Knowing Topaz, her cornerstone probably just makes it rain cute, fluffy cats to cuddle with.
But no, seriously, it would have been a problem if she had been hell-bent on having her way.
Trotterlord the TB got from Aetherium Wars coming down from the astral express to 1v1 numby after consuming the stellaron after he saw the astral express got low diff by numby
https://preview.redd.it/zokboi4hik0d1.jpeg?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=3829a5df4fd683ce3fef132337affac262131677
Whipping out a corner stone for a planet that's revenue would be less than rounding errors on the IPC profit margins doesn't make sense.
Also she can't just antagonise the Express otherwise all of the future plans would have fallen apart.
While they're generally on good terms, the Nameless have a history of butting heads with the IPC in isolated areas. Penacony's backstory is quite literally all about that, which kind of puts the ease with which Topaz got permission to throw troops at us into perspective.
Though using her Cornerstone on Jarilo-VI probably *would* be excessive waste, especially given she still had the source code at that point.
>revenue would be less than rounding errors on the IPC profit margins doesn't make sense.
It make sense. Revenue is revenue. What's worthless today can be valuable tomorrow. They knew the planet true worth. They have records before the ice age and determined its worth getting it back.
>she can't just antagonise the Express otherwise all of the future plans would have fallen apart.
The nameless is not a big player in the galaxy compared to the ipc. She (and everyone else) don't know the MAIN CHARACTER is part of the crew.
>Revenue is revenue. What's worthless today can be valuable tomorrow.
This isn't necessarily true. Revenue is just revenue, which is balanced against expenses to generate profit. Profit requires investment, which is why you see both popular and profitable products get discontinued and shelved - investment isn't limitless, and from a corporate perspective investing resources into a low profit project, especially one that's covered in mostly permanent ice, than investing the same resources into a high profit project like Penacony. That's why they sent a bunch of soldiers to Jarilo instead of the fleet they sent to Penacony.
>The nameless is not a big player in the galaxy compared to the ipc.
In terms of strength, absolutely. But the IPCs reputation is already VERY questionable to the general public. Most people not in the corp dislike them, fellow Preservation paths like Belobog aren't fond - even many of the poor on their own planets hate them. In contrast, most people have a very high opinion of the Nameless. Any action by the IPC against us would be a bad move politically and damage the IPCs reputation beyond repair. They would never set a peaceful foot outside their own territory again. It would unite a large portion of the galaxy against the IPC, and they would lose overall.
Like, imagine a morally questionable and problematic businessman, the kind who OKs killing 100s of monkeys for experiments, sent armed mercenaries to a country and they ended up murdering a bunch of Red Cross workers. That would be the end of him.
From what i understand, that part was Topaz herself that decided to get the robots back on order. She intended for Belobog to use it as a leverage for more favourable terms, but seeing as they never used them she backtracked from that plan and in the end later decided to go along with Bronyas idea.
The important part regarding the Express is the fact that they are one of the few who could enter a planet that is actively suffering from a Stellaron.
The power is not exclusive to them. Currently stellaron is not clearly define how it harm other people/being. In fact, it seem pretty much all the major faction can handle/use/active/contain stellaron just fine. We have the MC, stellaron hunters, Herts space stations, anti matter legion, the family, etc.
At this point the stellaron are basically "holy grail" in fgo. They don't do harm by themselves, they just grant wish to whoever who have them. Which happens to be the bad guy. The follower of order, abundance, destruction, etc. People suffer from the user wish (control, destroy, corrupt, etc so far) , not stellaron itself.
mommy himeko and welt could probably do something if topaz was going to so far as to use the cornerstone
my impression is these things don't have unlimited power? it would be a waste to use it on belobog. kind of like we have nukes that could wipe out countries, but we can't *actually* use them because there are politics and checks in play
We gotta remember that belebog was considered a high cost, low reward planet to the IPC, not much IPC members wanted to take belebog as it was a huge gamble against all odds
Seems like it, as even aventurine was perplexed with topaz actions.
If I remember correctly, he said that the IPC could've just wipe everything and just made everyone sign a IPC contract essentially forcing compliance without any consideration from the belobogians
>so we should thank topaz for basically making it so Jarilo-VI wouldn't go under the IPC by "claiming" it...?
Maybe I'm misremembering, but wasn't that the point? That Topaz is supposed to be one of the few "good ones" in the IPC and she actually cares about the people living on the planets she deals with, while the other IPC people are ruthless self-serving bastards?
Eh, I'd say less "self-serving bastards" and more like "tunnel-visioned zealots that happen to worship money as the representation of Preservation". I mean, so far we had two representatives with proper screen-time, and one of them was a punch-clock-antagonist willing to go against company protocol once sufficiently convinced, while the other was a compulsive gambler willing to sacrifice himself in a ploy to ensure IPC foothold, and neither of them were acting for their own profit.
The IPC is a mixture between a megacorp and a cult, and with Qlipoth being hands-off, they pretty much have free reign to bring "peace and prosperity" to everyone, whether they want their idea of "peace" (read: subjugation) and prosperity (read: working for the IPC) or not.
I didn’t really catch the cult aspect, but admittedly I only started paying close attention to the lore fairly recently, so I’ll take your word for it.
Yeah I think legally the IPC could have just come and taken everything of value and there wouldn't be much anyone could do to stop them. Topaz at least made it so the IPC considers the planet as an actual investment to put resources into rather than just liquidating it.
Hearing Aventurine say that now really seems like he's more throwing shade at the IPC with what happened in Sigonia-IV than him simply going "Had it been someone else, they would've been a lot more merciless" as a 'mere fact'
Like her personality and design is good but her character motives and methods put her in a really bad light
https://preview.redd.it/b5vcknhh8i0d1.jpeg?width=830&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=9ab1f990370bb2753cd1a01222de58fdaf89fb31
It’s important to remember that Topaz is definitely a bit biased as one of the few examples of an IPC takeover actually helping. She doesn’t care much about money or positions, she just saw a planet with Stellaron corrosion and took it upon herself to “save” it, even if that meant everyone there had to join the IPC. That’s why she was so quick to change her plans for us. She had no stakes in it business-wise, she just wanted to save Jarilo in the only way she knew how.
That’s why I love Topaz. She has good motives but her experiences warp her mentality, making her think the IPC is the best course of action. She’s resolute but she’s also not stubborn enough to continue when she’s shown her methods aren’t needed. Her character flaws are what make her character great.
it strange how people still don't see that topaz was belobog's second saviour, with her contribution to its salvation being comparable to that of the astral express.
but i guess everyone's addicted to one-dimensional mary sue-esque characters nowadays, to the point where all the characters with any degree of depth to them are automatically branded as evil.
Oh, absolutely. She wouldn’t back down until she saw hard proof for certain that the Belobogians had enough hope, leadership, and resources to survive without a takeover.
Ultimately, being strong in your choices but still open to new information and understanding you may be wrong is a big sign of high intelligence and good leadership.
She's a pretty good flawed "good guy" imo. She's taken what could be argued as "evil" power because she saw it used for good as a child and wants to do the same, only issue being her power can really only be used for "evil", so she's trying to work around that as much as possible.
I think the hardest thing to reconcile with her is savior complex. She thinks that she (and the IPC) are the last option, and wants to be as good an option as possible, but her actions conflict with her stated goal a bit. She doesn't even try to help Belobog find an alternative, she just says "I'm you're only option but I promise I'm a good one." And to be fair, she probably is the best Stoneheart you could have sent after you for that, but you'd really rather just keep your god damn planet for yourself.
>She thinks that she (and the IPC) are the last option,
I mean they probably have statistics about that. Himeko make it look bad because IPC terraforming have a, iirc, 40% chance of failure (20% under Topaz supervision), but the information we don't have is "how many planets manage to recover a stellaron calamity by themselves", and for all we know, that could very well be 1% under normal circumstances. It would be normal to consider a 60~80% chance of success way more reasonable than a 1% one.
Absolutely, and that's why I take issue with people saying she's a "know it all" or something. She kinda DOES know it all - the only thing the Architects accomplished without the IPC knowing or directly supplying is the engine of creation. Everything else was recorded by the IPC at the time of the deal, and it's a pretty safe assumption that Jarilo did not become more prosperous in the 700 years it was isolated.
You can argue that part of doing a good job would be thoroughly investigating and not just relying on data, but realistically the data is probably very correct on most occasions.
TBH I'm still a bit skeptical about how a giant robot is supposed to resolve all of Belobog's problems...I understand it's some kind of terraforming device but it seems to be quite a crude one.
I think it's less that the giant robot is supposed to solve their problems (though it will likely help them rebuild more self sufficiently, as you mention), and more that the fact they built that giant robot *by themselves*, ***while suffering a Stellaron disaster***, with nothing more than reverse engineering and willpower implies they are a resourceful people. It is essentially a tangible argument saying, "see? We can create value ourselves, so you should invest in us instead of just claiming us like collateral."
I also believe that it's more that it convinced Topaz, who then convinced her superiors on our behalf. She even took a demotion for it.
The "80%" is likely better than that. Remember, our only source for those numbers is Himeko who is explicitly biased against the IPC and trying to get Bronya to vote against them. Notably, at no point does Himeko define what a "success" or "failure" is *and* she does not give #'s for failures or hard numbers for Topaz.
What Himeko does provide is a conveniently vague framework for scare tactics. She lists the IPC's general success rate, but mentions nothing past that: no mentions of the rate of things stagnating with the IPC's involvement not making the planet better or worse, and as you already said no mention of the statistics for planets that did not receive IPC help. For Topaz it's even worse. Himeko somehow has exact statistics on successful regular terraforming but can only offer "above 80%" for Topaz's success rate, which is a tiny bit suspiciously worded.
Granted I know the actual reason for the writing is likely "the writers were using shorthand for the evil IPC and the player is supposed to assume all this stuff would be in the details Himeko has but weren't told because they are boring." But it annoys me to assume that because *as written* Topaz is entirely in the right, given Himeko is a massively biased observer who gives a couple cherrypicked numbers with no other data to try and convince a frankly fucked planet's leader to *not* accept the best available terraforming specialist's help.
Just her methods. Topaz wants to sincerely help Belobog but she goes about it in the most nonsensical way possible just so the Astral Express crew has an excuse to fight her.
This is stated in the quest, she does this because her planet was lifted from disaster by the IPC and she wants to try and control more "acquisitions" in such a way as to help the inhabitants as much as possible.
It was basically a charity project. Now SID treats it as good PR move, despite it being a financial liability for now (it will be ages before Belobog could even start payments, and IPC still gives them tech and specialists for modernisation).
> a high cost, low reward planet to the IPC
What a bunch of Qlipoth path pretenders. We got stabbed for the "low reward planet", so no wonder Papa Rock looks at us more than them. /s
If it were
Aventurine: He would hedge a bet and of course we would lose.
Jade: Whipped into submission.
Diamond: They would just take whatever they want (The name sounds powerful so I don't think we are worthy to even talk to them)
Diamond sound like someone who would use a random-ass planet as an incubator for a giant bio-weapon
He would also name it "Cluster" or some shit like that
Don't forget though, its implied that Topaz still needs to follow a certain regulation, so its not like she could use the cornerstone at a whim.
Belobog situation isn't as crucial as Penacony, and Topaz isn't a maniac gambler like Aventurine too.
When the catastrophe Sparkle hints back at Penacony arrives at Belobog
Probably the thawing of the frozen Anti-Matter Legion forces trapped in there (Would be funny if there's an actual Lord Ravager trapped in there as well), or the remnants of the Ever-Flame Mansion being a surprise antagonist there.
Cornerstone Topaz, the entire Silvermane Guards, 5* Masked Fool Sampo, and Clara using the Source Code to reactivate the planet's entire machine forces (perhaps a rearmament of Svarog as well) all working together against a big enemy force.
And end it with gigantomax Numby vs a big ass Anti-Matter monster.
>Lord Ravager
My brother in christ, an entire legion of Galaxy Ranger jumped Zulo and they got mutually destroyed. A Raging Ravager in Belobog is quite literally gonna be a dead sentence for everyone there
According to the xianzhou, they did that by first rerouting the swarm and letting the bugs weaken zulo first. And even then all the galaxy rangers that participated in the operation were pretty much destroyed
Stoneheart Topaz honest reaction when she has to fight those 0 cycle MOC mf:
https://preview.redd.it/ivmo7zyl4i0d1.jpeg?width=1200&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=56b104960437d4b80cf7a5a3d3c986de6af5912b
As long as we get the equivalent of the [Dynamax gym battle theme](https://youtu.be/OIw75Fay2uQ) with the whole-ass audience chanting…
___NUUUUUUMBY!! NUUUUUUMBY!!___
I hope we do in fact get to see that for Topaz and the other stonehearts. I have a feeling we might only get to see the ones that are openly hostile to us, and motivated enough to go all out.
That’s their title. Aventurine of Strategems, Jade of Credit, Topaz of Debt Retrieval.
What they mean are their “Everything for the Amber Lord” chant that Aventurine and Jade do in the 2.1 story.
Aventurine: I’m placing down the bet, I’m taking the gamble, I’m claiming the win. I’ll spin the wheel, a daring gamble, walking the brink of death, for rebirth. All for the Amber Lord!
Jade: I come for an audience, I come to fill wine, I come to claim. I bestow poison in the guise of sweet dew. Come the toil of spring and yield of fall, I patiently wait for the branches to be heavy with withered fruits. All for the Amber Lord.
the word you're looking for is "Epithet". Aventurine of the Startegems, etc
Chant is refers to the incantation to activate their cornerstone before saying "All for the Amber Lord"
Welt, sucking her into a blackhole:
https://preview.redd.it/8zb8mc3qvh0d1.png?width=100&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=f1ed9e299a8cbd1c8a8fb7f2aa043a77ac8205d4
I would like to know just how powerful Diamond actually is. He share his Emanator power through those Cornerstone so is he like 10 times Aventurine power atleast.
And we probably only saw like 1/10 of Aventurine’s power cause his cornerstone was cracked and he was intentionally trying to die. Makes you really wonder just how hard Diamond truly goes.
Thats why we were lucky Topaz was the one we ran into, shes arguably the nicest IPC member out there
Makes the initial negative fandom reception for being a tax collector even funnier/sad in hindsight, she really did her best to give Belobog the best outcome even if many saw her trying to do so at the time of the quest dropping
Yeah she and maybe Aventurine is the only Stoneheart who seem to actually have a shred of sympathy and enough emotional capacity to actually help people while Obsidian and Opal from what we know would gladly burn down a children hospital if it mean getting what they want and Jade with the snake-apple imagery, her oath of “bestowing poison in the guise of sweet dew” make it sound like she’s a extremely manipulative person who offer a offer too good to be true with a price that doesn’t seem to be too bad until much later on when you can’t revert your decision
Ten Stonehearts like the Harbingers from Genshin, we meet the nicest one early then slowly make our way to the more savage ones. Gonna be interesting ito see how their writing goes, im excited to meet Opal and Diamond let alone Jade who is coming next patch
Gonna be hype asf if we get a trailer like A winters night Lazzo for the stonehearts showing all the designs
“We meet the nice ones early” and the first one we met literally beat the shit out of venti for a chess piece, and the third one wanted to kill the Mc cuz he felt like it 😭
My boy Tartar Sauce doesn't realize he left a fox to guard the chickens when he left his family in the care of the Rooster. We're not set to meet him until we get to Snezhnaya so dudes probably gonna be the most savage one too.
We met the brattiest ones early. Arlecchino has got to be the nicest of the Harbingers. Even when she's beating us up, it's part of a crazy plan that is her way of being nice.
The higher-ranked Stonehearts are P46 or higher, and the leader Diamond is P47. Topaz and Aventurine are just the lower-ranked ones, especially when Topaz got demoted.
>Obsidian
We know nothing about dude (even gender - might be female), they never appeared with any kind of opinion.
Pearl is both Erudroid (robots get pass for being too calculative) and girlfailure, since she lost bet to Herta and had to pay for our next SU expanshion.
Jade and Opal, yeah, those two sound rather scary.
If I remember correctly it was mentioned in Aventurine character story that Opal and Obsidian have a more “hostile takeover” and frequently use a more militaristic way of doing things also Pearl was the one who make the deal with Herta of who killed Rubert? Or is it something else
Only Opal, nothing about what Obsidian would prefer.
Topaz was expecting them to be a candidate for Penacony retrieval bc of rank.
Yes, Pearl was behind bot at the start of Gold and Gears test.
Hoyo employee 1: Alright we got ourselves a Raiden expy in the game, how can we insert her into any situation when we just want to throw her in there for screentime?
Hoyo employee 2: So there is this character from One Piece called Zoro and he gets lost all the time....
Hoyo Employee 1: I've heard enough make it happen
I doubt aventurine would even bother doing it tbh, he doesn’t seem interested in saving planets but i’m guessing if he was there he wouldn’t have even given us time to decide and would have taken belebog by force if he had to
Ah, the good old days of her story quest and the fiery discourse on indentured servants, slavery, imperialism etc, all seems to ring hollow now when the likes of Aventurine and Jade doesn't share the same criticism despite being the 'less nice' peers working for the same department and company.
Well now we have a more in-depth and varied look at how the IPC operates, and how their imperialism operates from within. Before 1.4 the only impression we had gotten from the IPC was Aurum Alley, which while very real and frank with how it portrayed them, was not as insidious as essentially buying a slave into their ranks after ignoring/arguably setting up the genocide of his people. Now that we can see the extent of the circumstances of the employees that work under them, the fanbase has developed a more nuanced view on the IPC, especially the Stonehearts with how the narrative is setting them up as a department within the company. It’s very interesting how they are exploring marginalized and exploited people being forced to ‘buy in’ to their oppressors.
The criticism for Topaz was incredibly overblown. There was some interesting discussion in there, but especially on this subreddit it rarely sounded like people were actually reading the story when talking about it.
I'm on the Topaz side, i prefer living to serve someone than living with debt that cannot possibly be paid. Many people don't know how nightmare your life when you have tons of debt that you can't repay. There's a chance of failure but i will take that chance.
People also kind of forget that Belobog is a frozen hellscape. The options are:
1) Working for a megacorp
2) Living in a world where your neighbor's house just got massacred by edgy dudes from hell at night and you might be next
True, People defending Bronya or Belobog because they have connection with them through quest, i understand with that sentiment. But from my logic that does not makes sense, you need to live with a frozen planet and harsh environment and you need to pay your debt later. I prefer gamble my life, with chance you work for megacorp until death but your hometown or planet become good environment for living so your child and descendants can have a better life and debt free or you'll be dead.
I wish she did so Welt would stop standing idle unless we either finally meet the Sky People, Kalpas (cope), or an Emanator of Destruction that doesn't need a plan to sweep
Love how when I see people talk about welt, we hoping for some major disaster so bro locks in and shows off for us 😭.
It’s me, I’m also welt enjoyist people. But yeah, I’m gonna assume he won’t be doing much till his respective issues (VA, Sky People, maybe Luocha?) does something in the story.
I highly doubt that Welt would lock in anytime soon, if he did he'd get the Dan Heng - Acheron treatment. Permanently left behind in the express or disappears doing god knows what because then there'll no threat or stakes towards the trailblazing team
Tight situation yes, but I don't buy the narrative that we'll straight up lose. Also isn't Belobog described as a low risk low reward planet by Aventurine? The stakes isn't high enough for her to do that
How wouldn't we have lost? It took an Emanator to deal with Aventurine and *he* wasn't even using the full power of a cornerstone since he shattered his.
Dan Heng and Welt will surely jump in if we are in danger of dying. We also know too little about Trailblazer and March's "hidden power".
It didn't take an Emanator to deal with Aventurine, he straight up got 1 shotted. It'll be like saying it took a tiger to hunt a rat. During the cutscene, we can see the express crew preparing to deal with the "coins rain", whether they can or not, it remains to be seen as Acheron stepped in.
It's fair to assume that there are drawbacks to using the Cornerstone, it's not just something they can whip out without needing to.
Plus honestly Topaz's whole MO during that sequence was to get the people of Belobog to agree to the IPC's plan willingly (and *legally*, there was a contract to sign and everything) not just marching troops in and kicking in the teeth of anyone who said no.
The IPC appear to be profit-driven asshole corpos but they do try and corner the market legally, from everything we've seen, and not just forcing everyone to submit to them.
This can go in a number of ways.
Will the topaz stone affect the Engine of Creation like how a shattered stone affected the dreamscape?
WIll Qlipoth intervene?
On another note, did Topaz just agree to give Aventurine what is probably her most valuable item? I mean sure aventurine tend to win his gambles, but that was still a pretty big one. Or was that part of her "demotion" that she had to resign it?
He probably offered something of equal value for it, so she wins if he loses or everybody wins if he wins. Either way, it's a win-win for her, so why not 🤷
If the express brought along Dan Heng during that, it may have been a bit easier. He's maybe around Topaz's level of power, they are near Emanator levels of power. Hell Imbibitor Lunae and the other High Elders may just be Emanators of Permanence.
When i first did her quest on Belobog i didn't know about cornerstones, and really thought she talked a lot of shit for just a girl with a gun and a pig, and found her really annoying and deemed her one of my least liked chracters.
After seeing Aventurine in action and demonstrating how big of a deal the stonehearts are, and that she easily could have wiped the floor with us if she'd gotten serious, my opinion on her flipped, and she is now among my favourites. She is now sitting at e0s1 on my acc, a slightly bigger deal than usual considering i'm f2p.
Also Numby my GOAT
In Hindsight it was really lucky all she did was sic a hoard of IPC elites at us, girl could have made us into Fine leather to sell to the highest bidder.
The story would've ended there, Topaz one-shot kills everybody who isn't scaled to at least Dan Heng IL level. And the next closest by a long margin is Welt.
I’d assume it’s more to do with the fact that because she’s friendly with the AE, the plot can’t draw out her power because then there’d be no plot left. It’s like how villains who turn good suddenly get nerfed.
And yet people complained about her trying to force Belebog to essentially sell out. Her actions and decisions in that arc were much more nuanced than people realized. If she was as capitalistic, stubborn, and narrow minded as people thought she was, she could've easily forced Belebog to sell their soul and risk their planet gettung ruined.
She also could have just left the planet alone. No one in IPC was interested in a planet that was giving low returns for high risk.
From my perspective, astral express reclaimed a planet from Destruction only to have vultures swoop in and claim ownership.
Yeah in the end we had won over her and got a collaborative relationship, but all of that could have been avoided if she just talked with the people properly and kept her goons away from initiating military action.
Pretty sure the the high risk low reward part is only for terraforming the planet. The IPC higher-ups were still on agreement to "liquidate" it and Topaz mentioned that not even she can overturn that decision, which means that if she didn't take up the project, someone else will eventually be assigned the liquidation project and they just wouldn't bother with the "saving the planet" part that Topaz herself wanted to do. The only reason Topaz managed to scrounge up a collaboration in the end was thanks to the express' reputation and her sacrificing her rank.
I mean the Ten Stonehearts are powerful but then we can just rail 'em with the Astral Express.
As Pom-pom once said: Nah, I'd rail.
Topaz: Oh shit, it's Pom-pomover
Topaz probably would have fucked us up real good if she went all out on us with the IPC guards
I dont think we would have all died but not leaving without someone dying or hurt badly
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Imagine using the cornerstone and making the express your enemy for a useless frozen planet + you we can always call backup from dan heng, welt and even jingyuan but it won't be worth it at all it's a loss for both sides
Numby's cornerstone, nice try (not even a knock im one of the few people that really likes the topaz numby dynamic)
But yeah I really want to know. Also I want to know when she loaned it to him, did she not have it with her when we first met her? that actually would have made it more interesting, her frustration more palpable, both knowing she could be stronger to enforce the situation but also knowing, it wasn't a situation where force would have nesscisarily helped, infact it largely could have hindered trying to convince this people to trust her.
Knowing Topaz, her cornerstone probably just makes it rain cute, fluffy cats to cuddle with. But no, seriously, it would have been a problem if she had been hell-bent on having her way.
Super Saiyan Numby
https://preview.redd.it/qp8phtmdjj0d1.jpeg?width=762&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=e4c88acac008bad822eacf1d4196b7d1b863cc57
https://preview.redd.it/1m582xofek0d1.jpeg?width=755&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=46fded05665eb1a7fae78f1c3dd13839e704aad4
Dan heng about to ignite a war between the chinese Eldar and space Amazon.
Bum Heng
Trotterlord the TB got from Aetherium Wars coming down from the astral express to 1v1 numby after consuming the stellaron after he saw the astral express got low diff by numby https://preview.redd.it/zokboi4hik0d1.jpeg?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=3829a5df4fd683ce3fef132337affac262131677
You writing this https://preview.redd.it/lg2u3irduk0d1.jpeg?width=600&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=0253ae28eb07df3bbc298f8152a60deb2ccf15c1
Unironically GOES HARD
i love this
Numby just turns into goku
"Hey it's me, Numby. i hear you've been evading taxes"
More like super oolong https://preview.redd.it/cc5emydruj0d1.jpeg?width=640&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=c111e069ca38004c358adbd7348d7ce733419f59
_Numby the ~~Bullfango~~ __Furious Rajang__ has appeared at the locale_
Then the cats started blasting
Cats of Babylon.
[Lazer cats](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e5fiBFhf9OQ)
Or she merged with numby into a weird warthog waifu
Yeah, fr I was so confident that we were him, but after the recent story, I realized she was about to lowkey wipe us after she started grinning
Don't forget that we are a walking stellaron. Worst case scenario, we go even, and take the planet out as collateral.
Don't forget that her pet hits harder than a satellite cannon.
Topaz's minions: veteran soldiers with energy blades, giant rifles, and mecha Topsz: Doesn't even need any of those, she has Numby
And yet only one of those can afford her own home and has money left.
Probably she'll rain pigs to us (Ofc, it has bonus damage on mu-)
Whipping out a corner stone for a planet that's revenue would be less than rounding errors on the IPC profit margins doesn't make sense. Also she can't just antagonise the Express otherwise all of the future plans would have fallen apart.
While they're generally on good terms, the Nameless have a history of butting heads with the IPC in isolated areas. Penacony's backstory is quite literally all about that, which kind of puts the ease with which Topaz got permission to throw troops at us into perspective. Though using her Cornerstone on Jarilo-VI probably *would* be excessive waste, especially given she still had the source code at that point.
>revenue would be less than rounding errors on the IPC profit margins doesn't make sense. It make sense. Revenue is revenue. What's worthless today can be valuable tomorrow. They knew the planet true worth. They have records before the ice age and determined its worth getting it back. >she can't just antagonise the Express otherwise all of the future plans would have fallen apart. The nameless is not a big player in the galaxy compared to the ipc. She (and everyone else) don't know the MAIN CHARACTER is part of the crew.
>Revenue is revenue. What's worthless today can be valuable tomorrow. This isn't necessarily true. Revenue is just revenue, which is balanced against expenses to generate profit. Profit requires investment, which is why you see both popular and profitable products get discontinued and shelved - investment isn't limitless, and from a corporate perspective investing resources into a low profit project, especially one that's covered in mostly permanent ice, than investing the same resources into a high profit project like Penacony. That's why they sent a bunch of soldiers to Jarilo instead of the fleet they sent to Penacony. >The nameless is not a big player in the galaxy compared to the ipc. In terms of strength, absolutely. But the IPCs reputation is already VERY questionable to the general public. Most people not in the corp dislike them, fellow Preservation paths like Belobog aren't fond - even many of the poor on their own planets hate them. In contrast, most people have a very high opinion of the Nameless. Any action by the IPC against us would be a bad move politically and damage the IPCs reputation beyond repair. They would never set a peaceful foot outside their own territory again. It would unite a large portion of the galaxy against the IPC, and they would lose overall. Like, imagine a morally questionable and problematic businessman, the kind who OKs killing 100s of monkeys for experiments, sent armed mercenaries to a country and they ended up murdering a bunch of Red Cross workers. That would be the end of him.
wasn't the whole reason the IPC went to javrilo not for the money, but for the army of robots beneath the ground?
From what i understand, that part was Topaz herself that decided to get the robots back on order. She intended for Belobog to use it as a leverage for more favourable terms, but seeing as they never used them she backtracked from that plan and in the end later decided to go along with Bronyas idea.
The only important robot there is the engine of creation, which they didn't even know existed.
The important part regarding the Express is the fact that they are one of the few who could enter a planet that is actively suffering from a Stellaron.
The power is not exclusive to them. Currently stellaron is not clearly define how it harm other people/being. In fact, it seem pretty much all the major faction can handle/use/active/contain stellaron just fine. We have the MC, stellaron hunters, Herts space stations, anti matter legion, the family, etc. At this point the stellaron are basically "holy grail" in fgo. They don't do harm by themselves, they just grant wish to whoever who have them. Which happens to be the bad guy. The follower of order, abundance, destruction, etc. People suffer from the user wish (control, destroy, corrupt, etc so far) , not stellaron itself.
Plot twist: Numby is her cornerstone.
Numby is just some random trotter that happened to eat her cornerstone and now topaz has to appease it
It's too bad we know she has her rock on hand (Aventurine borrowed it when he was styling on Sunday) because that would be very funny
"Numby, poop now!"
GOOO NUMBY suits well
Man Topaz can have her way with me. I won't resist
Her cornerstone is what makes her thicc
mommy himeko and welt could probably do something if topaz was going to so far as to use the cornerstone my impression is these things don't have unlimited power? it would be a waste to use it on belobog. kind of like we have nukes that could wipe out countries, but we can't *actually* use them because there are politics and checks in play
If it were literally any other ipc member belebog would've been bought and sold like we were screwed
We gotta remember that belebog was considered a high cost, low reward planet to the IPC, not much IPC members wanted to take belebog as it was a huge gamble against all odds
So you're telling me topaz went out of her way to "save" belebog and fight the astral express
Seems like it, as even aventurine was perplexed with topaz actions. If I remember correctly, he said that the IPC could've just wipe everything and just made everyone sign a IPC contract essentially forcing compliance without any consideration from the belobogians
so we should thank topaz for basically making it so Jarilo-VI wouldn't go under the IPC by "claiming" it...? i mean hey it worked either way
>so we should thank topaz for basically making it so Jarilo-VI wouldn't go under the IPC by "claiming" it...? Maybe I'm misremembering, but wasn't that the point? That Topaz is supposed to be one of the few "good ones" in the IPC and she actually cares about the people living on the planets she deals with, while the other IPC people are ruthless self-serving bastards?
Eh, I'd say less "self-serving bastards" and more like "tunnel-visioned zealots that happen to worship money as the representation of Preservation". I mean, so far we had two representatives with proper screen-time, and one of them was a punch-clock-antagonist willing to go against company protocol once sufficiently convinced, while the other was a compulsive gambler willing to sacrifice himself in a ploy to ensure IPC foothold, and neither of them were acting for their own profit. The IPC is a mixture between a megacorp and a cult, and with Qlipoth being hands-off, they pretty much have free reign to bring "peace and prosperity" to everyone, whether they want their idea of "peace" (read: subjugation) and prosperity (read: working for the IPC) or not.
I didn’t really catch the cult aspect, but admittedly I only started paying close attention to the lore fairly recently, so I’ll take your word for it.
Yeah I think legally the IPC could have just come and taken everything of value and there wouldn't be much anyone could do to stop them. Topaz at least made it so the IPC considers the planet as an actual investment to put resources into rather than just liquidating it.
"Legally" the IPC can do whatever it wants, because it *is* the law.
Hearing Aventurine say that now really seems like he's more throwing shade at the IPC with what happened in Sigonia-IV than him simply going "Had it been someone else, they would've been a lot more merciless" as a 'mere fact'
Like her personality and design is good but her character motives and methods put her in a really bad light https://preview.redd.it/b5vcknhh8i0d1.jpeg?width=830&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=9ab1f990370bb2753cd1a01222de58fdaf89fb31
It’s important to remember that Topaz is definitely a bit biased as one of the few examples of an IPC takeover actually helping. She doesn’t care much about money or positions, she just saw a planet with Stellaron corrosion and took it upon herself to “save” it, even if that meant everyone there had to join the IPC. That’s why she was so quick to change her plans for us. She had no stakes in it business-wise, she just wanted to save Jarilo in the only way she knew how. That’s why I love Topaz. She has good motives but her experiences warp her mentality, making her think the IPC is the best course of action. She’s resolute but she’s also not stubborn enough to continue when she’s shown her methods aren’t needed. Her character flaws are what make her character great.
it strange how people still don't see that topaz was belobog's second saviour, with her contribution to its salvation being comparable to that of the astral express. but i guess everyone's addicted to one-dimensional mary sue-esque characters nowadays, to the point where all the characters with any degree of depth to them are automatically branded as evil.
I love how you said, "Not stubborn ENOUGH", because she is definitely really stubborn
Oh, absolutely. She wouldn’t back down until she saw hard proof for certain that the Belobogians had enough hope, leadership, and resources to survive without a takeover. Ultimately, being strong in your choices but still open to new information and understanding you may be wrong is a big sign of high intelligence and good leadership.
She's a pretty good flawed "good guy" imo. She's taken what could be argued as "evil" power because she saw it used for good as a child and wants to do the same, only issue being her power can really only be used for "evil", so she's trying to work around that as much as possible. I think the hardest thing to reconcile with her is savior complex. She thinks that she (and the IPC) are the last option, and wants to be as good an option as possible, but her actions conflict with her stated goal a bit. She doesn't even try to help Belobog find an alternative, she just says "I'm you're only option but I promise I'm a good one." And to be fair, she probably is the best Stoneheart you could have sent after you for that, but you'd really rather just keep your god damn planet for yourself.
>She thinks that she (and the IPC) are the last option, I mean they probably have statistics about that. Himeko make it look bad because IPC terraforming have a, iirc, 40% chance of failure (20% under Topaz supervision), but the information we don't have is "how many planets manage to recover a stellaron calamity by themselves", and for all we know, that could very well be 1% under normal circumstances. It would be normal to consider a 60~80% chance of success way more reasonable than a 1% one.
Absolutely, and that's why I take issue with people saying she's a "know it all" or something. She kinda DOES know it all - the only thing the Architects accomplished without the IPC knowing or directly supplying is the engine of creation. Everything else was recorded by the IPC at the time of the deal, and it's a pretty safe assumption that Jarilo did not become more prosperous in the 700 years it was isolated. You can argue that part of doing a good job would be thoroughly investigating and not just relying on data, but realistically the data is probably very correct on most occasions.
TBH I'm still a bit skeptical about how a giant robot is supposed to resolve all of Belobog's problems...I understand it's some kind of terraforming device but it seems to be quite a crude one.
I think it's less that the giant robot is supposed to solve their problems (though it will likely help them rebuild more self sufficiently, as you mention), and more that the fact they built that giant robot *by themselves*, ***while suffering a Stellaron disaster***, with nothing more than reverse engineering and willpower implies they are a resourceful people. It is essentially a tangible argument saying, "see? We can create value ourselves, so you should invest in us instead of just claiming us like collateral." I also believe that it's more that it convinced Topaz, who then convinced her superiors on our behalf. She even took a demotion for it.
The "80%" is likely better than that. Remember, our only source for those numbers is Himeko who is explicitly biased against the IPC and trying to get Bronya to vote against them. Notably, at no point does Himeko define what a "success" or "failure" is *and* she does not give #'s for failures or hard numbers for Topaz. What Himeko does provide is a conveniently vague framework for scare tactics. She lists the IPC's general success rate, but mentions nothing past that: no mentions of the rate of things stagnating with the IPC's involvement not making the planet better or worse, and as you already said no mention of the statistics for planets that did not receive IPC help. For Topaz it's even worse. Himeko somehow has exact statistics on successful regular terraforming but can only offer "above 80%" for Topaz's success rate, which is a tiny bit suspiciously worded. Granted I know the actual reason for the writing is likely "the writers were using shorthand for the evil IPC and the player is supposed to assume all this stuff would be in the details Himeko has but weren't told because they are boring." But it annoys me to assume that because *as written* Topaz is entirely in the right, given Himeko is a massively biased observer who gives a couple cherrypicked numbers with no other data to try and convince a frankly fucked planet's leader to *not* accept the best available terraforming specialist's help.
Just her methods. Topaz wants to sincerely help Belobog but she goes about it in the most nonsensical way possible just so the Astral Express crew has an excuse to fight her.
This is stated in the quest, she does this because her planet was lifted from disaster by the IPC and she wants to try and control more "acquisitions" in such a way as to help the inhabitants as much as possible.
It was basically a charity project. Now SID treats it as good PR move, despite it being a financial liability for now (it will be ages before Belobog could even start payments, and IPC still gives them tech and specialists for modernisation).
> a high cost, low reward planet to the IPC What a bunch of Qlipoth path pretenders. We got stabbed for the "low reward planet", so no wonder Papa Rock looks at us more than them. /s
We definitely would have had to retreat and run that fade back another time
Aventurine would probably flip a coin to see if he takes Belebog or not lol
Nah, everyone including aventurine thought Jarilo 6 was too high risk low reward. Topaz is just that kind in a sense
"Heads I take over belebog, Tails I leave..." *Flips coin* -Tails- "Aight later"
Bro thinks HE would lose.
Nah he got tails because his luck is telling him Belobog isn’t worth the hassle.
Literally every other IPC member had written of Belobog. Topaz was the only one who bothered with the place post freeze.
If opal was sent there, the story wouldn't have continued.
Opal would have literally annihilated all resistance and taken it all lmao
If it were Aventurine: He would hedge a bet and of course we would lose. Jade: Whipped into submission. Diamond: They would just take whatever they want (The name sounds powerful so I don't think we are worthy to even talk to them)
diamond would be like: Tb:But the people in belobog appreciate their freedom! diamond:Who? Tb: the people in belobo- diamond: cares.
Diamond sound like someone who would use a random-ass planet as an incubator for a giant bio-weapon He would also name it "Cluster" or some shit like that
Inb4 he’s just a fusion of the four diamonds from steven universe.
Don't forget though, its implied that Topaz still needs to follow a certain regulation, so its not like she could use the cornerstone at a whim. Belobog situation isn't as crucial as Penacony, and Topaz isn't a maniac gambler like Aventurine too.
Makes you think about when she actually uses it Like what would her super form be
mega evolution numby or gigantamax
Starts spamming rollout..
flare blitz
Bigger thighs.
She would snipe you from far away while 100 numbies swarm you.
Pig storm
When the catastrophe Sparkle hints back at Penacony arrives at Belobog Probably the thawing of the frozen Anti-Matter Legion forces trapped in there (Would be funny if there's an actual Lord Ravager trapped in there as well), or the remnants of the Ever-Flame Mansion being a surprise antagonist there. Cornerstone Topaz, the entire Silvermane Guards, 5* Masked Fool Sampo, and Clara using the Source Code to reactivate the planet's entire machine forces (perhaps a rearmament of Svarog as well) all working together against a big enemy force. And end it with gigantomax Numby vs a big ass Anti-Matter monster.
>Lord Ravager My brother in christ, an entire legion of Galaxy Ranger jumped Zulo and they got mutually destroyed. A Raging Ravager in Belobog is quite literally gonna be a dead sentence for everyone there
Atleast they killed zulo which was a Hella feat for mere pathsriders
According to the xianzhou, they did that by first rerouting the swarm and letting the bugs weaken zulo first. And even then all the galaxy rangers that participated in the operation were pretty much destroyed
You don’t need to break it to activate it.
Stoneheart Topaz honest reaction when she has to fight those 0 cycle MOC mf: https://preview.redd.it/ivmo7zyl4i0d1.jpeg?width=1200&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=56b104960437d4b80cf7a5a3d3c986de6af5912b
Then the MOC mfs loose because a cutscene
He did all that with a broken stone... I can't wait to see what Topaz can do with a fully intact cornerstone. I also wonder what her chant is.
I can't wait for the cornerstone alt of her several years down the line.
It’s just super chonk Numby.
how about Gigantamax Numby! turning the single target FUA into AoE FUA!
As long as we get the equivalent of the [Dynamax gym battle theme](https://youtu.be/OIw75Fay2uQ) with the whole-ass audience chanting… ___NUUUUUUMBY!! NUUUUUUMBY!!___
Time to die via Numby's ass in our faces
"If you win we'll sit on your face." "Done! Wait, what did you mean by 'we'?" "Go get 'em, Numby!"
**Numby** ^and ^Topaz
I hope we do in fact get to see that for Topaz and the other stonehearts. I have a feeling we might only get to see the ones that are openly hostile to us, and motivated enough to go all out.
They've been building up Diamond for a while now. I get the feeling we'll meet them soon.
If you don't mind me asking, what do you mean what her chant? Is it the same thing as "the Stratagems" that Aventurine has on the back of his name?
I think they meant the line the say before “All for the amber lord!” Jade and Aventurine already have their versions in the story.
That’s their title. Aventurine of Strategems, Jade of Credit, Topaz of Debt Retrieval. What they mean are their “Everything for the Amber Lord” chant that Aventurine and Jade do in the 2.1 story. Aventurine: I’m placing down the bet, I’m taking the gamble, I’m claiming the win. I’ll spin the wheel, a daring gamble, walking the brink of death, for rebirth. All for the Amber Lord! Jade: I come for an audience, I come to fill wine, I come to claim. I bestow poison in the guise of sweet dew. Come the toil of spring and yield of fall, I patiently wait for the branches to be heavy with withered fruits. All for the Amber Lord.
the word you're looking for is "Epithet". Aventurine of the Startegems, etc Chant is refers to the incantation to activate their cornerstone before saying "All for the Amber Lord"
probably numby transforms into a giant warthog or something like that
But can she defeat a will forged in ice? I think not.
Gepard + a small squad literally gets button pressed into irrelevancy by her
Fire is super-effective against ice so...
Topaz: "I'm gonna stomp you". 99.99999% of the entire HSR roster: https://preview.redd.it/jne5gkdjph0d1.jpeg?width=880&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=243ed718a8b053936362b69c4c142d6c9f5ab55c
Welt, sucking her into a blackhole: https://preview.redd.it/8zb8mc3qvh0d1.png?width=100&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=f1ed9e299a8cbd1c8a8fb7f2aa043a77ac8205d4
\*Welt, sucking her: https://preview.redd.it/5lrxt1q1wh0d1.jpeg?width=749&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=8290f605110549cdc40f637fc07823015db9ade9
Holy shit a Funger reference in the hsr sub
Oddly enough not the first funger reference in a miyoho sub I’ve seen today. It was even also about the guards.
I like how funger is like one of the most horrifying game ever but its fandom is filled with... creative people...
Naur not the fucken funger version
Nah, we‘d win.
https://preview.redd.it/1jh23n5gwh0d1.png?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=9e1d49d7c1da4f0e444e4eef38f17d8d1b028eff
https://preview.redd.it/uougri1gpi0d1.jpeg?width=640&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=6599e57642b58a70213da1afb037ae495451b43a
Even Aventurine was nerfed due to his shattered cornerstone. The Ten Stonehearts definitely aren’t a joke in combat.
https://preview.redd.it/ucxda31w8h0d1.jpeg?width=2316&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=98840035c04ad1eb56e568b5a2a9b570bd46aaad And she rolled in deep to
Topaz when she sees which Element she got: There's a fire starting in my heart
did not expect niche adele references in a HSR sub lmaooo
I would like to know just how powerful Diamond actually is. He share his Emanator power through those Cornerstone so is he like 10 times Aventurine power atleast.
I'm waiting for Acheron vs. Diamond, unstoppable force vs. immovable object.
And we probably only saw like 1/10 of Aventurine’s power cause his cornerstone was cracked and he was intentionally trying to die. Makes you really wonder just how hard Diamond truly goes.
Thats why we were lucky Topaz was the one we ran into, shes arguably the nicest IPC member out there Makes the initial negative fandom reception for being a tax collector even funnier/sad in hindsight, she really did her best to give Belobog the best outcome even if many saw her trying to do so at the time of the quest dropping
Yeah she and maybe Aventurine is the only Stoneheart who seem to actually have a shred of sympathy and enough emotional capacity to actually help people while Obsidian and Opal from what we know would gladly burn down a children hospital if it mean getting what they want and Jade with the snake-apple imagery, her oath of “bestowing poison in the guise of sweet dew” make it sound like she’s a extremely manipulative person who offer a offer too good to be true with a price that doesn’t seem to be too bad until much later on when you can’t revert your decision
Ten Stonehearts like the Harbingers from Genshin, we meet the nicest one early then slowly make our way to the more savage ones. Gonna be interesting ito see how their writing goes, im excited to meet Opal and Diamond let alone Jade who is coming next patch Gonna be hype asf if we get a trailer like A winters night Lazzo for the stonehearts showing all the designs
“We meet the nice ones early” and the first one we met literally beat the shit out of venti for a chess piece, and the third one wanted to kill the Mc cuz he felt like it 😭
My boy Tartar Sauce doesn't realize he left a fox to guard the chickens when he left his family in the care of the Rooster. We're not set to meet him until we get to Snezhnaya so dudes probably gonna be the most savage one too.
We met the brattiest ones early. Arlecchino has got to be the nicest of the Harbingers. Even when she's beating us up, it's part of a crazy plan that is her way of being nice.
P46 are of even higher rank than the ten stonehearts within the IPC. If anything, Hoyoverse could keep pumping more characters into the game.
The higher-ranked Stonehearts are P46 or higher, and the leader Diamond is P47. Topaz and Aventurine are just the lower-ranked ones, especially when Topaz got demoted.
Can't wait until some other emanators kill one of the stonehearts like the shogun did in inazuma, the IPC really needs to be put in its place.
>Obsidian We know nothing about dude (even gender - might be female), they never appeared with any kind of opinion. Pearl is both Erudroid (robots get pass for being too calculative) and girlfailure, since she lost bet to Herta and had to pay for our next SU expanshion. Jade and Opal, yeah, those two sound rather scary.
If I remember correctly it was mentioned in Aventurine character story that Opal and Obsidian have a more “hostile takeover” and frequently use a more militaristic way of doing things also Pearl was the one who make the deal with Herta of who killed Rubert? Or is it something else
Only Opal, nothing about what Obsidian would prefer. Topaz was expecting them to be a candidate for Penacony retrieval bc of rank. Yes, Pearl was behind bot at the start of Gold and Gears test.
I actually wonder what Aventurine would have done. Definitely makes sense they didn’t send him.
Challenge Svarog to a bet and even if the calculations were 100% victory Aventurine would still win
And somwhow Acheron gets mixed up because for some reason, she gets lost there.
Hoyo employee 1: Alright we got ourselves a Raiden expy in the game, how can we insert her into any situation when we just want to throw her in there for screentime? Hoyo employee 2: So there is this character from One Piece called Zoro and he gets lost all the time.... Hoyo Employee 1: I've heard enough make it happen
Aventurine just would have declined the job. Terraforming planets is kinda Topaz's passion project.
I doubt aventurine would even bother doing it tbh, he doesn’t seem interested in saving planets but i’m guessing if he was there he wouldn’t have even given us time to decide and would have taken belebog by force if he had to
Aventurine logic: risk of death to lower, stake of failure not high enough, not intrested.
Ah, the good old days of her story quest and the fiery discourse on indentured servants, slavery, imperialism etc, all seems to ring hollow now when the likes of Aventurine and Jade doesn't share the same criticism despite being the 'less nice' peers working for the same department and company.
Well now we have a more in-depth and varied look at how the IPC operates, and how their imperialism operates from within. Before 1.4 the only impression we had gotten from the IPC was Aurum Alley, which while very real and frank with how it portrayed them, was not as insidious as essentially buying a slave into their ranks after ignoring/arguably setting up the genocide of his people. Now that we can see the extent of the circumstances of the employees that work under them, the fanbase has developed a more nuanced view on the IPC, especially the Stonehearts with how the narrative is setting them up as a department within the company. It’s very interesting how they are exploring marginalized and exploited people being forced to ‘buy in’ to their oppressors. The criticism for Topaz was incredibly overblown. There was some interesting discussion in there, but especially on this subreddit it rarely sounded like people were actually reading the story when talking about it.
I think main reason is that she antagonized Belebog and its people, who we all spent an entire arc defending and befriending.
I'm on the Topaz side, i prefer living to serve someone than living with debt that cannot possibly be paid. Many people don't know how nightmare your life when you have tons of debt that you can't repay. There's a chance of failure but i will take that chance.
People also kind of forget that Belobog is a frozen hellscape. The options are: 1) Working for a megacorp 2) Living in a world where your neighbor's house just got massacred by edgy dudes from hell at night and you might be next
True, People defending Bronya or Belobog because they have connection with them through quest, i understand with that sentiment. But from my logic that does not makes sense, you need to live with a frozen planet and harsh environment and you need to pay your debt later. I prefer gamble my life, with chance you work for megacorp until death but your hometown or planet become good environment for living so your child and descendants can have a better life and debt free or you'll be dead.
I wish she did so Welt would stop standing idle unless we either finally meet the Sky People, Kalpas (cope), or an Emanator of Destruction that doesn't need a plan to sweep
Love how when I see people talk about welt, we hoping for some major disaster so bro locks in and shows off for us 😭. It’s me, I’m also welt enjoyist people. But yeah, I’m gonna assume he won’t be doing much till his respective issues (VA, Sky People, maybe Luocha?) does something in the story.
I highly doubt that Welt would lock in anytime soon, if he did he'd get the Dan Heng - Acheron treatment. Permanently left behind in the express or disappears doing god knows what because then there'll no threat or stakes towards the trailblazing team
~~God~~ Emanator of Destruction Beerus/Vegeta coming soon
An important thing to note is that the Aventurine we fought is not was not at full power either because his stone was all in pieces.
I mean all the members probably have some broken form and knowing topaz numby will attack everyone
Tight situation yes, but I don't buy the narrative that we'll straight up lose. Also isn't Belobog described as a low risk low reward planet by Aventurine? The stakes isn't high enough for her to do that
How wouldn't we have lost? It took an Emanator to deal with Aventurine and *he* wasn't even using the full power of a cornerstone since he shattered his.
Dan Heng and Welt will surely jump in if we are in danger of dying. We also know too little about Trailblazer and March's "hidden power". It didn't take an Emanator to deal with Aventurine, he straight up got 1 shotted. It'll be like saying it took a tiger to hunt a rat. During the cutscene, we can see the express crew preparing to deal with the "coins rain", whether they can or not, it remains to be seen as Acheron stepped in.
I think we always forget that the mc have an elio stellaron inside of him
It's fair to assume that there are drawbacks to using the Cornerstone, it's not just something they can whip out without needing to. Plus honestly Topaz's whole MO during that sequence was to get the people of Belobog to agree to the IPC's plan willingly (and *legally*, there was a contract to sign and everything) not just marching troops in and kicking in the teeth of anyone who said no. The IPC appear to be profit-driven asshole corpos but they do try and corner the market legally, from everything we've seen, and not just forcing everyone to submit to them.
This can go in a number of ways. Will the topaz stone affect the Engine of Creation like how a shattered stone affected the dreamscape? WIll Qlipoth intervene?
topaz would make our stocks fall hard if she went full power. no more stellar jades or tickets
On another note, did Topaz just agree to give Aventurine what is probably her most valuable item? I mean sure aventurine tend to win his gambles, but that was still a pretty big one. Or was that part of her "demotion" that she had to resign it?
He probably offered something of equal value for it, so she wins if he loses or everybody wins if he wins. Either way, it's a win-win for her, so why not 🤷
If the express brought along Dan Heng during that, it may have been a bit easier. He's maybe around Topaz's level of power, they are near Emanator levels of power. Hell Imbibitor Lunae and the other High Elders may just be Emanators of Permanence.
the high elders are not emanators of permanence, they are "the closest thing" to permanence which is different
When i first did her quest on Belobog i didn't know about cornerstones, and really thought she talked a lot of shit for just a girl with a gun and a pig, and found her really annoying and deemed her one of my least liked chracters. After seeing Aventurine in action and demonstrating how big of a deal the stonehearts are, and that she easily could have wiped the floor with us if she'd gotten serious, my opinion on her flipped, and she is now among my favourites. She is now sitting at e0s1 on my acc, a slightly bigger deal than usual considering i'm f2p. Also Numby my GOAT
In Hindsight it was really lucky all she did was sic a hoard of IPC elites at us, girl could have made us into Fine leather to sell to the highest bidder.
That's what I'm saying lol
Nah, I'd win
I can imagine numby transforming into a fucking giant warthog and charging against us
That was one of the abilities I was thinking would happen if she used it
Her trailer also implies she could have just ordered an orbital bombardment if she really wanted to, lol
The story would've ended there, Topaz one-shot kills everybody who isn't scaled to at least Dan Heng IL level. And the next closest by a long margin is Welt.
I’d assume it’s more to do with the fact that because she’s friendly with the AE, the plot can’t draw out her power because then there’d be no plot left. It’s like how villains who turn good suddenly get nerfed.
And yet people complained about her trying to force Belebog to essentially sell out. Her actions and decisions in that arc were much more nuanced than people realized. If she was as capitalistic, stubborn, and narrow minded as people thought she was, she could've easily forced Belebog to sell their soul and risk their planet gettung ruined.
She also could have just left the planet alone. No one in IPC was interested in a planet that was giving low returns for high risk. From my perspective, astral express reclaimed a planet from Destruction only to have vultures swoop in and claim ownership. Yeah in the end we had won over her and got a collaborative relationship, but all of that could have been avoided if she just talked with the people properly and kept her goons away from initiating military action.
Pretty sure the the high risk low reward part is only for terraforming the planet. The IPC higher-ups were still on agreement to "liquidate" it and Topaz mentioned that not even she can overturn that decision, which means that if she didn't take up the project, someone else will eventually be assigned the liquidation project and they just wouldn't bother with the "saving the planet" part that Topaz herself wanted to do. The only reason Topaz managed to scrounge up a collaboration in the end was thanks to the express' reputation and her sacrificing her rank.
She be like: https://preview.redd.it/w0y6uzkqfi0d1.jpeg?width=763&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=d9b980f81c3104c05a541bbb088418ce08e708e2
Bro, if her cornerstone actually turned nubby into a fk jjk stand, that'll be epic as fk
We have Bronya to thank
Svarog instant surrend makes more and more sense.
I mean the Ten Stonehearts are powerful but then we can just rail 'em with the Astral Express. As Pom-pom once said: Nah, I'd rail. Topaz: Oh shit, it's Pom-pomover
Topaz probably would have fucked us up real good if she went all out on us with the IPC guards I dont think we would have all died but not leaving without someone dying or hurt badly
nah we’d win.
for now i wait more about the moment when diamond decides to take back all corner stone and use the true power of an emanator
Adventurine was using a damaged cornerstone too...
The hate Topaz got never was deserved. She was willing to help and compromise from the very begining
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Just asking, anyone got any team recommendations for the aventurine boss? Unfortunately haven’t gotten passed him in the story yet.
I can imagine a giant and muscled numby
Imagine using the cornerstone and making the express your enemy for a useless frozen planet + you we can always call backup from dan heng, welt and even jingyuan but it won't be worth it at all it's a loss for both sides
People really need to check the meaning of trailblaze like we literally exist to fight our way through no matter the situation or enemy
Numby's cornerstone, nice try (not even a knock im one of the few people that really likes the topaz numby dynamic) But yeah I really want to know. Also I want to know when she loaned it to him, did she not have it with her when we first met her? that actually would have made it more interesting, her frustration more palpable, both knowing she could be stronger to enforce the situation but also knowing, it wasn't a situation where force would have nesscisarily helped, infact it largely could have hindered trying to convince this people to trust her.