So, for the benefit of the interested, here’s some of that sketchy background:
Theme: things are definitely lighter than in canon Worm, since the nature of crossovers means infection with some 'verse thematics. Specifically relevant ones probably including “Sciencing The Shit Out Of This”, “You Can Be Awesomer Than You Think You Are”, and “Making a Better World with Space-Magic Fists of Doom”. I mean, it’s not like the world’s going to start out any less crapsack, but we’re all about the power of a small group of determined individuals to punch it until it gets better in these parts.
So, what exactly does “the blessings wrought by our children and advice on their use” mean?
In this case, it means three things (which replace the original shard entirely, in this case):
- “A better operating platform”. For the big T, that means an upgrade to the alpha baseline. The eldrae alpha baseline. Apart from relatively minor things like the extra height, pointy ears. and general optimization, highlights include being very hard to kill (especially since having picked up on what her world is like, it probably threw in a couple of milspec addons like bone and skin weaves), ridiculously fast reflexes, enhanced senses, immortality, and of course, the usual suite of cognitive enhancements - which in addition to their obvious uses, are plot-affecting because the brain affects the mind.
(This is going to be real interesting if/when Panacea uses her power on it.)
Specifically in things that change the path of plot, they include all those hacks cleaning up things like cognitive biases and depressive tendencies, the ability to override detrimental motivational emotions, and, of course, those in-built tendencies of the species towards dynamic optimism and hypomania. It’s not like Taylor isn’t in the same bad place, psychologically, as she was at the start of the original, but she’s running on hardware that’s much less happy to go along with that; it’s hard to stay low when your brain won’t stop insisting that you’re awesomer than sauce.
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That includes those handy nanosomes that provide the vector control, which includes the usual full techlekinesis with a minor in electrokinesis.
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“Advice” takes the form of a muse with its bytegeist (which I suspect will end up named “Skitter”, because that’s the sort of thing the Transcend would find funny), along with a copy of the Panpraxis . For those who don’t remember it, it’s the technical encyclopedia with expert systems which goes all the way from “I got a rock” to “I’ve got the technical infrastructure of an interstellar civilization” with all the steps in between. And unlike the knowledge provided by Tinker shards, it isn’t censored.
The Transcend itself won’t be a player, even to the extent of whispering in her ear. That would be energy-expensive and inelegant, compared to its preferred strategy of giving the right gift to the right person and letting the butterfly effect do the work. Just as planned.
Plot-wise, I haven’t planned terribly far ahead yet. I’m assuming that her first encounter with the Protectorate doesn’t go well, what with a “trigger event” that is all of awkwardly spectacular, unconventional (no passing-out of the parahuman on the scene, for example), and is sadly arranged perfectly for Shadow Stalker to poison the well.
Not to foreclose the possibility of good relations with individual Wards or PRT members in the mid-to-long term, though - the former, at least, aren’t going to trust SS’s reliability - but mostly because I suspect the early plot will work much better with the Undersiders, who are in any case characters too good not to use. Also, seems to me that this Taylor’s and Tattletale’s powersets synergize in a glorious positive feedback loop of self-reinforcing awesomeness.
Remainder TBD.
(Oh, and for those with the shipping bug, I am sorely tempted to same-sex-ship the straight only-example-of-her-species-on-the-planet with the self-described asexual aromantic because evidently my perverse writer-brain wants to play this game on SKULLFUCKINGLY HARD mode.)