All-or-Nothing

'All-or-Nothings' is a threat-assessment term used by the PRT to refer to capes<ref name=II11.1>“Birdbrain is the big threat. The muscle is second to that.”

“I’m flattered,” I heard Birdbrain’s ethereal voice.

“She’s halfway to being an all-or-nothing threat. Like Swansong with her blasts, but with aim.”

I saw Bluestocking turn her head, asking a question. Birdbrain answered, no doubt passing on what we were saying.

“You’re using that term wrong!” Bluestocking called out. “All-or-nothing isn’t right!”

Bitter Pill said something, annoyed. Too far away to be heard.

“If she aims she’s guaranteed a hit if her gun’s at the right point horizontally. Vertically, doesn’t matter. All-or-nothings are PRT terminology for anyone who’s strong enough that you can’t defend against their attack unless you defend against anything, can’t dodge unless you can dodge everything. She’s halfway there and that makes her a good enough shot we can’t afford to get in an engagement. Headshot every time.” - Excerpt from Blinding 11.1</ref> with highly efficient powers.

Examples

• Contessa<ref name=R1>Torrieltar: How fast can Path to Victory react to unforeseen changes?
  
  Wildbow: All changes are foreseen, as a rule. Can't cite anything, but there's a line that sorta appears in the story, where you run into the perfects (perfect defense, perfect offense) and stuff gets fucky - and the rule of thumb is that 'unless your ability beats -everything-, it doesn't beat this'. For processing power Contessa's ability would be on this level (as with Flechette's Sting, Clockblocker's inviolability, Siberian's invulnerability). - Wildbow on Reddit</ref>
• Eidolon<ref name="24.4e2">Phir Sē’s portal opened beneath Behemoth’s feet, aimed upward, and a plume of light speared into the sky, consuming Behemoth, covering him.
  
  Eidolon’s power held. He’d had the situation explained, had been given time to let his power build up to full strength, and his passenger had supplied something with a durability on par with Clockblocker’s ability. Inviolable.
  
  “That’ll do,” Imp said, quiet. The light continued to flow upward, a narrow column no more than fifty feet across, billowing out only slightly as it reached the top of Eidolon’s barrier, parting smoke and clouds in a circular ring, revealing the intensely blue sky above. The entire sky seemed to brighten as the light dissipated beyond our atmosphere.
  
  Phir Sē’s light faded, and the barrier collapsed.
  
  Dust continued to fill the area, plumes of it.
  
  Behemoth lurched forward.
  
  Not quite Behemoth, but a skeleton, something like a skeleton. Emaciated, a black-red frame dripping with ichor, it had all of the key features, the basic underlying structure with the horns and the gaping mouth, the claws and the way the shoulders were broad enough to host his bulky frame, but a good eighty percent of him had been torn away, shredded. A skeleton covered in a veneer of meat. - Excerpt from Crushed 24.4</ref> (Depending on the powers he has at a given moment)
• Glaistig Uaine<ref name=R2>Siberian, Damsel, Scrub, Flechette, and Grey Boy are Worm capes at the 'if anything can penetrate that defense, these guys penetrate that defense' level of attack. Eidolon and Glaistig Uaine have such attacks in their toolkits. - Wildbow on Reddit</ref> (Depending on the shadows she has at a given moment)
• Gray Boy<ref name=R2/>
• The Siberian<ref name=R1/><ref name=26.5/>
• Flechette's Cluster<ref name=R1/>
• Ashley Stillons<ref>I twisted around, exerting force against the immobile obsidian statue, and she came to life, stumbling back, just as I saw the attacker behind me freeze.
  
  One attacker, with two bodies. Whatever one wasn’t active was immobile and apparently invincible. Whichever one was active had enhanced speed and the strength that came with hitting things very fast.
  [...]
  “If you’re a pair and not one cape with a gimmick, you’ll both want to stand down, because my friend hits pretty darn hard.”
  
  “I do,” Ashley said. Long, wet white hair had fallen across her face while she was bent over. It stuck there.
  [...]
  She hit Ashley in the midsection, and Ashley reached out, putting a hand on the Fallen’s collarbone to steady herself. She was hit from behind, one hit to the kidney.
  
  She used her power, and it tore through the statue, ripping it apart. Ashley was thrust away by the blast, and she landed not very far from where the lizard Fallen had dropped to the mud and grass, sitting there in shock.
  
  Ashley hadn’t been lying when she’d suggested her power could hurt me. - Excerpt from Pitch 6.4</ref>
• Scrub<ref name=R2/>
• Clockblocker<ref name=R1/><ref name=26.5/>
• Hookline<ref>“He’s in the company of Hookline. Minor mover, has a hundred-foot long cable he telekinetically controls. It can’t be broken or damaged, short of some very select powers, and it will shake off or slip free of a lot of things that would snag or impede another weapon. Frost, hands that try to grab it. So don’t try. It moves faster and acts like a whip, so be super careful if a fight happens. There’s a hook on the end, and he’s most dangerous if you’re at or just inside that hundred foot limit of his range where the hook is flying around. Which brings me to my next point.” - Excerpt from Shade 4.5</ref>
• Birdbrain<ref name=II11.1/>

Details

All-or-nothing is not strictly linked to the general threat level of a parahuman, but denotes high quality, "hard counter" nature of the power itself. For example Clockblocker and Damsel of Distress both have very strong powers once applied, but are severely limited in that both of them have to use their own legs and wits to get to the target, which hurts their general threat levels. Contessa, on the other hand, is directly aided by her power to be in the right place in the right time, which solidly puts her into 12+ "do not expect to win" category of threat.

Despite this these powers can be worked around or canceled out through various means, including and interaction with each other.<ref name=26.5/><ref>gardenofjew: I'd guess yes because the following happens in the story:
time-frozen objects and Siberian will cancel each out-- Siberian 'pops', the object unfreezes. We see this in the S9000 arc.
A Foil! dart passes through a Siberian (and pops it) during the S9000 arc.
Since Foil>Siberian and Siberian=time-frozen, Foil>time-frozen

Wildbow: More or less. - Wildbow on Reddit</ref>

Some tinkers, such as Armsmaster,<ref>Leviathan turned to run. Armsmaster sent out one blade like a grappling hook, circled the smaller of the Endbringer’s claws with the chain. Leviathan moved, oblivious or uncaring, and Armsmaster waited until the slack was out of the chain, pressed a button.

The chain and Halberd ceased moving, and even Leviathan’s strength ceased to move it. Rather than pull away, the Endbringer skidded, fell on his back, wrist still held by the chain.
[...]
“For the record, that last trick was a temporal stasis trigger, with thanks owed to the cooperation of a subordinate of mine. Drains my battery reserves, but you don’t understand that, do you?”

Leviathan lunged, and Armsmaster fired out the grappling hook, stopped it in mid air by freezing it in time. Leviathan ran himself through on the chain, the thing spearing deep into his neck and out the back of his torso. Uncaring, the Endbringer continued to charge at Armsmaster. - Excerpt from Extermination 8.4</ref> are able to replicate these effects.

History

Background

The only reason Humanity has a chance was because this came at the right time.

Story Start

Was used multiple times against the Undersiders.

Their use was showcased against Leviathan.<ref>Leviathan didn’t make noise. I kept expecting a roar, or hiss, or something, but Leviathan was dead silent. I somehow imagined a victorious howl as he broke through the barrier, crouched, and lunged into the crowd.

He stopped, and I thought he was using his afterimage, halting so it could rush forward, but even the watery echo stopped a second after it appeared, only the very edges of it continuing forward to crash violently against the sides of the alley.

For several long heartbeats, it was nearly quiet, but for the sound of rain, people’s noises of pain, mine included, and the sound of one of Kaiser’s iron columns ripping free of the wall and falling atop a pile of blades.

It took me a second to realize what had happened. Leviathan hung frozen mid-pounce, and his emerging afterimage similarly stood there, frozen in time. In the midst of the afterimage was Clockblocker, half-immersed in water. - Excerpt from Extermination 8.3</ref>

Post-Leviathan

The limitations of an All-or-nothing cape was shown against members of the Slaughterhouse Nine.

Post-Slaughterhouse Nine

Clothsline operation was important in turning the tide against Echidna and taking down Ignis Fatuus.

Post-Echidna

Several powers were used to great effect against Behemoth.

Post-Timeskip

Siberian and Clockblocker canceled each-other out.<ref name=26.5>Clockblocker fired his threads from his gauntlet. They surrounded the cube-carrier, and he froze them.

Unstoppable force against an immovable object.

Which won?

Siberian made contact with the thread and flickered out of existence, and the thread went limp. The cube fell with a crash.- Excerpt from Sting 26.5</ref>

Gold Morning

Was intrinsic in ending the event once the enemies will to fight was broken.

Early-Ward

One such cape settled in Hollow Point.

Post-Goddess' Takeover

Bluestocking gets a clarification on the PRT usage of the term versus the general one.<ref name=II11.1/>

Trivia

• It is an obvious point of contention in the fandom which capes actually fit in this category.

References

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