Coil

Coil, real name Thomas Calvert, is a supervillain operating out of Brockton Bay. In his civilian identity, he works as a consultant to the PRT.

Personality
Coil is a meticulous and paranoid planner, going out of his way to make sure he is secure and protected at all times. He has ambition and pride, especially in regards to keeping his possessions safe, be they people or cities.

He is quite patient, using his abilities at great length to take preparedness to an extreme, ensuring people cannot catch him off guard.You talk about the kind of science Coil could do elsewhere on this page. But if Coil was going to be a scientist, he wouldn't have had powers in the first place. Cauldron wanted him for Terminus and used the financial leverage of him being in debt to them to position him. If he hadn't had the craving for power & authority they would have looked elsewhere. Keep in mind, also, that the shards aren't inclined to let people sit around and spend months of time working on side projects without getting any dose of conflict. What happens is you get Spheres and Professor Haywires and Leets. Coil was difficult to kill because he was:
 * Inaccessible. Coil only made limited appearances to meetings like the one at Somer's Rock. He didn't eat, he didn't drink, and his costume covered his entire body, so it's hard to apply contact poisons, get him with parasites, penetrate to get him with a mosquito, etc. In virtually any instance where one could apply such or outright attack him, he defaults back to a scenario where he didn't attend the meeting. You'd need something utterly undetectable, and either guaranteed to kill him or that you could apply enough times to actually get him.
 * He acted almost entirely through intermediaries. Hirelings, underlings, and people that he had otherwise vetted. Dinah later served as a way to screen these hirelings. Before Dinah, he simply allowed very few people to actually meet him and only then when he could absolutely cover his ass with his power.
 * Dinah, once acquired, let him actually meet and deal with the Travelers and Undersiders. She, in short, let him cover his bases on the subtle aspects, the stuff he can't foresee and avoid, and his main power (as well as Dinah) let him cover his bases on the more blatant attacks. He wakes up every day and figures out the odds of him being betrayed by an underling, people trying to be clever and dose him with an airborne poison, the odds of another faction making a move against him, etc, etc. - Random thoughts on worm (Wildbow, Reddit.com, 2016-10-01) He is fine with torturing people for information and using multiple types of physical and psychological warfare.

His power allows him to capture and torture individuals for information and as long as his targets would have no memory of what happened and he would face no consequences. He used this partially to gather information and sometimes as stress relief.

The Undersiders
Formed the Undersiders as a team to use for various tasks. He started them on pulling insignificant heists to test their worth, slowly building up on what the team attempted. His relationship with them was strictly professional, with the Undersiders serving as tools to his disposal.

The Travelers
Coil had a working agreement with the Travelers, promising to work toward a way to fix Noelle in exchange for their employment under his organization. He came up with many plans to give the Travelers what they wanted, but when these failed, such as getting the assistance of Panacea, he ultimately decided to turn their situation to his advantage, leading the Travelers on with the false promise of a cure.

Accord
Accord considered Coil a friend, though it is unknown to what extent this was considered mutual. His personality meshed well with Coil, though, and the two worked closely together. Accord was rather upset by Coil's death.

Cauldron
In order to gain his powers, Coil made a deal with Cauldron, putting himself into a years-long debt in the process. Even after paying off his monetary debt, he still owed a week's service to Cauldron, something that grated on his nerves. He was unknowingly the focus of one of Cauldron's experiments, the Terminus project, with his ambition and meticulousness making him an ideal subject for receiving powers.

Cape Identity
As Coil, he wore a skintight black bodysuit with a stencil of a white snake curling around it, its head on his forehead, extending down the back of his head, looping and winding over his entire body with its tail at one ankle. A zipper was hidden in the snake, at his ankle. His mask didn't have eye holes. The fabric of the costume allowed him to see and breathe through it, but was an opaque black-gray to outside observers in all but the brightest light. The way it clung to his skin let you see his individual ribs and joints.

Civilian Identity
As Thomas Calvert, he tended to dress very formally, dressing in button up shirts and ties. He had close cropped, coarse hair, trimmed eyebrows, thin lips and a cleft chin. In his meeting with the Undersiders as the new director, he wore the body portion of a PRT uniform with an insignia stitched onto his sleeve. He has a thin, skeletal frame, is taller than Grue, and is black.

Power
From his perspective, Coil's power grants him the ability to 'split' the world into two timelines. He is then able to do whatever he likes in either timeline, collapsing the timeline that is least ideal and keeping the timeline that he wants. In actuality, his power isn't one that creates multiple timelines, but is instead a powerful form of precognition. His power simulates the two possible timelines Coil would go through in vivid detail, then predicts which timeline Coil will choose to keep. Coil's power then "autopilots" him through the actions he takes in the timeline that he chooses, lasting until the end of the timeline, at which point he can use his power again.

In practice, Coil's power allows him to first attempt two different courses of action, then pick the timeline he wants to keep while retaining all knowledge from the other timeline. In this way, he was able to test his plans in different permutations before acting upon them, allowing him to make the most informed decision that he could. This was, however, limited by the fact that time still moved forward in his timelines, preventing him from simply simulating the entire day ahead of time and proceeding from there. No matter what, Coil is forced to pick one of his timelines.

Sources of "causality interference" interfere with his power, including most precognitives, meaning he can't make use of information-gathering powers again and again in different timelines.

Tactics
Coil is extremely careful, keeping track of everything that goes on, even going so far as to regularly have one timeline where he works through the night while sleeping in another just so he is kept aware of all possible developments. Coil held firmly to the philosophy that one couldn’t be too paranoid. Every moment of every day was a delicate balancing act, anticipating any number of unseen threats from every possible angle, whether he was speaking with his subordinates or simply rising to meet the day. In one reality, he was safely ensconced in his underground base, costumed, with no less than twenty armed soldiers between himself and the multiple sets of heavy metal doors. He had spent his night reading, following the news and checking his stocks. His location was known only to those who worked for him, individuals paid well enough that even if they did have reason to attack him, their ‘coworkers’ would have incentive to stop them. Second reality:  He was waking up in an ordinary, slightly rundown home in the southwest end of the city. He prepared and ate his breakfast, then stepped outside in his bathrobe to pick up the paper and the mail, pausing to wave to the neighbors as they led their two girls out of the house. The flooding hadn’t affected their neighborhood as much as others, but the schools weren’t yet up and running, so the mother and father would be taking their girls to work with them for a short while. [...] “It’s morning, pet. You know what questions I ask you.” “It’s morning?” she asked, head rising. “I feel like I just had dinner. Candy?” “No, pet. It’s too early. Now please answer my question.” Petulant, she replied, “Zero point two five two percent chance there’s any problems here in the next hour. Three point seven four four one percent chance there’s any problems before lunchtime.” “Good girl,” he spoke. With that, he collapsed that world where he had stayed up all night, studying the news, following international business trends, tracking the details on his troops’ most minor operations – he helped ensure the success of the major ones with his power. The reality swiftly faded, leaving only the world where he had a full night’s sleep, ate a hearty breakfast, drove to the base with Creep. Only the memories and knowledge remained. - Excerpt from Interlude 8.z This allows him to maintain and increase his knowledge base while remaining physically healthy. Using this, he is able to come up with and execute an extensive list of contingencies, reinforcing his base of operations against possible external and internal threats, keeping his identity secret, and executing plans that go off without a hitch. On top of all this, he keeps information about his power under wraps, preventing his adversaries from planning around it.

With careful usage of his power and extensive manipulation, Coil became one of the most powerful supervillains in Brockton Bay, eventually taking over the entire city with the help of his subordinates. Throughout his career, he employed a variety of supervillain teams and independent supervillains, including the Undersiders, the Travelers, Über and Leet, Circus, Chariot, and Trainwreck. In addition, he could hire Faultline's Crew or even mercenary capes from Boston and New York as needed. He was also the head of a large unpowered mercenary force that he outfitted with top-of-the-line gear, including tinkertech rifles.

He was in the habit of torturing people for information in alternate realities.

The Plan
Coil's plan to take over Brockton Bay was a long time coming and involved numerous plans and steps. He would have been able to adapt it had different circumstances arisen.

Background
Thomas was a part of the PRT's special forces. When the PRT received reports about Nilbog, his team was sent in to deal with the situation. He was one of the only two survivors of the following incident, the other being Emily Piggot.

At some point, Thomas found out about and approached Cauldron before he bought a superpower. It was expensive, forcing him to postpone his plans and spend years gaming the market in order to pay it off.

Story Start
Attended the meeting at Somer's Rock by himself. Offered money to make sure the mercenaries of the city were committed to the fight against the ABB

Following several successful jobs by the Undersiders he revealed himself to his employees.

When the Leviathan came to Brockton Bay, Coil hunkered down and waited for everything to blow over.

Post-Leviathan
Began making moves to secure territory in the devastated city through his employed villains.

Post-Slaughterhouse Nine
His plans so close to fruition, Coil now had to deal with Dragon and Defiant deploying their new mechanical suits to Brockton Bay. After paying a hefty sum to the Dragonslayers his hirelings were able to drive the suits out. He was then able to enact his endgame.''Peanuckle said: I think Coil's biggest failing here is his desire to monologue, a classic villain mistake. If he had just ordered his men to shoot without bringing in Tattletale, then there wouldn't have been a problem. Then again, his claim to be able to deal with the PR hit was probably a bluff to destabilize Skitter. Being outed about his criminal career would probably cost him his position as PRT director.'' There's a balance to be found. Haste makes waste, and just pulling the trigger and destabilizing things without stopping and touching ground involves risks. If Taylor's deadman's switch was real, for example, that would make rushing headlong into a disastrous scenario for Coil. He's spent all this time building up and securing his position, and he doesn't want to stumble at the last second. Stopping and having a short discussion means you get to decipher just why things fell apart so you can manage things better in the future. Too easy to get into a situation where you're just doing damage control and you hastily plug a hole only to find that more of your subordinates are getting restless and entertaining the wrong sorts of thoughts. Maybe not in this specific situation, but it would be Coil's overall mindset and personality. As compared to the 'just about ego' monologue (though I imagine a smidge of ego was involved). ''Peanuckle said: Even though Coil admits to torturing members of the Undersiders. I wonder if he tortured Lisa, but she toughed through it? More likely he grabbed Taylor or Brian since they're closer to the issue. Why not all of them?'' This would be why you compartmentalize the plan to take down the reality-splitting overlord. Talk it out, give everyone the key points, but don't tell Brian what Tattletale is doing, exactly. Aside: I imagine if Tattletale got tortured in a Coil reality, she'd know it was a Coil reality and adjust accordingly. - Comments By Wildbow on SufficientVelocity

Faking his death in an attack at the mayoral debate he was able to disgrace Director Piggot and take over for her as Thomas Calvert. He did not account for Skitter being there in her civilian identity. Skitter found out about his identity and confronted him. Calvert was prepared and made a clumsy attempt to kill Skitter. He almost turned Skitter's teammates against her, but failed due to Grue's power allowing them to uncover the deception. In the final meeting, Tattletale revealed that she bought out his mercenaries. Skitter then took a gun and prepared to shoot him. Coil assumed she wasn't a killer. Skitter bluntly told him "No. But I suppose in a roundabout way, you made me one." She then shot him in the head.

As his final act of spite, Coil made sure that Noelle Meinhardt heard his death over the phone. Her last hope of being cured gone, Noelle would break out of her cell and rampage across Brockton Bay, setting out to kill the Undersiders for what they had done.

Legacy
His murderers would take everything that was his, including his place in the expectations of the organization that had secretly backed him.

Quotes

 * "I’ll admit I am not proud of my failure to see the bigger picture, and I assure you, it is not a mistake I am prepared to make again."