Hmmph... this junior is a good seed [Cultivation Management Quest]

Shard said:

On the other hand, our actual choices in this quest has been very not that ("Integrate into Heaven!"), and losing GS and salting over it is way more serious and so:

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Eh, I don't want to integrate into Heaven. Or necessarily the Righteous Powers even, politically, maybe. (Though who knows, maybe we'd end up as the Token Evil Teammate in the Righteous Powers politics scale. )

Especially since we decided to not pick that Boon when the option came up. Which means I'm now more interested in the idea of Heaven's Shadow. What is it? It's a mystery! And I wanna know.

I mean, well... It wasn't a "accepted by the Heavens" boon that we passed up. The Heavens would still scorn us, what with all our curses still on us. Rather, it was a "accepted by the Righteous Powers" boon. We didn't go for that one.

So, because we didn't go for that path, I'm interested in... er, our own unique path, I guess. That of Heaven's Shadow if you had to put a name or faction to it. (Part of the appeal right now, of course, is that of uncovering the mystery -- and old histories and secrets of the Clan -- now! What is Heaven's Shadow? Does it exist as more than Manuel's ideal/idea? ... Signs point to yes actually. I don't think Manuel is good enough to blind the Poverty Curse himself, after all. )

So. I think I'd rather walk our own path. On our own terms, not Heaven's terms. But now... no longer cursed by the Heavens -- because they had their shot, we took our lumps, and we survived it, and now Heaven can't complain anymore. Maybe as a "The Imperial Optimatoi, redeemed/returned/whatever'd" or "Imperial Optimatoi back for Round 2, motherfuckers!". Or maybe as a "Great Exodus off of this Sea" and onto our original world (if it even exists). Or maybe some kind of subtle displacement or alteration of Heaven's laws to make Heaven's Shadow more concrete and potent, or maybe creation of a Realm that is Hidden from Heaven via exaltation and empowerment of Heaven's Shadow. Or maybe as something else entirely. Who knows.

[X] Yes. Declare for the Noble Devil Alliance. Invade the Jingshen Clan. Declare war on the Righteous Path.
Probably going to lose, but I'm going to vote for the more narratively interesting one anyways.

[X] No. Stay the course you have charted so far. You will not throw your plans away on the word of a Blood Path criminal.

Ultimately a very difficult choice to make. I'm not making this for morality reasons; my reasons to vote no happened to outweigh my reasons to vote yes by a little.

[X] No. Stay the course you have charted so far. You will not throw your plans away on the word of a Blood Path criminal.

So. We either throw in with the monsters and things that go bump in the night, or we reject our roots and give up on our defiance of the Heavens?

No, I reject that. Its a false choice.

One day, the Clan will definitely make the Heavens weep. This vote is about the tools we use to make that happen. I for one would rather smite the God Machine with the song of enlightened civilisation and the flash of a bronze blade than the lamentations of the innocent and a throne built of rotten bone and gristle.

*coughs*

Sorry about the melodrama, it was too much fun to resist.

I am voting No. While I want to see the Jingshen defeated and the Clan ascend to Desert Hegemony as much as anyone, I don't like the implications for the thread of doing it this way.

[X] No. Stay the course you have charted so far. You will not throw your plans away on the word of a Blood Path criminal.

[X] No. Stay the course you have charted so far. You will not throw your plans away on the word of a Blood Path criminal.

To be incredibly petty, I want to beat Jingshen on our own. I wouldn't be averse to throttling Spirit Stone trade or goading Jingshen into doing so, but explicitly declaring for the Noble Demon Alliance is taking too much heat.

[X] No. Stay the course you have charted so far. You will not throw your plans away on the word of a Blood Path criminal.

[X] No. Stay the course you have charted so far. You will not throw your plans away on the word of a Blood Path criminal.

BadAtScreenNames said:

- And like... I worry that I might be reading too much into your wording here? But when you say erase, I'm getting a picture of "heaven will metaphysically alter reality to destroy us".

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I'm also drawing from how he describes the creation of the Blood Path as a "wound" in the Celestial Machine, and that part of why Heaven's wrath is growing stronger even in the Third Sea is that wound being steadily repaired; then, I combined it with an informational post from way back when where Demonic Soup Chef is described as having created the Blood Path in a very direct and not-metaphorical sense. He used his Dao of Consumption to carve out a new set of possibilities in the world, rather than discovering a hitherto-undiscovered path to enlightenment through cannibalism.

The Blood Path, then, is a forcible imposition upon the fabric spun by the Celestial Machine, of a scale comparable to the Machine's own creation of that fabric in the first place. That rings true with the idea that even Heaven needed tens of thousands of years to 'correct' it, and that it pursues other deviations in the Third Sea far less vigorously while the repairs are ongoing.

(It also helps clarify this statement of the Altar Lord's:

"Did you ever wonder why there are no great Blood Path powers in the other Seas, why the Sea Conquering Army has been driven back to the weakest corner of the weakest Sea?"

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The Optimatoi did not get driven back in the sense of the Army having to retreat to the Third Sea as other beachheads were overwhelmed. Instead, there were other holdouts in other Seas, but they fell long ago because the stronger Sea brought a stronger Curse (most worrying of which would be Tribulations, as I mentioned in a prior post), and there was no Demonic Soup Chef to take the heat off of them and give them time to rebuild.)

Moving back to the subject at hand, I see no reason to believe that the foreign powers of the Sea Conquering Army would be immune to the Machine methodically applying the same power which it used to create the setting's metaphysical laws to unmaking them. It certainly makes sense as an explanation of why the Blood of Bronze weakened over the generations and the other blood-gifts largely died out, despite the clan's best efforts - reality itself was gradually constricting around the Blood, thinning it and narrowing it as part of a process intended to eventually scour it from existence entirely. The various Curses are nothing more than that some narrowing of potential, that foreclosing of the future, manifesting through more directly observable means and with more prosaic instruments. The possibility of X deviance occurring is lowered bit by bit, until finally it reaches 0%.

The Shadow of Heaven is all that protects us from this metaphysical immune response, and even then imperfectly.

BadAtScreenNames said:

I just don't see enough reasoning for us to abandon the morality of the clan, which we've characterised them as being very stubborn about, for the sake of a lot of maybes.

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Now you've come to a point where I can't really argue with any pretense of objective analysis. All I can say is that I can come up with justifications for it in my own head, and that only really serves as a convincing answer for me. It seems like a good point to leave this off on? I respect your opposition, and honestly addressing your posts has helped me work out more theory on what's going on (see: the entire post until now ), but if you have further concerns I don't want to put you off of raising them.

[X] No. Stay the course you have charted so far. You will not throw your plans away on the word of a Blood Path criminal.

[X] Yes. Declare for the Noble Devil Alliance. Invade the Jingshen Clan. Declare war on the Righteous Path.

Katana1515 said:

So. We either throw in with the monsters and things that go bump in the night, or we reject our roots and give up on our defiance of the Heavens?

No, I reject that. Its a false choice.

One day, the Clan will definitely make the Heavens weep. This vote is about the tools we use to make that happen. I for one would rather smite the God Machine with the song of enlightened civilisation and the flash of a bronze blade than the lamentations of the innocent and a throne built of rotten bone and gristle.

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Please don't? I have no idea where you're dredging up this absolute fever dream phantasm from, but it's not the last update.

"Yes" does not mean the Optimatoi start eating people.

"Yes" does not mean that the Optimatoi cede half of the Third Sea's population to the Blood Path Sects.

"Yes" does not mean promising to actively protect or nurture Blood Path fiefdoms or otherwise compromise our moral standards.

"Yes" does not mean that we "smite the God Machine with the lamentations of the innocent and a throne built of rotten bone and gristle".

"Yes" DOES mean accepting the Altar Lord's help in wiping out an enemy who already hated us and was actively planning our demise, but recently suffered setbacks and would have taken some time to become a threat once more.

"Yes" DOES mean breaking our agreements with the Righteous Sects and economically influencing the war to prolong it, ensuring that both sides suffer greater casualties.

"Yes" DOES mean that the Righteous Sects will finally have a material basis for their existing prejudices against the "Golden Devils", for going back on their word and aiding the Demonic Altar Sect.

But more importantly:

"No" does not mean that we are doomed to destruction.

I sincerely hope you misunderstood this, and not that you were using hyperbole to poison the debate by inserting the assumption that voting "Yes" means being just as bad as Old Cannibal.

My own motives for it OOC are interest in getting to watch the Optimatoi finish shaking off the sleep of ages and rise up to oppose Heaven, as well as getting to expand the scope of the Quest to start actually interacting with all of the places and people that have until now been names on the far end of the map.

As for "No"... I think that we'll be throwing away a lot of interesting narrative possibilities. I think we'll end up having to conquer the Third Sea anyway, but without any help and with Heaven and the Righteous Sects able to place their full attention on resisting our efforts. I think it'd be a waste to throw out the Altar Lord as a character when we've just gotten a glimpse of something deeper to him. I think we'll lose out on a lot of lore and worldbuilding. I think we'll burn any chance of learning more about or interacting with the mysterious non-Blood Path parts of the Noble Devil Alliance, like Heavenly Time Shatter or Noble Knowledge.

But the Optimatoi won't be wiped out, because that would mean no more game and a thermonuclear explosion of salt that nobody would willingly invite on themselves - and at the end of the day, those are my entirely subjective thoughts and bellyfeel on the matter, not a proclamation of fact.

[X] No. Stay the course you have charted so far. You will not throw your plans away on the word of a Blood Path criminal.

[X] No. Stay the course you have charted so far. You will not throw your plans away on the word of a Blood Path criminal.

[X] No. Stay the course you have charted so far. You will not throw your plans away on the word of a Blood Path criminal.

[X] No. Stay the course you have charted so far. You will not throw your plans away on the word of a Blood Path criminal.

[X] No. Stay the course you have charted so far. You will not throw your plans away on the word of a Blood Path criminal.

It smells too much of a "who you are in the dark" moment for my taste. We are ruthless, yes, but only because we are forced to be.
If we join the alliance, the worst case i can see is that the plains cultivators will retreat to the verdant south and use EVERYTHING they have to create a COHESIVE demon annihilating army. Only reason the Noble Demon Alliance was able to pull this pivot is because of politics and posturing in the righteous path.

And, the altar lord himself said the altar is weakening... it just looks too much like we would end up holding the bucket at the end.

[X] No. Stay the course you have charted so far. You will not throw your plans away on the word of a Blood Path criminal.

[X] No. Stay the course you have charted so far. You will not throw your plans away on the word of a Blood Path criminal.

[X] No. Stay the course you have charted so far. You will not throw your plans away on the word of a Blood Path criminal.

[X] No. Stay the course you have charted so far. You will not throw your plans away on the word of a Blood Path criminal.

[X] Yes. Declare for the Noble Devil Alliance. Invade the Jingshen Clan. Declare war on the Righteous Path.

I dug this grave, may as well lay in it.

I'd like to point out that saying No doesn't mean we can't help the Noble Demon Alliance. Personally, I can stomach Time Shatter Sect a heckuva lot more than I can the monsters of the Blood Path. They just twist the land, making it hard for people to cultivate with ambient Qi. That's not bad for spirit stone miners and sellers.

Noble Knowledge Sect sells dangerous poison knowledge to anyone. We can be 'anyone', get a nice boost to our own poison arts.

Gao Clan is not mentioned as Blood Path in its blurb, only that they use poisons. That's not that bad either.

It's Blood Altar that's slaughtering mortals by the tens of thousands. They're all working together now, but I'd be happy making sure the other three make it through okay to keep heat off of ourselves. We still give good karma to whoever kills us.

Same, i would really like to see what a collaboration of NK, TS and GD could do, regarding desert improvements or just looking into stuff like the curse vein and the qi draining desert.