“ | I don’t have to help you. I’m not a good guy. I’m not a bad guy. I’m done working for other people, answering their questions when I don’t want to. I work for me, and for everyone. | ” |
—Dinah to Director Tagg, Cell 22.1 |
“ | My agenda is and always has been what’s best for humanity. I predicted the end of the world. I positioned the right people in the right places. Khepri. | ” |
—Dinah to Miss Militia, From Within 16.3 |
Dinah Alcott is the niece of Brockton Bay's mayor and a powerful precognitive.
Personality[]
Prior to triggering, she led a relatively normal life.[12] Without Coil's interference, she might have just stopped trying to use her power.[13]
Her personality was obscured by her forced drugging and was instead obsessed with her 'candy', her understanding of her addiction and she had also resolved to obey Coil over experiencing the pain from excessive power use and drug withdrawals.[14]
After her release, she became focused on humanity's survival in preparation for the End of the World, and was willing to do morally questionable things to increase the number of lives saved.[15]
Relationships[]
Parents[]
Presumably healthy and was willing to return to them.
Coil[]
Her captor. Was completely fine with his death.
Taylor Hebert[]
She met her a few times but had only two possibly three conversations of note with her. She was protective towards her, both for being grateful for Taylor's assistance and her role in saving the world.
After being returned home, she tried to keep away from Taylor due to the numbers changing when communicating with her.[16][17]
Appearance[]
Dinah is described as a young girl with straight, dark brown hair.[18][19] While in Coil's custody she was heavily drugged,[14][20][21] and visibly malnourished.[22]
After being freed from Coil, she cut her hair short.[23]
During her meeting with the Wardens after the Attack on Teacher, Dinah wore a blindfold and a nice-suit dress, both with a wild pattern to it.[24]
Abilities and Powers[]
Dinah has the ability to see the likelihood of something occurring in the future, which her power resolves into a percentage chance. She does this by perceiving trillions of possible universes[25] and sorting them into groups based on a single event.[26]
At Coil's insistence, Dinah also demonstrated the ability to pick out a single timeline and interpret it, which was used to see a future where Crawler did not kill her, Coil, and the Travelers.[27] It allowed them to find a situation where they could escape and then employ it.
If someone asks Dinah a question, she does not have to answer that question.[28][29][30][31] However, she instinctively looks at assorted futures in response to a question.[32][33] For this reason, she appreciates it if other people can avoid phrasing things as questions.[34] If Dinah lies about an answer provided by her power, it messes up her power for a while after,[35] likely because actions relating to this answer affect the results.
Over time, Dinah could ask more questions per day. When Coil revealed Dinah to the Undersiders, he initially wanted her to answer six questions.[36] On the day Crawler visited Coil's base, Dinah asked around 15 questions.[37] About two years later, after saving her power for the Slaughterhouse Fight in Los Angeles, Dinah was able to ask around 36 questions that day.[38][28] After the Attack on Teacher, she mentioned how she could ask 40 to 50 questions per day.[39]
Blind Spots[]
Scion recoded Dinah's shard with strict limitations before directing it to her.[40] Thus, she cannot accurately see past the Entities themselves,[41] the Endbringers,[42] shardspace,[43] and other blind spots to the typical Thinker precognition (i.e., Eidolon, Sleeper, Valkyrie, and Pastor).[44] Dinah also cannot see a trigger event directly.[45]
Dinah's precognition is not All-or-Nothing; other precognitives can interfere with her power.[46][47][42] Indeed, Contessa[24][48] and other precognitives and situ change Thinkers are blind spots.[49]
Shard-derived sensory powers cannot perceive Mantellum (i.e., he blinds shards);[50][51][52] he and anyone in his radius are presumably a blind spot as even Contessa cannot perceive him with her All-or-Nothing power.[53][54]
Although Dinah has limited sight past the point of interaction with a blind spot,[49] she can work around them to some extent by seeing everything around them as well as the immediate future right behind their point of influence.[24] Thus, she is better at seeing past blind spots than Contessa as long as she asks questions about them.[55][56] For example, this allowed Dinah to predict Gold Morning,[47][57][58][59] engineer Khepri,[60][61][62] and determine that just kicking the Simurgh's ass will suffice.[63]
History[]
Background[]
Triggered sometime months before Taylor first went out in costume. She missed several weeks of classes over a number of months due to crippling headaches caused by her power.[12]
Story Start[]
While the Undersiders raided a local Bank Dinah was kidnapped from her home.[12][64]
A newspaper article carried news of her kidnapping but there was no news of a ransom note or similar.[65]
Her existence was revealed to the Undersiders, possibly as a test of loyalty.[66]
Post-Leviathan[]
When looking over the data stolen from the PRT and learning that the Slaughterhouse Nine were in the area Dinah prophesied that Jack Slash would be the one that would trigger the world-ending event.[67]
Was instrumental in saving the personnel at Coil's base when Crawler decided to pay a visit.[37]
Post-Slaughterhouse Nine[]
After Coil's endgame began she was given to Skitter to return, but this turned out to be a ruse. When Coil was killed, she was freed.[68]
The Protectorate later sent along Assault to confirm that she was returned.[69]
She set herself up as a rogue, selling answers both for funds and in order to steer the future so that the End of the World would kill fewer people.[15]
The Timeskip[]
During the Slaughterhouse Fight in Los Angeles, Dinah contacted Golem through the comm system[70] and let him ask questions.[38]
Gold Morning[]
She was at the Cauldron meeting with Faultline’s Crew and provided valuable information about how things came about.
Despite willingly trying to assist Khepri, she was not allowed to participate in the Gold Morning. Instead, Khepri returned the note she'd kept, the one that said: "I'm sorry".
Post-Gold Morning[]
Was later brought to the Undersiders meeting, where she participated in a toast to absent comrades and was lied to.[71]
Ward[]
Still in the business and provided a valuable piece of advice for surviving humanity.[58] Was targeted by Teacher, according to him, she has links to anti-parahuman factions and Gary Nieves.[72]
She admittedly opposed Earth Cheit and Shin interventions and attempted to act against Teacher, but was countered by Christine Mathers.[73]
Post-Attack on Teacher[]
Following the Teacher's defeat by The Wardens, terror-attack on Mayor Wynn and call to evacuate The City, Nieves brought Dinah to Wardens.[74] Dinah argued that Contessa is untrustworthy.[75] She reported her previous manipulations to The Wardens, but denied examinations by Thinkers and threatened with Palanquin involvement if she was detained. She prophesied several almost imminent catastrophes with mass civilian casualties, all with Contessa overseeing them.[73]
She joined The Wardens' thinker pool,[76] and was present in the Wardens' situation room during the Second Shin Crisis.[77]
The Ice Breaks[]
Dinah continued assisting The Wardens, and was present at the anti-Simurgh rally.[78]
The thinker group she was part of was targeted by The Simurgh during her assault on Wardens Complex, and suffered continuous attacks from compromised individuals.[79] Eventually, some of the thinkers succumbed to Simurgh's song and took Dinah hostage. She was freed by Victoria Dallon and helped her to disable The Mathers Giant.[80][81]
Chapter Appearances[]
Trivia[]
- Identified by the author as the third most powerful precognitive in the Worm setting.[13] The first two are presumably Contessa and the Simurgh, respectively.[54][82][46]
- Her verbose and formal word choice when addressing others, along with her mature behavior for her age, has led to speculation that Dinah may have some form of High Functioning Autism.syndrome.[citation needed]
- It was actually Imp who came up with the name "kid Cassandra",[83] though Tattletale probably deserves credit for popularizing it.[1]
Fanart Gallery[]
References[]
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 “He’s here,” Kenzie piped up, in a little announcement that made Bullet Time give her a curious look. “He brought, uh, what’s her name? She went by Kid Cassandra while doing contract work, the Heartbroken said Tattletale coined the name to annoy her. Then she wanted to change it because she’s barely a kid anymore.”
[...]
Giving us a quizzical look, Golem led us down the hall. We passed a meeting room with the blinds partially closed, and I could see the silhouettes of Dinah Alcott, AKA: Kid Cassandra, and of Gary Nieves, sitting across from Miss Militia. - Excerpt from From Within 16.2 - ↑ I hugged my arms close to my body. When I glanced at the girl, I caught her looking at me. I looked away.
“Candy, now?” She started to bite at her thumbnail. Looking at her other hand, I saw her nails were bitten to the quick.
He moved her hand away from her mouth, “Four more questions, pet, then candy. Tell me the numbers for the same situation, but if I sent the Travelers instead.” - Excerpt from Buzz 7.11 - ↑ Dinah Alcott – A powerful clairvoyant, twelve years old, has straight brown hair. - Cast Page
- ↑ She put her hand in mine, and I could feel it shaking in the half second before I got a firm grip. I supported her as she got out of the car, then walked her back toward the house.
Mrs. Alcott made a noise somewhere between a moan and a cry as we approached the front door. I moved my bugs out of the way and let go of Dinah the second her mother embraced her, right in the middle of the front lawn. The father was only a step behind, dropping to his knees to wrap his arms around them. A family reunited.
It was a rare thing, I was finding, that a family was both intact and functioning. Too many of the people I’d interacted with so far were separated from the families they should have by death, by pain, misunderstandings or abuse. - Queen 18.2 - ↑ Let me introduce your candidates, starting with Mr. Roy Christner, our mayor incumbent.
[...]
“You bastard,” the Mayor growled. “First my niece, now this?”
Niece?
Of course. I’d heard Dinah was niece to one of the mayoral candidates. I hadn’t realized she was the niece to the mayor. - Monarch 16.8 - ↑ The woman next to him would be his wife. She had the look of someone who had purchased their good looks, with stylish clothes, an expensive haircut and top-notch makeup and skin care. - Colony 15.8
- ↑ Tagg met them at the end of the lobby, then ushered them upstairs to the conference room. They were joined by Mrs. Yamada, her cousin Triumph, and Miss Militia.
Tagg waited until everyone else was seated before sitting at the head of the table. - Excerpt from Cell 22.1 - ↑ He whipped his head around and stared at Trickster. Before the teleporter could pull the trigger or do anything else, Triumph shouted. His sister was untouched, but Trickster was sent flying into the wall hard enough that he was half-buried in the drywall.
“Duck, Kyla!”
The little girl threw herself to the ground as Triumph lunged forward, kicking the dining room table. It slid halfway across the room, over ‘Kyla’ and into the wall. The side slammed into Trickster’s midsection, and the table’s contents flew into the villain and the wall around him. Trickster went limp, his upper body flopping over the table. - Colony 15.8 - ↑ Two younger girls. Going by their size, I’d guess between eight and twelve.”
[...]
She was clutching her husband, who was holding his two twin daughters. - Colony 15.8 - ↑ “I think… it was maybe one of the big reasons I wanted to do this,” Tattletale said. “It was important that I showed her that Taylor was dead. I had to convince her.”
“Convince her?” Imp asked.
Tattletale nodded.
“You’d think she’d be really good at figuring that basic shit out on her own.”
“You’d think,” Tattletale said. “But no. We’re really good at lying to ourselves. Take it from another thinker.” - Excerpt from Interlude: End - ↑ “Not a wise business decision for a rogue starting out,” Tagg said, without rising from his chair. “Offending an organization like the PRT, a young lady like you mouthing off. We could cooperate, instead.” - Excerpt from Cell 22.1
- ↑ 12.0 12.1 12.2 “Dinah Alcott,” Weld spoke. All eyes turned to the metal-skinned boy.
“Beg pardon?” Coil asked.
“Thursday, April fourteenth of this year, Dinah Alcott was kidnapped from her home and has not been seen since. Dinah had missed several weeks of classes with crippling headaches in the months before her disappearance. Investigation found no clear medical causes. Police interviewed her friends. She had confided to them that she thought she could see the future, but doing so hurt her.” - Excerpt from Plague 12.2 - ↑ 13.0 13.1 Not so much that precogs are rare, but that they’re limited. The future is awfully big.
Look at Dinah – her ability crippled her early on, and if Coil hadn’t kidnapped her, she might have abandoned it, avoided using it, because it was that hard. As it stands, she has to search the myriad futures to prune away realities until she finds the answers to very specific questions. AND she’s the third most powerful precog in the setting.
As Coil notes in his interlude (Interlude 8), there’s two major classifications of serial murderer. The controlled one that sticks to rituals and routines, and the unpredictable ones that are hard to catch because you don’t know where they’re going to strike next. The Nine are the latter.
Add the fact that you can’t exactly stick a police tail on them, and any attempt to get in their way is liable to end up badly, and it can be hard to keep track of them. Figure they’ll retire for weeks at a time (see Aisha’s interlude where they’re kicking back in the apartment) and only really cut loose in areas where there’s chaos, and visibility might be low as well. - Comment by Wildbow on Prey 14.1 - ↑ 14.0 14.1 She could see those futures unfolding. He would. She could see the pain and the sickness she experienced, the full brunt of her power without her candy to take the edges off, complete with all of the details she didn’t want. Worst of all were the feedback loops. To go through withdrawal from the drugs, from her ‘candy’, while simultaneously being able to see and experience echoes of the future moments where she was suffering much the same way? It was a massive increase in the pain and being sick and mood swings and insomnia and feeling numb and skin-crawling hallucinations. There was no limit to these echoes, the feedback from her futures. It would never kill her, knock her out or put her in a coma, no matter how much she might want it to. She had come close to experiencing it once, early on in her captivity. Never again. She would obey Coil in everything he asked for before she risked that happening again. - Excerpt from Interlude 11f
- ↑ 15.0 15.1 “Why, Dinah?” Miss Militia asked. “Why do this?” “For everyone. Because we got this far, it makes the numbers a little better. Whatever happens from here on out, it makes the end of the world a little less bad.” “A little less bad,” Triumph echoed her. “But it still happens,” Tagg said. “Almost always. The world ends, in two years or in fifteen or sixteen.” [...] “You seem to be playing a dangerous game,” Tagg said, “Testing our goodwill, manipulating us for your own ends.” “Everyone’s ends, and I didn’t manipulate you. You asked for a number, I gave it.” He ignored her. “Helping her when you should be helping us.” “I don’t have to help you,” she said. “I’m not a good guy. I’m not a bad guy. I’m done working for other people, answering their questions when I don’t want to. I work for me, and for everyone.” - Excerpt from Cell 22.1
- ↑ “She turned on me, you know,” I said. “The girl I saved. And I think I sort of know why she did it. I understand the rationale. I don’t even blame her.” [...] “And I save a girl from the clutches of an evil, scheming crime lord, and this is my reward.” I held out the papers for the tombstone. Two squares of paper. Each had a number in the upper left corner, circled, to indicate the order the notes should be read in. Two words for the first note, two and a half for the second. 1. Cut ties. 2. I’m sorry. - Excerpt from Imago 21.2
- ↑ “Arthropodaudience,” Miss Militia said. “She’s fully aware of everything that’s been going on in this building.” “I’m gone,” Dinah said. “I can’t communicate with her or the numbers change." - Excerpt from Cell 22.1
- ↑ Twelve years old or so, she had dark circles under her eyes, and straight, dark brown hair that was in need of a trim. She wore a white long sleeved shirt, white pajama bottoms and white slippers. - Excerpt from Buzz 7.11
- ↑ The others looked at her. I couldn’t see her, but I had a pretty distinct mental picture. A pre-adolescent girl, thin, with straight brown hair. Cursory inspection with my swarm suggested her hair was tied into a braid, but many strands were coming loose. Unless a lot had changed since I’d last seen her, Dinah would be pale. My mental picture of her was of a girl that was almost ghostly. It said something that she was still able to command our attention with a few quiet words. - Excerpt from Queen 18.1
- ↑ “Hurts all over. Painkillers didn’t do anything.” “Yeah,” I said. They couldn’t give her anything narcotic, not with the way the doctor was suspecting that Coil had dosed Dinah with a mixture of opiates and tranquilizers to keep her artificially content and mellow. - Excerpt from Queen 18.2
- ↑ “Before I go get her,” I said, “You should know. There’s no sign he touched her. He didn’t hurt her, not physically. He did everything he could to take care of her, in a utilitarian sense, but she was still a prisoner.” [...] “She was drugged, often and heavily. She’s in the middle of recovery, and it isn’t pretty. No narcotics, no painkillers, and no tranquilizers, maybe for the rest of her life.” - Excerpt from Queen 18.2
- ↑ “And as for you, little miss, you seem undernourished.”
“I haven’t had much of an appetite for a while.” (Medical examination describing her condition after being released from Coil's confinement) - Excerpt from Queen 18.1 - ↑ A family made their way to the lobby. I assumed them to be tourists, until the guards let them into the building. Two adults and a young girl. The Alcotts.
Dinah had cut her hair short.
Reinventing herself? Distancing herself from being Coil’s ‘pet’? - Excerpt from Cell 22.1 - ↑ 24.0 24.1 24.2 Dinah Alcott was speaking, sounding annoyed or upset. She wore a nice suit-dress with a wild pattern to it, and a similarly patterned cloth as a blindfold. “You can’t trust her. I’ve run the numbers, I can’t see past her but I can see everything around her, and I can at least see things that have yet to happen that are right behind her point of influence, understand?” - Excerpt from From Within 16.2
- ↑ If each of the tens of trillions of universes were like pictures, then they were organized into a mosaic, constantly rearranging itself and shuffling. Taken in as a whole, it was a muddle. Depending on how it shuffled, sometimes patterns emerged. A predominant color, perhaps, or lots of scenes that were blurs of motion and activity. But there was more to it. There were faint sounds, for one thing, and they weren’t just two-dimensional. Just the opposite – they were each a fully realized world, and each was continuous, like a slideshow or film reel that extended vast distances forward and backward from any of the scenes of focus. - Excerpt from Interlude 11f
- ↑ She concentrated, and the mosaic organized into two portions, one slightly larger than the other. In one half, that death-terminus came very soon. In the other, it was some distance off. She judged the size of the individual parts, and the number snapped into her head. 43.03485192746307955659 percent chance she would die in the next thirty minutes. - Excerpt from Interlude 11f
- ↑ She picked out one of the paths where they survived. Even looking too closely at it made her head throb, like it was in a massive vise and someone had just cranked it a fraction tighter. Some of the possible worlds around the fringes of her consciousness disintegrated into a mess of disordered scenes as she pushed forward. The scenes and images of the less possible worlds flew around her mind like razor-sharp leaves in a gale, cutting at everything they touched. [...] She focused hard on that scene, taking it from an image small and vague enough that it could have fit on the end of a pencil to something full size. Her head exploded with pain. She caught fragmentary images as she felt herself double over and heave the contents of her stomach onto the metal catwalk and Sundancer’s legs and feet. - Excerpt from Interlude 11f
- ↑ 28.0 28.1 “Saving Tecton, red or blue.”
“Golem, we didn’t get a chance to go over this earlier, but you need to know… I can’t ask that many questions. I’ve been saving my power for the last big confrontation. Tattletale said this is the time to act. I used my power twice to answer big questions earlier today. Another three to figure out who I needed to talk to, and that told me-“
“I’m the best partner for you?”
“Right now, yes. Listen. Twenty-six questions left. We haven’t even found Jack. I can’t figure it out.“ - Excerpt from Interlude 26a - ↑ Break it down. Attack, left for blue. Group, forward for red. “Again.”
“Golem, we can’t waste questions like this. We-“
“Please.”
“Red.” - Excerpt from Interlude 26a - ↑ “Yes,” Dinah said, but from the reactions, she spoke only to Golem. “Seven questions, Theo.”
Seven questions. Seven chances to make this count.
Red or blue wouldn’t cut it.
“We called for reinforcements. Chance of assistance from outside?” he asked.
“I can answer that for you,” Tattletale said. “You’ve got capes converging on your location.”
“I’m not asking,” Dinah said, “You’ve still got seven questions. But the more time that passes, the worse chances are getting. I can see a lot of dead ends coming up. You need to act.” - Excerpt from Interlude 26b - ↑ Tagg was rubbing his temples. “Fine. Now, when you said that the outcome of this improves the numbers, I understand that includes sending her to the Birdcage?”
“When I said I was done, I meant it,” Dinah said. She pushed her chair back. Her parents joined her, standing. “You want more answers, get in contact with my dad, he’ll let you know my rates. They change every day.” - Excerpt from Cell 22.1 - ↑ “You’ll charge us for a number you won’t provide?” Tagg asked.
“Yes. Because I charge you for asking. I can’t help but look for the numbers, so I have to look. And that makes my head hurt if I do it too much.” - Excerpt from Cell 22.1 - ↑ “You want rules in place.”
“Laws, consequences. The goal was to have all violent retaliation fail, to put Gary Nieves at the head of an outraged and energized majority of the population, letting him choose a course of action. Gary?”
“You’re asking what I’d do?”
On the screen, Dinah could be seen wincing. “No questions, please. And yes. Your actions, assuming you were in charge.” - Excerpt from From Within 16.3 - ↑ “Sure. If you could avoid phrasing things as questions, I’d appreciate it.” - Excerpt from From Within 16.3
- ↑ “Headaches,” Dinah answered, pressing her hands to her head, “It breaks my power. It takes days, sometimes weeks before everything is sorted out and working again. Headaches the entire time, until everything is sorted out, worse headaches if I try to get numbers in the meantime. Have to be careful, can’t muddle things up. Can’t lie about the numbers, can’t look at what happens, or it just becomes chaos. Safer to keep a distance, to make and follow rules. Safer to just ask the questions and let things fall into place.” - Excerpt from Interlude 11f
- ↑ Coil bent down and pushed the hair away from the girl’s face. She looked at him, then looked away.
“I need some numbers,” Coil spoke, gently.
“I want candy.”
“Alright. Candy after six questions.” - Excerpt from Buzz 7.11 - ↑ 37.0 37.1 Interlude 11f
- ↑ 38.0 38.1 “Thirty one,” she said.
“Thirty one?”
“More uses of my power. I’ve been testing it, straining it, figuring out my limits. I can’t make promises. Might be less. Might be able to squeeze out more. But it’s the best I can give you.“
The numbers clued him in, belatedly.
Dinah Alcott. - Excerpt from Interlude 26a - ↑ “Understood. I understand you can ask more questions than you used to.”
“Forty to fifty. It’s not as many as it sounds like, but it’s more than it used to be.” - Excerpt from From Within 16.3 - ↑ The shard that allows the entity to see the future is broken up, then recoded with strict limitations. It wouldn’t do to have the capabilities turned against the entity or the shards.
The fragment it just used is sent off, directed to a small female.
The other fragments in that same cluster are retained. To see the future is resource intensive, but the entity will harbor it as a safeguard. - Excerpt from Interlude 26 - ↑ “Blue. I’m- My power’s getting fuzzier.”
Scion.
He looked up at the sky. Weaver with her swarm was there, forming a great wall across the sky, as if to draw attention to herself. Scion was approaching, a ray of golden light streaking across the overcast sky above.
Scion shut down precog abilities. - Excerpt from Interlude 26a - ↑ 42.0 42.1 “Dinah told me the defending forces would be divided into five groups. Armies, individuals, some of the biggest capes, and unknowns.”
“She said that to others. It’s on record in the PRT,” Defiant told me.
“Five groups in different places, and Dinah couldn’t see why they were there, she couldn’t see the particulars. She said there could be too many precogs there, but what if that’s not it? What if she’s blind about the particulars because the Endbringers are there?” - Excerpt from Cockroaches 28.3 - ↑ “If you ask here-” Tattletale said.
[...]
“I think if you ask and find out specific answers, you’ll screw up Contessa’s odds and spoil things. Don’t ask for…” Tattletale trailed off.
For the particulars about the option we took?
Dinah was unreliable, Contessa was… if she was on the up and up she was playing with big moving pieces in a way that was awfully scary and hard to extend any trust to. - Excerpt from From Within 16.12 - ↑ It wasn’t Jeanne who answered. Cinereal gave me my reply. “Thinkers say no. They’re either drawing blanks or they don’t like what they see.”
“Nothing specific? No details?”
“No,” Cinereal said. “But if you look at some of the other major thinker blind spots, you’re going to find yourself running into topics like Eidolon, Sleeper, the Endbringers, Valkyrie, the Island-state, the Pastor incident…”
“Concentrations of power,” I said.
Jeanne shook her head. “Complexity of power, most often. Whatever thinker powers come into play, with these cases, there’s often too many variables to fully consider, thinkers report that their powers are fuzzy, inconsistent, or blacked out.” - Excerpt from Blinding 11.4 - ↑ “We’ve heard of incidents where one person became a very large-scale effect. The kind that would cover this whole colony, and then some,” I said. “I think the catch is that most precogs and danger sensers can’t see triggers coming, even broken ones.” - Excerpt from Gleaming 9.12
- ↑ 46.0 46.1 hitherbydragons: I think the interference works like this:
When a precog sees the future, it changes how they act. That change in their actions changes the future.
Each future-seeing power has a way of solving for that—a way of bringing that to a point of convergence.
[...]
But when you get two different modes of prediction interacting, then there’s a feedback effect.
[...]
Only, Contessa isn’t actually going to do all of these things: it’s just that she’ll do those things _in the world where the Simurgh is doing that plan._ So her power becomes a shape, a shadow, over the set of futures that the Simurgh can build. And normally vice versa, except that Contessa’s power apparently wins.
[...]
wildbow: That is pretty much exactly right.
I’d say that it’d be a relatively rare non-precog thinker power (like Coil’s) that would really trip up precogs, and even then, some precogs would handle it better than others. - Conversation with Wildbow on Crushed 24.4 - ↑ 47.0 47.1 “What’s the chance the world ends, Dinah? That these billions die because of something Jack Slash does? Has the number changed?”
“It’s changed. Ninety-seven point seven nine zero seven three percent.”
[...]
“Can you give me more details? How am I different? Which of the others are there?”
“I don’t know. There’s too many capes and too many capes with powers that make it fuzzy, because some powers make it harder and a bunch of those powers together make it impossible. I don’t know what happens to start all of it and I don’t know much of what happens during, but billions are dead afterward.”
Damn. “Okay. You said we’re spread out?”
“Yes. Five big groups, lots and lots of capes from all around the world, and armies. Coil asked a lot about that. He wanted to know about his chances for survival or the total number of casualties if he focused on one area over another.” - Excerpt from Queen 18.1 - ↑ “I made no mistakes. I wasn’t reckless. I was careful and she woke up, blinded me, and slapped everything I was setting up out of my hands, and she did it for a reason. And in every one of those eventualities I talked about? She makes it through. She’s there, after all the blind spots pass, and she leaves us to our fates, for as long as we still exist in any sense.” - Excerpt from From Within 16.3
- ↑ 49.0 49.1 The other three-quarters of that board were almost entirely clear, but for one index card in the upper-right:
- limits to Dinah ability: can’t see accurately points of interaction with power immune capes, precogs, situ change Thinkers. Limited sight past points of interaction. these are ‘stoppers’
Hartford: No known stoppers in area.
Enfield: No known stoppers in area.
Chicopee: No known stoppers in area.
Southbridge: No known stoppers in area.
Boston, Charlestown Area: Yes stoppers, no direct interaction b/w any stoppers and Nine.call to dble check with Still. no interaction
Toybox: No known stoppers.
- limits to Dinah ability: can’t see accurately points of interaction with power immune capes, precogs, situ change Thinkers. Limited sight past points of interaction. these are ‘stoppers’
- ↑ Mantellum Case 53. Blocks out sensory aspects of powers progressively more with proximity. Irregulars - Parahuman List, bolded edit by Wildbow
- ↑ ReekRhymesWithWeak: Edit: Can we also have clarification on whether Mantellum could beat Cherish or not?
Wildbow: Mantellum operates in a different way than Hatchet Face, blocking all power use into or out of his radius. It becomes a contest of strength. Make your decision accordingly. - Conversation with Wildbow on Reddit - ↑ Torrieltar: How do you nullify a power in Wormverse? Would any old power nullifier from another universe work, or does it need to be done in a specific way? Similarly, what would it take to duplicate a Wormverse power?
Wildbow: Depends, really. Mantellum was a power nullifier who basically blinded shards. He arguably wouldn't have any effect on a sensory power that wasn't a Worm power. - Conversation with Wildbow on Reddit - ↑ Fog approached. A wall of it, moving down the corridor. She could see normally, but the effect on her powers was absolute. It was impossible to make out any steps that moved within the fog.
[...]
She ducked. “-have a perception blocker, beware.”
[...]
“Cornered. They’ve got a thinker, I think, they planned this ahead of time, knowing I wouldn’t pick up on their presence.”
[...]
This ‘Mantellum’ had been close enough that he should have been able to block her power. He hadn’t.
Because he’d been on the other side of the portal. The power didn’t cross dimensional boundaries.
She’d been lucky. - Excerpt from Interlude 29 - ↑ 54.0 54.1 Torrieltar: How fast can Path to Victory react to unforeseen changes?
Wildbow: All changes are foreseen, as a rule. Can't cite anything, but there's a line that sorta appears in the story, where you run into the perfects (perfect defense, perfect offense) and stuff gets fucky - and the rule of thumb is that 'unless your ability beats -everything-, it doesn't beat this'. For processing power Contessa's ability would be on this level (as with Flechette's Sting, Clockblocker's inviolability, Siberian's invulnerability). - Conversation with Wildbow on Reddit - ↑ A lot to consider, and dimensions to consider when weighing why Contessa hadn’t tackled them.
Then there was Dinah. The other circle in my little venn diagram. She was better at seeing past blind spots, as far as I could tell. But she had to ask. No solutions were neatly handed to her.
[...]
“Entertain me,” I said. “Threats. I’m thinking they’re… blind spots for Contessa, and-or they’re threats so minor Dinah hasn’t thought to ask questions about them.” - Excerpt from Sundown 17.9 - ↑ What are you missing, Contessa? What lurks near your blind spots or what serves your purposes? Which is it?
What does Dinah fail to ask?
I couldn’t do anything about Dinah, not in this moment. - Excerpt from Sundown 17.10 - ↑ “Why, Dinah?” Miss Militia asked. “Why do this?”
“For everyone. Because we got this far, it makes the numbers a little better. Whatever happens from here on out, it makes the end of the world a little less bad.”
“A little less bad,” Triumph echoed her.
“But it still happens,” Tagg said.
“Almost always. The world ends, in two years or in fifteen or sixteen.” - Excerpt from Cell 22.1 - ↑ 58.0 58.1 The humans who have come through the end of the world with hate in their hearts are taking marching orders from the same young precognitive who predicted the end of the world two years in advance. Well, one order with some advice. We don’t know her aim yet, but she’ll be high up on our list. I want a Contessa of my own. - Excerpt from Interlude 8.y II
- ↑ Those areas had overlap. Contessa had blind spots. Dinah did too, but they seemed to operate differently, and Dinah had seen more clearly through the end of the world than Contessa had. According to Dinah. - Excerpt from Sundown 17.9
- ↑ “We’re absolutely looking into this, Dinah. But as clear as your power is to you, we have to make our own judgment calls. We have two people with very credible powers with apparent agendas, sitting opposed to one another.”
“My agenda is and always has been what’s best for humanity. I predicted the end of the world. I positioned the right people in the right places. Khepri.” - Excerpt from From Within 16.3 - ↑ Wildbow: That wasn't the Simurgh apologizing. It was her reminding Taylor of what Dinah wrote.
Doctor Mod: Best Girl my blind eye! Thanks for the insight. Seeing that and even seeing Dinah in the final chapters I never thought of that. It feels like so long ago she got that note. Literally and in story!
Wildbow: What do you think Dinah was apologizing for, if not for Khepri? - Conversation with Wildbow on Sufficient Velocity, archived on Spacebattles - ↑ “This isn’t a solution,” she said, without looking up. “You said a second trigger wouldn’t work. This is… it’s so crude you couldn’t even call it a hack job.”
The Simurgh’s screaming continued.
Dinah had left me two notes.
The Simurgh had reminded me of the second.
‘I’m sorry.’
It wasn’t an apology for the consequences of the first note. No, Dinah hadn’t approached me since. She hadn’t decided I’d fulfilled the terms and deemed it okay to finally contact me again.
Two words, telling me that something ugly was going to happen. Directed at me.
[...]
But there was a possibility that it referred to me. That it was tied to our ability to come out ahead at the end of all this. To some slim chance. - Excerpt from Venom 29.9 - ↑ “What question!?”
“Kick her ass, or kick her ass more?” I asked, quiet.
There was a pause.
“Just kicking her ass will suffice.”
I used my aura, putting every iota of violent, righteous, angry sentiment I was feeling and transmitting it to every cape present. Dinah directed, it gave us what we needed to make a final set of moves without her seeing them coming. - Excerpt from Last 20.6 - ↑ Never!
She was having bad headaches and was home from school. Newscaster error. - Wildbow comment on RPG.net - ↑ We hadn’t made the front page for any of the major papers, the first bit of good news. We made page three of the Bulletin, coming behind a one and a half page story on an Amber Alert and a General Motors advertisement. Part of the reason we hadn’t attracted all that much attention was probably because the bank was hedging about the amount taken. While we had escaped with more than forty thousand dollars, the paper was reporting losses of only twelve. All in all, the story had been more focused on the property damage, most of which was caused by Glory Girl and the Wards, and the fact that the darkness we’d used to cover our escape had stopped all traffic downtown for an hour. I’d been quietly elated by all of that. Anything that downplayed the magnitude of the crime I’d helped commit was a good point in my book. - Excerpt from Shell 4.1
- ↑ “You’d know if you watched the news,” I told Regent, “If you read the paper. I hate that I have to explain this, when I don’t even want to think about it. She’s the missing kid. Remember our bank robbery? How we were weren’t even front page news because an amber alert took priority? That was her. Dinah Alcott.” - Excerpt from Buzz 7.11
- ↑ “Mmm,” Dinah said. “What is it, pet?” Coil murmured. “It’s him.” “Who?” She pointed at the screen, at Jack Slash. “Him.” “You’re going to have to explain it to us, pet. What about him?” “He’s the one who makes everyone die.” - Excerpt from Parasite 10.6
- ↑ Her voice was barely above a whisper as she stared down at the ground between us, “I’ve been waiting for this for so very long.”
It didn’t sound like an accusation. More the words of someone who had been forced to watch the clock for days, weeks, months. Anticipating a possible moment that might never come.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I’m sorry it took so long.” - Excerpt from Monarch 16.13 - ↑ “You have Coil’s precog in your custody?” Miss Militia asked. “Dinah Alcott?”
“I took her home,” I said. “Her powers are currently disabled, so resist the urge to go to her and ask her for help with this situation. Everything she’s been through, she deserves some peace.”
“Assault,” Miss Militia said, “Let’s get some confirmation that at least some of what they said is the truth. Get in touch with the Alcotts.” - Excerpt from Queen 18.3 - ↑ “Stop.”
A girl’s voice, over the comm system. Not Tattletale.
“Golem, tell them to stop. Now.”
“Stop,” he said.
A second later, he wondered if he should mention this phantom voice. A trick on Screamer’s part? - Excerpt from Interlude 26a - ↑ Interlude: End
- ↑ “Alcott? She’s been in the anti-parahuman orbit.”
“We looked in on her. She’s upset. She’s meeting Gary Nieves shortly.” - Excerpt from Interlude 15.z II - ↑ 73.0 73.1 From Within 16.3
- ↑ From Within 16.1
- ↑ From Within 16.2
- ↑ Sundown 17.3
- ↑ Sundown 17.4
- ↑ Infrared 19.z
- ↑ “Be careful going there,” Chastity told Sveta. “Half these guys we caught were heading there like they were given orders. We’ve been holding them off but…” - Excerpt from Last 20.4
- ↑ Last 20.5
- ↑ Last 20.6
- ↑ We began this fight when you broke, child, the Titan Fortuna thought, trying to communicate to the battered kernel of human consciousness within herself.
She began this two years ago, when Gold Morning occurred. It doesn’t matter that we have a hundred times her strength. She’s within paces of the finish line, and she’s no stupid rabbit racing a tortise. Nearly every action she could take brings her closer to a checkmate. - Radiation 18.z - ↑ Imp said. “Weird, but fitting. I’m wondering why you invited the twit, though?”
“Which twit?”
“Our kid Cassandra,” Imp said.
Tattletale blinked once or twice. “Where the fuck are you getting these references from?”
Imp only allowed herself the smallest giggle, exceedingly pleased with herself. - Excerpt from Interlude: End
[]
Leader | Coil † • Tattletale |
---|---|
Members | Dinah Alcott ‡ • Chariot • Creep • Leah • Pitter • Trainwreck † • The Travelers ‡ • The Undersiders |
Associates | Accord † • Circus ‡ • Faultline’s Crew • Leet ‡ • Über ‡ |
Leader | Faultline |
---|---|
Members | Gregor the Snail • Labyrinth • Newter • Scrub • Shamrock • Spitfire • Matryoshka • Whippersnap |
Associates | Coil † • Tattletale ‡ • Dinah Alcott ‡ |