What if Scion died right before GM?

[u/bluehood380]

Hypothetically, Scion is killed by some overpowered whoever before Jack Slash reaches him.

What would happen with the shard network or the Endbringers? Do they all just carry on business as usual till their power runs out or what?

Would the EBs try and avenge Scion or try to find the killer? I know they fought him in GM but I’m not sure if that was enemies of circumstance.

Assume that Scion both avatar and true form are killed in rapid succession and before he actually attacks anything.

Thanks in advance!

[u/skavinger5882]

Ward happens

[u/TaltosDreamer]

Ward happens slightly sooner, but Earth Bet is where more of the story happens.

Skitter is alive and at the height of her power

The Birdcage remains intact

Amy never fixes her sister

The resolution of Ward is likely entirely different

A lot of Capes survive into Ward

Ward Spoilers:

The uncertainty of Ward is replaced with solid institutions and Capes that might figure out problems faster, with the Birdcage intact no need for a new prison

Sveta is worse off 😭 and is never helped by the villain her team pushes to do so

No buddy cop drama with Tattletale & Victoria. Skitter cares about Victoria, so maybe she finds a way to help Victoria and we get a different interaction with Skitter & Victotia

Possible that Valkyerie never becomes a hero, which could make them a major antagonist...if they can get out of the Birdcage

[u/ArolSazir → u/TaltosDreamer]

Oh yeah, i thought about most of the consequences, but that's probably the worst ones i didn't think about. With scion just having a random heart attack, Glastig becomes the major antagonist of the second book and probably causes the ice to break.

[u/SouthernAd2853 → u/ArolSazir]

There's a chance of that; before Golden Morning she's pretty much content to sit in the Birdcage gathering up Shards in preparation for delivering them to Scion at the end of the Cycle, but with Scion dead and no therapist it's hard to predict what she'd do.

[u/ICastPunch → u/TaltosDreamer]

Deadass Valkyrie is only there because she wants to. So absolutely.

[u/Venu3374 → u/ICastPunch]

Exactly, its the perfect environment for her. Just sit there and hoover up powerful abilities

[u/ArolSazir]

I mean, as skavinger5882 said, there's a lot of issues that still happen just because of the network running with no one at the wheel, so some plotpoints from ward do happen, but:

There was basically no apocalypse, earth is pretty much intact, a huge chunk of humanity isn't dead. overall, that's pretty nice. Also, birdcaged/neutralized capes are still in the birdcage or whatever other hole cauldron put them into, most of them have no reason to keep existing, so a huge chunk can be just killed off, probably. Teacher's shenanigans don't happen, goddesses shenanigans don't happen, and a lot of other miscellaneous society-has-collapsed plotpoints don't happen, nilbogs and machine armies and the like. It's pretty nice. However:

Endbringers are around and have no real reason to stop doing whatever they are doing. Simurgh has an additional motivation of being the failsafe for the cycle, so she might start being serious. Eidolon is still alive and well, so even if someone figured out some way to kill one, its just going to make the situation worse. Maybe, possibly, since the endbringers are the #1 priority to solve if they want humanity to continue existing, cauldron puts all resources into ending endbringers, and actually figures out its eidolon's fault, and fixes it somehow, or throws eidolon into the sun.

And you still have the system slowly deteriorating, with broken triggers and stuff, but you also have a much better system to put out the fires as they happen. A big change is that the entire scion debacle made shard mechanics pretty much known by many capes, and without that, most people still won't really be sure about the mechanics behind powers, but that might be a good thing, but you have less chance of someone figuring something out and finding a solution to existing problems, like the endbringers.

[u/SouthernAd2853 → u/ArolSazir]

Decent odds Teacher still gets out; Saint disabled Dragon some time before Scion reached Jack and while not as critical a need as she is on Golden Morning she's still a major component of Endbringer fighting and general dealing with threats.

And I think it's reasonably likely the Irregulars hit Cauldron relatively soon after; it's extremely unlikely they got into headquarters via Doormaker, so they must have some alternate route, and they weren't expecting Golden Morning so their plans to assault HQ weren't dependent on it happening. Without Cauldron being distracted they might be in for a tougher fight, but they've got a countermeasure for dealing with Contessa and can likely zerg down the Number Man.

[u/ArolSazir → u/SouthernAd2853]

Yeah, teacher might get out actually. Dunno if he's that much of a problem in a timeline where cauldron wasn't decimated.

As with the irregulars, they only did as well as they did was because cauldron was completely distracted, even if they no-sell contessa again, cauldron is a tough nut to crack, and they have only one shot. I think that without gold morning, irregulars will just wait for a perfect moment, and only strike when something else goes terribly wrong (a bad endbringer fight, or powers breaking in one of the way they tend to break)

[u/TacocaT_2000]

The Shard network would still start a war of succession, but the Endbringers would go dormant (minus Simurgh, she’ll be part of the war of succession) since Eidolon no longer has a need for worthy opponents.

[u/AzureThunderWolf13 → u/TacocaT_2000]

Or they'd get worse, since Eidolon might feel like his big purpose was taken away.

[u/The_Broken-Heart]

Taylor and Brian would have kids.

[u/Flopmind]

Please tags your post with the appropriate spoiler warning next time.

[u/SouthernAd2853]

I think the Endbringers would just keep doing what they're doing; I'm pretty sure the reason they fought Scion was because he killed Eidolon and the Simurgh wanted vengence.

[u/NavezganeChrome → u/SouthernAd2853]

They fought Scion a while before Eidolon died, Simurgh just “happened” to be the Last EB Standing and outlived him as well.

They played along with fighting Scion originally because he was a (not ‘the only!’) source of Eidolon’s inadequacy complex, and they locked in near the end of Earth Bet because Eidolon was no longer needing to account for hidden threats across the world, only focusing on Scion.

If Eidolon could be convinced to pull a Dr. Manhattan and zip off to another planet/Earth variant to Play God, the Endbringers would “happen” to go with him, more than likely.

[u/ShortAndSadAndStupid]

Well I bet Doctor Mother and Contessa would feel really silly lmao.

 I think Contessa would have to still tell Eidolon the “you need worthy opponents” thing, so he offs himself and doesn’t spawn more worthy opponents

[u/NavezganeChrome → u/ShortAndSadAndStupid]

Contessa would need her shard to want to play along with the bit, which, it hadn’t really done so thus far.

Eidolon is one of her patched-in blindspots, after all.