Fifth of Daybreak

At that point, Megan would have to use her powers to turn all the mines into potatoes, and that would just ruin the metaphor (one of the few times it WAS a metaphor.)

More useful than asking a T-Rex to help zip up your dress.

They head to Babilar from Fort Lee, and we're not quite sure whether the fight with Obliteration leads them north or south. It's possible they followed him north, which would make their very first data point when Regalia confronts them in the very Northwest on the way back to New Jersey. That leaves the SE as the furthest area away from the first data point. Here's a mockup of what that would look like:

This is what I assumed at first, then I looked back and he used superhuman strength against David's father, which is what really killed him. A possible explanation to that is that after hurting him, his father grew afraid, but I'm not sure how far I'd trust that to be a rule.

I still think everything is accounted for. They mention it covers a good deal of Babilar and some in New Jersey, and it would be difficult to accomplish. It is possible to get it figured out using the range selected. Anything else is explained by data points Exel was able to dig up from the population.

I'm not sure what you're alleging. I think some of the confusion is on my part. My very first diagram shows a data point on marble hill, with the ten mile diameter going south. I then added the circle to show an approximation of the curvature of the circle that represents any place on the map ten miles away, and beyond her range if she was sighted in Marble Hill. I should have deleted the lines in the northern portion of the map, as they aren't relevant. If that was one of the data points they had to work with, a sighting at Marble Hill, then that would only leave the area inside the circle in my first diagram, cutting off the SW portion of the city.

Your northern point is about 3 miles south of where Manhattan extends to though. If the point where more northern to begin with, it would work better, and not be as broad. There are too many variables we don't know that could justify the statement. I still think it can work as printed. Edit: In fact, if the went due east from Fort Lee, the very first sighting of Regalia is north of your norther point.

My best guess to the series is that Calamity is an allusion to the apple in the Garden of Eden, or Pandora's box. A manifestation of temptation incarnate.

And in that scenario, you are correct. What I'm saying is that we can both come up with as many scenarios that would support each theory, because it's not wrong, it all depends on the data you gather. If they were able to get a data point in the most northern portion of the island first, then the southwest wouldn't be a part, and southeast would gather you the most data. We can't say that their assumption is wrong because we don't know the data set they are working with, and it could be more similar to one I've proposed than yours. The only reason SE would be a wrong way to go is if there were no possible ways to have that area as the last place to explore. I can draw up a diagram that uses more points and would demonstrate that, because it is possible, and therefore, they cannot be wrong without us seeing their data.

Any sighting outside the red circle would completely contradict their supposed knowledge of Regalia's range, and cause them to scrap the whole plan. The SE is the farthest portion of the island away from the sighting in the north I made without leaving the range she would have based on that sighting. Northeast would be useful, but once you used that, due to the SW NE tilt of the island, when dividing the island with a circle, you'll always have the SE the southernmost portion left. Edit: Here's what some data points would look like closer to the center of the city where David was when confronted in Central Park using the 5km range.

So I put in a data point at about the northernmost point, then went ten miles away, and filled in what the approximate circle would look like with her possible range. The southwestern portion of the island is cut off, so the most distant point attainable still in the approximate range would be in the southeastern most tip of the island as it stands. The circle tool wasn't as precise, so it's not all to scale, but the line showing the diameter is pretty close to scale. Peter, I'll do another mock up showing you the new ranges for it in kms, and add a few more data points, so you can take a look. That should be about perfect for a fix.

That can be said about any data point with her range so wide. If all their data is at the top, it cuts off the southwest as a base location, and then Southeast is a viable option. I can draw up a diagram that demonstrates a possible scenario where SE is the best place to go if you like.

They come in from New Jersey. Also, isn't the Reckoners' base in Long Island? That puts it within her possible range as is unless I'm mistaken.The Reckoners are working with flawed information as it is, so I think the easiest fix would be to have Prof say she has to be in Manhattan to maintain her submersion with that precise control, and then clip her to four or three and a half miles. It won't matter that Prof's wrong, since he's wrong anyways.

Hmmm looking back through evidence seems to support that. So he does have some sort of metabolic resistance, for him to survive without oxygen. That almost seems to me like he does have two self preserving powers, like Prof.

The only epic we've seen so far with a Prime Invincibility that would protect from disease or metabolic disturbances is Prof and his healing. Steelheart's PI seems especially geared to handle only traumatic injury.

Regalia's cancer shows that Epics aren't immortal. They age, get diseases, so Steelheart should be able to be killed through starvation, asphyxia, or some other non-traumatic means.

The damage from a primary blast injury is mostly done to hollow organs (lungs, bowels, etc.) That sort of overpressure trauma works better on air than in water, which is why those organs that contain air are more easily affected. It wouldn't be the same type of force caused by explosions that would be the cause of death in this instance, but rather, a change in constant pressure across the whole body. An explosion usually causes some sort of rupture of tissue due to the massive changes in pressure in short burst, whereas the forcefield wouldn't necessarily have to cause any tissue rupture in order to work. In fact, he might even be able to use his force fields to induce a state similar to the Bends, if he compresses the amount of air left in a forcefield, and changes the air pressure. That alone might be a way to kill Steelheart, if the compression trick didn't work. Prof starts by making an overly large forcefield over Steelheart, then compresses it as much as possible. That changes the air pressure inside the field, increasing it, which allows the inert gasses to compress and form bubbles in his blood stream, if he's held in in long enough. Then, when the field is released, those bubbles decompress and form air emboli in his body, which gets around the whole impenetrable skin problem when the bubble gets lodged in a small artery and blocks it. As for expanding his field, that would definitely rely on breaking the skin, so that's a no-go.

I still don't think the direction is a problem if the range is narrowed down. The biggest problem I see is that she could just as easily be in New(old?) Jersey as in Babilar with her current range. If that's clipped a bit, then the direction shouldn't be an issue for the reasons I've already given.

She could have a fear of obesity or diabetes or something along those lines, and cola is a manifestation of that fear.

This is again, assuming that all areas on the map are useful points. How high is the water level? I was under the impression the entire time that it was high enough to cover if not a majority, but a good number of buildings that aren't high enough to reach the top. Here's a nice chart I found showing the building heights. A good majority of the tallest buildings are in the southern portion, so I assume they would have wanted to push northward first, to rule out the taller sections. We also need to remember that they were working under flawed parameters. We don't know what information Tia was working with, or where the points were. It's a possible scenario that they were able to get a point fixed on the northernmost portion of the island, and that would rule out a good portion of the southern, but, they couldn't venture northward in order to narrow it down further. That would mean they needed it in the southern portion. The tip of the island is about where they wouldn't want to try, as it was ruled out by an earlier point. Now it's just depending on which buildings they were looking at as potential hideouts. If they were more on the western side, it would make more sense to go on the southeast. We can't assume that their information is flawed, since we don't know the information. It wouldn't be too hard to create a scenario where that is the only area that could yield more data. EDIT: This also leads me to the assumption that David's venture in Central Park did absolutely nothing to help, and Tia was exaggerating the merits of his help in order to gratify him.

I'm not sure if you've redeemed poetry in my mind, or further condemned it. I'll let you know when my brain unexplodes after reading that.

You know, impenetrable skin might not protect him from Prof's compression fields. It's not piercing the skin, so it could be a way around that particular defensive power.

We've all ignored a glaringly obvious possibility: the Reckoners were wrong about Fortuity's weakness. Megan handcuffing him wouldn't necessarily trigger his precognition danger sense, since it wasn't intended to harm him, and they were only able to kill him with a 'checkmate,' which didn't involve his weakness

It would be a stalemate. Neither of them know the other's weakness, so it would just keep going on. Even when Steelheart thought he killed Prof, it was only temporary. Neither of them could finish the other, so I don't see a reason Steelheart could after learning Prof is even more powerful than we thought.

Fixed!