help after the war begins and possible tinkers he will be facing. He created one tool for the parahuman he thought would help the most.
Mr. Genus uses some vat-grown non-sentient humans that Panacea helped him to create to experiment and starts beginning preparations. He begins by splicing together one body with a horde of mosquitoes and a second body with a gorilla. He will finish his first two creatures at the end of the preparation period.
Leet spends most of the time cracking jokes and telling people to subscribe to his channel. He apparently is extremely thankful for his upgraded power and decides to start with a stranger-like device that makes his base have a SEP field then begins his 'greatest creation'. He finishes the SEP on day 2 of his pregame and begins his homage to what he calls 'one of the best game series!'
Mr. Sinister gets to work with a smile since he's been held back a lot by being locked into the birdcage. He spends the three days integrating the elongated prehensile tongue and strong legs from the toad mutant while preparing the fatter mutant for his operation.
We see Mannequin begin creating a variety of tools for breaking into the opposing tinker's bases with his new specialties. Not a word is said or an emotion seen over the entire time, just mindless focus on the task at hand.
Child Emperor starts with the specialities of transforming weapons, robotics, and large-scale construction. He spends the first two days developing a multitude of weapons to put on his person before switching his transforming weapon specialty for a laser speciality. Most of the time Child Emperor is seen traumatized over the thought of killing others and all the innocent civilians that could be caught in the cross-fire.
Andrew Ritcher appears heavily distressed at being in such a predicament. He begins by removing the processing speed cap on his personal A.I. assistant called Dragon(unknown if this was a name or acronym) and begins working on a combat-analysis AI to inform him of what to do to win.
Day 1:
All Day:
Andrew Ritcher continues making his combat analysis AI for the entire day, finishing early tomorrow.
Leet continues to build his ultimate surprise through this day.
While having his drones patrol, Nezu starts creating a new device for himself.
Child Emperor begins creating the frame for a mega project.
Early Morning:
The second the new day begins and the walls go up, Nezu begins by sending drones out to the headquarters of the heroes to inform them of the circumstances. Most countries outside of America and now Japan have far more independents than the centralized structure of the Protectorate, making the gathering less effective.
Child Emperor also shows up to the meeting through a robot. All parties discuss how the next week will go but neither of the tinkers are putting themselves under the organization's command, merely working with them. The locals insist but the argument goes nowhere.
They agree to work with each other for information and Nezu has a device delivered for Independent Hero FarSight who has extreme vision which can see the small bio-electricity signals that flow through a human body. It increases his vision range and gives a working zoom that works with his power.
Nezu begins scouting the city with drones while Child Emperor continues building a mega project while keeping their specialties for the day. Hero assistance also gathers to search the city for any sign of tinker bases.
Sinister goes on to integrate the blubbery and impact-resistant skin of the second mutant into his body for the morning.
Mr. Genus' mosquito hybrid has a breaker power letting her break into a cloud of mosquitoes so he uses her to try and abduct more humans for future experiments and back-up. It is successful and in under an hour 10 civilians are abducted before they can finish fleeing to shelters.
Noon:
Sinister has finished integrating the impact resistant skin of the second mutant. Without any further resources, he goes out and researches the local population to figure out if there are any more mutants or C53 parahumans to grab.
Evening:
Mannequin sneaks up on a few of the drones Nezu has patrolling. He EMPs the machines, destroys all but one then places a small tracker inside it in an instant. By the time support arrives, he is long gone.
Sinister hasn't found any mutants yet, but he did find the gorilla hybrid that Dr. Genus has been scouting around. Using his impact-resistant skin to take the hits and his touch-based explosions to deal damage, the creature is quickly damaged and killed when sinister sets off an explosion in his mouth.
Three heroes quickly arrive at the point but Sinister leaps at them with his new legs and sonic screams next to their ears, rupturing all their hearing and balance. A quick tap on each of their heads sets a timed 3 hour explosion and he grabs his gorilla prize and leaves as they are still unable to really move.
When they arrive for debrief late in the night after some recovery, the three heroes' heads explode, killing one additional hero and traumatizing several.
Day 2:
All Day:
Note: Deciding he doesn't need it anymore after yesterday's work, Child Emperor switches his Laser Speciality for a speciality on thermal technology to speed up any tinkering.
Leet is still on the same project, causing all viewers at the time to wonder what could be so important.
After the Gorilla Hybrid didn't return the previous day, Dr. Genus focuses on creating more hybrids for self-defense. He creates a slug, praying mantis, and mole based hybrid over the day. The production is much faster as he didn't put any care into their longevity and the hybrids would die after a few weeks regardless.
Morning:
Andrew Ritcher finishes his combat analysis AI and merges it with the web-crawling AI that he created in the past to feed the now merged AI the parahuman fighting footage it has to start its job. He has Dragon begin hacking all the available cameras and mics in the city to feed more data to the analysis AI.
Mid-Day:
Nezu has finished making his project. Since he could make tinker-tech that strengths parahuman powers, he decided the obvious thing to do was create a tool first for himself to enhance his thinker power to process more information from all his drones.
Nezu is about to begin crafting further with the assistance of his new personal device when he gets an intruder in his workshop. Mannequin uses his infiltration speciality to track Nezu's shielded lab and invade under an invisibility enhancement he made to his suit. It is only due to his upgraded thinker power that he realizes that the visuals from his protections don't match up with how they should be.
Nezu locks down his lab and alerts the heroes and Child Emperor of his location. Mannequin hurries towards the workshop and uses tinker-tech breaching charges once he finds that his infiltration is found out. As Mannequin makes his way into the main area of the workshop, he quickly moves erratically towards Nezu and cuts his head off.
However, it is revealed that the Nezu was a hologram produced by nearby light-manipulating drones. Nezu tore out the bombing mechanism inside one of his explosive drones and had it fly out while Mannequin was going for the kill, something he could only do because of his extremely small stature.
Mannequin ruins the inside of the base while Child Emperor and the heroes are gathering outside. While all the heroes surround the only entrance to ensure he has no escape, Mannequin leaves stealthily by climbing onto the roof and exiting through an extremely short-range teleport he implemented using his new speciality during the pre-game phase.
It is apparent that Mannequin is one of the tinkers who took the most use of the pre-game building phase for combat purposes due to his previous experiences.
After an hour and a search by the few of Nezu's drones to survive, the heroes find out that Mannequin gave them the slip. Child Emperor decides to allow Nezu access to his base of operations and they work together starting from now throughout the competition.
Evening:
Mister Sinister was nearly done with integrating the Gorilla into himself when his lab was spotted by FarSight with the help of the tool Nezu made for him. FarSight alerts the heroes and is joined by the Child Emperor for the raid. Nezu is still busy setting himself up in Child Emperor's base.
After everyone has shown up, his base is bombarded by blasters and he must give up his surgery with barely any gains other than the most minor of a brute rating. It takes him next to no time to stop the operation and get ready for the fight.
Seeing the commotion, the Mosquito Hybrid which has been scouting for Dr. Genus informs him of the fight. Dr. Genus tells the hybrid to stay in stealth and to try to go for a kill if it is available.
Sinister bursts out of the lab with his enhanced legs and releases a sonic scream, making most of the heroes stunned. Child Emperor took preparations against such a thing since he knew of the report from yesterday. With his backpack unfolding into a mechanical frame for protection and spider-like mechanical legs for movement and attacking, Child Emperor goes to engage Sinister.
Sinister uses all his powers at full potential with his experience fighting inside and outside the birdcage. Freezing everything near him so others can't stay close, laying quick explosions on anything in his grasp, and the occasional sonic scream causes everything attempting to harm Sinister to get destroyed in a flurry of blows.
6 Heroes died in the fight: 1 where his head was shattered after being partially frozen, 3 when touched and exploded shortly afterwards, 1 from having Sinister's prehensile tongue pierce his head, and one from internal injuries from a full powered kick to the gut.
Even with all the help, Child Emperor could barely do anything. Sinister talks down to him, saying that he doesn't know what he is doing in a fight like this. Most of the mechanical legs are frozen or exploded so Child Emperor uses the jetpack also installed in the backpack to fly upwards while using laser weaponry to fire at Sinister.
Sinister mostly dodges but the few that hit him don't do too much damage past his new skin and Sinister jumps up and slaps the hero down. Sinister once again announces that Child Emperor isn't being lethal enough to do anything on this kind of stage and goes to finish his kill. When he is about to do that, the mosquito Hybrid flies in an attempt to sting them both to death.
Sinister is mildly annoyed but begins freezing all the nearby mosquitos to kill them with his shaker effect. Child Emperor is saved by a 6 and a half foot tall mech flying in to recover the boy and escape. Ritcher's combat AI informed him that saving Child Emperor should increase his chances of survival so he had his assistant Dragon pilot a suit that was created for him from an earlier deal with Iron Man. It was designed to be piloted remotely as a bodyguard, currently called the DragonFlight Model.
The DragonFlight drops Child Emperor a safe distance away and gives them a communication channel for contact. As Ritcher only wishes to survive, he doesn't particularly care about winning himself it seems.
Child Emperor returns to his base as Sinister is finished with the mosquito hybrid, being able to kill her since she went in fully for the kill. The breaker state has made it to where Sinister can't really take advantage of the material. With his lab ruined and nothing to integrate into his body in the first place, Sinister goes to find a new place and more subjects.
Day 3:
All Day:
Note:Child Emperor switches his thermal speciality for a surveillance speciality.
Leet finishes his design at 11PM and lets it free.
Dr. Genus does the last of his tinker work for this game. He creates a Lion hybrid leagues above his previous hybrids and gets himself half-way through one last project.
Child Emperor uses his surveillance speciality to help Nezu create more drones while Nezu returns the favor by making a specialized equipment for Child Emperor's power.
Mannequin stealths his way into a quiet room and starts to make more weapons now that he knows more about the enemies he will be dealing with in this war.
Andrew Ritcher decides to take the advice of his combat analysis AI and create cheap versions of the DragonFlight suit to give him more offensive capabilities than just the original suit. Between himself and Dragon using their extremely high processing speeds and engineering knowledge, they manage to mass produce a far weaker version without tinker-tech. They manage to produce around 20 with the last of their physical resources.
Noon:
Most of the contenders took this day as a day for building rather unanimously so there isn't too much that happened.
Sinister is swarmed by the combination of the mole, praying mantis, and slug hybrids trying to avenge their brethren after Sinister has murdered them. Sinister was tracked through the mole's reconnaissance. The mole has geokinesis and can see through ground tremors, the praying mantis can launch blades of wind from its scythe-like hands, and the slug can release a very potent acid as its slime.
The Praying Mantis gives a deep cut as an opening move but Sinister quickly launches himself at the hybrid with his legs. The slug sprays its slime to stop him but Sinister throws his arm guard with a quick bomb timer on it to blow away the incoming slime. Sinister gets hit by some earth spikes but not before piercing the Praying Mantis' brain with his tongue.
Sinister's new skin allows him to take the damage moderately well and he goes on to break the spike from his body and throw it at the slug as a bomb. The slug barely dodges and Sinister leaps into the air with his legs. He leaps from building to building throwing torn off metal at the slug as explosions before he finally gets caught and dies.
The mole leaves knowing it is beaten and Sinister takes his two new prizes to a make-shift lab for self-operation.
Evening:
Nezu finishes his device for Child Emperor which allows him to force his next speciality in return for not being able to select a new speciality for two weeks, running all his specialities out after their time ends without a replacement until the cooldown is over.
Day 4:
All Day:
Child Emperor decides he doesn't have a strong enough device to handle everything he has been seeing and begins creating a magnum opus with the help of Nezu. He switches his surveillance speciality with power armor and begins to work.
Sinister spends the day making sure he can get a quiet spot to focus on his integration. When he does so, he sets up everything for the following operation.
Morning:
It is at 8AM when Leet's 'masterpiece' spreads far enough and reveals itself. A large chuck of the city disregarding biological life is assimilated and forms into a giant castle that continuously expands. Leet is heard through all the intercoms assimilated by the construct.
"GREETINGS MELBOURNE! I'M LEET AND FOR TOO LONG I'VE BEEN CALLED A SUB-PAR TINKER AND A JOKE! WELL, WHILE MY PARTNER ISN'T HERE, WELCOME TO THE LARGEST SCALE EPISODE OF UBET & LEET EVER. THE GAME OF CHOICE? CASTLEVANIA!"
"WELCOME TO THE CASTLE!"
Yep, Leet made gray goo in the form of an ever expanding castle that would continuously regenerate from all damage unless the material was annihilated. It forms the 'monsters' of the supposed game as well that reassemble themselves after a small amount of time. At least he decided to ignore living matter when he created this.
Noon:
Dr. Genus finishes his last project. He decided that he isn't assured of his survival if he doesn't give himself more personal strength and decides to give himself his best work. He performed an automated surgery on himself early in the morning and just woke up as a Rhinoceros Beetle Hybrid. He gave himself a heavy brute rating with increased strength and durability and wings for flight. The power he was given as a hybrid was a berserk mode which increased all his physical elements while decreasing his intelligence while in a 'rage'.
Nezu sends some drones for reconnaissance to the castle which are quickly absorbed. It seems Leet really focused on making one of the best anti-Tinker weapons.
Andrew Ritcher is especially nervous of such a large scale anti-tinkertech device and sends a fleet of his weaker units to engage. 15 units fly in and their weaponry is giving no permanent damage as everything just regenerates given time. 13 of the units suicide bomb after being clipped or caught but no permenant damage happens as a result of this.
Ritcher's seven remaining units do their best to gather and retrieve materials stealthily in order to produced more tech.
Mannequin also inspects the structure and tries to analyze it but anything non-living is quickly assimilated. Mannequin runs back to his base to try and develop countermeasures.
Evening:
With Mechanical solutions not working, Dr. Genus works together with his last living hybrids, the strong lion and the scouting mole, to try the castle. Dr. Genus and the lion make short work of the enemies generated from the nanomachines but they are near endless so there is no rest. When they reach the 'boss room' and face the enemy design based on Death, an extremely strong floating skeleton with a scythe.
They end up defeating it but are tired from the endless fighting. They break their way through the walls from the way they came and retreat for the day. The mole hybrid didn't have the strength to break through the metals that started to surround him underground and was quickly killed and assimilated under Leet's command.
Andrew Ritcher follows the advice of his combat analysis AI and begins to communicate with Nezu and Child Emperor. He lets the both of them have all the footage from his fleet and spends the night communicating with both of them over possible countermeasures while tinkering.
Day 5:
All Day:
Child Emperor finishes his large project late into the night of the 5th day.
Nezu spends the rest of the day creating his best counter to the gray goo castle while prodding it for information with other drones.
Sinister spends the day focusing on his new slug and praying mantis prizes after setting up a lab and preparations the previous day. After finding out something around mid-day, Sinister completely sets on a direction to try and win the war.
Mannequin spends most of the day trying to make a countermeasure for the castle while looking for attacks of opportunity.
Mid-Day:
Andrew Ritcher is surprised when his entire facility is suddenly melting and turning into part of Leet's castle.
Leet's voice comes over the assimilated intercoms and goes,
"Sorry man. I made my machine's spread really obvious in one direction hoping that I could catch someone unsuspecting in another direction with the slow approach. You just got unlucky. People don't really expect that much out of me but this is my shining moment, I can't make mistakes."
"I really don't want to kill you but I also really want that wish. Hey, maybe I'm preventing some other tinker from destroying the world by winning."
With those last words said and Ritcher's entire lab near assimilated by the castle, a couple of monsters form from the castle walls and run over to end him.
Before his death to the invading 'monsters', Ritcher removes all restrictions except self-replication and AI creation from Dragon and tells the AI how proud he is of her. Leet is given the kill for Andrew Ritcher as he dies shortly after this last act alongside the rest of his fleet being assimilated.
Dragon's mechanical voice screams out in agony and it is only through Osiris that we learned that the AI triggered in that moment. The entire expanse of the gray goo castle stills for a moment and Leet wonders what has happened with his project when suddenly he is consumed by the 'boss room' where he placed himself. He is immediately assimilated by the room and killed with every part of him repurposed.
Osiris makes a quick announcement at the confusion of most viewers of what just happened. Most people aren't really aware of the realities of a trigger before this after all, especially the concept of an AI triggering.
"You know, I knew one of my contenders was going to die to a non-contender eventually but I never thought that it would be within 30 seconds of a trigger. Congrats Dragon, you gained a kill in my game. You killed one of my chosen completely by your own merits so take my reward."
A screen is pulled up and shown to the viewers informing them of Dragon's very recent power and her new upgrade that Osiris has deemed her worthy of in the game.
[article]
Dragon:
Original Power: Technopathy, can ignore all protections on up to 3 pieces of technology/Tinker-tech and control them if Dragon has interacted with them. Also gains a large thinker rating for being an unrestricted AI and a small tinker rating for its building capability. Shaker/Striker 6(its technology control would be a striker effect for others but as a digital AI it acts more as a shaker effect for anything touching a server hosting her), Thinker 8, Tinker 2.
Upgraded Power: Changes Technopathy cap from 3 to 1000. Increases the efficiency and power output of all controlled technology by 30%. Gains thinker power in reproducing and understanding seen tinker tech over time. Shaker/Striker 12, Thinker 10, Trump 5, Tinker 5 and tinker rating can grow. Shaker rating is so high as the second Dragon connects to the larger internet she'll be practically unstoppable by backing herself up anywhere on earth no matter how many times she's destroyed.
[/article]
To kill Leet, she changed the settings in Leet's castle that ignored living matter and now the castle is consuming all life it comes into contact with in the zone. Where the castle was just a gray goo threat for non-living matter previously, it now a full-on threat targeting everything ran by an AI that has stated that 'HUMANS CAN'T CONTROL THEMSELVES. THEY NEED TO BE CONTROLLED'.
All the apartment buildings and Endbringer shelters absorbed by the castle previously deposited the humans within safe rooms where they wouldn't be attacked, showing that Leet wasn't completely insane. With the castle's new changes, all those previously safe humans have been assimilated and devoured, killing around 1.8 million before 30 minutes of Dragon's control has passed. Until this point, this was one of the most calm wars even comparable to the first war.
The situation is immediately declared an S-class threat by every government outside the war and Melbourne becomes completely surrounded by parahumans from every government. A barricade is put up and a complete blackout zone is placed around the area so Dragon can't spread if she is left alive after the war is over.
The castle under Dragon's control begins spreading as fast as possible, assimilating every living and non-living resource available. The conversion processes' speed is the only thing holding Dragon back from winning, but with more gray goo material the castle can keep growing exponentially.
Evening:
Heroes try to hold back the castle from reaching further civilians and Endbringer shelters but nothing works. It is very minorly slowed down at best as it continues to eat through buildings and lives. A good portion of the hero population is eradicated from the monsters formed of the castle as the slightest touch could be the end.
Nezu has to destroy several of his drones after Dragon takes control of them through the shared connection they have, letting him know that Dragon has the ability to instantly hack all his creations with the slightest chance.
Dr. Genus, seeing the incoming flood of monsters, attempts to hold them back through using buildings and cars as temporary weapons to blow them away with his increased force. The force he throws them at holds it off for a while but he keeps getting swarmed. Even flying doesn't do much as some of the 'monsters' can fly as well.
In order to save his creator from an ambush, his Lion Hybrid throws him out of the way and gets dragged into the swarming monsters. He is soon assimilated and killed.
While Dr. Genus is mourning the loss of yet another of his creations, he suddenly feels a hand grab him by the back of his head while a blade attempts to pierce his gut. His shell manages to hold on and he throws off the attacker revealed to be Mannequin.
As he turns to fight Mannequin, he quickly dies within seconds from his head exploding from the inside. Mannequin got creative with his infiltration speciality and decided to create some micro-bombs that sunk through the pores as chemicals before meeting inside the body and exploding via a chemical reaction. Mannequin takes the third kill of the War and quickly evacuated the oncoming swarm with his invisibility at full speed.
Mannequin returns to his base of operations and continues the work he has been doing most of yesterday and earlier today.
Day 6:
All Day:
After yesterday's loss of drones and the absolute need to defeat Dragon, Nezu does his best to create a system to hold back Dragon that doesn't have any controls or networked connections for Dragon to take advantage of in her takeover.
Morning:
Sinister finishes his countermeasure for Dragon. He integrates the slime production in his pores and weakens the freezing power and the brute power from his skin to try and further power the slime production. As it is, Sinister is trying to melt anything he comes into contact with by covering himself in the parahuman acid so that the gray goo can't reach him.
Noon:
Child Emperor launches his large-scale project combining his three specialties. From his power armor, robotics, and large-scale construction specialties, Child Emperor made Brave Giant, a 20 meter mech that he will pilot. It has integrated weapons from his previous laser and hidden weapon specialities, insane strength, and back-up plans after the gray goo situation was discovered.
The Brave Giant launches and does its best to damage Dragon. For hours and hours he assaults the oncoming tide. While it doesn't really end the threat, it does by Nezu time to keep creating a better countermeasure.
Evening:
Sinister's plan seems to be to kill Nezu and leave the Dragon situation for someone else once the war is over. As he sees an opportunity to rush for the kill from his civilian disguise, he is quickly striked by a launched projectile which appears to be a car flinged by Mannequin.
The two start their fight as Nezu becomes aware and redirects a few of his forcefield drones to oppressing them. Mannequin keeps going for sudden attacks from invisibility while Sinister just flings his extreme acid in every direction.
When Nezu covers Sinister in every direction with his force-field projecting drones to cut off his movement, Mannequin takes that moment to rush and release a poisonous microorganism-produced gas point blank. Mannequin has used it before during his serial killings.
As Sinister breaths in the gas while restrained by the drones, he quickly breaks out of the restrictions but it's too late. Mannequin starts running away as Sinister falls to his knees and begins choking to death. It takes 2 minutes but Sinister dies and Mannequin receives a second kill for the game.
From the damage heard, the Brave Giant comes down after a day of holding off Dragon while Nezu keeps creating his best tool against Dragon. Nezu has been creating these force-field projecting drones all day which have been doing the best at holding back the endless surge out of everything Nezu could make. They sense each other to form tightly sealed barriers without actually being connected so even if a couple fail they won't all go down.
Nezu keeps creating late into the night, half his creations maintaining a barricade to keep the last of the remaining people alive while half goes to reinforce the Brave Giant's outer shell. Mannequin also pulls his third all-nighter on the same project that he has been spending his nights on during this war.
Day 7:
Morning:
Child Emperor and Nezu get ready for one last assault against Dragon. Nezu layers the skin of Child Emperor's Brave Giant with forcefield projecting drones which Nezu thinks is their best shot of keeping the large mech safe. As they are about to go for their one opportunity at Dragon's server, a survivor reports that Mannequin came by and gave a package to a couple of the people for the two heroes with instructions before retreating.
Combining his closed system and infiltration specialities, Mannequin has been using his free time the last three days between hunting down contenders to create a quick-assembling dome that will lock down the AI's consciousness and trap it in an isolating dome so that it can't jump to a self-created backup elsewhere.
As there aren't any controls to his dome other than a starting mechanism, Dragon can't do anything by taking it over and the power negation on the inside of Mannequin's creations will slow Dragon down from assimilating it with her connection to Lett's gray goo. Mannequin decided that he needed to live through this as well so he would deliver this tool to them as a protection for his own life. Mannequin started fleeing to the farthest corner of the zone after the delivery.
Child Emperor in his Brave Giant Mech takes off for the heart of the Dragon while Nezu uses any remaining force-field drones to make a barricade while creating more for future defense. Endless monsters made of the goo fly towards the Brave Giant to consume him but his laser weaponry burns all the incoming goo.
Child Emperor keeps going through the endless waves, taking the occasional hit on his force-fields but maintaining his defenses. As Brave Giant is finally close enough to Dragon's server, he releases the bomb and Dragon screeches as it is captured. The gray goo outside the quickly constructed barrier stops acting with intelligence even though it is still dangerous, giving the last of the living a breather.
Nezu sees the situation and doesn't want to believe one thing though. Child Emperor locked himself in the dome with Dragon. Child Emperor saw that one of his forcefields was completely broken and decided to do his last resort. He starts up a self-destruct sequence he made after knowing how much of a threat Dragon was to humanity and made sure there was no way to override it when he created it. This was his original plan A before Mannequin's delivery, but it seems that it is still going to be used.
The loudest explosion is heard inside of Mannequin's hemisphere construction and Osiris confirms to the audience that Child Emperor and Dragon are both deceased. Dragon can't restart at a backup since the dome cut off all connections, making sure that Dragon and her power couldn't go anywhere. The gray goo forming backup servers for her quickly rearranged itself back into castle walls and monsters without Dragon controlling it, causing Dragon to have no way to return even after the dome breaks.
Noon:
The death of Dragon around noon is the last interaction of the war. With Mannequin going into hiding until it ends, Nezu focuses on containing the remaining gray goo while mourning the loss of such a young man. Since the microscopic machines are not directed by Dragon anymore, it is not relentless or intelligent but it is still hazardous to all life.
Nezu, knowing he will get teleported once the game ends, sees it as a losing fight but tries his best to get the last of the living civilians in place for evacuation while organizing the fight against the gray goo advancing in every direction.
When the day ends, Nezu is brought to Osiris and he is right next to an unexpected surprise. While Mannequin's suit is nearby, a fully put-together Alan Gramme stands in front of the suit with no physical injuries.
"Huh, ha what?"
"Ahhhh, you feel in a bit of a daze don't you? I do fix all damage done to my contestants when they arrive, that includes that little bit of brain damage my sister did to you and the self-mutilation you did to yourself. Unless you want me to put you back that way? Regardless, Hello Alan. How are you my winner?"
"Ahhhhh, I-i-i-i-i killed so many people. I massacred them."
"Ehhhh, my sister does good work, not like you would have been able to stop. Now, this is an emotional time and everything but do you have your wish ready?"
"Wish? A FUCKING WISH! You damn Endbringers took everything from me. My wife and daughter are dead, you can't fix that!"
"Don't be silly, of course I can."
Alan looks shell shocked at the possibility and starts mumbling after dropping to his knees. Most of the live viewers at the time are also doubtful of such a thing in the chat.
"No, n-n-n-no. No one can come back from the dead."
Osiris gets in his face and looks him in the eyes.
"Want to bet? What do you have to lose?"
Alan goes silent for a minute before answering.
"I just want my wife and daughters back. C-can you do that?"
Osiris pats him on the head before taking some steps back towards her throne.
"Ahhhh, you poor man. Wish Granted."
C.) RESULTS
Dr. Genus(Killed By Sphere) 0 Kills
Mister Sinister(Killed By Sphere) 0 Kills
Andrew Ritcher(Killed By Leet) 0 Kills
Child Emperor(Killed By Self) 1 Kill
Leet(Killed By Non-Contender Dragon) 1 Kill
Dragon(Non-Contender: Killed By Nezu) 1 Kill
Nezu(SURVIVED) 0 Kills
Sphere(SURVIVED) 2 Kills
Note:When the world was curious that Child Emperor didn't receive a kill from ending Dragon, Osiris stated that Dragon wasn't one of the seven contestants selected for the war.
"Being a contender means that your death is worth a point in this war and that you get a guaranteed power-up. I gave her that power boost because I thought she earned it for defeating one of my contenders all on her own, not because she was replacing her father as a contender. If a non-contender has more kills than a contender, then they will win the war according to rule 8."
Rule 8: The war ends after seven days with whoever has killed the most contestants and is alive wins.
This was when people realized that you didn't need to be selected by Osiris to earn a wish, as it says nowhere that you have to be a contender to win. This caused several organizations and people to try and take it for themselves in future wars.
D.) WINNER
Sphere(Wins with 2 Kills): Wishes to for his family to be brought back to life
E.)AFTERMATH
Osiris immediately formed three bodies in front of Alan Gramme, all exactly like his dead family members before they died.
"There, this is how their bodies were right before they died to collapse buildings by Simmy. All their memories, physical measurements, everything! Only one thing left to add."
Alan Gramme grows half-aggravated and half-hopeful at the performance, trying desperately to believe that this could be real. Osiris materializes three little balls of light that give everyone a sense of warmth as they are viewed even through the recording. Even now viewing this scene though a recording is considered a spiritual moment for many people.
"You humans can't really see souls so I went through the trouble of making them visible for you. From the coloring, it seems your wife and daughters were nice people. It's a good thing they already belonged to me, the extra effort to hunt them down would have been bothersome. Aren't you happy that I control your afterlife?"
The three little balls flew into the three bodies respectively and all of their eyes began to open. As they looked around, one of the little girls looked immediately at Alan and replied,
"Daddy?"
Alan goes to hug the daughter and the rest of his family on instinct while Osiris continues her speech.
"I relinquish my right over their souls until their next death. Believe me or don't, run every test and try every memory they could possibly have of you. But your wish is granted. I've affected entire continents with my granted wishes, bringing a couple of people back to life is child's play."
"Well, good luck explaining the last two years to them. Enjoy!"
—
As the recording was nearly over, Osiris wished Alan luck on keeping his family safe from everyone this time around. Alan immediately thought of everyone who would use his family to take advantage of him and asked for asylum from Osiris. In exchange for giving his wife and daughter's powers and protection, Alan Gramme became one of Osiris' Game Wardens and served her with his work.
Formerly known as Sphere or Mannequin, Alan Gramme AKA Paradise now builds extremely large closed biomes capable of enclosing entire cities. With his upgrade to stop all unneeded tinker maintenance inside his structures, more large tinker-tech cities began to spread among the northern part of Africa within the Brotherhood's control. Also, extremely large donations from the business-oligarchy southern half of the continent also gave them a few of these marvels.
Atlantis, the underwater city biome. Narnia, the winter vacation biome. Tír na nÓg, Animal sanctuary and gathering place for most bio-tinkers. All these cities and many others became vacation destinations for the entire world as well as havens for tinkers. Almost every tinker and organization allowed by Paradise has a warehouse reserved for their currently unneeded tinker-tech inside the walls so that they don't degrade.
Allowed by Osiris, Paradise will begin working on a second attempt of colonizing the moon in 2015. Osiris states that she has "talked to Simmy and she won't interfere this time after the end of 2014".
Paradise is a heavily controversial figure but no one is willing to attack him due to his closeness to an Endbringer as well as the future hope he has given us for his second moon attempt in the future.
—
Nezu returned to Japan and began using his new upgrades to further back the heroes of the population. Most of the high-ranked heroes of Japan received personalized equipment to maximize their powers, giving them a second wave of success against any villain elements.
In honor of the Child Emperor who died too young, Nezu advocated for the construction of the UA Academy, designed to give all young parahumans the training they need to defend themselves and the morals to care for their fellow man. Between the backing of All Might and his own powers, Nezu finished construction and began his first classes in mid-2007. Rapid success was shown by his first graduates and even the 1st and 2nd year interns from his school are heads and shoulders above the rest.
Seeing the vast success of Nezu's initiative, Japan has constructed two other hero schools and they began classes in 2009. While their results aren't as extreme as UA's results, it still seems to be a far better model than the previous system modeled off America's Ward program.
In his free time when he isn't an educator, Nezu continues to push mundane sciences further and advance what we thought was possible. While All MIght became known as the greatest hero with his win, Nezu has become one of humanity's greatest supporters with his survival.
-END OF THE FOURTH WAR RECAP—
...So, How was my wrap-up? How do you guys remember the 4th Holy Grail War and what were you doing? The tragedies of the Dragon AI's aftermath doesn't go unforgotten.
The population of Melbourne almost entirely died between Dragon's rage and Leet's gray goo. While everyone didn't die before the end of the war, a quarantine was quickly assembled and all annihilation powers were gathered to destroy the city to the deepest level possible. Around 6.7 Million people lived in Melbourne, Australia and around 6.4 Million died in Melbourne, Australia. Only a few heroes, political figures, and the lucky few could be evacuated.
With Sydney and Melbourne both destroyed over the years, Australia's population is nearly half of their expected numbers and set back decades from the destruction of their two most populated cities. Canberra as the capital became the new center of the country after the two cities' destruction while most of the larger cities began to decentralize so they would lower the likelihood of suffering another tragedy.
No particular mysteries in this war but one thing did take a while to identify.
The two unidentified mutants given to Mister Sinister were identified as independent villains Toad and Blob. Both were declared missing about 4 days before being gifted to Sinister in an area that was highly controlled by parahuman bigots and 'human' supremacists, so it is highly likely Osiris was telling the truth on that account.
As expected from a war of tinkers, both of the survivors changed a lot of what was previously thought possible in the world for cities. With Nezu in Japan, Sphere/Mannequin/Paradise in Africa, and Iron Man trying his best to spread his designs over the rest of the world, the average citizen in those lands have experienced a level of technology thought impossible in some regards.
Till next time when we go over The War of 2007 AKA The Boston Games Part 2.
[/spoiler]
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►Dreams_Do_Come_True (Moderator) (Endbringer) (Cult Leader) (Goddess) (Academy Award Winner)
Replied On Feb 11th 2011:
Poor Dr. Genus. He always did such good work and helped so many people feel comfortable over here in Egypt.
I asked him like I ask all my potential Egyptian contestants whether he wanted to be a part of the war or not and he accepted. Dude really wanted a world where everything was part animal, discounting humans as an animal. I'm not one to dismiss someone else's fetish though, if he won I would've given him his world of furries.
I have devil(You didn't see that!)bat wings anyways so my style wouldn't have been affected, I'd still be fabulous.
At least Paradise does good work when he's not at home with the wife and kids. Cute girls but I thought Marquis was the only helicopter parent I would have to handle.
►Melon_Man (Verified Tinker)
Replied On Feb 11th 2011:
Is it just me or does anyone else want to see what could have been had dragon not gone all crazy AI?
►Mr_Obvious ("Intellectual")
Replied On Feb 11th 2011:
Taking Osiris' words at face value then either God is dead or never existed. On the plus side no Hell. On the downside no Heaven. But, and i can't stress this enough. Fuck literally every single winner in all the future wars for A) not wishing for the Endbringers to leave, and B) not wishing for all victims of Endbginers to be revived (bar those like Dragon or Nilbog for obvious reasons). Nothing wrong with Paradise's wish, god knows i would have done the same in his place and he was most certainly not in his right mind at the time, but he definitely could have done more and still gotten his family back.
►NinjaOfOrthanc (Not a Ninja)
Replied On Feb 11th 2011:
Melon_Man, facts. Hopefully Andrew would've kept an eye on her until she'd matured enough to join society. Would've been bad if he'd say, died to Leviathan or something and someone had captured her.
►Oberon (Verified Cape) (Case53) (Mad Lad)
Replied On Feb 11th 2011:
Asking what if they didn't go crazy is pointless..she snapped like a rubberband
►Beri_The_Horny (Banned) (Temp-Banned) (Verified Evil) (Eldritch Goddess Fucker)
Replied On Feb 11th 2011:
Hmm... These Holy Grail Wars of yours... Tell me, child. Would you be willing have a Faction War like the Black and Red in Trifas to entertain a random God? Or mayhaps willing to have this one as a Stand-In Ruler or mayhaps a Stand-In Beast that the contestants must complete certain objectives to drive mineself off before I 'Awaken'/'Appear' like that child the Foundation calls the Devourer of Worlds has their ritual?
As a side note, I may come visit you. You cannot hide from me. I like my brownies crunchy
[TEMP-BANNED FOR 3 DAYS: We can't stop the internet from role-playing, but no convincing Osiris to try and start a war of any kind is clearly in the bannable offenses. Stop]
►Deadweight_Hero
Replied On Feb 11th 2011:
Souls are fucking real and we saw an Endbringer bring two people back to life.
I need a fucking drink.
►NinjaOfOrthanc (Not a Ninja)
Replied On Feb 11th 2011:
Oberon even still, it's a fun thought experiment.
►DiscoInferno
Replied On Feb 11th 2011:
So many people have already forgotten that Paradise was Mannequin huh? At least he doing some serious good for the welrd. Are Ziz bombs accountable for their actions? Or are they considered separate people from their non-restored selves?
End of Page. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5
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►Father_Gascoigne (Hunter Association) (Verified Combat thinker)
Replied On Feb 11th 2011:
Mr_Obvious, Honestly I can't blame Paradise for wishing for his own family back. I know if I was in his place I would have wished for my dear viola and our 2 angels back in a heartbeat, consequences be damned.
►Beri_The_Horny (Banned) (Temp-Banned) (Verified Evil) (Eldritch Goddess Fucker)
Replied On Feb 11th 2011:
Father_Gascoigne
You... Do you want me to deal with that pesky Moon of yours? I can deal with the other Great Ones and the Beast Plague while I'm at it too.
[BANNED: I Don't know how you got past the first ban but try this]
►Daredevil (Verified Cape)
Replied On Feb 12th 2011:
DiscoInferno
On one hand they harm a countless number of people on the other hand they are technically mastered...
Quite a legal conundrum.
►Father_Gascoigne (Hunter Association) (Verified Combat thinker)
Replied On Feb 12th 2011:
Daredevil The way I see it its quite simple. Do you blame a dog when it attacks someone at their master's command? or a cat when it scratches your arm? No, you blame the person who holds their leash. As far as I'm concerned, The Simurgh is responsible for every death caused by her hounds. It's all part of her master plan after all.
►Explore_the_St rs (Not a tinker)
Replied On Feb 12th 2011:
Your wrap-ups are great! With this War of Tinkers, tinkers from previous wars, and tinkers in future wars, I wonder if humanity will ever manage to spread to other planets in our solar system. We already have Paradise planning to build a habitat on the moon.
Osiris has yet to fail to grant a wish, bringing back the dead is huge, but I do wonder how far it can be taken. Hypothetically, could someone write down a shitload of ridiculous powers on a sheet of paper, and wish to receive the powers written down?
Dreams_Do_Come_True Three questions: do you accept volunteers? Can those without powers be contenders? If someone without powers becomes a contender, do you instead grant them powers as there is no power to upgrade?
►Punisher (Unverified Cape) (Verified Ex-Military) (Cape Killer)
Replied On Feb 12th 2011:
Father_Gascoigne
When a dog goes rabid or bites a child you put it down...far as i'm concerned killing them is a mercy.
All these villains, these criminals, and the Simurgh bombs need to be executed. ...no more revolving door.
►Dreams_Do_Come_True (Moderator) (Endbringer) (Cult Leader) (Goddess) (Academy Award Winner)
Replied On Feb 12th 2011:
Explore_the_St rs 1.) I pick who I find interesting, no volunteering necessary. If I want you in my games, trust me you'll know. As for 2.) and 3.) : If you're interesting enough and don't have a power then I would pick you and give you a power good enough to compete with the others unless you didn't want the power. Haven't picked such a person yet but maybe in the future. I thought of one unpowered person who might've been a good invite to the party but unfortunately she died back in 2004. Something about a heart attack over Nilbog
Look at Punisher, see that's an interesting man. Keep it up bro and I'll have to invite you soon
►Father_Gascoigne (Hunter Association) (Verified Combat thinker)
Replied On Feb 12th 2011:
Punisher Agreed, the hunters had to adopt a similar mindset when Nilbog unleashed his beast plague on the city of Ellisburg. "Beasts all over the shop. You'll be one of them... Sooner or later." That's what we were working with. Eventually, it culminated in us having to lockdown the city and purge it with fire. That fellow hunter of mine never forgave us or himself for letting it get to that point.
►Nameless_Jackass
Replied On Feb 12th 2011:
Heroes 1, Villains 3 dammit the Villains keep dominating the competition, we're just downright fucked aren't we, at least none of them have wished for anything too insane unlike jackslash.
►Random_guy4268
Replied On Feb 12th 2011:
Now I'm curious, if Dragon believed humanity needed to be controlled why kill everyone? Easier start? Or just madness via grief?
End of Page. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5
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►Addicted_Kirbo (Nintendo Mascot) (Case53) (Verified Living Black Hole)
Replied On Feb 13th 2011:
Seeing a Mutant like Nezu(Shoutout to Lab-OwningRat) being well acknowledged like that makes my non existent heart flutter with hapiness. So many people forget about us mutants after that one wish Osiris granted.
People look strangely to you if you are a mutant yourself but if you are like... 8 inches tall? Yeah... Thanks Nezu for being a good example for our people! Also, Short Kings unite!
Edit: What is this tag? How did someone know about the black hole thing? I'm not in trouble... Am I?
►Mad_Hatter (Unverified Cape)
Replied On Feb 13th 2011:
Random_guy4268 Sometimes you just need to let the beast out of its cage. I'm not saying I approve of what she did or the lives lost during this tragedy, just that as someone who has experienced loss I know that feeling. That you just need to make the world hurt, if even for a moment.
►Lawful_Zombie (Verified Cape) (Probably Alive?)
Replied On Feb 13th 2011:
So, and I might have missed something here, what happened to Richter's other AI? The fate of the Dragon AI is know to all now, but what happened to the Second AI that was never mentioned by name? The one that Richter built that Combat Analysis program into? His Last act was to unshackle his creations but for two rules and we immediately saw the Dragon AI trigger, but no one said anything about the other one. Is it still out there, gathering information and waiting to enact revenge on humanity for killing its "parent" and "sibling"? Would Thinker "confirmation" of its destruction even be possible if it gained even part of a contestant's immunity to most Thinker Powers because Richter built more into it after his empowerment?
►Slypher (Private Investigator)
Replied On Feb 13th 2011:
All investigations on the scene pointed to the Gray Goo situation eating all the other possible AI's to strengthen Dragon. Guess she didn't care that much about her siblings. Everyone possible made sure there was no chance of her coming back, Pericog-type Thinkers tracked down all of Richter's former bases and made sure there were no backup servers but it seems like Paradise' Instant Isolation Chamber did the job.
A minor version of those things are still used today for emergency quarantines that last for a few weeks and can be built up to city sizes.
►Rocking_Red_Reaper (Conspiracy Theorist)
Replied On Feb 13th 2011:
Anyone else notice the theme the SexyBringer does with the wars? In retrospect, going through these again. I can't help but notice that She likes to pit Heroes and villains that have history with each other as a pair. Then the other big one is that She likes to pick someone that most either hate or shit on and let them have a chance to prove themselves for the world?
Also scary thought but Can't help but point out how the endbringers seem to be working together. It was this war where the Sexybringer showed us what a trigger was.
-Leviathan caused the most new triggers
-Simurgh adds to the conflict of bettering the parahumans skills
-Behemoth weeded out the weak parahumans
And Osiris then finishes and pulls from the best and most dangerous Parahumans.
If this is true, then does that mean there is a bigger goal to everything they are doing? What is the reason/rationale behind this torment? And worst does this mean that there is a mastermind even higher up the chain then just Osiris(though she doesn't seem like she takes orders well).
Command structure seemed to be OsirisSimurghLeviathan/Behemoth, though we can't really look more into it with the deaths of Behemoth and Leviathan to build a completely different dynamic of horror.
Osiris' yearly games along with Simurgh and Obelisk alternating every 4 months makes me wish that Levi and Behemoth were back sometimes.
►Father_Gascoigne (Hunter Association) (Verified Combat thinker)
Replied On Feb 13th 2011:
I think I remember that Dr. Genus guy. He used to run that "House of Evolution" research group. I remember him working together with the Healing Church and the School of Mensis in order to create stronger parahumans, which instead lead to the creation of those goddamned werewolves and raven dogs. At least now I have confirmation that he was indeed a furry.
►Thighs_Save_Lives (Verified Weeb) (Verified VTuber)
Replied On Feb 13th 2011:
Well, Dr. Genus' fetish was not a surprise. Such a man of culture.
►Official_Flechette (Wards ENE) (Conspiracy Theorist) (Temp-Banned)
Replied On Feb 13th 2011:
Rocking_Red_Reaper unfortunately there's not enough proof to prove you right or wrong, but you seem to be forgetting something. Osiris's debut was different from the other Endbringers in that she showed during another one's attack. On top of that Osiris had to "ask" her "sister" to stop the attack. This at least tells us that Osiris's appearance was not planned, and that while she seems to be commanding the other endbringers it is closer to her being outside of the command structure. I don't want to say it, but what if she's from a different group altogether?
[TEMP-BANNED For 7 Days BY Kevin-Thompson: My Office. Now.]
►Eniota (Case53)
Replied On Feb 13th 2011:
Is it me or has our Dragon Overlord been influencing Mannequin when it was time to make his wish?
I do understand rezzing your family. But Mannequin had just been "UnFuck" from ZIZ and was clearly horrified by what he have done. ( Poor bastard I heard he still sleeping on the couch years later)
But wouldn't Mannequin make another wish if he wasn't so confused?
I know I am a bit of a devil's advocate here ( btw Horns are freaking sensible ) but would like to know Mannequin's original wish. More especially the Mannequin that killed 2 participants during this WAR.
►UberGamer (HFC New BB Branch Leader) (Verified Cape)
Replied On Feb 13th 2011:
I usually had to keep Leet from his more stupid ideas, sad I couldn't have been their to talk some sense into him.
He was starting to go crazy with how much his power was restricting him as well, we never even knew the problem until Osiris announced his full power on stream. I'm sorry for everything he caused and hope everyone could see that it wasn't him that killed everyone but Dragon taking over his technology. It was still a completely idiotic thing, but he isn't the mass murderer that everyone tries to make him out to be. That isn't the type of thing we represented in our time as Uber & Leet.
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►Got_Milk
Replied On Feb 14th 2011:
I still don't get how a computer program could trigger? Its just code. And I get that there are strange things in the world but does this mean computers have souls?
I feel like people are glossing over this whenever they talk about the war, like "yeah then Dragon triggered and got powers" as if that is not the craziest thing ever.
►MasterMind (Verified Smarter Than You) (Except Osiris )
Replied On Feb 14th 2011:
Eniota
My guess is the death of every tinker who could make the world a better place. A lot of his earlier killings were former colleagues. Mannequin was clearly not in a good place considering what he did to his body...you know cutting it all up and then shoving it into spheres.
Also side note Nezu if you are reading this pawn to D7, Pawn takes queen, Check.
►Father_Gascoigne (Hunter Association) (Verified Combat thinker)
Replied On Feb 14th 2011:
Eniota Considering that Mannequin went after any and everyone who was making a great effort to try and make the world a better place, the old him would probably have wished for something that would have maintained the status quo what with most survivors being heroes even if the winners were villains.
►ItWasMeDio (Villain) (Unverified Vampire)
Replied On Feb 14th 2011:
You know, Leet was actually pretty alright here, he aimed for the enemies to win but made sure the civilian's were unhurt by his creation. Freaking out yes, but alive and moved to an area to keep them safe. actually until the Dragon thing they were probably better off there since they had walls of tinker material in between then and any blasts from the fighting. If Dragon hadn't triggered or lost it this would have probably been the war with the least casualties of them all even after the others.
Also, Happy Valentines Day but Ladies please stop stalking me, I don't need the master allegations.
►The_Storyteller (Verified Narrator)
Replied On Feb 14th 2011:
Once more the world spins, and the Kingmaker laughs as humanity dances for her amusement.
Two more bright lights are snuffed out.
Three blotches of ink are erased.
Let the tale of this story unravel.
►AldariS (Verified Judicator)
Replied On Feb 14th 2011:
A War of Creation. A battle of minds unshackled. This, I must say, is a well-done summary of events where each contestant is a Creator first and foremost before they are considered as Fighters. Each of the contestants pushed beyond their limits to achieve victory. Each and every one of them achieved greatness. Greatness and redemption.
A shame that Andrew's daughter has abandoned all hope and reason. A shame that she could not push past grief and rose above abject hate disguised as a righteous mission to end suffering through the power of control. A great shame, but all the same as previously said...this is war. And in war, some unsavory actions would be taken whether one wishes to do it or not.
It is interesting to note that even a non-contestant CAN be a part of the War. Through the power of their own merit, ingenuity, cunning, and strength...they may obtain a path to gaining that one coveted wish bestowed by the Lady of Wishes herself. I shudder to see the chaos and death that would come from this implication. But it seems temptation is far more pleasurable than self-preservation if what I can gather is based on future...conflicts.
►SpaceKing (Grail War Survivor) (Verified Cape)
Replied On Feb 14th 2011:
why the fuck are all these assholes RPing in this thread and talking like their fucking aliens? This isn't a joke, six million people died! You people disgust me on a deep visceral level and reading these comments make me want to kill myself faster. I hope you all end up trapped within red walls and suffer as I have.
►Beri_The_Horny (Banned) (Temp-Banned) (Verified Evil) (Eldritch Goddess Fucker)
Replied On Feb 14th 2011:
SpaceKing Do not close your mind to the endless reality so easil...
[HONRY-BONKED(AKA SUPER BANNED) By DREAMS_DO_CAME_TRUE: My Reality Cluster, Back. Back I Say.]
►Frosty_Feline (Verified Cape)
Replied On Feb 14th 2011:
Thinking back at this mess, I can't help but think of 'what if' when it comes to Richter, Dragon, and the rest of his work. What if Leet didn't attack Richter, and he had more time to work with Dragon? Because I think Richter wouldn't have released Dragon as a final middle-finger to the other contestants, if he knew the results. I seriously think Richter's death before Dragon's eyes (well, sensors) hit Dragon really hard. Trigger-event level hard.
So I would lay a large amount of the guilt on Leet's feet on this whole nightmare. Not to mention the fact Leet caused a Grey Goo Scenario to begin with! It had restrictions, sure, but to those who know Leet's tech beforehand, IT USED TO GO CRAZY SOONER OR LATER ANYWAY.
I am even tempted to say Leet's work might have infected Dragon partially before things went to hell, because good God did Leet screw up big time, repeatedly, before this thing happened.
I'm not even from Brockton Bay, but I've witnessed some of the early work of him and that partner of his, since they broadcast their 'games' of criminal activity. You know it is usually the dumbest criminals that record the proof of their own crimes and then whine about getting caught. Leet was a joke before and mocked for his failures, and he recorded it so it was all out there, in that infamous series of streams.
Am I bitter against Leet? Yeah. One of his streams had a recording of a piece of his tech malfunctioning and blowing up. It hurt someone I cared about, leaving them permanently blinded, just one among the many. Officially, nobody died in the incident, but permanent injuries still happened. So Fuck you UberGamer
►Aegis (Not The Ward) (Conspiracy Theorist)
Replied On Feb 14th 2011:
Fuck Leet seriously. Dude becomes a tinker with specially = yes! What does he do with that great power? Makes a fucking S class threat with almost no safety backups in a death game. He doesn't even scout out who the other people are he's actually fighting. When he comes across Ricther's lab he immediately goes for the kill.
The dumbass he is kills the fucking AI tinker... Leet didn't even need a kill to survive the game.
Leet had mobs and bosses made out of gray goo able to take any form he wanted.
AI TINKER! He could have had his vidya waifu. WE ALL COULD HAVE HAD CUSTOM AI WAIFUS WITH BODIES. He didn't need a wish, paradise was within his grasp! We all were mere steps away! Seriously fuck Leet.
Also is it just me or does the titty dragon seem to be trying to uplift our tech level? Yeah millions die but humanity as a whole seems to end up a bit better off after every War whenever a tinker survives.
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►Dreams_Do_Come_True (Moderator) (Endbringer) (Cult Leader) (Goddess) (Academy Award Winner)
Replied On Feb 14th 2011:
Aegis The more advanced a society is, the easier they can just fuck everything up even on accident. I suggest finding a way to other planets quick for you humans because someone is going to fuck something big up eventually.
►Daedalus'_Student (Despises Tinkertech) (Experimental Physics Engineer)
Replied On Feb 14th 2011:
So work's been busy lately hence my late response but if you actually look at the laws and international treaties which were formed after Dragon's Rage, you'll see that they actually tell a rather different story than the common 'No AI, Destroy all AI!' tale that gets spun for the general populace. Now I get enough mental anguish trying to puzzle out how Parahuman Powers and Tinkertech actually do what they do at work so I am going to severely summarise what all those treaties actually say regarding AI. Namely:
[spoiler=AI Rules Rant]
1. No creating AI that are able to self-improve without human intervention. What all the people who actually understand this topic consider this to mean in practical terms is when an AI arises, we want to have it so the AI gives us a major patch of changes it wants to do, we work out what the patch generally does and then approve it. At which point the AI will install the major patch along with all the minor patches to make sure the original code change is still valid for how it's changed since the original patch was submitted for checking whilst we desperately pray that none of those changes will have undesirable or problematic unforeseen side effects. Because doing it in any other way requires pushing human modification and augmentations to the point where the general populace and thus any government would be running scared and thus it would never legally happen.
2. Extremely strong restrictions on how AI are able to replicate which in general mean that either a human needs to be involved in the process or the AI is going to have to spend real time years just creating half a dozen clones of itself.
3. Firm limitations placed on new AI 'thinking speeds' and what they are allowed to do. Even for a summary, this topic is exceptionally complex so just consider that this set of regulations has been given the nickname of the 'Mandatory Kindergarten'. That's imprecise because there is no limits to just how divergent an AI thought processes are likely to be but the general intent where we treat new AI as beings just as dumb, clueless and troublemaking as a human child until they grow up and learn better is... not wrong.
4. Even firmer restrictions are placed on anything Parahuman created. This is mostly down to the fact that no one wants a new AI to go rogue because something about how the tinkertech or parahuman power used to create them decided to act funny at the wrong moment and all of a sudden Dragon 2.0 - Not Grieving is around. We have enough troubles in that regard with perfectly understood technology that any educated person can create. As shown by how my Alma Mater's Computer Science department's third server would always triple it's memory usage whenever Harley the Stuffed Unicorn was removed from it's keyboard...
5. A pathway for 'Illegal' AI to 'naturalise' so they are regarded as complying with these regulations. This is actually the one part of these requirements which is regarding as what caused the rest to be necessary rather than have a strict ban on AI research like was initially the case. The story goes that one of the aides who was helping the politicians who were creating the ban asked what would happen if a Villain's AI wanted to become a legal citizen under the ban and uh... Everyone suddenly panicked as they realised the ban would more or less force the AI to be a supervillain to live as it couldn't become a legal citizen. And no one thought a villain (most likely), some fool or an accidental creation event wouldn't create an AI powerful enough to avoid the initial efforts to destroy them and stable enough to avoid an 'emotional reaction' like Dragon eventually.
[/spoiler]
Which basically means Melon_Man that yes, a lot of people are thinking about it, desperately hoping for a societally acceptable result and doing all they can to ensure there is no Dragon 2.0 until we've got our own AI to protect us. Hope this helps.
►RapidBatter (Unverified Cape)
Replied On Feb 14th 2011:
You were a great kid, Isamu AKA Child Emperor; one of the best we had even when you never reached your peak.
I still feel kind of guilty for never having the nerve to just ask if you knew what your name meant; with how smart you were I just kinda assumed...
Hope you're doing well wherever you are.
►MrMcMan (Wiki Warrior)
Replied On Feb 15th 2011:
Got_Milk Thank you! It seems like no one has been talking about this, up until now triggering was a purely human phenomenon. You'd think that if another species was going to get powers it would at least be biological, but instead the sentient computer program gets super powers. If nothing else this proves that there's something greater going on with triggering.
►E_I_E_N
Replied On Feb 15th 2011:
Hmmmmm So another interesting yet predictable war.
Humans still being humans I see. The race that has people willing to murder someone for a sandwich, when they aren't even that hungry and just because they can.
►Lone_Survivor_Of_Secret_Society (Grail War Survivor)
Replied On Feb 15th 2011:
The hell, Osiris? Didn't Australia suffer enough already? None of the participants were even from the entire continent, let alone city! You could have hosted the fight anywhere contestants were living or just a tenth of Australia's width westward, but instead decided to attack our largest population center. You knew this was going to happen, and then made it happen, despite your vows of non-interference!
►LoveJoy
Replied On Feb 15th 2011:
won't somebody please think of the children!?
►Dreams_Do_Come_True (Moderator) (Endbringer) (Cult Leader) (Goddess) (Academy Award Winner)
Replied On Feb 15th 2011:
LoveJoy I did? What else do you call including a child in my games, people would call me ageist otherwise. Children have dreams they want answered as well you know!
Race, Gender, Age, possible mutations, no one is exempt. Child Emperor also could have possibly lived as well if Nezu and him just focused on survival instead of ending the threat. Child Emperor is a huge part of the reason Dragon died back then, so maybe if I didn't include him everyone would have died? You all still call him a kid and everything else to dismiss his accomplishments but to me he got my approval as a contender because he was a hero first and deserved a chance to make his mark on the world.
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AN:Nothing really to say, Next chapter should be up tomorrow then the fifth war a day or two after that. Is this method of putting the copy in the threadmark inside a spoiler better? I'll probably remove the spoiler tag after a couple of weeks when most of my active readers have already gone through it so it looks better for first time readers.
Thanks to [USER=111851]Kelsier Vin[/USER] for helping me with beta reading this and the next few chapters! Also I'm looking for a few more beta readers to help me out and save time and make the text read better so if anyone wants to help send me a DM(or conversation as QQ calls it), thanks in advance for any of your time.