Bakuda

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<infobox> <title source="name"><default>Bakuda</default></title>

<image source="Image"></image> <image source="image"></image> <group><header>Basic Information</header> <label>Civilian Name</label> <label>Aliases</label> <label>Gender</label><default>Unknown</default> <label>Death</label> <label>Age</label><default>Unknown</default> <label>Post-timeskip</label> <label>Ward start</label> <label>Relations</label> <label>Family</label></group> <group><header>Professional Status</header> <label>Occupation</label> <label>Classification</label> <label>Unique Features</label> <label>Alignment</label>

<label>Status</label><format>

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<label>Location</label> <label>Teams</label> <label>Previous Team(s)</label> <label>Base of Operations</label></group> <group><header>First Appearance</header> <label>Worm Debut</label> <label>Ward Debut</label></group> </infobox> Bakuda (pronounced “bah-ku-duh”)<ref>Worm Audiobook pronounciation guide (confirmed by Wildbow)</ref> is a member of the Azn Bad Boys.

Personality

Bakuda was a perfectionist, driven to prove her superiority over others. When an academic misstep seemingly disproved this superiority, she developed an explosive temper.<ref name="16.4 e1"/> This kind of thinking is what made Lung want to recruit her.<ref name="22.y e1"/>

Bakuda enjoys taunting people,<ref name="22.y e2"/> and fell into the cliched habit of monologuing to her victims.

Appearance

Bakuda is a young woman of half Caucasian and half Asian descent<ref name="WoG1">Edit by Wildbow</ref> with pale blue eyes and straight black hair.<ref>Interlude 6</ref> While in costume, she wears large opaque goggles and a metal mask with a gas-mask filter and a braided cord of black, yellow, and green wires over her shoulders.<ref name="2.2">Insinuation 2.2</ref>

When she does not have a filter on it, her speech has a notable Boston accent.<ref name="I6 e1">"The little bird's awake," a girl spoke, with a hint of a nasal Boston accent.

[...]

Sitting on the bench beside her was a girl about her own age.  The girl had an Asian cast to her features.  Her eyes, though, were a very pale blue, betraying some Western heritage. - Excerpt from Interlude 6</ref>

Abilities and Powers

Bakuda is a Tinker that specializes in bombs.<ref name="1.6e1">"Well, most Tinkers have a specialty or a special trick. Something they're particualrly good at or something that they can do, which other Tinkers can't. Bakuda's specialty is bombs." - Gestation 1.6</ref> She was able to create bombs with an incredibly wide variety of effects, not all of them lethal.^{[citation needed]} Like many tinkers, she could gain increased versatility by studying the powers of other parahumans.<ref name="SB1"/><ref name="4.10e1"/>

She created a bomb as powerful as a nuclear weapon,<ref name="I6"/> an estimated nine thousand kilotons,<ref> "While experts on the scene refused to offer hard numbers, a local cape was quoted as stating the superbomb could have had a yield of nine thousand kilotons of energy." - Excerpt from Tangle 6.4</ref> and capable of creating an electromagnetic pulse that would cover a fifth of the United States from Brockton Bay<ref name="I6">Interlude 6</ref> using household materials.<ref name="6.4">Tangle 6.4</ref> She had a strong connection to her shard.<ref name="SB1">What really drives tinkers, in a lot of cases, is the inspiration aspect. We don't really see this, because we mostly see tinkers who are doing their thing with what they've already built.

But tinkers vary a great deal in how they get their ideas. How fast, how many, how varied. In many cases, tinkers can find their way to new ideas by studying powers or studying the work of other tinkers. Bakuda develops time and space warping bombs (the slow grenade, the feature-warping thing she almost put up Grue's nose) by scanning and studying stuff that was affected by Clockblocker and Vista's powers. Armsmaster does much the same, with the time stop halberd (Clockblocker) and EMP pulse (Battery). In Dragon's case, well, she has access to a wealth of confiscated and 'submitted for internal review' PRT stuff.

From the shard's perspective, this drives competition and puts one tinker against another. Stealing another tinker's stuff to study both hurts the tinker and is a fast route to upping the quality of your own stuff. On a similar level, a tinker that's getting in fights is going to find ideas coming hard and fast (Bakuda), compared to a tinker that just hangs out in their workshop and actively avoids confrontation (Leet).

[...]

Tinkers are very hard to slap a rating on, but as with anything, they're judged based on the threat they pose to the PRT/community. Bakuda went from threatening to blow up a building with strategically placed explosives (Tinker 6) to getting access to powers to study while working under Lung and alongside Oni Lee, then showing what she was truly capable of when Lung was arrested and she tried to build the ÜberEMP. - Comment by Wildbow on Spaccebattles</ref>

Bakuda's abilities were also useful outside a lab. She claimed to have an instinctive understanding of mechanisms and catalysts. She was able to take apart a tinker-designed collar without triggering its defense mechanisms, and rebuilding it into a bomb, using her mouth. She was able to analyse some of the Birdcage's defences, although she estimated it would take her a decade to fully unravel it. She created a device out of scrap that would punch through a Birdcage exterior wall, triggering the defences. She could fix broken televisions.<ref name="I6"/> She claimed that she could literally perform surgery blindfolded.<ref>Bitch of a thing to do. Not the actual procedure of sticking the things inside their heads. After the first twenty, I could do the surgeries with my eyes closed. Literally. I actually did a few that way. - Shell 4.8</ref>

She didn't always know the effects of her bombs before she tested them.<ref name="4.10e1">See, my two-twenty-seven was something of a happy accident. I'd taken readings of little Vista's powers, thought maybe I could make a space distortion grenade. Purely by accident, I cracked the Manton effect. Or at least, whatever I'd done when I put the grenade together, it bypassed the Manton effect. - Shell 4.10</ref><ref name="R3">Bakuda is a chaos tinker. Somewhere in line with the field test tinker. - And yet another comment by Wildbow on Reddit</ref>

History

Background

Bakuda was the daughter of a mixed race couple,<ref name="22.y e2">“And the fact that you, a halfbreed, recruited me, a halfbreed, and built a gang of a bajillion different races, it’s totally not a freudian thing, tying back to some childhood issues.”

“No,” Lung growled.

Bakuda only smiled. “And what happens down the road?” - Excerpt from interlude 22.y</ref>Given her accent, she likely was born or grew up around Boston.<ref name="I6 e1"/> Her father was Japanese; he immigrated to the United States after Japan's devastation at the hands of Leviathan.<ref name="15.5 c1">The disaster at Kyushu, the number of refugees seeking living space/work and the pressures on the rest of Asia’s pacific border might have led to some more unrest and tension. [...] Bakuda was born to a Westerner mother and Immigrant father. - Comment by Wildbow on Colony 15.5</ref>

Bakuda triggered due to heavy stress after taking a large blow to her immense ego.<ref name="16.4 e1">Bakuda serves as one example. It’s implied that her trigger event involved her building up a huge ego with natural genius/intellect, only to have a crushing blow delivered to that ego & her self worth in an case of failure or academic rejection while attending University.

In a broader context for tinkers as a whole, the trauma would be more likely to be mental strain than anything physical, quite possibly an ongoing challenge rather than an immediate crisis. - Excerpt from Monarch 16.4</ref> It is suggested she had received a less than perfect grade whilst studying at Cornell University. She then subsequently held the university ransom, placing several bombs in an academic building to destroy it,<ref name="SB1"/> as an act of revenge. Her tantrum was thwarted by the New York Protectorate,<ref>Gestation 1.6</ref> and she was later recruited by Lung and joined the Azn Bad Boys.<ref name="22.y e1">“So petty. And you want me to help?”

“You will help,” Lung said. “Because you think like I do. In terms of power and fear.”

Bakuda took a seat at the end of the couch. The two whores inched away from her.

She smiled at that. “Alright. You got me.” - Excerpt from interlude 22.y</ref>

Story Start

Bakuda hired Über and Leet to help her deal with the Undersiders. She watched the battle between the two groups before telling Skitter she was close after Skitter theorized that Uber and Leet's henchmen were watching over Bitch and their money. She stood and bowed before dropping onto her knees and gripped the edge of the roof to avoid falling off.

Bakuda told Regent that she was smart enough to learn from the mistake of others before giving the signal for her henchmen to come out. She then said that she had hired Uber and Leet before telling them she was in charge of the Azn Bad Boys. After that, she ordered her underlings to attack.<ref>Shell 4.6</ref>

Grue blanketed the area with darkness before the Undersiders retreated. When the Undersiders found one of her traps, Bakuda moved to the explosion and overheard Grue telling Tattletale to watch out for her. She interrupted him and said that she had already found them before saying that they weren't hard to find. Grue interrupted her with a blast of darkness before he enveloped Bakuda and her group with it. Bakuda used something that Skitter assumed was a miniature black hole to suck in the darkness and then shot a bomb into the middle of their group.

When the Undersiders escaped the effect of her time-stop bomb, Bakuda launched three canisters at them. Grue enveloped them with darkness in an attempt to dampen the effects before the Undersiders retreated. Bakuda got in a jeep and gave chase, levelling a storage locker, before bombarding the area Grue had blanketed with a series of explosives. She caught up with the Undersiders after they found themselves confronted by her underlings where she told them that it was checkmate.<ref>Shell 4.7</ref>

Tattletale accused her of toying with them and Bakuda told her she was right. She then told Tattletale to be quiet and gave orders to her men to open fire on the Undersiders if Tattletale opened her mouth again. She then told the Undersiders that Lung had taught her a lot about fear and how, in their careers, people would only be loyal to them if they were terrified of them. Bakuda then told them that, when she had inherited the Azn Bad Boys, she had also inherited its enemies- before asking Park Jihoo if he had ever held a gun or beat someone up before.

After hearing Park Jihoo's answer, she told him that he was perfect for her demonstration and told him to shoot one of the Undersiders. She said that he didn't have to kill them; giving him the option to shoot one of their kneecaps, elbows, or shoulders. Stepping away, she then told another of her underlings to get out the camera and start rolling. Park Jihoo refused to shoot and then dropped the gun. She said it was a shame and that he was no use to her as a soldier, before kicking him in the stomach. He begged her not to kill him and she stepped away moments before her bomb liquefied him. Then, she laughed.

Regent said that it was pretty cool and Bakuda said that she had modeled the bomb off of Tesla's work in vibrations. He interrupted her, telling her that he didn't care how it worked, before clarifying that seeing what a dissolved person looked like was cool. He asked her how she had done it, asking if she had put bombs in all of her underlings, and she confirmed it. When Regent asked to get a better look, she told him no before saying that she knew what he was trying to do and that she could think twelve moves ahead of him.

Bakuda then said that Regent had lost any goodwill he had for appreciating her art before asking an underling if they were still filming. After he confirmed this, she said that they would edit the talking bits out later and then put the video on the web and send copies to local news stations. She then singled out another of her underlings if she would shoot someone. The girl said that she could and Bakuda said that it concluded her demonstration before telling them about fear. She said that true fear is a blend of certainty and the unpredictable and how her people knew that she could kill them with a thought and that, if she died, every one of her bombs would go off. For "unpredictability, Bakuda revealed that she mixed up her arsenal before making a bomb go off in her own group.<ref>Shell 4.8</ref>

Later, she went after the Undersiders again in her Jeep. She fired a rocket at a tower of ice a previous bomb to create a path through before running over Grue. Afterwards, she stood up and looked around for the other Undersiders only for darkness to blanket the Jeep. As the Jeep drove out of it, she aimed her rocket launcher at it only for Regent to mess with the driver. The Jeep skidded and then spun out before Bakuda was flung from it. Getting up, she then fired another bomb at the Undersiders.<ref>Shell 4.9</ref>

Bakuda told the Undersiders that they should be afraid of getting the upper hand on her before telling them that they had deserved to be shot after leaving her with her weapons. She noticed Skitter was awake and then told Grue that she would get to him in a moment before asking Skitter if she had had a bad day. She then revealed that she had spies in the Protectorate Headquarters who had told her about what Skitter had done to Lung and told her that she would get special treatment.

When Skitter tried to say something, Bakuda hauled her up into a sitting position. Skitter then taunted her about how she had failed at school and she backed up. Grue laughed at and Bakuda kicked Skitter in the face before telling them they would see how smart they were after she implanted a bomb in Grue. She threatened to shove the bomb down Skitter's throat if he tried using his powers and then slid it into his nasal cavity as she explained what the bomb did. Once she was finished, she asked Skitter what she was doing before telling her that she wouldn't want to miss the show. Skitter then brought her knife down on the edge of Bakuda's boot and cut off two of her toes. Bakuda screamed before falling over where she kicked out with her leg, splattering Skitter's mask with blood.<ref>Shell 4.10</ref> She fled and the Undersiders regrouped.

The bombing campaign that she started was more then enough of a distraction to allow Oni Lee to free Lung. While her forced recruitment tactics rapidly expanded the ABB's ranks, her manic phase eventually petered out and with Lung free she gave up her position as leader of the gang. She was eventually captured by the Heroes of Brockton Bay with her giant city-destroying EMP bomb neutralized by Clockblocker and Vista.<ref name ="IRC1">IRC comment by Wildbow, archived on SpaceBattles</ref>

Birdcage

Bakuda was sentenced to the Birdcage for her crimes. She was placed in a transport vehicle alongside Lung and Paige Mcabee and had everything aside from her head and her shoulders covered in containment foam. After Paige woke up, Bakuda asked for her help in breaking free of the transport and, noticing Paige's hesitance, threatened to find her in prison if she refused. While working with the mask, Bakuda was asked by Paige why she was sentenced to the Birdcage, and Bakuda responded by saying she'd killed upwards of fifty people. She demanded Lung help her by heating the metal of the mask. Lung initially refused, but Bakuda goaded him to the point of anger and told him to use it to motivate himself.

Out of the now-heated metal, Bakuda created a makeshift screwdriver which she used to remove Paige's tranquilizing collar. Paige fell asleep, and when she awoke, Bakuda had created a tranquilizing bomb to use on the personnel transporting them. Bakuda told Paige that she would use her power to convince the men to free them, but when the bomb detonated, there was nobody there to hear Canary's song. As the three of them were taken into the Cage by giant metal claws, Bakuda screamed that she had had a plan.

Bakuda was set down alongside Paige and Lung in front of a monitor where a CGI rendering of Dragon's face appeared and addressed them. Dragon said that the proper procedures for Bakuda's transport hadn't been carried out, that she had a .000126% chance of escaping from the Birdcage, and then sent her off to be placed in Cell Block C.

Later, Bakuda was met by Lung in her cell. She told him of her time in the Birdcage, mentioning that things seemed grim for her until Glaistig Uaine discovered that she could repair the cell block's television. Bakuda expressed amazement at the layout and structure of the building, saying that she could spend her whole life trying to figure it out. Lung asked her if she had been in prison before, and explained to her the four ways a person could survive in prison; join one of the gangs, "be someone's bitch", kill someone, or be seen as a madman. Bakuda asked him which of the options he intended to take, and Lung told her he thought to choose the third and the fourth.

Realizing that Lung intended to kill her, Bakuda backed away before asking him why. He told her that she had failed him, in the city and the Cage, and insulted him. She threatened to punch a hole in the cell wall with an assortment of springs and wires, telling him they would both suffocate if he tried anything. Lung responded that she was not fast enough, and Bakuda asked him if he wanted to bet. He did.<ref name="I6"/>

Bakuda was later claimed by Glaistig Uaine.<ref>Interlude 10.5</ref>

Gold Morning

She saw the light of day again and created multiple tinker bombs to use against targets.

Trivia

• Bakuda's codename is a bastardization of the japanese 爆弾, or 'bakudan', which means 'bomb'.<ref name="WoG1"/>
• Bakuda is half Caucasian and half Asian, as evidenced by her blue eyes. Her mixed race origin is something she shares in common with Lung.<ref name="22.y e2"/><ref name="WoG1"/>
• Bakuda was a relatively recent creation by Wildbow during the writing process, intended to showcase the breadth of what tinkers could accomplish.<ref name="7.7 c1">Re: Character creation process for Bakuda
  
  I mentioned, in a previous comment spree, that some characters are top-down (Have a name/concept in mind, create backstory from there) and others are bottom-up (Build a backstory, the name/concept follows). Bakuda was the former. Creating her was sort of a spur of the moment thing as I wrote 1.06. She’s one of relatively few characters that I hadn’t/haven’t tried writing a short story for, prior to knuckling down and writing the Worm you’ve read here.
  
  I dislike giving characters boring powers. As a consequence, even for characters who seem fairly generic on paper (laser beams, super speed, whatever) I’ve given them nuances or underlying mechanisms that set them apart. Sometimes Taylor/the reader isn’t explictly aware of them (Glory Girl’s super strength, for example, isn’t just her being disproportionately strong), sometimes you are (Aegis’ strength being based in adrenaline & ability to push past normal physical limits, Velocity’s speed).
  
  So that’s one facet of what I had in mind when approaching the tinker/mad scientist thing & Bakuda, specifically – it’s a powerset that’s not uncommon, but I wanted there to be something to set them apart. So every tinker has a specialty, a knack or a trick. In truth, any power category/subclass (super speed, super strength, laser beams, teleportaiton) has this, but people pay more attention to it when tinkers are concerned.
  
  Beyond that, one thing I tend to do when I want to come up with ideas for something/someone quickly, is take a common stereotype or element and play with it. Turn it on its head, tweak it, generally defy expectations. When I played pen & paper roleplaying games, I did this a lot to make characters that stood out from the crowd. It’s usually my starting point.
  
  So when I was writing 1.06, and Armsmaster was explaining what’s up with the ABB, my thought process was something like, “Okay, I need to round out the ABB some more. Probably not a frontline individual, given that Grue didn’t mention him/her. Maybe a girl, to balance out the genders. Lung and Oni Lee aren’t so atypical, so how can I reverse common stereotypes for Eastern Asians, Japanese or Asian-Americans and round out their group with someone more interesting? Common ideas tied to them include studious, hardworking, inoffensive, striving not to stand out, bad drivers, intelligent, ninjas, yakuza…”
  
  I briefly considered having her be a vehicle tinker. A super skilled driver and/or pilot. Didn’t really go anywhere or tie into the rest of the group, and as I was already beginning to conceptualize how Lung might have recruited this person, it didn’t jibe. It also didn’t seem to have a lot of versatility or flexibility to the idea. Not that interesting.
  
  It was the ‘striving not to stand out/inoffensive’ thing that was the seed for the bomb specialist bit. There’s few ways you can stand out -more-, it’s dramatic and potentially powerful enough for Lung to go out of his way to recruit her, and it sells the notion of how tinkers can be very specialized. The rest sort of wrote itself and flowed from there.
  
  Of course, this thought process wasn’t so long winded. After pondering the getaway driver thing, I went with the ‘bomb specialist tinker’ fairly quickly. - Comment by Wildbow on Buzz 7.7

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Fanart Gallery

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  Illustration by wolfofragnarok on deviantArt
• Image by aerryi on DeviantArt.
  Image by aerryi on DeviantArt.
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  Image by tomgizz on Tumblr
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  Illustration by Meteorprince
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  Illustration by Ughzubat
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  Illustration by Pabel and Nine (left)

References

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