-trajectory. agreement.-

[from_scratch]

"Hasn't everyone heard of Kithabel? I live in Africa, not under a rock," Cam tells Tattletale. "You, on the other hand, are new to me."

Comments

[whole_new_can]

It acts the way basement dwellers usually do.

"Before you try anything with the Butcher, can you make a copy of two six five and a doomsday device? Just in case a mindless Butcher isn't safe, and your indestructibility doesn't protect you, and this counts as you being the one doing the killing.
If you don't know any doomsday devices I can suggest some tinker tech, but no guarantees we'd know how to use that."

[from_scratch]

"I do not know any doomsday devices, because I have never anticipated the need to wreck a planet I couldn't be within a reasonable astronomical distance of. You want the two six five jailbroken?"

[whole_new_can]

"Yeah, regular powers can't get us there.

No idea if we have to wreck the whole planet or not, but two copies of String Theory's Firmament Driver ought to do it. Some supervillain threatened to use one of these to knock the moon out of orbit; it's the best thing for firepower on an unknown scale."

[from_scratch]

Cam makes a jailbroken (bound, gagged) two six five. "I'm not sure I wish to make such a thing on this Earth. Maybe we can't get where we ultimately need to be but can we at least get somewhere nobody is living on?"

[wormcan]

"Other side of this. It's still an Earth, though, and is at the obvious point corresponding to here." The large rectangular hole still leads to a rain forest with different weather.

[from_scratch]

"You're sure it's uninhabited?"

[wormcan]

"Yes. Lots of trees and animals, no people."

[from_scratch]

Cam steps through with the yet-necessary basement dwellers on float pallets behind him. He attempts to make shrunken replicas of all extant human artifacts from this planet. Nothing?

[whole_new_can]

Nothing.

[from_scratch]

Excellent. Doomsday devices coming right up.

"Anything else before I go for it?"

[whole_new_can]

"Nope. Just make sure whatever you do in the first round is more like the Contessa killing the Butcher than it is like you doing the killing with an unorthodox weapon. It should work."

[from_scratch]

"I was thinking I'd make the Butcher under the Contessa for suffocation purposes rather than actually move the Contessa; does that sound right?"

[whole_new_can]

"This isn't exactly well tested, but that sounds as good as any."

[from_scratch]

So Cam makes a jailbroken no-accumulated-powers Butcher with his face under the Contessa, pushing her just out of the way.

[wormcan]

It'll work eventually. When it does, nothing appears to happen.

[from_scratch]

That's the expected result. Cam takes the pulse of the Butcher. When there is none, he says, "Here goes, unless there's a last minute objection."

[wormcan]

"Go for it."

[from_scratch]

So Cam poisons the Contessa-Butcher.

[wormcan]

It definitely worked. He can feel himself inheriting Butcher One's superhuman strength, and presumably durability as well. That's redundant. As for whether he got the power he was going for, that's less immediately obvious.

[from_scratch]

So how does he work this thing and can it be yoked to the ethical standards in his head -





"Well," he says, "the good news is I have Contessa's power, and the bad news is it thinks I can't use it ethically without downgrading from 'I win' to 'I'm pretty cool a lot of the time' for some reason."

[whole_new_can]

"Ethically? It has to know there's a lot depending on this—oh no.

My old boss was a precog. He'd split universes, or simulate a copy, no way to tell which, and then pick which one he liked better. If you consider that unethical, your shiny new precog power might do the same at a scale big enough that it even matters now."

[from_scratch]

"...I mean, if the simulation's good enough yes that is a problem. And that explains the handicap really well... I can pick and choose what to ask it, it seems like it'll let me feed it safe information sources instead of running off and getting its own... probably okay to ask it if I can ethically ask it whatever I have in mind as an extra check... but that's still just 'I'm pretty cool a lot of the time'."

[wormcan]

"You realize by that logic, a copy of you just died. Your power looked at the inside of your head in exactly that much detail to check your ethics, and then switched off the simulation."

[from_scratch]

"Apparently. Well. That's me. Buncha Earths on the line. I can decide I'm okay with that. I can't go around asking billions of other people if they're cool with the idea."

[wormcan]

"Well, a moral objection to precognition isn't the weirdest I've run across. Is it going to get in the way of stopping the entities?"