Hide and Seek (Worm AU)

Okay. Im going to estimate between 50-70 million deaths total including any deaths caused by Simurgh plots. This might come into play later in the story, so its a nice statistic to have.

 

So is this a crack fic? It kind of seems like one :O

 

Nope. Just a bad writer

 

Hmm, firstly I'm obviously not any sort of expert. Secondly, this is me running off memory so I'm quite capable of getting my 'facts' wrong. With that in mind:

The 'total deaths' thing could possibly reach the billion mark. Very possibly. It'd depend on how you count.

The obvious one is direct deaths and incidentals from collateral damage (waves, stray bolts of lightning, Simurgh screwing with people). This actually seems like it would be the lowest contributor to me.

But then you could include suicides of people who think (fairly rightly) that the world is fucked, or that the Simurgh got to them or whatever. I'd argue that given the state of the world, most (but not all, silly parahumans) of which is caused by the stress of Endbringers being a thing, that there would have been a large increase in suicide rate since Levi showed up (Behemoth originally being considered just a strong cape that would eventually be put down, or something).

Now include environmental damage, which would effect food production. Every time Behemoth irradiates somewhere, every time Leviathan changes the terrain (not to mention the effect his waves/actions have on the oceanic ecological systems), and every time places get closed off because of the Simurgh (again, not to mention the additional resources directed to those places to keep them shut up/supply the people in and around them). This puts additional strain on the economy, which also increases suicide rates, food shortages, food costs and animal populations, all of which result in more deaths.

Birth rates are similarly changed because of their actions, I'd assume.

I can't remember where I saw it, but I'm pretty sure it was mentioned that Earth Bet has a population of somewhere in the 5-6b range. We were around 7b at the time of canon, so Bet's lost (very roughtly) between 1 and 2b people. It seems to me that it's likely the Endbringers are responsible (directly and indirectly) for at least half of this, to go along with all the death parahumans have caused.

Didn't you say this was your first time trying to write anything? Going ok for that.

 

I don't recall that 5-6 billion figure.

And more people would die from the effects of all those criminal capes (including, but not exclusively, the Nine, the Fallen, the Teeth and the other psychos) who are out there killing people because they enjoy it than because of the Endbringers. Especially given that the Endbringers attack every few months, but the psycho capes are out there on the streets every day.

But even if that's not true, at some point you have to draw a line and say "this is not specifically due to an Endbringer".

 

As I said, I could easily be wrong, and have remembered this from something else, or got the wrong number.

Hmm, I could argue that, pre-nap-time Jack said that he'd kill 1000 people to taunt Theo, which makes me think that was a 'big thing' of some description for them. Either that or he just picked a large round number to annoy Theo with. The feeling I get from Worm (keep that in mind: personal feeling I get) was that most organizations would be pushing it to kill one person a week. One a day for the more violent ones.

On the one hand I did say that everything else was incidental, not directly their fault, but that doesn't change that they played a part in it.

On the other hand, I'm perfectly fine with saying everything that was wrong in Worm was the fault of every single person, organization or entity (or Entity) in the setting. We are not singular creatures, we do not hold ourselves apart from the world we live in. We are all responsible for everything being as it is.

But that's a moral debate waiting to happen, so fuck that. All of this is, so I don't think I should pull this thread down any more than I already have.

 

One more thing. If the Endbringers' attacks, and the direct and indirect effects of that led to enough deaths, on average, to make a billion people after 56 attacks? It would mean that each attack has to reap, on average, when all is said and done, 20 million lives. As I said earlier, that's the population of Australia. And Australia is attacked in canon three times (that I know of) by Endbringers; once in Sydney, once in Perth, and once in Canberra. People still live there, in canon, after all that. So ... nope.

 

I would guess the direct casualties for Endbringers to be a little over 100 millions with 0.5-1.5 times that in indirect deaths from their actions.

 

So two million per attack?

The only city that was ever 'decimated' rather than just 'attacked' was the one in China, where the CUI refused to let the Protectorate assist. Not sure how many were killed there.
But just to note; Sydney, as of our 1998, had four million people. Perth has less than two million. Canberra has less than half a million.

Also, Brockton Bay had 350,000 people before Leviathan attacked. There were enough survivors for some to leave and others to be homeless in the aftermath.

Yes, Leviathan wiped out nine million people on Kyshu. But most of the cities the Endbringers attacked would not have had two million people to kill. And they never killed everyone in a city anyway. They killed roughly a quarter of the capes facing them, then left.

Hundreds, yes. Thousands, yes. Tens of thousands, maybe. Hundreds of thousands, I doubt. Millions? No. Not in each attack. If they did that, some cities wouldn't be there any more. And they were.

 

Attacks on places like New York make the numbers go up, and its estimated in canon that civilization will collapse from the stress the endbringers put on it within a few decades if something aren't done, so the casualties must be high.

 

Yeah, but what the Endbringers are doing is destroying the infrastructure. The things that allow food, water and electricity to be gotten out to the people who need it.

Brockton Bay was devastated by a single visit from Leviathan. It took them months to recover. (Oh, and by the way, New York was a gimme from Behemoth; he was driven off relatively easily).

The buildings, the power grid, the services, all that needs to be rebuilt, put back into place. Your average city took generations to get the way it is now; an Endbringer can disrupt all that in an hour or two. After Leviathan, they were dealing with flooding, damaged buildings, no power, no clean water, no food ... all that takes money and resources to overcome. Money and resources that could have been spent elsewhere, but now has to be spent fixing the place. And when enough cities are damaged, and in the process of being fixed, and the Endbringers start coming around again ...

 

She should reveal the identities of some of them to the world. They broke the Unwritten Rules and screwed things up for her. If she doesn't retaliate, then there's no reason for anyone to hold back in any way, shape or form when it comes to Taylor, because there are no consequences for their actions. Alexandria is illegally the Director of PRT, a position not allowed for parahumans to have. Outing her is the heroic thing to do as she is a criminal, and she broke the Unwritten Rules so she's not protected by them either. Another is Shadow Stalker, because she's the primary cause of this mess, and she attempted to murder Taylor while the others were still trying to arrest her. Then the people who decided to reveal her identity and to go after her family (decision-makers are key). The rest seem to be hangers-on so they don't really matter much (except if Eidolon is the Master in question in this fic, but Taylor obviously doesn't know that even if he is).

Taylor could also kidnap powerful people opposing her for a short time and visibly hold tea parties with them together with Simurgh, then release them without doing anything bad to them. Even though they'd be perfectly fine afterwards, they'd get the same abusive treatment thereafter as Taylor herself is getting, and she wouldn't be guilty of much that way. When you're a single-person minority, people feel free to treat you as badly as they like. Add plenty of formerly important people into that minority - especially if any currently important person could be next as far as they know - and suddenly minority rights become a thing. Maybe not a huge thing considering Simurgh is involved, but it should afford some benefit of the doubt. Aside from that, powerful enemies would be cut off at the knees by the paranoia of their own side, and Taylor would for the most part keep her moral high ground while her enemies lose it more and more with every person they decide to sacrifice.

 

Hah. So basically your the first part of your comment was the origional plot for this fic, which was basically 'reveal everyone' as some kind of revenge. But I didn't much like the way it was going, so it ended up where it is now. Endbringer Teaparties is the best idea I have heard all week.

 

Why didn't Taylor point out 'I'm a kid, and the Endbringers have been around for decades, so how can I be the one behind them?'

 

They could just say that she falsified all the information including memories and documentation.

What I'm more curious about is how Taylor changed her body to be like an Endbringer's. None of the Endbringer's abilities would allow this - so how did she do it?

 

It's mentioned earlier that in addition to their power sets she has a Changer ability slash Breaker form that lets her shift her physiology to match that of one or more of the Endbringers, and that taking a mono-form amplifies the associated power set.

 

In which case, she could have changed memories to ensure that no-one noticed her, ever.

 

Not even herself. Except something got screwed up and now she has her powers back, but not her memories.

 

So, in this hypothesis, what's stopping her from doing it again?

 

and the ability to recover depends heavily on other, non destroyed, cities/polities to provide human resources/food/reconstruction funds.
with the certainty of future attacks, the tentation to keep those close at hands rather than send it overseas (or even to another country/state/county)...

i wonder if there is a name for the number of consecutive disasters that will drive a civilization to its knees...

 

She forgot how to do it, obviously.

 

Much like the Endbringer, she needs time to do it. Now that people know what to look for, it can't work ever again, clearly.

 

Since the same plotholes keep getting pointed out, I am going to explain my reasoning for why I wrote this the way it came out.
The first reason is that there were certain important plotpoints I needede to hit for the plot to progress, such as Taylor leaving BB, her identity being revealed and her having a friendship with Lisa. There were a couple others that people can probably guess.
Next plothole is pre-cog. Sam is not omnipitent. Pre-cog (for Taylor and the Simurgh) works like following a drop of food coloring in a river. At first you can see it pretty clearly, but it eventually starts to fade and get distributed along multiple paths and currents. For Taylor she can follow the time forwards about three hours if she is really meditating or focused, one hour if she has a few seconds and five minutes is pretty easy. Sam is about the same, except longer durations and has perfect pre-cog during enrage.
Also part of Pre-cog is following paths. Taylor can only see one future at a time. However, the only things that can change that future are her own actions. In contras, Sam can see multiple futures, and can chosse which one she should follow or instruct Taylor to follow.
Post-cog is similar to pre-cog except less limited, and cannot be based around anything living, but can be based around an idea, such as 'how did the protectorate find out my identity'.

 

This is the best of things.

For an extra 'screw you' she has the Simurgh sitting next to them the whole time, humming away, but Taylor keeps assuring them that they'll be fine. Every time she releases them she sends a message to the PRT that she didn't do anything to them, they aren't a risk, and should be allowed to go back to their lives as if nothing had happened.

 

I'm still hoping she asks what made Emma turn on her.

What's the limit on how much of the Endbringer's full power she can draw on? How does it compare to the amount they wield during their attacks while holding back?

 

So are the Endbringers aware of Scion's part in all this, and are simply focusing on stopping their controller so they're free to help out (or do whatever they want), or do they not know that Scion's bad news?