Editing Jack Slash (section)

====Vulnerabilities====
To neutralize or kill Jack Slash, one must rely on an individual who is not part of the [[shardspace|shard network]], as they are effectively a blind spot to the [[List_of_Shards#The_Broadcast_Shard|Broadcast]] [[shard]] and cannot be sabotaged.<ref name="26.x eUnaware">The entity observed as the fight concluded elsewhere.<br><br>The broadcaster remained unaware as an individual without any attachment to shards at all entered the confined space, unloading a vaguely familiar substance over the group.  Something the entity might recollect if it had access to all of its memories.  A technology.<br><br>It didn’t matter.<br><br>The entity watched as the broadcaster was sealed in a time distortion. - [https://parahumans.wordpress.com/2013/08/10/interlude-26/ Excerpt] from [[Interlude 26]]</ref><ref name = "MegacorpJack" /> When [[Golem]] figured out Jack's secondary power,<ref>''What does Jack do?''<br><br>He grasped for a thought and failed.<br><br>No.  He needed to think about it from a different angle.<br><br>What does ''Weaver'' do? - [[Interlude 26b]]</ref><ref name="27.2 eSurround">“You thought Jack had a thinker power.  Why?  What?”<br><br>There was a pause.<br><br>“Because he’s like Weaver.  He reacts like someone that is way too aware of what’s going on.”<br><br>''Acts like me?''<br><br>I’d made the comparison myself, but I’d tempered that, held back as I formed that conclusion.  Hearing it in such a blunt way stung as much as a slap in the face.<br><br>“And you sent in the D.T. guy because-”<br><br>“Because Weaver surrounds herself with bugs, and Jack surrounds himself with capes.  The non-cape is the only variable we haven’t seriously tried.  The ''competent'' non-cape.” - [https://parahumans.wordpress.com/2013/08/17/extinction-27-2/ Excerpt] from [[Extinction 27.2]]</ref> [[Dinah]]'s power successfully confirmed that Golem's plan to send in a [[Dragon's_Teeth|D. T. officer]] against Jack was the right move.<ref>“Dinah.”<br><br>“''Three questions left.''”<br><br>“What’s the chance?  For what I’m thinking right now?”<br><br>“''Allowing for the fuzz I’m getting from Scion’s presence above you?  Seventy.''”<br><br>Seventy.<br><br>“''The numbers are better,''” she said.  “You’re on the right path.”<br><br>“I know,” he said. - [[Interlude 26b]]</ref> Golem then ordered a D. T. officer to distract Jack.<ref>“Okay,” Golem said.  “I’ll get you that distraction.”<br><br>“Was going to use my bugs, get Clockblocker.  With him, ''maybe'' we can take out both at once.”<br><br>“Don’t,” Golem replied, tensing up despite himself.  He’d nearly raised his voice to the point that Jack could hear.  Foil’s continued screaming drowned him out.<br><br>“I… won’t.  What are you thinking?”<br><br>“That there’s an answer.  A stupid, silly answer.”<br><br>He stood, resisting the urge to groan, and he approached the end of the rooftop closest to the heroes who were defending the areas outside of the alleyway.<br><br>He gestured, signaling to one.  When they didn’t move, bewildered, he created a hand, pushing them.<br><br>Others, he stopped.  A shake of his head.  Clockblocker was out.  So was Imp.  Grue, Vista, Kid Win, Cuff and Grace wouldn’t do.<br><br>Only this person would serve. - [[Interlude 26b]]</ref> Despite Dinah's power providing an optimal path and timing,<ref>Two more questions?”<br><br>“Yeah.”<br><br>“Left or right?”<br><br>“''Right.''”<br><br>''The long way around.''  Not the way he would have expected.<br><br>“Now, or wait?”<br><br>No response.<br><br>He gestured, and he created hands pointing the way.<br><br>“''Now'',” she said. - [[Interlude 26b]]</ref> and Golem's power pointing the officer in the right direction and moving him into position,<ref>This would be the moment everything fell into place.<br><br>The man made his way down to the end of the alley, and Golem created more hands;  six hands in a matter of seconds, sticking out of the wall.  Each pointing in the direction they needed.  He created a platform and started raising it.  Raising their potential savior up towards the top of the wall of looped time. - [[Interlude 26b]]</ref> Jack was completely unaware of the incoming distraction.<ref name="26.x eUnaware" /> Lacking a shard, the officer armed with tinkertech successfully distracted Jack by spraying [[containment foam]] in his direction.<ref>The man leaped down from the top of the wall.  His light armored suit absorbed his fall, made it quiet.<br><br>The D.T. uniform.<br><br>He sprayed containment foam at both Jack and Siberian. - [[Interlude 26b]]</ref> Although the containment foam did not actually reach Jack, this distraction was more than enough for [[Tecton]] to punch Jack in the stomach and escape being held hostage.<ref>Nothing.  It wouldn’t achieve a thing.<br><br>But Tecton took the moment of Jack’s blindness to duck, to strike the ground.<br><br>The Siberian wasn’t immune to gravity.  She fell, and just for a moment, she broke contact with Jack.<br><br>Tecton slammed his fist into Jack’s stomach. - [[Interlude 26b]]</ref> [[Gray Boy]], disgusted by this weakness, turned on Jack and looped him;<ref>The Siberian leaped out of the fissure, then paced towards Jack.<br><br>Her hand stopped an inch away from him.  She lowered it.<br><br>Jack had turned gray.  Trapped, looped.<br><br>“Pathetic,” Gray Boy said.  “Stupid, useless.  I thought you’d do something ''interesting'', but you made yourself prey, instead of the predator.  If you’re going to be prey, I want you to be ''my'' prey.”<br><br>It dawned on Golem.  Gray Boy ''froze him''. - [[Interlude 26b]]</ref><ref>“You cannot hold yourself straight.  You are weak enough that to be alongside you would bring me lower than I stand now.  You understand?”<br><br>''Like Grey Boy, turning on Jack because Jack failed and showed a degree of weakness''. - [[Venom 29.8]]</ref> the D. T. officer's interference meant Jack could no longer beat Gray Boy.<ref name="Reddit Beat" /> This resulted in a genuine defeat for Jack,<ref name="reddit eJackFall">The big plot point around Jack's fall is "how could he have made it this far without getting killed? His power isn't that good. Oh, there has to be something going on." It's established early on from the earliest commentary by Grue and stressed several times before the final explanation. It's, in the overall narrative and in the in-story justification, a big factor in framing who Jack is and how he functions.<br><br>It just feels to me like having a murder mystery where a hitman deploys a hard to obtain explosive device, someone remarks at the outset: "that's expensive! He shouldn't have that much money." Readers throughout remark on how it tests suspension of disbelief that this disheveled hitman has all these resources. Then at the end, things tie together with him being funded by a foreign government. Once our protagonists find that out, they can catch him.<br><br>...And there's a group of readers saying "Yeah, but how did he pay for his ''hotel''? He didn't have a job."<br><br>I'm not trying to fire shots, no. If I didn't convey the plot point well enough, or it didn't land for a given reader, that's fair and fine. S9000 arc wasn't me at my best. But if it's readers taking a circuitous route and settling on "this was a plot hole" instead of drawing a short line between a big plot point and the thing they're trying to resolve, that's exasperating. - Wildbow on Reddit, [https://forums.spacebattles.com/posts/72724278 archived on Spacebattles]</ref> whose shard wanted him to stay active,<ref name="SB eExecutiveFunction" /> and ultimately led to his death.<ref name="II20.e3 eCollapse" />

Although [[Scion]] can successfully kill Jack if needed, Jack's cape kill count is not high enough to merit his interference.<ref name="Reddit experiment" /> However, Scion did see a possible future where he stood over Jack's corpse.<ref name="26.x eFutureVision">The entity looked to the future, looked to possible worlds, and it saw the ways this could have unfolded.  It burned a year off of the entity’s life, but he had thousands to spare anyways.<br><br>There was a scene where the entity stood over the broadcaster’s corpse and ruminated on what had driven the male to such extremes.  The shard wasn’t a particularly aggressive one.<br><br>A scene where the man died, and years passed, the entity slowly coming to the same conclusions as it observed the rest of the species. - [https://parahumans.wordpress.com/2013/08/10/interlude-26/ Excerpt] from [[Interlude 26]]</ref>