VN Ren'Py Superhuman [v0.986] [WeirdWorld]

[Fanvor]

Like?

And even if I'm wrong and it has nothing to do with continuing to feed the connection, Mustache man has to have more power than Ella, or at least a close amount. So when the connection is broken and he is fighting the energy left inside of him, he should have won almost immediately, the foreign energy doesn't get any "reinforcement" while he can just produce more.

 

[myst0501]

And even if I'm wrong and it has nothing to do with continuing to feed the connection, Mustache man has to have more power than Ella, or at least a close amount. So when the connection is broken and he is fighting the energy left inside of him, he should have won almost immediately, the foreign energy doesn't get any "reinforcement" while he can just produce more.

i don't think ella is feeding any kind of connection, tree person simple lacks the cognizance to try and push it out himself as pointed out by the mc's quotes in my previous post. And/or gillibrand is simple to weak to push out the energy of a level 5 like ella.

 

[Fanvor]

one example would be the hobo stone you mentioned. if it had some kind of maintenance cost on it, eventually it would pop back into a beheaded hobo corpse. however ella at that time expressed that it was an ideal way of disposing of and hiding any dead bodies. that wouldn't make any sense if it some point a day/week/month from now it mysteriously turned back into a corpse.

My answer is that since hobo is not a s/h it doesn't need any maintenance. The power is spent on transformation and there is nothing left inside of the victim.

i don't think ella is feeding any kind of connection, tree person simple lacks the cognizance to try and push it out himself as pointed out by the mc's quotes in my previous post. And/or gillibrand is simple to weak to push out the energy of a level 5 like ella.

I already answered why consciousness doesn't matter.

We can safely ignore this part: "(Then again, I'm not sure a tree has that level of consciousness...)", when Mc tried to changed the size of Angelinas breasts in the end of her story they reverted instantly, I would remind you that Mc was lvl 2 at the time while Ange was, and still is, a lvl 1 with next to 0 power, that tells us that consciousness doesn't play part in the process, if I recall correctly Ange didn't even understand she did something, reversal of change just happens, it is a natural process and the amount inside doesn't matter.

 

[vogelbeest]

Nikki isn't a Superhuman, rules are vastly different.

That's true, but that's why i said Ella was able to do it, the level difference between Ella (5th) and Gillibrand (3rd) was why she was able to transmutate him. But regardless of that, how it works remains the same, transmutation needs a certain amount of energy/power to change the object/person and the energy/power is lost in the process... But it remains like that.

The shapeshifting needs power/energy to maintain the extra mass created, as soon you run out of power the extra mass (tentacles, wings, whatever) disappears and you return to your original form/ the form your subconscious thinks is the original form, even when passed out...

Shapeshifting and transforming/transmutation are different skills... They are very similar but don't exactly follow the same rules. With shapeshifting a lot extra mass is created, with transmutation the mass doesn't change that drastically, only the shape does.

 

[Fanvor]

And/or gillibrand is simple to weak to push out the energy of a level 5 like ella.

Already answered why power doesn't matter in this example.

So when the connection is broken and he is fighting the energy left inside of him, he should have won almost immediately, the foreign energy doesn't get any "reinforcement" while he can just produce more.

 

[myst0501]

My answer is that since hobo is not a s/h it doesn't need any maintenance. The power is spent on transformation and there is nothing left inside of the victim.

I already answered why consciousness doesn't matter.

you're right that superhumans naturally resist foreign energies, but mc's ineffectiveness was more likely due to lack of power and inexperience. if it is true that consciousness doesn't matter then after deryl and mc healed laurie's fatal injury, laurie's natural resistance should at some point in the near future have her neck and/or head re-explode.

 

[Fanvor]

That's true, but that's why i said Ella was able to do it, the level difference between Ella (5th) and Gillibrand (3rd) was why she was able to transmutate him. But regardless of that, how it works remains the same, transmutation needs a certain amount of energy/power to change the object/person and the energy/power is lost in the process... But it remains like that.

The shapeshifting needs power/energy to maintain the extra mass created, as soon you run out of power the extra mass (tentacles, wings, whatever) disappears and you return to your original form/ the form your subconscious thinks is the original form, even when passed out...

Shapeshifting and transforming/transmutation are different skills... They are very similar but don't exactly follow the same rules. With shapeshifting a lot extra mass is created, with transmutation the mass doesn't change that drastically, only the shape does.

As I've said, even if I'm wrong, Ella needs to continue feeding the tree energy or whatever energy inside will get overtaken.

 

[Fanvor]

you're right that superhumans naturally resist foreign energies, but mc's ineffectiveness was more likely due to lack of power and inexperience. if it is true that consciousness doesn't matter then after deryl and mc healed laurie's fatal injury, laurie's natural resistance should at some point in the near future have her neck and/or head re-explode.

Good point, my best answer is that perhaps it doesn't matter since Laurie died from that attack and Mc didn't heal anything he just put the pieces together, all the new flesh was made by Derryl Mc just stitched it together. Or perhaps since she died she no longer has powers and as such can't fight the transformation, but yea, I've got no real answer to that, we will just have to wait and see.

 

[vogelbeest]

As I've said, even if I'm wrong, Ella needs to continue feeding the tree energy or whatever energy inside will get overtaken.

No, Gillibrand first needs to overcome the resistance from the level difference and at least match the same energy/power to even have a chance... Furthermore he needs to actively or passively be working on returning to his original form...
So if he has healing powers or transmutation powers it would be easier, but if he doesn't have those the process could simply take ages... IF his conscious/subconscious even makes an attempt. If he thinks he's a tree nothing happens....
(same as MC running home in dog form, he never even thought of changing back and taking the subway)

Most important is the fact Gillibrand is a 3rd level turned by a 5th level... And even if another 5th level wants to change him back he/she still needs the skill to do it... Forget about Ella needing power to maintain the changes, she only needed power to change him...

Spoiler: Spoiler Xanthe about 4th/5th evolution

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[Fanvor]

No, Gillibrand first needs to overcome the resistance from the level difference and at least match the same energy/power to even have a chance...

As I've said multiple times bow, tree man should have more or a similar amount of power, he was a s/h for 35 years, that's longer than Ella was alive, the power difference wouldn't be that huge since Ella is a fresh lvl 5.

So if he has healing powers or transmutation powers it would be easier, but if he doesn't have those the process could simply take ages...

Shouldn't matter since Ange doesn't have shapeshifting powers, her superpower is super milk, not breast enlargement.

Furthermore he needs to actively or passively be working on returning to his original form...
...IF his conscious/subconscious even makes an attempt. If he thinks he's a tree nothing happens....

That's the only point I'm willing to concede, given the Laurie example it might just be the case of needing to be conscious, though that doesn't answer how Ange did it since she has literally zero control over her power, it's still a clean enough answer.

 

[vogelbeest]

As I've said multiple times bow, tree man should have more or a similar amount of power, he was a s/h for 35 years, that's longer than Ella was alive, the power difference wouldn't be that huge since Ella is a fresh lvl 5.

That was exactly the reason why he did not want to evolve again. Ella showed him where that reasoning was wrong.

Shouldn't matter since Ange doesn't have shapeshifting powers, her superpower is super milk, not breast enlargement.

Her superpower is both breast enlargement and healing/regenerating milk. Furthermore MC was new to using his skill and a level 2 changing a level 1 versus a level 5 changing a level 3 is beyond comparing....

Nyx burned Gillibrand down and resurrected him and he still was a tree... That should give an indication about what Ella did to him. Nyx has been level 5 for maybe 50 years longer then Ella, Nyx is a healer and yet she still could not change him back...

 

[Gtdead]

In a training scene Ella explains that that is not the case, you have to exert your power to maintain changes. Which either means that at lvl 5 that rule does not apply to her, that WW just forgot about it, or that she is still alive.

I'm aware of that piece of dialogue. However to me it seems that "maintaining" means "fixing" in this context. When MC talks about his transformations, the common theme is the energy expended when healing or while transforming.

I think the most important piece of dialogue that explains how this works is the following:

On Healing Factor

You "And finally my healing factor, an extension of my transforming ability."
You "My body wants to be in its natural state, the state I'm in now. Any injuries I sustain tend to mend themselves as my body shifts back into its default state."
You "Arguably the best part about this whole thing and the only reason I'm still alive. "
You "The only drawback I've noticed is that since my body wants to return me to its default form when I'm injured, if I'm using a full body transformation at the time of receiving my injury I lose it if I let my body heal itself."
You "I need to specifically direct the healing myself if I want to maintain my current transformation, which takes a lot more concentration and effort."

These few next quotes is everything I can find related to energy expenditure when the MC uses his ability:

On 3rd evolution's plate armor:

You "It's also more difficult to shapeshift with it on. Adding more material on top of my body just means I have to waste more time and power to alter it when I'm changing forms."

When reviewing his forms after Klaus fight:

You "Now for the transformation that made my zoo trip so successful. The wonderous fly!"
You "Excellent for travelling unnoticed. However, it is by far the most time consuming transformation I possess. Squeezing all that mass into that tiny body takes a lot of time, as does the reverse when I'm returning to normal."

You "Phew. And I think that's everything. What a workout, manifesting all those different transformations. Good stuff."

You "First... there's my tail."
You "My spine serves as the core for this one, it's exceptionally powerful. At least compared to my normal tentacles."
You "It also seems to act somewhat... autonomously, at least sometimes. I haven't really figured out how it works yet, I'll need some in depth practice with it."
You "But I can change its shape more easily than I can for my normal tentacles too."
scene handtransform2 with dissolve
You "Next, and sort of related. Metal."
You "I have enough power to create it at will now. Although... it still seems somewhat taxing."
You "It wasn't like this in the Klaus fight. I was able to make it so efficiently then, using barely any power. How?"
You "I was acting mostly on instinct at the time, but I can tell when I try to form it now. I can do it, but it's costing me more than it should be. Much more."

train44 dialogue

"Power swells at the base of my spine, flesh as well."
"I can feel each new vertebrae form as my spine grows, vertebrae not made of bone, but rather of steel."
"It costs precious little power for me to create, which is strange, as metal is ordinarily quite costly."
"And yet this tail, it requires barely any effort or concentration to create, almost like it's building itself."

train48 dialogue (this isn't as explicit as the others, but it still mentions that healing is the problem)

You "Although, I suppose I also have my giant form."
You "Easily the riskiest option. Growing that large would make me a huge target, alerting pretty much everyone in the vicinity to my location. My weight also increases more than my strength, so I'm slower, making me even easier to hit."
You "On top of that, the cost in power is high and would increase manifold with every injury I sustain. I don't have enough power to heal more than a couple bad wounds for a body that huge."

train51 dialogue

You "I've trained a lot over the past six months, since I got these powers. More than I ever did as a human."
You "So many transformations learned."
You "So many nights training to increase how much I can transform, how many tentacles I can make, how much flesh I can produce without exhausting myself."

As you can see, there is a distinct lack of talk about "maintaining" the transformation in a context other than regeneration.

So the MC has to "maintain" control of the healing factor during the transformation when he gets injured, otherwise he will return to his default state which leaves him vulnerable. This is also why he doesn't want to use big transformations. Because both avoiding damage and having to heal less flesh is way cheaper than losing a chunk of flesh and healing it.

The language is pretty consistent. Everytime he talks about maintaining during his training sessions, he talks about regenerating.

Even when he turns into liquid, all talk is about mental concentration, not power expenditure.

"My forearm melts, transforming into a dark, flowing, viscous material."
"I can still control it to an extent, stretching it out and whipping around, but...."
play sound "audio/splash.mp3"
show bmc noarm with hpunch
You "Argh, shit!!"
"I lose it. My control over the liquid breaking the moment I let my concentration slip, my entire forearm dropping to the floor with a splash, quickly evaporating into nothing."
You "Fuck! There goes my arm."
show bmc n with dissolve
"It grows back of course, at the cost of a good amount of power. But I'm suddenly very aware of why I've been so instinctively wary of this ability."
You "I could lose my entire body if I'm not careful... It could all disappear in an instant. The amount of focus I need..."
You "And then, what happens if I turn my entire body to liquid, my brain included? How can I focus without a brain? How did I do it against Klaus?"
You "I was weaker then than I am now but... the focus I had was something else, almost like a trance."

At this point I just take for granded that all energy expenditure happens either when transforming or when regenerating and there is no such thing as energy expenditure to maintain the form's state and that's what Ella was taking about too.

 

[bloodaxis]

Ellas/MCs transformations of other people likely work the same way Jakes powers do, it's a one and done deal and if the opposite isn't strong enough to break it naturally on their own/knowing how to break it, it'll be exceedingly hard to break it. See Alexis not even noticing that she's being brainwashed by someone much much weaker than herself, and even taking a small amount of damage upon breaking the brainwashing. Why then couldn't Ella enforce a change on someone much lower than her that's really god damn hard to break unless you have a lot of power to spare/know how. Angelinas power just passively increases her breastsize so obviously it would also passively just work on undoing any breast transformations.

 

[Fanvor]

I'm aware of that piece of dialogue. However to me it seems that "maintaining" means "fixing" in this context. When MC talks about his transformations, the common theme is the energy expended when healing or while transforming.

I think the most important piece of dialogue that explains how this works is the following:

On Healing Factor


These few next quotes is everything I can find related to energy expenditure when the MC uses his ability:

On 3rd evolution's plate armor:


When reviewing his forms after Klaus fight:




train44 dialogue


train48 dialogue (this isn't as explicit as the others, but it still mentions that healing is the problem)


train51 dialogue


As you can see, there is a distinct lack of talk about "maintaining" the transformation in a context other than regeneration.

So the MC has to "maintain" control of the healing factor during the transformation when he gets injured, otherwise he will return to his default state which leaves him vulnerable. This is also why he doesn't want to use big transformations. Because both avoiding damage and having to heal less flesh is way cheaper than losing a chunk of flesh and healing it.

The language is pretty consistent. Everytime he talks about maintaining during his training sessions, he talks about regenerating.

Even when he turns into liquid, all talk is about mental concentration, not power expenditure.



At this point I just take for granded that all energy expenditure happens either when transforming or when regenerating and there is no such thing as energy expenditure to maintain the form's state and that's what Ella was taking about too.

You are absolutely correct, there is a distinct lack of talk about "maintaining" the transformation in a context other than regeneration. Except for that one scene I posted which fully contradicts what you are saying.

 

[Gtdead]

You are absolutely correct, there is a distinct lack of talk about "maintaining" the transformation in a context other than regeneration. Except for that one scene I posted which fully contradicts what you are saying.

It doesn't "fully contradict". Ella says that power is used for creation and maintenance. MC accepts it, but for all intents and purposes, MC uses the word "maintenance" to describe "regeneration". Having more power by consuming extreme amounts of meat allows the superhuman to continue regenerating for longer periods, which is the main limiting factor in combat as shown in every scene.

These 2 phrases:
1) Regenerating while transformed.
2) Maintaining the transformation.

seem to be exactly the same.

Perhaps it's different for Ella? Doubtful but I'm willing to entertain the idea that it works differently for her. What we know for sure is that Ella expends energy when forcing her form to not change which is both logical and expected.

Ellas/MCs transformations of other people likely work the same way Jakes powers do, it's a one and done deal and if the opposite isn't strong enough to break it naturally on their own/knowing how to break it, it'll be exceedingly hard to break it. See Alexis not even noticing that she's being brainwashed by someone much much weaker than herself, and even taking a small amount of damage upon breaking the brainwashing. Why then couldn't Ella enforce a change on someone much lower than her that's really god damn hard to break unless you have a lot of power to spare/know how. Angelinas power just passively increases her breastsize so obviously it would also passively just work on undoing any breast transformations.

I was writing about Ella's transmutation having parallels with Jake's commands when you posted that. I too think that observing Jake is the best way to draw conclusions about how it works.

 

[Fanvor]

Ellas/MCs transformations of other people likely work the same way Jakes powers do, it's a one and done deal and if the opposite isn't strong enough to break it naturally on their own/knowing how to break it, it'll be exceedingly hard to break it. See Alexis not even noticing that she's being brainwashed by someone much much weaker than herself, and even taking a small amount of damage upon breaking the brainwashing. Why then couldn't Ella enforce a change on someone much lower than her that's really god damn hard to break unless you have a lot of power to spare/know how. Angelinas power just passively increases her breastsize so obviously it would also passively just work on undoing any breast transformations.

First, Jake has a different power from a different set of apostles, using him as a reference to explain a different s/h is a bad idea.
Second, could you people stop shitting on tree man? He is not weak by any means of the word. Him losing to Ella is not a matter of her having more power, it's a matter of her unlocking a strong ability through the evolution trance or research.

 

[bloodaxis]

You are absolutely correct, there is a distinct lack of talk about "maintaining" the transformation in a context other than regeneration. Except for that one scene I posted which fully contradicts what you are saying.

In that scene iirc she was specifically talking about transforming yourself however, and seeing as how they are shapeshifters that do seem to have an innate "true" form it stands to reason that said true form is something they're actively transforming towards unless they make the conscious effort to stay in another form. Transforming someone else is highly likely very different, and difficulty of breaking said transformations most likely depends on what your power actually is to begin with. Someone curses you to burn forever, if your powers include fire you probably wouldn't have a hard time breaking that, but if you're a meathead whose powers only include superhuman strength and someone mindfucks you, it would be harder. Of course a lot of that is extrapolated speculation based on what we've seen but I don't see any reason to think that Ella would need to be feeding Gillibrand power constantly for him to be stuck in that form, at least for a while. Then there's the whole "ella has molecular control over her powers" thing, what's to say she didn't rewire his dna to be a tree altogether, and that's why it's so hard to change back and will take time.

 

[Fanvor]

It doesn't "fully contradict". Ella says that power is used for creation and maintenance. MC accepts it, but for all intents and purposes, MC uses the word "maintenance" to describe "regeneration". Having more power by consuming extreme amounts of meat allows the superhuman to continue regenerating for longer periods, which is the main limiting factor in combat as shown in every scene.

These 2 phrases:
1) Regenerating while transformed.
2) Maintaining the transformation.

seem to be exactly the same.

Perhaps it's different for Ella? Doubtful but I'm willing to entertain the idea that it works differently for her. What we know for sure is that Ella expends energy when forcing her form to not change which is both logical and expected.

Ella says that power is used for creation and maintenance, MC accepts it, but you don't. Why are we having this discussion?

 

[bloodaxis]

First, Jake has a different power from a different set of apostles, using him as a reference to explain a different s/h is a bad idea.
Second, could you people stop shitting on tree man? He is not weak by any means of the word. Him losing to Ella is not a matter of her having more power, it's a matter of her unlocking a strong ability through the evolution trance or research.

Doesn't really matter if his powers are different or not, it falls in line with the other type of "curse" powers we know about, including Charlies/Zaras, they brand you with something that you, first of all, need to know is there and then you need to break it. If Gillibrand lost his arm, he wouldn't regrow it because his powers don't include the power to change his shape, why then would he just automatically break through a transformation forced upon him by someone who does have said power to change the shape of flesh. Just like every other "power" enforced upon someone else it's not an automatic guarantee that you will ever be able to break out of it.

 

[Gtdead]

Ella says that power is used for creation and maintenance, MC accepts it, but you don't. Why are we having this discussion?

It's you who insists on taking a single instance of the word "maintenance" and attributing it a specific meaning when everywhere else in the game it's used differently.

In the same spirit, you are absolutely correct, except for the dialogue snippets from half the training sessions that directly contradict your interpretation.