[OOC] Heroes of Beacon - the Next Chapter

[NaraK]

hug the chainsaw to do maximum damage _{(on yourself)}!

[Lady Seraphina]

Everything else

His cybernetics were mostly made with the intent that he's going to be stacking more armor on himself and carry heavier weapons, so he's tougher than your average human. He's an inferior model since, aside from what is essentially a greater carrying capacity, he doesn't have many other bells and whistles. Even his strength is mostly just an application of being really tough and making it go as fast as he can in the direction of something he wants to hurt. His radar itself is more or less just a satellite image he's ripping off the internet, since he effectively has a phone built into his head, and night vision which has been mechanically carried over from his life as a faunas. Honestly, he couldn't even pass as a regular faunas considering how bulky and misshapen he looks, but he gets by anyways simply by not bringing it up. When family day comes along this would be very notifiable, as his family look proportionally human while Gren is build like a space marine in full regalia.

The fact he's so heavy and dense is why he can't swim at all, such as the last mission were he was either reliant on his semblance to essentially turn water into a solid surface for him to walk on, or use a whole bunch of external devices to move him through the water in a very sluggish manner. The guy is easily 300lbs+ even without armor, and with his weapons and everything he's a little close to 500lbs total. So you can always try to use his weight against him, like leading him to an area where a lighter person could cross safely, but a heavier one would struggle. His size is, of course, another issue, since he has difficulty moving in small spaces. While his chainsaw at least allows him to do some melee as long as he can press it against the enemy, fighting him in a place where there's a lot of things in the way will limit his options considerably.

In a non combat situation, there's also a matter of self-sustainability. To put it simply, Gren can't get healed. He has to be repaired. He has an artificial blood or sorts that can deal with cuts on his skin, simulating bleeding and clotting, but actual damage to his body can't be healed with rest or regeneration, unless it works on mechanical things too. While he has an indefinite power source, if something is strong enough to damage him and he can't reach somewhere where he could repair himself, he's stuck with that injury. A broken wrist needs to be replaced, or at best jury rigged, but it won't repair itself no matter how much time Gren gives it. And while he has no problems operating during the day, and his helmet tends to dim things if they're too bright, if he's activating his darkvision you can blind him pretty badly by flashing something really bright at him. You'll know he's using his darkvision because it's really dark around him.

His rockets boosters also use it's own fuel too, and while he's going to upgrade that once he figures out how to use his aura to power a jetpack, they need refueling after extended use. Eating food helps but only a little bit, even if he eats a lot. He typically needs a very special type of biofuel he has to make himself, and unless he spends a few hours stuffing his face, once he runs out he's out until he refuels. And the fastest way to do that typically involves opening up his chest and filling up the tank, which removes all those armor bits he's been using to protect himself and expose all the important bits that keep him alive.

Thanks that's good to know. Not that I'm planning on taking him down (...yet) but specifics are always helpful.

Again if you're looking for some sort of kyptonite or a sweet spot that'll kill him dead, it's nothing that wouldn't work on others. Aim for the face, stab him in the back, go for his arm pits, kick him in the dick.

Sapphire'd go for the eyes personally. Nothing you'd recover from slower than having your eyes gouged out by someone's fingernails.

@Lucius Cypher On a related note, I know we talked a little about this before but I was wondering about Gren's aura. Granted being mechanical given how he became that way shouldn't decrease its level or intensity but I was curious about something. Would his aura be extendable from his body since it is 90% mechanized or would it only be generated by the organic pieces of him and then have to use his cybernetics as conduits to provide protection for them to a slightly diminished effect?

[Lucius Cypher]

I've always imagined that without the bit of machinery made specifically to channel/create aura ala what Penny can do, his Aura's protective ability would only be limited to the fleshy bits about him, which are really just a few organs and most of his brain. It's thanks to that machine however that he can channel aura's protective qualities throughout his entire body, though he still layers armor on himself as a contingency if his aura fails/doesn't need it for whatever reason. Related to that, I mentioned before that Gren's Semblance has a hard time "moving" through multiple objects I.e. going across the floor is easy enough, but making it go across the floor, onto a chair, and then the person standing on the chair requires more energy then usual. Even just being on a higher elevation is more exhausting for Gren to do then simply being on the same location. I've always imagined that this is due to the fact his body is mostly mechanical, as his semblance first begins from his fleshy bits, and then has to travel throughout the complicated machinery of his body and get to the ground, which is then redirected towards whatever he's aiming for at the time.

Basically, while being a cyborg has had no notable effect on his aura, if he was fully flesh-and-blood his semblance would be much more powerful. We know Penny is capable of producing aura, but what we haven't figured out yet is if she could manifest a semblance. Presumably yes, but nothing conclusive. So I suppose another weakness to bricking his semblance would simply be standing on something while you keep moving.

[Lady Seraphina]

I've always imagined that without the bit of machinery made specifically to channel/create aura ala what Penny can do, his Aura's protective ability would only be limited to the fleshy bits about him, which are really just a few organs and most of his brain.

We know Penny is capable of producing aura, but what we haven't figured out yet is if she could manifest a semblance.

@Lucius Cypher But Penny was a prototype signifying that the tech involved in her construction is state of the art, experimental and one would assume highly classified at the top levels of the Atlas military. How would Gren who it has been clearly stated has outdated hardware have such a device?

Wouldn't it be more plausible to say that while his aura in overall strength is equal to that of basically anyone else in order to use it like most people use aura he has to channel it through his cyborg components like most hunters channel their aura through their weapons. It would produce the same effect but because the aura is protecting a secondhand source the overall potency is lower. It would also mean that Gren's aura wouldn't be passively protecting him. He would have to will it on in combat situations which means significant damage could be inflicted if he was caught in a surprise attack.

[Lucius Cypher]

Now what ever indicated that Penny was a prototype? For all we know she is the result of testing from prototypes, which presumably is what Gren is. As I've mentioned before, while Gren is not primarily robotic he is a cyborg, not an android. He was once a faunas and simply started replacing parts of his body after getting more and more injured. Penny on the otherhand is fully synthetic i.e. was never born conventionally.

The main difference is most notable with the machine that helps Gren work his aura. On it's own, what he uses isn't enough to produce aura, so he feeds it his own so that his aura can be used throughout his body. Conversely, whatever Penny is using is powerful enough to produce it's own aura, instead of being fed by an already existing aura. Not to mention that even if we were to use what you're suggesting, Gren still would be actively pumping aura through his body the same way he would be actively breathing; it's just something he'd always be doing. More so since Gren actually relies on his aura to power his body. The only reason he eats and such is both for the taste and to create biofuel for his thrusters, which isn't necessary for him to function anyways.

Of course, then we'd have to debate what is more effective armor: Aura or one and a half inch thick armored flesh.

[MULTI_MEDIA_MAN]

Well, considering that Yang survived both a fall at terminal velocity and being punched through a concrete pillar, I'm gonna say Aura is probably the better shield.

Also, if it isn't, that means that Gren is nigh-unkillable, since Oswald managed to halfway survive getting shot by a 30mm autocannon.

[Lady Seraphina]

Hider

Now what ever indicated that Penny was a prototype? For all we know she is the result of testing from prototypes, which presumably is what Gren is. As I've mentioned before, while Gren is not primarily robotic he is a cyborg, not an android. He was once a faunas and simply started replacing parts of his body after getting more and more injured. Penny on the otherhand is fully synthetic i.e. was never born conventionally.

The main difference is most notable with the machine that helps Gren work his aura. On it's own, what he uses isn't enough to produce aura, so he feeds it his own so that his aura can be used throughout his body. Conversely, whatever Penny is using is powerful enough to produce it's own aura, instead of being fed by an already existing aura. Not to mention that even if we were to use what you're suggesting, Gren still would be actively pumping aura through his body the same way he would be actively breathing; it's just something he'd always be doing. More so since Gren actually relies on his aura to power his body. The only reason he eats and such is both for the taste and to create biofuel for his thrusters, which isn't necessary for him to function anyways.

Of course, then we'd have to debate what is more effective armor: Aura or one and a half inch thick armored flesh.

@Lucius Cypher

What indicates that Penny was a protoype was the fact that she was still in testing phase. She was enrolled at Beacon to test her capacity to pass as human and the part of her AI that controls social interaction. The fact that this needed testing means that the andriod while complete was not finished with the quality control phase of production. That means the likelihood is that she was the only one as building more androids off a schematics you are not entirely sure is viable is just foolish.

Aura is a type of energy but I don't recall anything indicating that it could be used as a power source or that it could be amplified by mechanical means. Penny as far as we are aware was the first foray into synthetic aura production but let's assume for a moment that she wasn't. The technology you are proposing exists in Gren is suppose to be outdated, several years old at least except that same tech would make all of the power systems in RWBY completely and totally obsolete. If you can build machines that are powered by aura and machines that amplify aura there wouldn't be a need for any other form of power supply such as the dustricity that is most common on the show. Aura has no byproducts, it is a completely clean energy source if it could be used in that fashion. The fact that Remnant still operates on other methods means that it can't.

[harinezumikouken]

@MULTI_MEDIA_MAN - *Laughs, then sighs* ...Ahh...

[Lucius Cypher]

And what makes you think she was being tested at Beacon at all? Firstly, she was never enrolled at Beacon, she was only there to participate in Vale's tournament. At best this is testing her capability as a combat android, if not also being used for an ulterior political motive. And it's still vague as to what she was being tested for, if she was being tested at all. Nothing in the show or supplement materials suggest that she wasn't a finished product, nor a prototype of any sort. And it's that vague idea of a robot capable of using Aura that I created Gren from.

And if you're saying that objects can't be powered by Aura, then you're also contradicting anothing thing you told Ryo a long time ago when you were arguing about how Ebon is controlling his R-Types. You said that he could use a device that interacts with one's aura, so I imagine that Gren is working off a similar devise, only his aura interacts with said device to power his entire body as oppose to remote drones. You can't just retract that statement now just because Ebon isn't in play anymore.

Also just because it's powered by aura doesn't mean suddenly everything else is obsolete. Because as I said, what Gren uses merely uses Aura, it cannot produce aura on it's own. While it can take aura as a power source, that doesn't mean suddenly all other forms of energy is useless because there is a price to use aura powered machines, and that price is that it needs a person to power it. Gren's machine can be powered by himself since he only needs it to power his body, but you can't use one person to replace an entire power plant meant for a city. Unless you're going to start using people as human batteries, aura powered machines on a large scale is impractical and possibly inhumane. It's not as if you can just take aura in a raw form and exchange it with others, not unless you have the same machine that powers Penny. Which while is still a mystery to us, we can be certain that it's not common place and Atlus may be the only ones who have access to such a thing.

And it all returns back to what I keep saying: Gren, despite all his bells and whistles, is a fairly lowtech version of what Penny is. She is a machine that can produce her own aura, as well as other additional abilities including strength that could match Gren (He could probably stop a truck too if he saw it coming) or even greater (Gren likely can't pull down Bullheads even if he had a hold on them. Shoot them out of the air, sure, but he can't do this.), all while being much, much smaller then Gren, meaning that she's achieving the same level of power Gren can muster but with far less tech to accomplish it. As I said before, the only real benefit Gren's cybernetic body grants him is the ability to carry heavier armor and weapons. His thrusters were not an original part of his body, which he only added after earning enough credits in this RP to pursue that upgrade. And that is specifically not powered by aura, but a biofuel he has to make himself.

In fact all these explosions he's been getting himself into is his attempts to try and replicate the same technology he relies on to function, with very little success. Yes, the technology he's using is very little understood, even for him. It works, no doubt about that, but how it works is largely a mystery. The best he can do is try to make use of it's output, which at the moment is simply letting him use his Aura over his robot body.

And if you're questioning why he would use something he doesn't understand, you could say the same about using cars. If my car breaks down I have no idea how to fix it myself, and I'd have to take it to a professional. Someone does, just not me, and as long as it doesn't breakdown I can continue to use it to the best of my abilities, and overtime figure out how to work out any errors short of total destruction. In the same respect, Gren's body is like a car. He knows how to drive it, and has a workable knowledge to improve and repair some of it. But if he fucks up so badly that he breaks something very critical, he's going to need professional help. And unfortunately for him, the only people who would likely know how to fix him are either the White Fang, who stole the technology he's made from, or Atlus, from whom the technology was stolen from in the first place. And it's all the more reason why he continues to layer armor and aura over himself to minimize the damage done to himself, as well as trying to improve his mobility to avoid damage all together.

[Write]

It seems I've stumbled in a bad a time, just to let you all know.

_{I just had the best god damned waffles of my life.}

Carry on.

[Lady Seraphina]

Hider

And what makes you think she was being tested at Beacon at all? Firstly, she was never enrolled at Beacon, she was only there to participate in Vale's tournament. At best this is testing her capability as a combat android, if not also being used for an ulterior political motive. And it's still vague as to what she was being tested for, if she was being tested at all. Nothing in the show or supplement materials suggest that she wasn't a finished product, nor a prototype of any sort. And it's that vague idea of a robot capable of using Aura that I created Gren from.

@Lucius Cypher

My mistake she wasn't enrolled at Beacon but the point of her being in Vytal Festival would have to be the same. You can test combat capabilities in the lab, even bring in hunters of a greater caliber than those found at the academies to test her against. What you can't replicate in the lab is human societal interaction beyond a basic level. She would have to be immersed in the real world for that purpose. But the real reason to assume that she is a prototype is that Beacon is still functioning at all. Penny is the equal of any hunter and requires far less time to be prepared for combat. She would make huntsmen obsolete as well as saving the lives of those that would normally have to combat the Grimm. The fact that her model hasn't replaced hunters and that Atlus is still developing other humanesque military tech such as the police like androids and the paladins suggests that she is at least for the moment one of a kind.

Hider

And if you're saying that objects can't be powered by Aura, then you're also contradicting anothering thing you told Ryo a long time ago when you were arguing about how Ebon is controlling his R-Types. You said that he could use a device that interacts with one's aura, so I imagine that Gren is working off a similar devise, only his aura interacts with said device to power his entire body as oppose to remote drones. You can't just retract that statement now just because Ebon isn't in play anymore.

@Lucius Cypher

For the last time Ebon's drones were not powered by his aura. He had telekinesis which he literally used to hold the drones up in the air. On X-Men you wouldn't say the jeeps Magneto was throwing at the military were powered by his X-gene. It's the same thing. The drones had no interaction with Ebon's aura, they were being suspended in the air by his semblance.

Hider

Also just because it's powered by aura doesn't mean suddenly everything else is obsolete. Because as I said, what Gren uses merely uses Aura, it cannot produce aura on it's own. While it can take aura as a power source, that doesn't mean suddenly all other forms of energy is useless because there is a price to use aura powered machines, and that price is that it needs a person to power it. Gren's machine can be powered by himself since he only needs it to power his body, but you can't use one person to replace an entire power plant meant for a city. Unless you're going to start using people as human batteries, aura powered machines on a large scale is impractical and possibly inhumane. It's not as if you can just take aura in a raw form and exchange it with others, not unless you have the same machine that powers Penny. Which while is still a mystery to us, we can be certain that it's not common place and Atlus may be the only ones who have access to such a thing.

@Lucius Cypher

You stated that he had machines that could amplify his aura and be powered by it. That is a loop creating an infinite amount of energy and while yes it would require someone to work as a human battery there is a very simple way to get someone to agree to that. You take all of the money meant to go into procuring and refining the dust required for a large scale power plant, you offer them half of it. They make a shit load of money and you double your profits, basic economics. Even if the tech would leave them scared for life there are most definitely people in situations bad enough or desperate enough to accept such an offer.

Hider

And it all returns back to what I keep saying: Gren, despite all his bells and whistles, is a fairly lowtech version of what Penny is. She is a machine that can produce her own aura, as well as other additional abilities including strength that could match Gren (He could probably stop a truck too if he saw it coming) or even greater (Gren likely can't pull down Bullheads even if he had a hold on them. Shoot them out of the air, sure, but he can't do this.), all while being much, much smaller then Gren, meaning that she's achieving the same level of power Gren can muster but with far less tech to accomplish it. As I said before, the only real benefit Gren's cybernetic body grants him is the ability to carry heavier armor and weapons. His thrusters were not an original part of his body, which he only added after earning enough credits in this RP to pursue that upgrade. And that is specifically not powered by aura, but a biofuel he has to make himself.

@Lucius Cypher

Which comes back to my original argument of Gren's tech being way older than Penny's extremely innovative ability to create an artificial aura. You can't just make a piece of technology larger to show it is an older model. Penny's tech shouldn't have existed at the point in time that Gren got his upgrades and if it did should be available to basically anyone by present day.

Hider

And if you're questioning why he would use something he doesn't understand, you could say the same about using cars. If my car breaks down I have no idea how to fix it myself, and I'd have to take it to a professional. Someone does, just not me, and as long as it doesn't breakdown I can continue to use it to the best of my abilities, and overtime figure out how to work out any errors short of total destruction. In the same respect, Gren's body is like a car. He knows how to drive it, and has a workable knowledge to improve and repair some of it. But if he fucks up so badly that he breaks something very critical, he's going to need professional help. And unfortunately for him, the only people who would likely know how to fix him are either the White Fang, who stole the technology he's made from, or Atlus, from whom the technology was stolen from in the first place. And it's all the more reason why he continues to layer armor and aura over himself to minimize the damage done to himself, as well as trying to improve his mobility to avoid damage all together.

@Lucius Cypher

Well I wasn't until you said that but while on the subject that analogy is kind of poor as you won't die if your car fails to start. You will die if your mechanical heart gives out. At the very least you'd think he'd have a specialist to look him over every so often to make sure the parts of him that he doesn't understand are still working. But I'm not starting that argument.

My point which I think is becoming somewhat distorted is that because of his cybernetics his aura would have to extend from his remaining organic tissue leading to an overall decrease in protective ability and an increased strain on Gren while he is using it in that capacity.

_{I just had the best god damned waffles of my life.}

@Write

Can I have some?

[Lucius Cypher]

That's assuming that just because Gren lacks most of his original body, his aura is suppose to be weaker. This isn't Star Wars where cybernetics are inherently conflicting with mechanical parts or even armor. Besides that most of his aura already goes into making the machine work anyways, and that isn't limited to just allowing him to move. It effectively pumps his aura throughout his entire body like a mechanical heart, precisely so he doesn't need to constantly focus on pumping his spiritual blood all the time. With the benefit of doing what aura is suppose to do anyways, like protecting its person.

Gren aura is constantly active for both protecting him and allowing him to live much like Sapphire is constantly breathing. Because as discussed before, Grens aura is what is powering his body (since we also nixed the idea of alternative energies like dust or fusion cores). We also had mentioned that while EMPs are effective against Gren, it's not instantly lethal, only that it shuts down a vast majority of his functions beyond what's keeping him alive. I.e. Moving at all.

The idea that he's constantly struggling to make his heart use his aura to just keep him alive is frankly kinda rediculous, not to mention making him much more of a liability If he can't rely on his aura to serve a basic function everyone can do. If you want to nerf him that badly, I'm willing to satisfy that desire by limiting his semblance instead, shortening its range and adding more caveats to avoid being affected by it.

[Lady Seraphina]

@Lucius Cypher

That's assuming that just because Gren lacks most of his original body, his aura is suppose to be weaker. This isn't Star Wars where cybernetics are inherently conflicting with mechanical parts or even armor. Besides that most of his aura already goes into making the machine work anyways, and that isn't limited to just allowing him to move. It effectively pumps his aura throughout his entire body like a mechanical heart, precisely so he doesn't need to constantly focus on pumping his spiritual blood all the time. With the benefit of doing what aura is suppose to do anyways, like protecting its person.

Not weaker, simply not evenly distributed. The aura should emanate from his body, when you lose a limb the limb does not keep generating aura, it is dead. Whatever aura existed in the limb now exists in the rest of the body just with less surface to cover. So Gren's entire aura is concentrated in what little organic tissue his has left, which I believe is his brain and a handful of vital organs. Now the aura can be extended outside of the natural body, channeled through weapons to increase their durability, pack a bigger punch and so forth. Doing so should dilute the aura the further it gets from the source. So Gren would be capable of pumping his aura out from his organic tissue to the exterior of his mechanized body but doing so would require a conscious effort and create a weaker field compared to those generating it on the surface of their skin.

Gren's aura is constantly active for both protecting him and allowing him to live much like Sapphire is constantly breathing. Because as discussed before, Gren's aura is what is powering his body (since we also nixed the idea of alternative energies like dust or fusion cores). We also had mentioned that while EMPs are effective against Gren, it's not instantly lethal, only that it shuts down a vast majority of his functions beyond what's keeping him alive. I.e. Moving at all.

And taking the wrong lesson from the conclusion to a discussion. What we nixed was the potential for Gren's power source to be either radioactive or explosive. It could still be an alternative clean power source, it doesn't have to be aura. The EMPs could easily only shut down his superficial functions because his core cybernetics are shielded. A simple explanation for his limbs and such not being shielded is that it would make him unreasonably unwieldy for the task his upgrades were made to perform.

The idea that he's constantly struggling to make his heart use his aura to just keep him alive is frankly kinda ridiculous,

Not what I said in the least.

...not to mention making him much more of a liability If he can't rely on his aura to serve a basic function everyone can do.

His aura being less reliable is essentially why he has a boatload of other talents, stop gaps and redundancy to fall back on which everyone else doesn't.

If you want to nerf him that badly, I'm willing to satisfy that desire by limiting his semblance instead, shortening its range and adding more caveats to avoid being affected by it.

I'm listening but I think the aura is better thing to nerf as all of his physical upgrades are made to increase his durability, and strength, nerfing his (let's face it) magical abilities that contribute to that is the perfect counter balance.

[Abillioncats]

Someone halp, there's walls of text everywhere. The words have me surrounded and are blurring together. It's like Noah Webster's wet dream gone horribly wrong oh god

[Awesomoman64]

Me attempting to read the walls of text:

[NaraK]

[harinezumikouken]

I love the little chibi Lauren.

Reminds me of a little gremlin or imp.

[Plank Sinatra]

for real

[Lucius Cypher]

@Prince of Seraphs

Again, why would his aura not be even distributed if he has a specialized organ made precisely to distribute aura through his body? If his aura isn't evenly distributed through his body, then he couldn't move it in the first place. Aura is effectively his blood, and it's the reason why EMP's are even effective against him since they fry the circuits his aura can flow through. Gren's power source is suppose to be able to allow him to distribute aura throughout his body evenly, both for the purpose of making it function as well as protecting him. The idea that it's not active all the time or unevenly distributed means that he's either turned off, or a part of his body isn't working i.e. is broken.

Plus a clean power source, even an electric one, would require even more advanced tech then simply being powered by aura, which we can at least assume doesn't have any sort of byproduct. Sure he does need biofuel for his thrusters and his extra electronic bits like his built in phone and camera uses electricity, but those could be safely disabled/their power source removed without affecting Gren's ability to function. At worse he looses mobility, communication, and perhaps the ability to make his helmet cover his face at will. Otherwise we'll end up back to that discussion with the fusion core since apparently he's now running off some sort of engine or fuel that is small enough to fit inside his body but has a power output strong enough to power him indefinitely, especially considering the sort of feats of strength and endurance he preforms.

And of course this goes back to his Semblance, which I will concede has to start from where he's "Touching" and since "he" is now just a few organs inside a robot body, the effectiveness of his semblance is already diluted since now his semblance has to jump from his organs, through his body, then into the ground around Gren/whatever he happens to be touching at the moment. Where he a regular person his semblance's range would be much further, but due to his cybernetic body his semblance's area of effect is restricted to a very close range to himself, without the ability to shape it for increased range or avoiding friendly-fire. Additionally, while Gren can channel his semblance around him a short range or into something he's touching, he cannot do both at the same time: If he's using his semblance to maintain a grip on his foe, he can't also use his semblance to increase the amount of friction others exert on the ground around him, and thus root them to the spot. Additionally if you are aware of Gren's semblance, you can exploit it's selective targeting by maintaining some level of elevation, such as using your weapon to vault yourself through his semblance's area of effect or simply attacking him on top of other objects.

A lot of Gren's power comes from the idea that you're facing him conventionally i.e. you're on the same ground as him and you're trying to bash him in the face. While Gren isn't immune to such attacks, his defenses are made with the idea that his opponents are fighting him like that, in a straight up mano-a-mano confrontation. Exploiting his weaknesses (Which Gren tries not to make well known for obvious reasons), or doing the smart thing and simply not engaging Gren in a melee would be the better ways to take him on, and of course doing every other dirty trick you can to deal with bigger, more physically imposing opponents.

That's not to say that sneak attacks won't work against him and he wouldn't die if someone shot a high caliber bullet into the back of his head when he's not looking, but like decapitation and getting riddled with bullets, such attacks are a weakness everyone is susceptible to. With or without aura, I'd imagine.

@Abillioncats@Awesomoman64@NarayanK

THE TEXT NEVER ENDS!

[Ookawa]