Bridge PSA: Power Scaling is BS · 7:40pm Mar 4th, 2017
In quick news, Shimmer in the Dark finale is almost done. Going to slow a bit due to a grad school exam called GRE I got on Tuesday (think SAT on steroids), but should be done in the week and I've already got both Eclipse Part 2 and the next Bridge chapter outlined and partially typed. Next movie stream should be sometime next week or the following one, MST3k's Prince of Space then a double feature of Gojira (1954) and Godzilla - King of the Monsters (1956).
And now onto something I don't like talking about. Power scaling.
Let me demonstrate why power scaling, or trying to scale how powerful a character is in relation to another, is bull**** aside from very vague approximations. The Incredible Hulk. On paper, the Incredible Hulk is damn near invincible and true to form, was one of the most powerful characters in the Marvel Universe. However, Banner's alter ego has lost numerous times to technically inferior foes for a myriad of reasons. Maybe he was tired, maybe they used a certain tactic, maybe they had technology on their side, or maybe they were a more skilled fighter.
There is always going to be a myriad of factors going into a fight that can sway the outcome of a battle. Unless two character have identical skills and powers, but one is more developed than the other while they are both at their peak; judging who wins can be a toss up. Add in factors like drastically different power sets and it only gets more complicated.
Case and point, the fight between Kaizer Ghidorah and Grand King Ghidorah. If taken with just raw power in their respective energy attacks, GKG is either on par with or actually a bit stronger than Kaizer due to multiple factors. However any difference there wasn't enough to makeup for the fact Kaizer Ghidorah was a trained fighter whereas GKG wasn't used to his prey actually fighting back at all. Additionally the fact Kaizer had more utility with a working pair of arms made up for the fact he wasn't used to his current form.
So allow me to make a small exception to this while I echo what I've already said before. The "gods" of the Bridge canon, Bagan of Terra's realm and Harmony & Grogar of Equestria's realm; are all dead even in terms of overall strength. If you had a completely recharged and full power battle between any of these two, it be extremely hard to call who'd win. Any difference in power is negligible given the extreme levels of it we are talking about, and any such difference that would be present could be balanced out by unique skills and abilities. We are talking characters whom are so insanely powerful that for any of them to beat the other outright would come more down to planning or luck, both of which Harmon needed to defeat Grogar in the distant past.
Now I know what some may be saying. Bagan's a flippin' kaiju, how could a pony and a goat equal him out?
1. Harmony and Grogar are not any more a pony and goat than Bagan is a dragon. They are mythic entities, gods with lowercase Gs, who's true form resembles those types of creatures. Grogar isn't a goat, he just looks like one. Also, size shifting is a thing remember?
2. The three occupy the exact same tier on a hierarchy of power, top of their respective worlds. Equestria has two very different types of magics that contrast to each other, whereas Terra was a world who's magic worked off a completely different principle so only one such entity was needed.
3. In the show, a not even fully powered Tirek was strong enough to one-shot-small mountains. That easily puts him on a similar tier to many powerful kaiju. Numerous kaiju can level a mountain, but not all could do it in one shot. And this was before he absorbed the alicorn magic and got magnitudes stronger and much, much larger. The Rainbow Power, something made from just a portion of Harmony's power, defeated Tirek effortlessly. If just a fragment of her can do that, now imagine what the whole package can do?
And thematically this is my choice. Bridge is a story where I took good pains to balance the crossover. Not only does this preserve the balance by demonstrating there are things inherent to the Equestria realm which can match the best from Terra, but also raises the stakes. Making Harmony as strong as Bagan if she hadn't divided her power means both the stakes are higher because it means Grogar in the same situation could be just as destructive as Bagan, effectively doubling up our Big Bad threat; but adds a dilemma for the future. If things get critical, might Harmony be forced to recall all her divisions, take away the tools given to the mortals to try and stand up against Bagan 1v1? And would such a gesture be worth it or not if Grogar makes a comeback to? After all if having a fully powered God of Extinction running around wasn't bad enough, imagine if the Nexus of Dark Magic was also on a rampage?
People are welcome to have their own personal headcanons or story versions. This is just the one Bridge runs on and people are getting confused about it, so I'm clarifying.
Because this is obligatory:
I'm with you on the power scaling thing.
Dragonball Super recently had a good showing of this when Piccolo fought Frost:
Frost was stronger than the resurrected Freeza post Resurrection, while Piccolo had done plenty of level grinding, but Goku outright admits Frost has him completely outmatched power wise.
Piccolo still only loses the match because Frost cheats due to Frost not only being weakened by Goku (who only lost due to cheating), but because Piccolo is simply a superior FIGHTER to him and nearly one by pure tactics. And technically DID win, given Frost's cheating was discovered and he only was allowed to stay in the match because Vegeta wanted to teach him a lesson.
Then there was the next match with Magetta, where Vegeta nearly lost despite being LEAGUES strong than Magetta purely because he was not only holding back, but he didn't realize Magetta had an excellent grasp of his people's abilities, and nearly made a fatal mistake as a result.
Skill CAN beat power,
This has actually shown in The Bridge, or rather the spin off: Raiga's Super Mode didn't give her THAT huge of the advantage in power, but her SKILL advantage was the gamechanger. She simply had Mirror Junior beat completely in combat skilled, and when it came to CQC, she had a pretty big upper hand once she had comparable power.
And I also REALLY appreciate the pains you've taken to make this a balanced crossover, immensely so.
I thought they were Gods with capital G's while characters such as Mothra and Ghidorah were deities(little g gods)?
Amen to all of this.
4443680
They're not omnipresent or omnipotent, unlike mythological examples of God with a capital G. So scale wise they are somewhere between say, the Abhramic God a.k.a "Yaweh" (God with a capital G, the word "God" as a name) and Odin or Cronos (gods with lowercase g, the word "god" as a descriptor). Godzilla and Mothra are also in this spectrum, as the spectrum is enormous, but further down than Grogar, Harmony, or Bagan.
If Bagan, Harmony, and/or Grogar were Gods with capital G, they'd be unbeatable even by each other as they'd be infinity.
4443736 on other topics, are we ever gonna see Doragon in action anytime soon?
4443639 Ah ya beat me to it.
4443656
There's actually another good example from that arc. The entire debacle with Hit. Hit initially proved his badassery in defeating a Super Saiyan Blue powered Vegeta with minimal effort. However, Super Saiyan Blue has a nasty effect on the user's stamina if used multiple times in a row. And Vegeta had demonstrated its power to the young Saiyan warrior, Cabba during his previous match. While this isn't touched upon as much in the anime, the manga claims that Vegeta at Super Saiyan Blue, during his fight with Hit, was only at about 10 % of the form's maximum power output. So when Goku stepped into the ring, he was able to hold his own for a while using just his base form and was only forced to power up when Hit's Time-Leap ability became too much for him to handle. Afterwards, Goku clearly seemed to have the advantage in raw power and was about equal in terms of fighting skill. However, Hit's Time-Leap kept Goku on the defensive. It wasn't until Goku used the Kaio-Ken alongside Super Saiyan Blue that he started to gain some ground. However, Hit kept improving his Time-Leap ability to the point where Goku still couldn't handle it. Goku was more than likely the stronger of the two fighters at the time, but Hit's abilities gave him the edge.
Edit: Also, Tarb, who's ass do I have to introduce to my friends Doc Martin and/or Chuck Taylor? Cause if this was brought on by the constant influx of "Bagan would totally wreck Harmony." BS I'd be more than happy to do so.
In your mind, did Grogar initially look regal and great prior to when he began to use his powers for sinister purposes or was he always monstrous and frightening in appearance?
Thank you for re-clearing this all up. To be honest, i wasn't completely sure how to compare these godly beings because all i had to go on with was the story itself. I read certain parts, and then came to a conclusion i wasn't sure was right or not. But i'm grateful to you for finally clearing the ice on this subject. Now i know the actual way this thing actually goes, and i can stick to it, at last. Thank you alot.:)
Though i do have ONE question: does Bagan have the power to surpass his own full power? The way he keeps stating it, it keeps making me think that he can rise above his own limits with the more power he claims. That's the only reason i considered him potentially all-powerful. But maybe you can clarify the truth behind this for me? So as there won't be any more confusion?
4443999
Well considering Bagan's ego makes GKG look humble, who knows?
4444055 I don't know. He doesn't come off to me as being THAT arrogant. He still is, mind you, but maybe not enough to underestimate his enemies.
4444088
I agree with this.
While there's definitely some ego there, Bagan comes off more as being fully aware of how powerful he is and being brutally frank about it to everyone else rather than overly prideful.
After all, it's kind of hard to call someone out on being boastful when they have every ounce of capability to back up said boasts, at least how I see it.
I guess the main thing that keeps me from seeing Bagan as super arrogant is the fact that he's not constantly rubbing his superiority in everyone's faces.
He knows how strong he is in relation to everyone else, they know how strong he is in relation to them, so there's no need to be constantly trying to establish his position over them unless they step out of line.
Simple as that.
Now, on to a new topic, do you think it's possible for someone else to take a god's mantle if said god dies?
Like, say, if Junior became Super Godzilla and defeated Bagan (which, honestly, is probably exactly what's going to happen) then do you think he could take Bagan's place as the God of Terra?
How do you think he'd feel about that?
Also, any suggestions for Junior's super form that are less generic than "Super Godzilla"?
You know perhaps you could find a way to make Bagan stronger than he already is at full power to tip the scales over Harmony and Grogar and so that can lead up to needing SuperGodzilla more than ever
4443859 that chapter came after the Anime who didn't have that weakness and the Manga nerfed them and later on Goku Black's abilities
Just a note, but in the fight with Tirek, no mountains were destroyed. Hell, no hills were destroyed either. The closest they get is bashing through a hill when Tirek does his tackle(not so impressive, even bottom tier kaiju like Baragon and the original Zilla are capable of burrowing rapidly after all), and that's it. Twilight's first beam scrapes the ground open, but we don't see the aftermath of the explosion behind Tirek. The beam clash made a big explosion, but again, no hills destroyed.
4443656 Eh, I'd say Dragonball is probably not the best example of this. Freeza is an untrained slob who had never so much as lifted a weight in his life, and he was kicking everyone's ass in the Namek Saga. He even put up a good fight against SSJ Goku despite being weaker. He does the same can of whoop ass in Revival of F, with his training consisting of slapping around a Zarbon tier minion for four months as opposed to the actual training the others have done for years. Dragonball is like the anti-thesis to skill matching power.
Frost was losing because he was weakened, skill had very little to do with it(Piccolo dodged and blocked Frost's attacks easily, if Frost was even a fraction as strong as Freeza was, he'd have been faster than Piccolo could see and punching holes through him). Maggeta was winning simply because indicentally, all of his attacks would burn the oxygen in the barrier. Without that, he didn't show that much skill(and he was powerful enough to face Vegeta head-on anyway since he tanked a Final Flash).
4444161
I don't read the manga, I only know about the stamina drain because MasakoX talked about it. But, from what I've heard, Goku Black sucked in his own arc. He was introduced as a serious threat, but only got up to Super Saiyan 2 and got pushed to the sidelines once Zamasu (or Zamas however it's gonna be pronounced in the dub) showed up, then only became relevant again when he fused with Zamasu.
4444312 No offense, but I think you're underestimating how significant a difference there is between DIGGING through a mountain and just straight up punching a hole straight through it by sheer brute force and power.
Baragon and Zilla DIG, as in they scoop the soil, rock, and earth out of their way one hand full at a time. They can do so exceptionally quickly, yes, but they still have to move the dirt out of their way clawfuls at a time.
Tirek just straight up flew through that mountain like it wasn't even there, and we see from the impact of Twilight, it was solid rock. And that was a BIG mountain. Most hills we see kaiju actually bash through are nowhere CLOSE to as thick as that one, and Tirek just flew straight
through it with brute force alone. And those are also normally hills or ridges, not mountains.
Tirek flew straight through one in less than two seconds (I counted). I looked up Baragon digging underground and it took him 10 seconds just to get underground. Meaning Tirek punched through that rocky mountain in one go in less time than it took Baragon to get going through just normal ground, that was likely largely composed of more losely composed materials than solid rock.
Keep in mind, a lot of kaiju have to TEAR through large skyscrapers, which are CONSIDERABLY easier to destroy than a mountain.
Godzilla HAS managed to blow a hole straight through a skyscraper with his atomic ray, but again, skyscrapers are much easier to destroy than a mountain because they're hallow and not made of solid, unmoving rock. Not saying Tirek is stronger than Godzilla, but it's the only attack by a kaiju I've seen be comparable to Tirek's.
And as Tarbano said, that was less 'I want to actually destroy this mountain', and more 'I want to smash my enemy', and plowing through the mountain was collateral damage. Making it basically a casual hole punched in a mountain with sheer brute force.
Honestly, I think there are Kaiju Tirek could one shot just by flying right through their body. Probably not the stronger ones, but keep in mind that the D-03 Missile from GMK that were designed to go through solid rock to a lesser degree than that were capable of piercing kaiju hide, but that's also still a drill, which still has to rip it's way through rock rather than just plowing straight through it.
Not trying to start an argument or anything, just pointing out saying 'Baragon and Zilla can do that' isn't quite accurate, because borrowing and just straight up plowing through a mountain with sheer brute force aren't the same thing.
4444354
Because of how big Baragon and Zilla are, it's effectively the same. Tirek is what, 50 feet tall? The hole he makes is the same as any scratch into the ground from Baragon or Zilla.
And each clawful is bigger than the hole Tirek made. Seriously, Tirek is quite small.
vignette4.wikia.nocookie.net/mlp/images/b/bb/S4E26.png/revision/latest?cb=20140512100852&path-prefix=de
The ponies themselves are already pretty short, around the size of a medium to large dog, and Tirek is still not all too massive.
Mountains are by definition taller than 610 meters. That thing that Tirek hit was absolutely a hill, and not a very big one.
img4.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20140512152158/mlp/images/c/c7/Tirek_pushing_through_the_mountain_S4E26.png
Maybe 50 meters tall at best, but the hole Tirek creates is smaller than what Baragon or Zilla would create with a paw swipe into rock anyway. The hole is about five body lengths of Tirek, much less than what Zilla or Baragon have to do to fit their massive bodies.
Kaiju don't normally bash through hills, but digging kaiju do it by necessity constantly since there's bed rock everywhere. New York is in fact full of bedrock, and Zilla tunneled through it just fine. It's exactly the same as Tirek's showing when you account for how small Tirek is by comparison.
Yeah, and Zilla shoved his 100 meter or so length through bed rock in around the same span of time(only his tail was sticking out when the torpedoes hit him. And this was the weak Zilla too, the one that died to Sidewinders. If he can slice through bedrock to such a degree, he's on par with Tirek. So Tirek's best claim to fame is being about equal to an F tier kaiju when it comes to going through solid materials. Alicorn powered Twilight was equal to Tirek, so let's say his power doubles. Do you really think that double Zilla's power is remotely relevant?
GMK Godzilla walked through a hill as well. Titanosaurus punting Godzilla hard enough to send him kilometers out of the city, Leatherback tossing Gypsy Danger a kilometer, Legion's beam forming massive 100 meter craters, etc.
It's really not that impressive. And again, Zilla did just as well.
But he was still in fight mode. With the burrower examples, it's their method of transport, it's incredibly casual. Hell, what about Megalon? He tunnels through miles of bed rock at Mach speeds yet gets slapped around like a child by Jet Jaguar and fails to so much as draw blood on Godzilla.
Yeah, sure. I guess he could kill the Giant Condor, Gezora, Ebirah, and maybe a few other weaklings. But unless you think Megalon or Zilla can just one shot a lot of kaiju with their digging implements, then I doubt he'd be doing it too often.
The D-03 only ever worked on an infant Ghidorah or on a wound left by the giant blast created by Ghidorah. It's not so special.
They are when Zilla's arm is twice as long as Tirek is and he tunnels just as fast. And again, Megalon tunneling at Mach speeds.
4444312
4444354
I make a blog asking people to stop trying to power scale. Someone proceeds to power scale and cause an argument..... Oye.
I am not joining in on this debate. It is pointless and frankly, very annoying. After a fiasco on deviantart I am honestly about 105% done with such arguments. One thing that needs be kept in mind is both media, Toku and cartoons, tend to be wildly inconsistent with how strong or durable their characters are. This makes scaling outside of very rough ideas even more pointless because of the variation. Tirek plowing through a mountain and GMK Godzilla shoving over a hill is like comparing a bullet going through a clay statue as an angry guy shoves over another statue. Which one's stronger? The burst of force or the continued one? Neither really.
So please, drop it. Others have already pointed out what I was going to say so is there really a point of my saying it? For sake of redundancy I'll note a few things.
1. Regardless of how you scale Tirek, 50 feet or 10 feet ,as I see estimates everywhere in between given he keeps changing size in between shots (Ponies for comparison have been pretty consistently scaled to around 3'4-3'5, about the size of a RL Shetland pony), that mountain he smashed through was still 9-11x "Tirek Heights" wide. Of solid rock. Which by cubic meter is far denser than the dirt laden hills or skyscrapers anyone not named Megalon digs through. The best scale measurement is to equate Tirek to roughly the same size as Showa and Millennium age kaiju's hand or forearm. Ergo, Tirek's full body tackle has about the same surface area as a punch or swipe from one of those, if not slightly larger.
2. Tirek did this without slowing down, he was moving at virtually the same speed coming out as he did going in. And he accomplished this while pushing Twilight through said mountain. Even most kaiju can be slowed down when trying to punch through something with a hand; which Tirek is roughly the same size as. But again, very inconsistent.
3. This wasn't even the Tirek who got hit with the rainbow power. This was one whom at maximum was 1/2 as powerful as that one. One could argue it was less so for a variety of reasons (Twilight's not a good fighter, Tirek being the one to pick for an impasse, powers magnifying off each other, how big he got afterwards, etc). The final form Tirek absolutely balloons in terms of size.
Again, using the 3'4-3'5 height estimate for your average pony (Twilight would be on upper end of that given this is Alicorn!Twi), that pegs final form Tirek at 620-634 feet tall*. For comparison, Godzilla is 328 feet and King Ghidorah at his current largest is 492 feet.
PS: Mountain is, by definition of the US geological survey, is any upheaval of land that is >/=1,000 feet tall. It can be extremely wide or fairly narrow. And 1,000 feet is still significantly taller than most kaiju. What Tirek plowed through is taller than a majority of what kaiju smash through.
*371.875 squares tall = 1 Tirek Height
/2 (2 squares = 1 Twilight Height)
= 185.9375, Tirek is 185.9375 "Twilight Height"s tall
185.9375
X 3.3333 (= 3'3 feet), 3.416666 (= 3'5 feet)
=
aprox. 620 to 634 feet
4444401 I'm not saying that Bagan=Harmony=Grogar is wrong scaling, because the Rainbow Power as of yet has really no low showings to make it seem weak(only the Sirens and Midnight Sparkle pushing it back but the Sirens themselves are impossible to scale due to only interacting with magic and not causing any environmental damage and Midnight Sparkle's power is not a very kind one for scaling). And obviously power scaling in context of the Bridge is wrong too since these are their own versions and ought not to be scaled off of film versions(Anguirus is the best example of this, given his buff in the story). I don't contend with anything on how you write the story because it's your own versions and what not so I'm not trying to get into that.
4444432
I'm aware. It's just I am so thoroughly annoyed with scaling debates right now that seeing one break out in the comments has left me more than a bit miffed when one took only a day later to pop up. That fiasco on DA was extremely annoying and made a gigantic mess. So I'm not bashing on you or ticked off at anyone right now, it's just something I'd really appreciate not looking at right now.
And this is why powers levels in Dragon Ball Z are redundant now
4444401 I apologize for going into this again.
I was more making note that it's not exactly fair to say a kaiju being able to burrow makes Tirek's act lesser, since it's not really a fair assessment for the reasons you gave.
That said, this REALLY makes me feel sorry for anyone Tirek decides to gore with his horns, as THAT much impact force on a sharp tip would big devastating.
And geeze, max power Tirek is THAT big? He's almost as big as Zogu's angel form from Ultraman Gaia!
...And it just hit me: despite Ultra Kaiju generally being Showa Era kaiju scale, the big final boss ones that are bigger than normal tend to be a LOT bigger than normal. That's weird.
4444435 I sincerely apologize for participating in another of these debates...
On a more lighthearted note: I'm completely with Tarbano on putting a balanced crossover above powerscaling.
There's ALWAYS debate about which side of a crossover is stronger, but that debate ultimately shouldn't matter:
The BEST part of a crossover is seeing the two sides as equals and their interactions.
The Bridge is so good because it is balanced, and that balance is part of WHY it gets a lot of the interactions we do:
If Luna had gotten curbstomped by Junior as some argue she 'should have', we would have never got Junior meeting Blade Dancer and his interactions with the guards.
If Xenilla and Destroyah didn't feel the need to keep a low profile because things are balanced such that fighting the Equestrians AND the Terra Defenders at once, then we'd not have gotten Destroyah getting the CMC as her morality pets. And we also wouldn't have gotten Cadence and Xenilla vs Sombra, or Xenilla's relationship with Blade Dancer.
Tarbano does a good job explaining WHY Bagan, Harmony, and Grogar being even is a GOOD thing for the story.
So, while it is debatable whether or not the Kaiju side 'should' be stronger than the pony side, what's not debatable is just how much more interesting a story The Bridge is because they're not.
I'm of the opinion that any crossover can work if enough time and effort is put into it, and Tarbano has put so much into it he has my respect.
4444338 he only got pushed in the sidelines in the manga, in the anime he didn't need future Zamasu's help after his fight with Super Saiyan 2 Goku he has gotten a power boost so big that in base form he could handle his own against Super Saiyan Blue Vegeta then unlocked Super Saiyan Rose that easily kicked the shit out of Vegeta, in the Manga Goku Black doesn't relish in the heat of Battle and relied on his future self to heal him to take advantage of the Zenkai in Goku's body while in the Anime Goku Black relishes in the heat of battle and gets stronger through fighting, in other words the Manga nerfed Goku Black and made him a little bitch
4444648
I know. I watch the anime, I just don't read the manga.
Even though i'm sure you're not upset about it, i'm still gonna say sorry for getting involved in another of these stupid arguements. But i swear on all of my work that i was only trying to help out by keeping someone from being disrespectful to you AGAIN! If there's one thing i cannot and WILL not tolerate, it's when someone does that to my friends. I don't expect you to respond to this: but i can only hope you understand why i got involved like i did. I'm sorry.
4446126 It's okay dude, no worries :)
4446173 Thank you. I was just doing what i should do for any friend: sticking up for him, and watching his back. i.e. you, buddy.:)
4444498 Amen.
I'm in complete agreement with this whole power thing, Tarb. It's crazy to think that if some of the most powerful beings just unleashed their full power on something, we'd never be able to see what else could happen.
I know this discussion is pretty much over, but there is another example I can think of from The Bridge itself. The fight between Godzilla and Luna. Most of the fight (from what we saw) was a stand still and only ended when Goji dropped his guard at the wrong moment. From the images provided by Faith, the two of them were pretty evenly thrashed. Any real advantage one had seemed to be negated by an advantage the other had. This may just be me spit balling, but, Goji seemed to have an edge in brute strength due to his bulkier build, but Luna seemed to have the mobility advantage due to her wings. In terms of firepower, they were about even. Another point is that the two of them like to fight very differently. Goji likes to get up close and personal while Luna likes to keep the fight at a distance. But, neither one is a slouch in the other department. In the end, the fight was decided by a lucky shot, not because either one was stronger than the other.
Once again, I know this is over, but I have another example from yours truly. As much as I dislike plugging my own work (because I think it's extremely arrogant) I couldn't help but think of this post after writing it. Recently, I finished a Star Wars fanfiction over on deviantart (readable here: http://diverseinterests47.deviantart.com/gallery/49512435/Star-Wars-The-New-Order) and during the final showdown, my OC, Anakin, faces off against established beast, Kylo Ren. Throughout the battle, Kylo Ren is much stronger and more skilled, even though he was injured before the fight. But, on top of that, before the battle, Anakin witnessed Ren kill Han Solo, who is Anakin's uncle, and hurt Rey, Anakin's newest friend. So at the beginning of the fight, Anakin was so angry he couldn't see straight. Because of this, his strikes were a lot less practiced, and a lot more, thrown for the sake of throwing them. Anakin eventually got an injury to his shoulder, which made it a lot harder for him to fight. Eventually, through sheer force of will, and catching a second wind towards the end of the fight, Anakin was able to win. However, if the fight had seen both of them at their peek, Ren would have wiped the floor with Anakin (which he did earlier in the story). In the end, Anakin only won with some outside assistance, and being able to center himself better. My whole point with saying this is, a lot of factors contributed to the outcome being what it was. While Ren was the stronger fighter, the injury he sustained before hand and the fact that he couldn't center himself ultimately led to his defeat.