Deus Ex Machina

[Tev]

There was a talk going on in the fight thread about pitting Neo (a Dues Ex) against Darth Vader (notably less than such). Goku has come up as well from time to time and it got me thinking about asking of a Dues Ex smack down of sorts. The issue is that I'm finding it rather hard to come up with true Dues Ex Machina characters, that is: characters who's Dues Ex phenomenon transcends their own world or genre and is applicable in a setting where these world-enders could all go at each other’s throats.

I have so far:
Nicol Bolas
-First and most powerful Planeswalker of the Magic: the Gathering Multiverse. This draconic 'walker rules the multiverse with infinite power. Other planeswalkers tremble at his mention, their godhood a mere flicker of power compared to this magical monster.

Q
-Yes Q. We all hate this omnipotent bastard but he is a Deus Ex in his own right. He is the is-all be-all of the Star Treck universe and he'll be glad to ruin your day just so you don't forget that you are really just nothing more than a pawn for his amusement.

Goku
-BDZ fans rejoice, your simple minded golden monkey boy is here. Somehow Goku always wins. Even when he loses he wins. Even when he wins he wins. It may take 180,000 episodes to finish casting his finishing move, but he'll get you, no matter how much stronger you were when you started laying into him at the beginning of the fight.

Neo
-Very much like Goku in a more technical world. It is eluded that his virtual hax powers actually extend to the real world as well....thus causing confusion to whether the real world is as real as we think.....time and space are his play things. He knows Kung Fu.


So anyway, what other true Dues Ex Machina are there? And once we get a good list how do you think they will all fair in a battle to end all battles? A no holds barred fight to claim the title of true Deus Ex?

[The Artist Formerly Known as Hawk]

Superman.
Willow Rosenberg.
Jean Grey (with Pheonix Force).


I think that pretty much covers it.

[Tev]

Superman is very beatable though, especially when you start dealing with "magical" forces that reconsruct things at a molecular level.....

[Amake]

We should mention Alan Moore's Promethea, who meets Jesus in Heaven (http://img98.imageshack.us/img98/979/goldenwh9.jpg), actually succeeds in ending the world, and makes everyone love her in the process. She wields the collective power of mankind's imagination.

Also Grant Morrison's Crazy Jane of Doom Patrol. She's probably the most literal plot device character ever conceived, with 64 distinct personalities that all have their own superpowers. Most of them never even show up in the comic.

[Bells]

The Petrelli family is sure to have a spot here

[Fifthfiend]

I understand that Anita Blake: Vampire Hunter generates new superpowers via threeway undead-fucking. I tried to investigate this phenomenon for myself, but the book was so dreadful I couldn't get anywhere in it even with the promise of hot werewolf-on-vampire action dangling in front of me. But look up her TVTropes page, it's a riot.

Harry Potter always seemed to win for some retarded fucking reason that had nothing to do with anything, yet win he somehow did. Never read the last book so don't know if it holds true to form.

Superman depends on which of the six trillion versions of Superman you're talking about.

Gurren Lagann's entire thing is the ability to generate whatever ability is needed via sheer shameless awesomeness.

And once we get a good list how do you think they will all fair in a battle to end all battles? A no holds barred fight to claim the title of true Deus Ex?

Someone really wasn't paying attention to the thing where we had one retarded versus battlefests thread, were they?

Thread can stay open cause the talking about retardedly overpowered characters in fiction is kinda fun but if it starts getting to be about which retardedly overpowered character would win in a fight of retardedly overpowered characters then just, naw, dude.

[Jagos]

I understand that Anita Blake: Vampire Hunter generates new superpowers via threeway undead-fucking. I tried to investigate this phenomenon for myself, but the book was so dreadful I couldn't get anywhere in it even with the promise of hot werewolf-on-vampire action dangling in front of me. But look up her TVTropes page, it's a riot.

~ Book Four she (Hamilton) went the route of Anne Rice. She goes for full on orgies of massive proportions.

Don't get me started on the hanging threads left from Book 4 to Book 8 that haven't been worked on for in Book 10 because, golly, Anita's personal life and powers (which have grown to god-status) are SO much more fun...

It was far better when she was JUST a necromancer. Now she's Rambo with boobs and pale skin. Deux Ex +1

I'm debating if Rand or Mat were bigger Deus Ex from the Wheel of Time series.

[Fifthfiend]

It's awesome to me that you've apparently read all of them.

[Mesden]

TTGL automatically wins this thread. I mean for however DEM all these other guys are, their writers seem to have some pitiful self-rationalizing reason on why they beat the other guy, not specifically because their guy is just supposed to win.

TTGL, instead of reasoning like that, outright states that they will win, are going to win, and if they're not going to win, they're going to win, regardless of if their chance is 0% or if they never had the chance to begin with.

[Fifthfiend]

Basically true. Like how Goku has to go off and get near-mortally (or mortally!) wounded and then go train in heaven for 30 episodes.

TTGL just goes "More robot!" And bam! More robot.

They never even so much power up, as just laugh in your face for imagining they weren't that badass all along.

...And then if they don't look badass enough while they're deus exing - they deus ex themselves some sunglasses! Because it's not proper deus ex if you don't look cool doing it.

[Jagos]

It's awesome to me that you've apparently read all of them.

I stopped at 5. After that, Wiki was my friend and it turned into a soap opera. Saved myself enough for insurance to NEVER read this series again.

-Edit- I also have a friend who collected later books. After 10 years with the series going from sci-fi drama horror type to bishie, she was the first to tell me she didn't want to get anything after 8.

[Tev]

Someone really wasn't paying attention to the thing where we had one retarded versus battlefests thread, were they?
Actually the plan was to introduce a nice list into that thread once I had a better list. Also I was hoping for more reasons behind peoples' choices to help me weed out some of the chafe that did not qualify as "multi-genre" or universal DEM-hood. Some people have strong feelings about characters that might be Deus Ex in their mind, but fall flat when moved into the broader multiverse. I want a well thought out DEM fight that I want to submit to that thread. This was my vehicle to deliver it. If it was mistook as something other than a Deus Ex discussion then I am sorry. I chose my word poorly.

That aside: So....TTGL and it's "more robot" strategy.....it stands against the weavers and re-writers of reality how? To some More robot would just mean more target. To others....well, would they even bother with the robot itself? To be honest I'm not up to speed on my mecha anime in this area short of crude internet jokes and the like. Care to defend TTGL with more than "more robot?"

[Krylo]

They just win by being awesome, from what I gather. There's no pretending they're doing anything else. Someone throws something big at them, they're all like "No, we're too awesome for that shit" and then they throw something bigger and stronger back. Not just more robot, more of whatever is necessary to win.

[Fifthfiend]

Care to defend TTGL with more than "more robot?"

Nope.

it stands against the weavers and re-writers of reality how?

By saying "fuck you", and hitting reality in the face with their robot.

...I mean, literally. They do that in like, three different episodes.

[Mesden]

That aside: So....TTGL and it's "more robot" strategy.....it stands against the weavers and re-writers of reality how? To some More robot would just mean more target. To others....well, would they even bother with the robot itself? To be honest I'm not up to speed on my mecha anime in this area short of crude internet jokes and the like. Care to defend TTGL with more than "more robot?"

You really don't get TTGL at all.

[Eltargrim]

To give a proper example:

The second-to-last episode has the BBEG trapping them within happy mind-constructs. The thing that tips the hero off that it's a fake? The previous hero doesn't have an iota of the awesome of the real guy. So he breaks out of the construct by creating the robot around himself, goes flying off into other people's dreams, gives the guy who can't have the power of awesome the power of awesome, shoots this giant robot out of his fiancée's ring, and then proceeds to power up so hard reality can't actually contain it. They then battle the BBEG in this alter-reality that was specifically created to house their awesome. They then fight by flinging galaxies at each other.

Yeah, reality doesn't stand a chance. They are going to win, because they are going to win. It's as simple as that.

[BitVyper]

You really don't get TTGL at all.

To be fair, you do kind of have to see it to get it.

[Mesden]

To give a proper example:

The second-to-last episode has the BBEG trapping them within happy mind-constructs. The thing that tips the hero off that it's a fake? The previous hero doesn't have an iota of the awesome of the real guy. So he breaks out of the construct by creating the robot around himself, goes flying off into other people's dreams, gives the guy who can't have the power of awesome the power of awesome, shoots this giant robot out of his fiancée's ring, and then proceeds to power up so hard reality can't actually contain it. They then battle the BBEG in this alter-reality that was specifically created to house their awesome. They then fight by flinging galaxies at each other.

Yeah, reality doesn't stand a chance. They are going to win, because they are going to win. It's as simple as that.


You misspoke when you said "power up." They were always that powerful and you're an idiot if you've ever assumed less!

[Eltargrim]

Sorry, I should have been clear.

Their opponent is on a scale that surpasses comprehension. So what do they do?

Reset the scale. On their terms.

Where's that .gif that gives a sense of size? It'd be a good example now.

[PCD]

Ash Ketchum.

No really, even if he loses a battle one time in a million, the kid is destined to save the world like fifty times, meets every Legendary Pokemon out there, and gets killer far in every tournament he enters.

[h4x.m4g3]

The God Emperor of Mankind from Warhammer 40k, or at least his descriptions. I mean he may not power up infinitely like most Deus Ex Machina, but whenever you hear of the depths of his unused power, its because he's already at that level. I mean the guy basicly rules a sizeable chunk of the universe trapped in his broken shell of a body, guiding his inexhaustible armies through another dimension ruled by his arch enemies the chaos gods, through his psychic might which is kept tethered to his body by having thousands of people sacrificed to him every day.

[The Artist Formerly Known as Hawk]

Here's a thought; SG-1. No seriously, these guys are made of Deus, they win by having the Power of the Plot. Doesn't matter what you do to them, somehow they'll win. You can throw endless legions of enemies at them, assemble the largest alien space armada in 4 galaxies to invade earth, you can capture them, torture them, mind fuck them, trap them 4 million lightyears away in another galaxy with no hope of return and make them fight their greatest enemies, trap them in fictional bubble universes, trap them in alternate timelines, trap them in the future or the past and yet somehow they'll still manage to beat the bad guys. All of them. At once.

Hell, even killing them doesn't work, because they'll either just find some way to come back to life or one of them will ascend to a higher plane of existence, and then come back to life.

[Fifthfiend]

You misspoke when you said "power up." They were always that powerful and you're an idiot if you've ever assumed less!

"WHO THE HELL DO YOU THINK WE ARE?!"

[Mirai Gen]

Without ever having seen an episode of TTGL I'm starting to get it more. But, moving on.
Harry Potter always seemed to win for some retarded fucking reason that had nothing to do with anything, yet win he somehow did. Never read the last book so don't know if it holds true to form.
Oh, it does, don't worry. (Kinda spoilers) Instead of the ending telling Harry and the audience, "Hey what you didn't know was this, that's how you won," Harry instead just struts up to Voldy and is like "hey, you totally can't win, cause I got this figured out already, I just didn't tell anyone else."

Cue nobody being surprised: Dante. Watch absolutely any cutscene from DMC3 or 4 (With the exception of when Dante gets gutted by Vergil, now that I think about it) and he's just like, yeah, no problem. It's all the more distressing to watch him get stabbed by seven or eight scythes yet when you get to play and get hit three times the game is like "Naw, dude, you aren't Dante. Don't even think you are."

[bluestarultor]

Ash Ketchum.

No really, even if he loses a battle one time in a million, the kid is destined to save the world like fifty times, meets every Legendary Pokemon out there, and gets killer far in every tournament he enters.

The thing about Ash is that he's only a Deus Ex in terms of his own world and in something pretty inconsequential, much like Yugi or Jaden from Yu-Gi-Oh! (/GX) always winning no matter what either through the Heart of the Cards or simply by being a totally brokenly badass player who always gets the exact elemental hero(es) he needs and/or Polymerization like he's working with a fixed deck. They can't go up against Superman because they're the best there is at a game. And if you don't think Pokemon battles are a game, consider that it's a tournament where you pit one monster against another with no real focus on the effects of their use on other humans past Team Rocket being blasted off. The Pokemon themselves really aren't all that powerful when it comes to causing lethal bodily harm, with a few notable exceptions that are invariably used as a plot point.

[Whomper]

Does Inuyasha count? I mean, that guy wins all the time just by waving around some supersword. "I have the shards of a hundr-OH MY GOD HE HAS A SUPER SPECIAL AWESOME SWORD AND HE SMELLS BUTTS I AM DEAD!"

[Lumenskir]

In honor of the Avatar movie being cast, I'd like to give a shout out to the Talking Island From A Time Before Bending. Sure, TIFATBB isn't DEMy in and of itself, but it helps to spur it on in others.

I guess Megas also, although that usage of DEM always kind of got in the way of the endings. At least in TTGL it's just non-stop so it becomes part of the action, but every Megas episode would just have him doing funny shit and when it came down to it pressing the win button.

[Relm Zephyrous]

Thats just because nobody in the show is smart enough/ the show doesn't want bodily harm. A bird flying at you at speeds of Mach 3 like a bullet or being literally flamethrowered should hurt, but it doesn't. Though even if that did count, it still wouldn't make any of the pokemon any sort of Deus ex. Unless we are talking something like TTGL where they win purely because they win, then power of plot isn't really any sort of power.
Yami however has some powers outside cards, which makes him a legit case. His magic forces people to play his games (early manga, before it became all about the card games) and when they lose, they get their mind raped in some crazy way. But, the problem here is that it only works well on people with no mental defenses, there just hasn't been the case where somebody had a way to resist. Only case I can think of is Pegasus, who actually isn't beaten by Yami, just weakened. Also, he needs to play a game to use his powers, but even allowing him to do it at free will, he'd only be mediocre. So yeah, barely a superpower, nothing of a Deus ex.

Have FF characters been considered for this yet?

((Underlined a main point to help weed out a lot of things))

[tacticslion]

If plot means nothing, what about Pun-Pun or the Omniscifier? Ostensibly they both exist in a story setting, one Faerun, the other Eberron. From the sound of it, Pun-Pun effectively (once he hits the appropriate level) is the same thing - or rather similar in nature - as TTGL. These cases might not count, as they are created from an PnP RPG, but if you were just talking about infinitly scalable abilities, they fit right in. However, I don't think the Power of Plot can truly be discounted by nature of the discussion being named "Deus Ex Machina". Of course, from what I'm hearing, TTGL seems to be the most literal Deus Ex Machina ("god in the machine") in existance, discounting, of course, things like FATE (Chrono Cross), the Oversoul (which is debatable whether or not that could be considered a god) from O S Card's the Children of Earth, and Jova (again actual godhood is debatable, though they're worshipped as such) from whatever the name of that book is that I've forgotten, any of which would be totally overwhelmed with something like Goku or even a (comparitively) measly star destroyer. I think I recall somewhere that in a book or universe the nature of the Divine is, itself, a machine created by human-kind that goes to the beginning of time before existance starts and kick-starts existance, thus causing the events that created it, etc. Other than that, from description alone, TTGL would have to win. 'Cause it seems that's what they do (though I've never watched it, and have no idea what TTGL stands for).

[Mesden]

Infinity is a concept, TTGL defies even concepts. TTGL is more than infinity by the sheer fact that they're TTGL.

TTGL's only rival would be Megas.

[Khael!]

Jon Osterman. He's like God, if God were made out of science.

[synkr0nized]

Lain


But she's allowed.