How do you pull off a normal human being able to compete with crazy transhumans?

You obviously already know the answer. Look at that smug fucker.

Seriously though, just never make transhumans so powerful as to completely negate pure skill and experience. If Sam had been a full on state of the art cyborg, or if they were both still fully human, Sam would have won their fight because he's the better swordsman.

This.

I hope OP isn't being a faggot.

Also his sword is way nicer than any of the other bosses

I mean, transhumans can also have enhanced brain power too.

And if you're going to go all Metal Gear anyway, don't be afraid to throw in a little bit of magic. Just a lil' bit. A tiny lil grain of magic.

OP can only be a faggot. Non-faggotry is something that is lost when becoming an OP, and we can never gain it back.

Because the mountains don't give back what they take.

Give them a mech and a really big knife.

Superior strategy and prep can usually deal with anything except super speed. At a certain point super speed is just too much for a normal person to overcome.

I don't know, probably courage or some shit like that.

1) By being well-prepared for anything they throw at you. Be Batman.

2) By playing dirty. By fighting them on your own terms and keeping yourself at an advantage.

3) By exploiting their weakness. A strength in one area, means a vulnerability somewhere else. This is more true to a metahuman/transhuman than a regaular mundane human.

What constitutes a "transhuman?" Humans have always been tool-users, and will always be tool-users. We just keep making better and better tools.
Augmentations are just really really good tools; like any tool, it will have flaws and shortcomings.
In short, a normal human can compete with transhumans simply by having tools that are both more conventional and "better" than the transhuman's augmentations.

By never fighting fair. If it's cybernetics, try EMP weaponry, or (if you're confident) hacking. If it's biotech, research what sort of mods your target has, and figure out his weak point. And above everything else, NEVER get into a fight you aren't prepared for.

Try being brazilian for one.

THERE WILL BE BLOOD....DEATH

Oh yeah. You gotta spice it up with a little nano-magic.

THE MAN IN THE MIRROR NODS HIS HEAD

It's blood SHED. Not blood death.

Nah, mah version is better

THE ONLY ONE...THAT

MAKES IT RIDES THE DRAGON'S BACK

Yours is edgier.

don't forget a dash of parasite magic.

Dude, have you played Metal Gear Rising?

Edgier is better.

And literal magic

Fucking this. In the land of super powered mech ninjas you need to be the guy that carries around EMP grenades, a shotgun for up close dispatching (dragon's breath is optional but recommended), an anti tank rifle for when you can't be fucked to get that close, and a frankly disconcerting amount of knowledge and skill when it comes to trap making. If a clank gives you shit for being dishonorable then ignore it as you take his face off from some roof top a kilometer away. You're a man living in a world with tanks that just happen to be people sized and shaped, there's no fighting fairly against that.

Or create an alter-ego, a manufactured persona that allows you to rise above your fear. A lie that will one day push through and become truth, that you are a true warrior.

Hail to the king baby.

Really depends on the type of crazy transhuman. If it's just a guy using robo-bits to get as swole as possible? Then planning and appropriate weapons should do it.

If they upgraded their intelligence? Then your goose is pretty much cooked unless you have significantly more assets than them.

>He doesn't cheat against better opponents

I don't care how smart you are; no one's smart enough to anticipate a face full of pocket sand.

>your opponent has one eye, and the other is covered by enhanced cyborg eyewear

A cyborg eye doesn't change the fact that he now has fucking sand in his normal eye. You ever had sand in your eye user? It's not fun.

Easy, by being objectively superior in some regard.

In a world filled with powerful post-humans transhuman, what the fuck are you going on about the only solution is to evolve or die. You either need a bigger gun, a smarter brain, faster reflexes, or cooler friends.

In general I like the idea of a human using robots to hunt cyborgs. Have them receive thought based communication or something, so that way he can use superior planning and tactics to win against fancier foes. He could outfit all his robot friends with crazy attachments suited for the particular cyborg he's tracking, and he could use some sort of advanced net launcher/sniper long range, and a fancy whipsword close range, so at least it keeps his opponents off guard with something unusual, while still using a weapon capable of being wielded by a human.

Alternatively, literal iron man. Just shove him in a robot suit and use some technological verisimilitude to explain it. Something like how his heightened emotional state interacting with the neuro-cerebral core through the abstract user interface has greater situational awareness due to dual layer perceptive reception, and superior threat assessment.

Fight dirty. Truck bomb through the front door, followed by squishy humans with AFV support to mop up. Planning, tactics, teamwork.

Alternately just bring power armor.

It's funny how the brazilian was the least trans of the bosses.

>cyber muscles/suit; or any cyber-upgrade to a sense or movement
EMP

>magical enhancement
Magic them back, harder.

>pure Nietzschean FORCE OF WILL improvements like /a/
Out-Der-Wille-Zur-Macht them.

>anything at all, ever
Make a deal with forces far beyond their ken or abilities. Nothing quite like having one cyber ninja who thinks he has you dead-to-rights when another six cyber ninjas, four hackers, two assassins, and a Mage cabal have him deader-to-rights.

...

How could you cheat against someone smarter than you? He knows what cheats you're going to use, because he's probably already thought of them and come up with something better.

Fight dirty as fuck. IEDs, VBIEDs, drive-bys (with RPGs), sabotage their gear, harassment bombardment with mortars so they can't get more than an hour or two of sleep, traps, cruise missile to the front door, lure them underground and collapse them in, drop FASCAM on their motorpool/lawn/everything, subdermal bombs on suicide bombers (you don't need both lungs to walk up to them and go boom), just any and every dirty trick you can think of.

>3) By exploiting their weakness. A strength in one area, means a vulnerability somewhere else. This is more true to a metahuman/transhuman than a regaular mundane human.
This is by no means universally true. Sometimes the tech just really is better. See Ghost in the Shell. You are literally a moron if you don't have a cyberbrain.

I'm saving this.

That's not necessarily true.

I've played countless matches of strategy games against people that I considee way smarter than me, and I often surprise them with weird tactics that are borderline bullshit.
Plus, you can play the man and not the game. No one is immune to that, no matter how smart.

It's clear that it should be "consider".
Typing with a broken screen.

Technology, wits, and luck.

>have cyberbrain
>get hacked
smug_luddite_anime_girl.painting

The only example I can think of is Ilia Volyova from Revelation Space. On a ship crewed by people with so many implants they're barely human, she manages to be pretty badass.

Be smart, fight dirty, and carry a very, very large gun.

Unless they've cut out the man and replaced it with the machine.

That said, there is a spectrum of posthuman intelligence here. If it's just someone who is now comic book style super genius, than yeah I suppose you could fool it/surprise it.

But if we're talking about some outrageous computronium seed AI? You ain't got shit. It's already simulated ten thousand different versions of your life before you make your first move. It will be astronomically impossible to do something it hasn't yet thought of.

Depends on wheter the AI is worried about solving it's problem or all the problems, if you two have differing rulesets (and I am assuming the AI doesn't have complete information about everything, which is very very important) then you can break it.
Sure it computed every chess move ever but it didn't expect you to flip the board and shit on it's carpet.

Also, AI aren't transhumans or are they?

Where does the line begin and end? If someone replaces their entire body, or uploads their brain into a computer, then upgrades from there do they count as an AI or a posthuman?

It can infer enough information from the information it has to have a near enough to complete set.

I'm obviously talking about an extreme example here, and I'm also coming out of a game of Eclipse Phase that involved someone who bootstrapped themselves to Seed AI levels, but at a certain point it basically becomes unwinnable for a basic human being. Hell, at a certain level your character might not even be sure they're the original version. They might be a simulation of their original self, one of many, being run to figure out all the different ways you might try to beat it.

Oh yeah you're definetely talking uper levels there. I wasn't quite sure at first, but at that point you might as well shit the bed and declare it to be godlike.

That's fair.

But still, even if the transhuman has bumped itself to just being Sherlock Holmes, that's still way better than the vast majority of regular humans are gonna be able to deal with.

That's true.

Mass paranoia, militarism and fear mongering.

The answer is you're probably not an up-and-up fighter. And if you are, it's an uphill battle where you have to fight smarter than them and be prepared. If every transhuman in setting has some kind of mechanical body or something, you have a battery in your sword to short them or something. Use throwing "knives" that are actually high-power stun-guns. Or maybe you have "honour!" powers, and it's your force of belief substitutes the need to augments yourself.

Otherwise "Ussop" style characters are great, but really hard to pull off. Because essentially your goal is to have one "Schtick" (Lots of varied ranged attacks), and ways to manipulate the environment to get it (being fast, caltrops/magnet clatrops etc.) and in a party, that doesn't always work out well when your less likely to be chased when you "run away" to get into a position you can take advantage of, until you get high enough level/enough items that you can turn anything to your advantage, while still maintaining your focus.

Jetstream Sam is one of the few of these kinds of character that do the straight up fight thing, most are stealthy, really good showmen/bluffers, or bag of tricks style because the usual character gets smoked in a straight up fight. Unless the system has an "alternate" way to get equivalent or close abilities (magic, power-armour/minor "medical use only" augments, just being That Damn Good), it's definitely difficult to pull off the jetstream sam character.

Skill > Power

He might also be really good at fighting augmented humans because they tend to fight the same way. Or developed a style that directly counters the way Augmented humans fight.

Ghost in the shell did this once, if I remember right.

He doesn't engage them directly. He cheats, deceives, goes at it from a distance where he's safe from assault.

Ah yes, the "power of friendship" method of superiority.

"I might not be able to beat you, but I'm pretty likeable and I think that my friends my take issue if you try to kill me."

His ability to process vast amounts of knowledge does not always translate into being able to apply that knowledge in an actual stress test. All your knowledge about an opponents certain tactic is useless as soon as he starts changing it up.

Yeah, but they tend not to use it in favor of just steamrolling everything with super powers.
It's the guy who would get wrecked if he attacked head on that spends the time to make a strategy.

I can honestly say that I never expected to see this show on Veeky Forums.

I swear this was the most popular show in the country for like a solid half-decade. Waves of nostalgia are washing over me.

no

You're Pai Mei.
youtube.com/watch?v=fCbf4DjlHuM

jesus man at least show the fighting
youtube.com/watch?v=ETTsJggQl3I

Pai Mei is like if /r9k/ reached perfect kung fu mastery.

youtube.com/watch?v=jAhjPd4uNFY

be crafty as hell
pack rubber bands of DOOOOOOOM

>get to timeskip
>practically jizzing just thinking about a new season of pure Sogeking
>next episode
>MY PLANT POWERS
>AREN'T I RIPPED
Couldn't watch more than a few arcs after that. It was just fucking painful. Not even God Usopp could fix it.

>implying

Just put up some laser detectors connected to a sprinkler system.

Add some gravel into your water.

Laugh as the speedster tears his skin of trying to reach you.

I see 3 ways that aren't cop-outs.

>1. Counterattack
You target your opponent specifically. EMPs for robotic targets. Anti-magic for wizards. Iron for the fae. You have an ace up your sleeve that negates their advantage.

Examples:
- Abraham van Helsing dosing up vampire victims with garlic.

- Tavi of Calderon is a good swordfighter, but Navarris is better. Tavi's able to stay calm and exploit his opponent's temper to win.

>2. Backup
You cast Summon Bigger Fish. Call in the Justice League. Hold the radio for the artillery strike. You're not a big deal yourself, but you've got the means to coordinate greater powers.

Examples:

- A 10 year old Pokemon trainer defeating a crime syndicate... with the help of element-controlling bird monsters.

-A radioman might not shoot as well as a sniper, but one short call and the sniper's buried in napalm.

>3. Differing skillsets
Your opponent might be able to kill anyone by looking at them, but you know how to turn invisible. They're objectively stronger, but them being superior in some way doesn't negate the strengths you have. Leveraging your strengths can net you a win.

Examples-

- Skitter [from Worm] uses her powers to attack from blocks away. Her opponents have to find her before they can crush her.

- The Ninja from Mark of the Ninja is mediocre in a stand-up fight and most tough enemies can just gun him down. He can, however, avoid their notice to strike when they least expect it.

Magic.

Even more so is his Team Fourstar Abridged version.

Power armor.
And also shitton of money, everybody know it's the best superpower.

>How could you cheat against someone smarter than you?
By making the first move before he can even set his own plan. Use the chaos of events to throw his careful planning off.

A smart man is not a mind-reader, he just so happens to make intelligent, informed predictions and fail-safes.

Take those away and that big brain of his is nothing but a target.

Yeah, hacking a cyberbrain requires a cyberbrain. So!

youtube.com/watch?v=4LIcOFvWqjk

We're talking REAL superspeed, mate. None of that shit-tier slowass jak.

Ever wonder how the afghan goatfuckers and vietcongs, with their shitty commie era weapons and jury-rigged IEDs can still be a match for the US Army equipped with their million dollar tech?

You don't fight the enemy on their terms or their rules.
You don't fight the enemy on equal terms honorably.
You fight them on your terms and by your rules.

You fight them when they least suspect it, when they're headed home tired after patrolling, while they sleep with one eye open, you keep them on their toes, you take away their support, separate them from their comrades and you take them out one by one.

And then you leave one alive - maimed and broken, so that he can tell others of your tales. And you let him take away their morale.

What's more, they aren't really a "match". They just exploit a bunch of self imposed restrictions.

Insurgents around the world often use human shields, attack civilians, shoot medics and torture prisoners. This is all stuff that first-world militaries either don't do, or try and keep on the down-low.

If the priority was "defeat the enemy at all costs" then they'd just carpet bomb any village where hostiles were sighted implying they don't do that already and damn the collateral damage.

Reminds me of a bit in the freeware game Iji. Assassin Asha can teleport so fast that he can dodge any weapon you fire at him. The only way to kill him is to use the weakest weapon in the game... because he CHOOSES not to dodge it. He says that it's not worth his time to dodge that, and he'd legitimately rather die than stoop that low.

You become the Cyber Slayer.

>How do you pull off a normal human being able to compete with crazy transhumans?

Wits.

The old saying "If violence isn't solving al lyour problems, you simply aren't using enough of it". Level a city block to take out the target, use shit designed to take out armor, drown them in napalm before setting it alight. Just remember to always, ALWAYS confirm the kill.

Another option is to convince another transhuman to do the deed for you. Pay them, blackmail them, persuade them. Fight fire with fire.

Another thing people ignore is the fact even transhumans have a limit on what they can do and take. Find out what those limits are and break them.

[citation needed]

>- Tavi of Calderon is a good swordfighter, but Navarris is better. Tavi's able to stay calm and exploit his opponent's temper to win.

Is that seriously the only swordfighting example you could think of

You train. Every single day.

Humans have always used tools, yes.

But transhumanism is when people WANT to be complete tools

>not being Figure-Four
>not particising a martial art allowing you to disable cyborgs with your bare hands
>not being one of the most based characters in Gunnm/Battle Angel Alita

Bitch please.

who had literal magic?
I think everything so far was explained with NANOMACHINES and VOCAL CHORD PARASITES

are you talking about the sword possessed by Snake?

It's not possible.

An extremely skilled human might be able to momentarily put up a fight, but then he'll be crushed into the dust.

It's just the way things are. What does it matter that you're the greatest swordsman in the world, if I start lifting tanks and throwing them at you? You know kung fu? That's nice, I'm faster than a speeding bullet.

The only situation where it works is if the transhuman is deliberately holding back for some reason.

>I swear this was the most popular show in the country for like a solid half-decade
More like since always.
I think it's still on some tv stations in color

This is why I like Exalted: The Solars couldn't be beaten except by their equivalent or by overwhelming odds. When the Dragon-blooded rose up against them, it took them decades to resolve the conflict, and they had support from the Sidereals.

Even then, they got fucked up real bad by the vengeful god-kings. In the Age of Sorrows, Solars transform the world and society just by showing up. If you're a normal dude, it's physically impossible for you to beat one.

Did you forget the multiple subplots about people's brains being hacked?

...

The Sorrow and Psycho Mantis both were literally magic.
Revolver Ocelot also inherited some psychic powers as he was the son of The Sorrow, this was one of the reasons why Liquids ghost could possess his body (MGS4 makes it unclear whether it really happened or not but the running theory is that he actually was being possessed in MGS2 and only pretended to be in MGS4).
The existence of magic was also directly adressed in the scene near the end of MGS2, Ocelot shows that Fortunes powers was actually just a technological device that secretly was placed on her, he outright says "magic doesn't exist, it's all just advanced technology" but right after that she still manages to use her supposedly "fake" powers even without the device proving that magic is in fact real but that most people simply don't believe in it.
Magic vs Technology was also a theme in the chronological later games, while magic is real everybody stopped caring because it just fell out of favour, yes some people can read minds and take over other peoples bodies completely on their own but who cares if regular people can do the very same with the help of technology?
Clarke's third law says that: "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic" which is essentially what happened in the Metal Gear universe, Screaming Mantis and Psycho Mantis have the exact same abilities, only that PM really was psychic while SM was a regular person with access to proper technology, the military can find and recruit people like PM but why bother if just turning any person into SM has the same result?

You go crazy. Not full crazy, though.

You see, the smartest man in the world knows the first plan you think of, and the second, and the third. He also knows that you'll try the LEAST likely plan, because that's your pitiful brain's attempt to "outwit" him. So you take the plan that's ALMOST the least likely plan...but not quite.

Aside from that, you have to put him in a situation where his advantages are irrelevant. Super-smart? Bring it down to chance, or construct a situation where every choice is bad. Super-strong? Get far enough away that he can't hit you, lay enough traps between him and you to make the Tomb of Horrors blush. Super-fast? Dive underwater, where he's limited in speed by water resistance. Invincible? Trap him somewhere that he can't bust out of - say, in space, or in quick-dry concrete. Some combination of the above? Remember, traps and snipers are your two best friends. You're outmatched in every way but the most important - you're prepared.