The Shrike vs. The God Emperor of Mankind

[The Dork Knight]

Yeah I imagine if he lends speed to J'onn for instance, who isn't at "zero/human speed" to begin with, it lasts as long as it takes the dude to think "win"

[Captain Morgan]

I would imagine they're referring to the Flash giving his speed to someone else.

In which case, long enough for a fight, as far as what we've seen of that.

To be specific, we have seen it last the duration of a fist fight that involved circling the globe a dozen times, and covering every inch of the planet while guys like Superman are statues. Which seems like rather long enough for a JLA member to beat Shrike.

[Carabas]

I would imagine they're referring to the Flash giving his speed to someone else.

In which case, long enough for a fight, as far as what we've seen of that.

Yes.
I have not a clue what The Dork Knight was replying to.

[The Dork Knight]

Yes.
I have not a clue what The Dork Knight was replying to.

I assumed it was a reference to Shrike "speed dumping" people in the tree or end of time or whatever. My bad for missing the hyphen

[Shellhead]

When post-Crisis Wally first promoted himself from Kid Flash to Flash, he had some kind of odd drawback requiring him to eat large quantities of food. That was probably when he was forced to perfect his "speed dumping."

[Pendaran]

When post-Crisis Wally first promoted himself from Kid Flash to Flash, he had some kind of odd drawback requiring him to eat large quantities of food. That was probably when he was forced to perfect his "speed dumping."

You are a monster, sir.

[The Arbiter]

When post-Crisis Wally first promoted himself from Kid Flash to Flash, he had some kind of odd drawback requiring him to eat large quantities of food. That was probably when he was forced to perfect his "speed dumping."

Bwahahahaha XD

Ahem.

I have tracked down my physical copies of the books. Using the phone to navigate was nearly unbearable. I'm planning to dump a bunch of context and evidence sometime tonight.

In the meantime, I will just have to continue dying of laughing.

[Shellhead]

You are a monster, sir.

Apparently I got some Flash fan really upset. Within minutes of posting that remark, somebody tried five times to hack my account here before getting locked out. CBR sent me an email, so I changed my password to something stronger.

[Pendaran]

Apparently I got some Flash fan really upset. Within minutes of posting that remark, somebody tried five times to hack my account here before getting locked out. CBR sent me an email, so I changed my password to something stronger.

That's even more gross than your original post!

Ugh, if this is the precursor of some board being compromised thing, that will be really depressing.

[The Arbiter]

This took me a long time. Like a really long time.

So what follows is going to be my very best and most honest attempt to breakdown The Shrike and all of its most relevant feats (without getting into conjecture or looking too far into hyperbolic statements) with full context given within the universe of the Hyperion Cantos. This is the first time I have created a post on this scale and covering this much detail. I am essentially creating a bit of a “respect thread” within this thread to hopefully once and for all pin down this divisive Rumbles character so we may actually use it for fruitful discussions. Part of the Shrike’s total package will require some scaling based on other characters in the universe, so I may frequently reference non Shrike stuff, such as: Swiss Guard, various spacecraft and of course, Nemes and her clones.

Lets start with the Swiss Guard:
“The Vatican Swiss Guard was the elite of the elite, the best-trained, best-equipped military force in the far flung expanse of the Pax. A dozen Vatican Guard troops in full regalia could have beaten the entire 10,000 troops of Hyperion’s Home Guard” - Chapter 4, Endymion.

Statement made by Raul, the main character and something of a knowledgeable man when it comes to the military. It is important to note that even the crappy Home Guard have electromagnetic levitation barges, high powered energy weapons and armor that could shrug off any modern day infantry weapon.

The FORCE multipurpose rifle has 2 different energy beam weapons. One of which creates a 14 centimeter wide hole that can punch 500 meters into solid rock at the far end of the valley, despite having been fired near the center of the valley and through a giant monolithic Time Tomb structure before hand. “Kassad fires bhees—beams of high-energy electrons—which rip through the Monolith and plow perfectly cylindrical fourteen-centimeter-wide tunnels for half a kilometer through the rock of the valley wall.” -Fall of Hyperion Chapter Thirteen. The other is a wide angle short range beam that Kassad mentions is putting out heat on the scale of the sun, and has feats for flash boiling sand and rock into molten glass and lava. Kassad being perhaps one of the most celebrated military minds in Hegemony history, and a fairly stoic and serious guy, should not be prone to exaggeration. “Kassad skidded to a halt ten meters from the thing and activated the assault rifle, slagging the sand beneath the Shrike in a full-power wide-beam burst. The Shrike glowed as its carapace and steel-sculpture legs reflected the hellish light beneath and around it. Then the three meters of monster began to sink as the sand bubbled into a lake of molten glass beneath it. Kassad shouted in triumph as he stepped closer, playing the widebeam on the Shrike anf ground the way he had sprayed his friends with stolen irrigation hoses in the Tharsis slums as a boy. The Shrike sank. Its arms splayed at the sand and rock, trying to find purchase. Sparks flew. It shifted, time running backward like a reversed holie, but Kassad shifted with it, realizing that Moneta was helping him, her suit slaved to his but guiding him through time, and then he was spraying the creature again with concentrated heat greater than the sun, melting sand beneath it, and watching the rocks around it burst into flame.” – Fall of Hyperion Chapter 40. It should be noted that the Shrike was completely unharmed from this.

Anyways, this leads to another quote from Raul stating that the FORCE rifle would be completely useless against the Swiss Guard despite its fairly impressive offense options. “Before entering Parvati System, I had toyed with greeting any Swiss Guard boarders with the FORCE weapon, but modern combat suits would have shrugged off everything it could dole out, and to be honest, I had been afraid it would make the Pax troopers mad.” - Endymion Chapter 25.

So, we have established what the Swiss Guard can do and what they can tank. Other fun facts about them is that most if not all of them also have personal cloaking technology which makes them nearly invisible, have jetpackts, and have supersonic weaponry that can shoot down aircraft at 175 kilometers away as standard infantry armaments.

The Shrike slaughters thousands of these soldiers, as well as thousands of other non swiss guard soldiers and badly damaging several spaceships and wiping out 60% of their crew, in about 30 seconds. One of those spaceships is the St. Bonaventure Torchship. The same classification of ship that can survive hiding within stars. Apparently it was pretty damaged as an explosion tore through it and its captain died. Off screen events. This next part is simply too long of a quote and too spread out for me to copy the whole thing, so I will be recapping the highlights. I will provide the chapter so anyone who feels I have been dishonest may fact check me.

Highlights of this battle:
The Shrike takes a full plasma artillery bolt to the chest and doesn’t even flinch. It seems to do this intentionally (dropping out of fast time) simply as part of its whole intimidation factor. This is important because at bare minimum, this cannon should be several orders of magnitude higher than the 200 year old hand held FORCE rifle I mentioned earlier. Its personal Swiss Guard stuff, and Raul previously notes that the Pax era military is leagues beyond the Hegemony in regards to its military.

De Soya (the military leader) is hurt to the point where his limbs are barely hanging together, and it appears he wasn’t attacked by the Shrike so much as had simply walked into the thing. He notes that his armor being punctured at all should be impossible. He mentions that his “impact proof, energy resistant, omnipolymer armor is in shreds. Like tattered rubber on a cheap tire.” His bones are visible and his leg barely attached.

This next part is quote worthy. De Soya and team, while healing, feel as though they were overwhelmed by an unstoppable army when Swiss Guard Gregorious shows up and tells them flatly what happened. “Just one sir. The Shrike. Just the Shrike. It killed most of the Swiss Guard and half the regular Pax troops on Equus, downed all of the Scorpion Fighters, took two Torchships of the Line out of business, killed everyone aboard the C-three ship, left his calling card here and was gone in under 30 seconds. The rest was just our guys shooting each other in panic (more evidence that SG weapons are well more powerful than the FORCE rifle). Just the Shrike.”

All of that happened between chapters 14-16 of Endymion.

On to the more impressive stuff. Apologies, as this may be sort of long winded, but I want to provide as much context as possible. Its seriously time to figure the Shrike out for Rumbles.

To the Dork Knight – I was wrong earlier. I have no idea why I thought the Archangel class ship that blasted Nemes on the mountain was any sort of prototype. Turns out its quite the opposite. “You will have command of our newest and most advanced ship captain. It is similar to the one which brought you to the Pacem system, except it can hold 6 passengers, it is armed to the level of your former torchship, and it has an automated resurrection system”. - Endymion, chapter 9. Armed to the level of your former torchship is the important piece as we are discussing weaponry. Later on, we see what a small fleet of these Archangel class ships do to torchships in mock battle. Its also where we see the torchships straight up survive within a star as a means of camouflage. “The final two torchships came ripping out of the star at high boost, their fields venting heat on the visible spectrum, two blazing white hot proto stars seemingly spit out of their massive parent, both ships trying to close on the taskforce that even now was ripping through the system at three quarters light speed. The closest Archangel, the Sariel, killed them both without diverting an erg of power from its shields.” – Rise of Endymion, chapter 7.

Nemes and her siblings can withstand being blasted by an Archangel class ship for over a minute and then forced deep within a mountain for 4 years, without once losing consciousness. It should be noted that how they free her, is again with a concentrated orbital blast by another Archangel vessel. So even if you argue the ships that one shot kill the sun surviving torchships have undergone some upgrades in the last 4 years, it doesn’t matter as we see her survive both iterations of said Archangel’s beam. In fact, looking over the book now, De Soya /supercharges/ the weapons systems right before firing at Nemes from orbit. Torchships can accurately fight at half an AU (the distance from the sun to earth) so the 280 kilometers distance here should not weaken the beam. What follows is the confirmation that De Soya does indeed supercharge the weapon, followed by the actual blast on Nemes, followed by her retrieval four years later from a second blast:

Character limit exceeded. Part 2 incoming.

[The Arbiter]

1: “Father De Soya has seen enough to make a decision. ‘Divert all power from ship functions and drop life support to minimal levels’ his voice orders. ‘Bring the fusion core to one hundred fifteen percent and kill forward deflection shields. Bring power for tactical use’” Endymion chapter 55.

2: “The chromed figure stood in the center of a three-meter circle of orange light that stretched up to the heavens and disappeared only when it narrowed to an infinite point hundreds of kilometers above. The air rippled and roiled where the beam of almost solid energy ripped through the atmosphere. The metallic woman-shape tried to move toward us, but the high-energy lance seemed to exert too much pressure. Still, she stood, the chrome field around her turning red, then green, then a blinding white. But still she stood, her fist raised and shaking at the sky. Beneath her feet the lava rock boiled, turned red, and ran downhill in great molten rivers. Some ran into the river not ten meters downstream from us, and the steam clouds billowed up with a loud hissing. At that moment I admit that I considered becoming religious for the first time in my life. The chrome shape seemed to see the danger seconds before it was too late. It disappeared, reappeared as a blur—fist shaking toward the sky—disappeared again, reappeared a final time, and then sank into the lava under its feet where solid rock had been an instant earlier. The beam stayed on for another full minute.” -Endymion chapter 55 again.

3: The Nemes siblings retrieving her. “The three had taken five steps back when the lance of pure energy burned from space. Birds and arboreals fled in loud panic through the screening trees. The air ionized and became superheated in seconds, rolling a shock wave in all directions. Branches and leaves burst into flame fifty meters from the beam’s point of contact. The cone of pure brilliance exactly matched the diameter of the circular depression in the boulder, turning the smooth stone to a lake of molten fire.” Also chapter 55. One of the siblings goes in and drags her out. She is angry as a hornet.

Why is all of this important? Because later on we see the Shrike one shot KO Nemes for over 20 minutes while phaseshifted in her skin suit. She mentions the suit is impenetrable and this should be impossible. We also see the Shrike cut the head off of her phase shifted sibling and tear his guts out. It also cuts through Kassads skin suit as well, tearing out his achilles heel. Kassad himself believes the Shrike’s entire body is composed of this phase shift material, and not just a thin layer over the skin. Lastly, its important to note that Nemes and Shrike have internal technology that is specifically designed to remove the pesky issues of collateral damage (collateral specifically, its not reducing the actual blows, just the side effects) from their fights. Nemes remarks that without this technology, her fight with Shrike would have “shattered everything around them for kilometers”. – Rise of Endymion chapter 11, Fall of Hyperion chapter 36, Fall of Hyperion Chapter 17, and Endymion chapter 55.

So the Shrike is at bare minimum, their level of durability (probably higher, because its whole body is phase shift material and because it frequently resists their and kassads attacks) and easily capable of chopping right through that level of durability.

Nemes can also handle a special monofilimant wire that can cut right through Swiss Guard armor, and she and the shrike were hitting each other with blows Raul was convinced could “break our ship in half”. Striking the Shrike was described by Kassad as being like “striking a metal pipe inside a kilometer of concrete”. I am paraphrasing these last quotes as I am running out of steam and really cant be bothered to get the exact wording. Suffice to say, they seem more poetic in nature and less concrete.

Farcasting/Freecasting! Time to tackle the big one that Pen and big_adventure seem to be conflicted on.

I have already in this thread quoted the example of the Shrike moving the kilometer long ship Yggdrasil over 200 years in the past and across the galaxy. It was offscreen. If you want the chapter, scroll up.

The following is of when the Shrike moves Kassad through time without touching him. It had just been sent sprawling backwards against the far wall from him during their fight. As its orienting itself, he feels his perspective shifting. Page 428 of the paperback copy of Fall of Hyperion (chapter 42) shows them shift back in the distant future of Hyperion where the Time Tombs were created.

Aenea jumps the treeship Yggdrasil many times in Rise of Endymion, chapters 28 and 29. She is onboard the ship, but it seems more or less instant. Raul remarks that the repeated jumps seem to tire her out, but she still manages them. Eventually the Shrike performs the final, and most impressive, jump. But again, offscreen. Eventually, Raul himself can jump from planet to planet using his own prowess.

Ok, now I am going to address some more miscellaneous points

The Shrike is immune to the brain killing neuron disrupting deathwand technology. It’s a giant phase shifted super computer. As such, I don’t particularly think TP works on it.

Next, it was once weighed by a ships computer to be about 1000 kilograms. Bettik (who is an agent of a higher power in disguise) claims that the Shrike can adjust its mass. This seems to happen later when the Shrike stands upon a small wooden raft without capsizing it.

The shrike has the bizarre ability to seemingly turn off all the lights in an area relative even to a FTL persons perspective. This is… kinda impossible and strange to quantify? He’s also scan proof to infrared, sonar, radar, and a gazillion other things Nemes tries.

To address a specific point made by big_adventure and Cthulhu that the Shrike could just port people directly in his Tree of Pain spikes…. Nope. We get Silenus himself stating that the Shrike cast him to the tree just fine, but then had to physically pluck him up and put him on the thing. So he can dump you somewhere general, but not much beyond that.

As a final point, big_adventure claims the Shrike moves Aenea and her group without touching them on the same planet where it kills Nemes brother via decapitation. That… doesn’t happen. Like at all.

----

This seems like a decent place to stop. When I recuperate my energy I may tackle the speed of the thing, if anyones interested, but I can say at a glance that Shrike appears to be at least on Wally’s radar so to speak. Nanosecond this, timeless interlude that, beams of light frozen in mid air yadda yadda. It’s a nasty debate, but I suppose I could do.

This is the first time I have ever written a forum post of this magnigitude lol, so please excuse grammar and such. I have bookmarked each thing I mentioned above, and can provide more detail if anyone needs clarification.

[Nik Hasta]

Just wanted to say, good work Arby.

[big_adventure]

Excellent post Arby.

Just to clarify, when they cast off the planet where Shrike wastes a clone and KOs Nemes, what do you think runs the cast? I had always assumed the Shrike managed all of that, including when it's not actually with them, though to be fair, it's never stated.

In any case, what we have here is the Shrike being absolutely capable of sending beings through time and space without touching them.

This will directly include things like, oh, Wally West and the other non Wally West and thus non-important members of the fight in question. He can't put them on the spike without going there: ok, that's lovely, since he doesn't need to: he just needs to dump them into the big bang or whatever and it's over. Nobody here can play with time on his level, and the one who can even approach it isn't surviving "inside a sun" or "inside a black hole" or "just stuck in the vacuum of space with nothing to touch, **** it sucks that I can't fly."

Now, if the argument is that Wally is faster... That's a different argument. I'm pretty unconvinced.

Arby, you did forget to mention that, when he killed all of the guardsmen and all of the soldiers and all of the crew that he killed, he also cut out the cruciform. Again, that's a very important part of the feat: it's cutting miles of microscopic filaments out of a body, and doing it to thousands of them, and not leaving ANY of it.

[The Arbiter]

Personally, I always assumed it was something more... divine that was casting them about on the River Tethys. Like, the Shrike can just do it whenever and however. But when Raul and crew were casting, it seemed like they needed to be at exact coordinates and of course, at the old farcaster portals. Like maybe the LTB did it. Infuriatingly it's never stated as far as I can tell.

I specifically put blinders on when anything speed related crept into my view haha so I didn't really skim the aftermath portions of the battle for mentions of the cruciform. I suspect I will be called upon to serve soon enough for these feats :P

They do mention it would be surgically impossible to remove them later, and he does it to at least 300 people at a separate instance.

[big_adventure]

Fwiw I don't recall them ever saying the Shrike was the cause of the casting about on the Tethys. I just always "blamed" it, since the LTB were using the Shrike to further Aenea's goals, and the Shrike does enough other teleporty/time-movey crap throughout, including specifically with Aenea and Co. But no, that one thing is never stated.

I mean, just the reason for that trip: Aenea already had the power to cast, since it's based on hearing the dead, the living, the music of the stars and taking a step across Planck space and time. The journey was 100% to let her (and Raul) learn the worlds and what they felt like. That's explicitly stated. :-)

Edit: oh and of course they farcast to and from worlds that never had Tethys or any other farcasts portals, until they did, mostly for dramatic effect. Poor Raul. :-)