Powerscaling - Homestuck/MSPA

@JakeMorph It's mostly about things like Occam's Razor or accounting for stuff like No Limits Fallacies. As someone who by their own admission doesn't really understand powerscaling I'll probably just take the time to explain both of those things.

Occam's Razor, in powerscaling communities, is mostly the idea of "if a power is used on screen, the simpliest explanation for that power is usually the correct one. More out there assumptions are typically used for highballing (or taking the highest interpretation of that character possible) or lowballing (the least generous assertion possible) a character". You probably already know what it is normally tho, so I won't bother to explain it.

No Limits Fallacy or "NLF" is basically the idea of there being no stated limit to something NOT meaning that there literally is no limit, for example, let's say a character has the ability to absorb energy. Just because on screen they are NEVER shown to be overclocked or something like that does NOT mean there is no limit to that power/they can absorb infinite energy. Typically, when powerscaling the "limit" we ascertain for a character is based on JUST the extent of feats they show in a moment. Speculation on them scaling higher would not be based on feats and would require stuff like chainscaling (aka powerscaling based on how strong they are in comparison to another character) or scaling off of solid lore or statements from the author (like if an author or guidebook or something says an attack can vaporize an entire town, we assume the attack can possibly do so, even if on screen the feat is less impressive.)

What you're doing kinda breaks both of those conventions. Both the claim of DD or Jack possibly being able to use the Red Miles to destroy bigger and stronger things before the 4th prototyping or possibly how Jack needs the Green Miles to reach that level of power. It's basically trying to powerscale off of hypothetical ideas rather than anything concrete. Which is fine, outside of the actual context of powerscaling. But that's not really... the point of what this is meant to be! Powerscaling is meant to be an analysis and taking in what the story shows us and the author presents for the characters and how strong they are shown to be. It takes into account both the authors intent but also paradoxically uses DOTA to go beyond it. It empirically takes into account the physical strength of the characters but also their mentality, skill, mindset whatever (though those last bits really only matter in vs matchups. Scaling by itself is really just quantifying how strong the character is shown to be.)

For the example of DD and Jack on the Battlefield and on Prospit... I understand your assertion of their motivations, but at the same time that line of logic ("DD only wanted to destroy part of Derse to quell Dirk's rebellion/Jack only wanted to destroy part of the Battlefield/Prospit") doesn't. really mean anything in the context of quantifying how strong the characters are. That really wouldn't DOWNSCALE Bec Noir, a character we see blatantly destroying a GALAXY/UNIVERSE/MULTIVERSE ON SCREEN (seriously that is like the most blatant "this is how strong this guy is" you can get), and would rather "upscale" DD and Jackspers as "possibly higher" in powerscaling terms. But the logic used to downscale Bec is shaky, it's really just "but they COULD be stronger and COULD have the same power as Bec Noir in that moment!" which really isn't a concrete argument for powerscaling when the simpler answer is... the ring, like the Underlings that are also powered up by prototypings, got stronger, and thus the attack that originates from the ring, also got stronger.

To your second point of reducing Homestuck to a "universe", no, that is not what is being done. This is simply really a misunderstanding in terms. A Genesis Frog is not the same as a "universe", it was explicitly explained in a way that actively acknowledges it as a multiversal structure due to it containing pretty much every iteration of itself. And Homestuck scaling in general takes the steps to acknowledge the heirarchal structure of stuff like the Horrorterrors or the Furthest Ring and what the descriptions of the text actually MEAN in terms of scaling and it being a story. The Genesis Frog as it exists as a living breathing organism is something that contains An Entire Universe, and every iteration of it. Being able to destroy it in it's entirety, even over TIME is a multiversal feat. And yes, Jack destroyed it in it's entirety. This is distinct from Spades feat of shooting and killing Snowman, since her link to the universe via her life is different from what a Genesis Frog is. A Genesis Frog IS the universe. Just straight up. Every iteration of it. However, the thing with Snowman is she's more like... Kami and Piccolo. When one dies, so does the other. Although, if you want to argue she IS literally the universe as well. then. Spades just also "scales" to that, although not really since it was the single bullet from the gun he threw away. But also he already does scale to Multiversal in the end anyway because of Collide but that's an entire other can of worms :P

Anyways I recommend visiting http://vsbattles.fandom.com/wiki/Homestuck for more information on. HOW scaling Homestuck works, some of the common arguments, etc. Pages like https://vsbattles.fandom.com/wiki/Jack_Noir_(Beta) https://vsbattles.fandom.com/wiki/Spades_Slick or https://vsbattles.fandom.com/wiki/Bilious_Slick get into some of the specific gripes you have.

Oh, and stuff like "hax" vs "AP" or stuff like that are things you would want to get into to actively understand powerscaling better. For instance, Snowman's life link to the Trolls Universe would be a hax ability, and thus Spades Slick shooting and killing her wouldn't technically be a Multiversal feat, while Bec Noir, on screen and very actively destroying a Genesis Frog, something that is multiple times shown and described as a multiversal structure WOULD scale him to this level.

Any more questions are appreciated I Love Powerscaling

Oh! And there's also a specific Homestuck Powerscaling server that I can drop a link to for more general and specific information on how powerscaling Functions in context of the story as well as how Homestuck scaling in general functions, it'd be no hassle to get a perma-link to drop here for anyone who is genuinely interested.

Most powerscaling circles are Really Really bad, transphobic homophobic meathead nightmares full of actively Extremely Rude People so I can get anyone's aversion to most powerscaling circles, but I can attest to this extremely small server being not a cesspit and instead being fairly great in terms of talking about powerscaling with people who don't want to revive hitler (something I actually encountered in a powerscaling server bro save meeee 😭)

Apologies if I seem to get a bit Passionate or Heated about this, I am quite tired of my niche being kinda shit on by people who don't really get what it's all about, or people who have a preconcieved notion on what it is and don't really take the time to do research about what powerscaling is or how to do it or why their arguments they make aren't really as compelling as they think in the context of powerscaling. It happens WAY too often.

Where do we put adult cherubs? English was stunted so we don't see any proper adults in the comics, but we know they can travel between stars and destroy/drain planets (not Sburb planets either). Personally I put them at vaguely First Guardian level but that's purely vibes based.

@elegantSprinstress
correct me if im wrong but i think jade does not have first guardian powers on earthc anymore (due to the green sun being absorbed)

like she is still absurdly powerful, and i agree making the planet bigger would be a hilarious way to ""solve"" the """"problem"""" of troll reproduction
tho id have to consider if making the planet bigger without making the people bigger might fuck with gravity

on the powerscaling topic:
i think a lot of the powers are very much in a rockpaperscizzors situation where certain combinations trump other combinations
tho i also agree that certain combinations have a higher power base level than others, or might be trumped by fewer others than others

i dont know if im committing a fallacy by @burningmonkey here but if i assume classpects to reach all reach godtier they have the potential to each beat at least one or two others, and if each one achieves ultimate selfness (+godtier?) it would be similar

i mean call me arrogant tho when im of the opinion that if i (witch of light) were to go ult!me (and i believe that i could) then i would be Very well equipped to deal with a narrative wielding ult!god (i could bully ult!dirk so bad)

tho i suppose there is an argument to make that ult!dirk has become the red cherubic standin to allies green cherubing and that that would be a lot of his powerboost

if it truly is solely about what is shown "on screen" then i feel its very dificult to do powerscaling simply bc uhhhhh many if not most people die before they can show off
and thus simply didnt have time to power up

idk i mostly thing about (possible?) abilities and maybe that does not fall under the usual understanding of powerscaling but im still having fun and i hope everyone else (and especially @burningmonkey as the thread op) is as well!

When Jade and John were on the ship together, they mentioned going to their own planets for food and other stuff even though the planets were still pocket sized. This to me means Jade was also able to shrink them down to match the size of the planet. So Idk, I feel like she could just-

The whole planet and it'd turn out the same and nobody would even notice. Though this would of course be funny for when people who weren't resized came to Earth C...and they were a fucking ant compared to everyone else T_T like Vriska would've been legitimately fairy sized.

but again her powers seem to ignore the laws of physics so I have to imagine it wouldn't matter if she really did just "make everything bigger". Witch powers seem to ignore science in favor of just making shit work out anyways.

lil AL (alt calliope) is the strongest character in fiction (apart from 1 character but we're not going to get into it) in candy she solos every verse hands down, skill issue

@Mocha: That's such a motivated application of Occam's Razor though! The point of the Razor is to "shave off" those explanations which contain assumptions that are additional to the known facts. If powerscaling is actually inclusive of characters' individual motivations as you say, then we should at least be in agreement about the following facts:

A) the Red Miles is an attack that comes from a weapon, and B) Droog and Jack both wield this same weapon;

C) Droog wanted to attack Dirk on the surface of Derse, and D) Droog's Miles damaged some of the surface of Derse;

E) Jack Noir 3 wanted to attack the armies on the Battlefield, and F) Jack 3 damaged the surface of the Battlefield and some of the neighbouring Prospit;

G) Jack 4 wanted to destroy the trolls' planets, and did so individually, and H) Jack 4 wanted to destroy the universe in front of him, and did so.

Surely it's pretty unfair to call what I'm doing a "No Limits Fallacy" when all I'm doing is accepting the limits presented to me by the above sequence of events? Meanwhile your version of this scale fundamentally relies on an assumption about said limits - that the Red Miles scale in power with additional prototyping - which is not included among these facts. I get, of course, that prototyping causes some things to scale, like underlings; but that's explicitly because they gain new abilities from the creatures they're prototyped with. I even have a page citation to back me up on this one:

"The players would learn quickly that while one pre-entry prototyping per player was absolutely necessary for ultimate success, additional pre-entry prototypings merely empowered their enemies unnecessarily." (p. 2088)

Put another way, prototyped beings gain power on a per-prototyping rather than per-orb basis. Ergo, Jack Noir's maximum power level isn't even four prototypings, but rather eight; when he gains Jaspers and the eldritch princess' powers he's gaining his third and fourth powers, and by the time he becomes "Bec Noir" he's gaining his fifth. It requires additional assumptions to suggest this also applies to the Red Miles, because it's clear to see that it doesn't take on additional traits from each prototyping (again, except when Jack chooses to do so, such as with the "Green Miles").

Could it possibly be argued my interpretation is based on an assumption of my own? Sure! But then at the bare minimum we're still both working off assumptions, and Occam's Razor makes neither one of us more or less right than the other.

In a similar spirit, I don't get how you can say powerscaling "[isn't] divorcing a character from who they are and just imagining their abilities" on one page, but then go on to say their motivations "[don't] really mean anything in the context of quantifying how strong the characters are" on the next and earnestly mean both of these things. Either powerscaling takes into account the individual circumstances of how the powers are being used, or it doesn't! And if it doesn't, I have to emphasise, that's totally fine: we just need to be honest about what is and isn't included in this thought experiment.

Of course I get what you're saying about the Genesis Frog being an entire universe and therefore inherently a ""multiversal structure"". I just maintain that any interpretation of Homestuck which ignores that the Genesis Frog can be a whole universe* and a big, harmless, vulnerable animal at the same time is an interpretation that does in fact willfully ignore the comic's key thematic concerns. And if that's the case, I'll maintain that I, personally, find it to be a particularly shallow way of engaging with the text.

And if any interpretation is "disingenious and misinterprets the text", I think the idea that Snowman's lifespan is merely linked to that of the universe and nothing more fits the description. Constantly we see her filled with stars; she warps space by expanding and contracting her body; and observe the panels at the top of pages 3839-3847 - she even contains an infinity of alternate timelines, as you point out that a Genesis Frog does! The imagery when Slick's bullet hits her couldn't be more overt in what it's implying: she is what you call "a living breathing organism [...] that contains An Entire Universe" in all the same ways a giant Frog can be. It's still evident, of course, that one requires just the right weapon - or means - to carry out a hit on such an organism. But to investigate a killing, one should try to understand two other things: motive and opportunity. And it seems counter to the information presented to us to insist that Droog, the Black Queen, or any other bearer of her ring must necessarily lack the former just because they lack the latter two!

I have to stress I'm by no means arguing that the above points are valid or "compelling" - as you say - in the context of powerscaling. You're clearly the expert here, and as a mere observer I respect that! But to reiterate, if you're going to argue that powerscaling doesn't divorce the powers from the broader context in which they exist, then I just think these are points that deserve addressing. And once again, if they can't be addressed then that's fine - I'll just continue to think of powerscaling as something that deals primarily with AU versions of characters, with many of their complicating nuances filed down. If that makes me one of the powerscaling haters you want to stay away from this thread, I will respect that 😔😔😔 but I just want to say I find this to be a very engaging topic to discuss, and it's nothing personal! I'm just having a bit of fun :)

* A lot of fictional worlds, like Homestuck, draw a distinction between alternate universes and timelines. If powerscaling considers them the same for the sake of determining which characters are on a Multiversal level, that makes perfect sense to me and I have no real arguments with it, but this bit about Genesis Frogs containing all of their alternate iterations makes me think a little deeper. Doesn't a universe, by definition, consist of at least four dimensions, one of which is time? And aren't alternate timelines just a function of the dimension of time? My point being, surely it's kind of impossible to destroy a universe without also destroying all of the timelines that make up its fabric, at least in Homestuck itself? The vsbattles articles you linked didn't really offer much in the way of navigation, so I'd be grateful if you could enlighten me on what kind of Homestuck character would be Universe-level but not quite Multiverse-level.

If you'll allow me to be a little silly with it, doesn't any character theoretically have the ability to kill a timeline by dooming it thru their decision-making? 🤔 I know that's kind of getting down in the philosophical weeds, but when you take into account the Mind aspect then the philosophy of decision-making can literally be part of a character's powers, so..........

I think the red miles early on is very much a huge, indiscriminate AoE. The way Droog uses it in act 6 to specifically target Dirk seems like a bit of a retcon of its function. Like, I know Sburb is a game with arbitrary rules and all, but using the miles to GPS track any given player smells like BS.

Jack does a lot of damage to Prospit with nothing but the miles, but its not like he destroys the whole planet as he does later in the troll session. There's no reason for him not to, when his entire motivation is wanton death and destruction. In fact, he has to cut the chain apart just to completely the destroy the moon.

And yeah, when he does destroy Prospit and Derse in the troll session, he uses the green version, which strongly suggests the first guardian prototype is necessary to like, destroy a whole planet.

Billious Slick is a whole other topic. I mean, technically Jack is only killing one living creature when he uses the red miles here, and his ability to destroy an entire universe using nothing but the red miles probably has more to do with the timespace shenanigans involved with Jack being outside of the universe microcosm than it does the strength of the red miles in and of themselves.

But yeah, I certainly don't think prototyping by itself has any bearing on the red miles' abilities, given that the x0 prototyped ring doesn't seem much less powerful than Jacksper Noirlecrow's. Like Jake said, Snowman is essentially in the same boat as Billious and she uses her own fragility to her advantage, because she knows Slick would never try to kill her, so I certainly don't think a 4x prototyping suddenly turns killing a genesis frog from an impossible task to easy as pie.

The MAIN obstacle to doing this is in actually REACHING the genesis frog to begin with. Jack had to go through a lot of trouble to reach Universe A all things considered, and I assume this is why the Black Queen and the destruction of her ring are mandatory.

Of course, that means DD can kill the Genesis Frog housing universe C at any given time, but I would chalk that up to Homestuck's rushed ending and DD/the Alpha session ring being completely forgotten about.

@sabhait: It's less of a retcon and more of a clarification, I would think? like I pointed out previously in the thread, the Miles mimic the capabilities of a Queen on a chess board - wide reaching, but precise. Jack is interested in wanting destruction, as you say, so that's how he uses them; but an attack like that makes far less sense for a scheming, backseat villain like the Black Queen. Droog is similarly calculated in his methods, and uses it in a way more befitting of its royal origin. I should think this also makes a pretty good reason why he doesn't just kill earth c at any time, lol, besides the fact that the Ring of Void was explicitly lost anyway (which I would say is pointedly different to "being completely forgotten about").

Otherwise I pretty much completely agree and you're saying the same kind of stuff I've been saying. Jack Noir being able to kill a whole universe is presented as far more a case of right-place-right-time (or rather, the end result of very careful planning by forces fad beyond Jack Noir's understanding) than something he actually levelled up towards.

Well the main issue is that Jack spends all of Murderstuck unaware of the trolls' location. If this was always something the red miles could do, it probably would have come in handy while Jack was dicking around in the trolls' session for two hours.

someone with access to a computer will have to do the research for me here, but my memory was that Droog was scouring the surface of Derse with the Red Miles in order TO flush out Dirk, not that the Miles were literally heat-seeking him out?

jakemorph i think the problem with the claim of the void ring is that its basically just conjecture to say that the void ring can destroy a universe and without feats its the ultimate dishonor of powerscaling which is arguing something without any evidence to support it (as far as i know i dont watch much dbz)

i forgot to edit out that last part but it was funny like that anyway