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

@RebelYell
The founder of the Saber Palace did leave a Spirit Severing Will behind, but the Devil Bee raid shouldn't have provoked its usage, since the Saber Palace already has lots of Nascent Wills by the sounds of it.

occipitallobe said:

The Founder's Crypt is where the founder died. After Soup Chef slew him, his master came to rescue him, and they both died here, though only the founder's body was recovered. There, he left a strand of his Spirit Severing Will, to be nurtured by the Saber Qi of the city. Even now the founder can rise to protect us in direct need.

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[X] Sever the Bright Strands of Fate

This seems like the better option. We are going to get another nascent soon in any case. We have no reason to think we will get another kill button soon. This is like getting a soul severing will. Better even.

no. said:

I really, seriously have a problem with viewing the missions this way.

Not only does it feel metagamey to me, but the missions aren't all equal. They do different things for us, and different people may want to accomplish different tasks with their characters. For example, succeeding too much in the FE Song Empire mission would be a bad thing. We shouldn't want to re-establish the Fearless Line, because that would end the war sooner.

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We still want to do the best we can since the options exist, because fucking up suggests weakness on our part, which rings the dinner bell for shenanigans.

What we want geopolitically is a Bare or Moderate Success. Just enough that we were a major contribution, not enough that we overturned the map.

Even aside from that, I have neither compelled nor demanded people change tacks, so much as I'm pointing out to people who are undecided that this option could use a bit more love. We should never intentionally seek to fail a mission because it would somehow help our geopolitical goals, because the overall macro level play is decided by Core Formation and doing well in FE and Qi is mostly just Showing The Flag.

[X] Sever the Bright Strands of Fate

[X] The Truth of the Two Paths

the kill button makes it more likely that we will be able to provoke jingshen into invading us, at which point the RP can't be too mad that we retaliate. Also we are likely to get another NS soonish anyway, but this is better than that icicle spear from chargen.

wrecksalot said:

[X] Sever the Bright Strands of Fate

[X] The Truth of the Two Paths

the kill button makes it more likely that we will be able to provoke jingshen into invading us, at which point the RP can't be too mad that we retaliate. Also we are likely to get another NS soonish anyway, but this is better than that icicle spear from chargen.

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That's betting our Core elders don't fail there rolls and die. Two nascent souls has been our goal the entire game man.

[X] Blind the Eyes of the Wrathful Watchman
[X] The Moment of Despair

I wanna see what the Sea Conquering Army was trying to do. I want to know what was it all for? What were they, we, trying to do? What were our ancestors fighting for? And did they achieve it? Did they achieve it, but pyrrhicly? Or something else?

Though I won't be too put out about learning about the truths of the two paths; the path of submission and the path of liberation. As, I quasi-suspect that there was some strong element of "Rebellion against the overlords versus submission to the overlords" going on in the setting in general. And suspect that the forefathers of the Optimatoi were on the "Screw the tyrants, mankind should be free(er) than this!" path. (Of course, how much freedom, and how that freedom is achieved, and whether the proposed replacement rulers are good... Well, at least "it'll be politics, and Cultivation" is a fairer circumstance/answer than "The Heavens decide and you don't get to decide.")

Though the third option, The Beginning, might tell us more about Heaven's Shadow instead. Or it might be another form of "This tells us what the Sea Conquering Army came here to do", which I would love to get more background and context for.

I think voting for "The truths of the two paths" is instead more likely to reveal things about the state of the world; about subjugation versus liberation; and thus potentially lead you to decide whether to bow your head or to keep the flame of liberty alive. Whereas the other two options might show you where the SCA came from on that side of things. And frankly, while I think it's important to choose righteously? (And it is!) I think it is also important to know your history and your past. Know who your ancestors were. Know why they were the way they were. And know who the people were, who would one day become you. Knowing if your ancestors fucked up or not, and whether/how you might avoid it or do better.

... I guess in that vein. Knowing "So how did the SCA fuck up in their moment of triumph?" would also be pretty important to know, huh? Because it would ensure that we don't make that mistake again, if we are ever in position to be able to push back against the Turtle Emperor Heavens. If we know what the Heavens are and what the SCA tried to do to or about them, and how it all went wrong, then we might avoid the problems ourselves. Or we might know what might need to be done additionally.

[X] Blind the Eyes of the Wrathful Watchman
[X] The Moment of Despair

Garlak, I think you make a good point. The first step to not repeating a mistake is to learn what the mistake actually was, after all, and even though it'll be a good while until we'll be in a position to take advantage of that knowledge, I'm sure there's some sort of immediate advantage to knowing this as well.

After all, the Shadow wouldn't burn so much energy shielding useless information to give it to us.

TBH, I feel like each of these three options gains us insight into a possible Winning Condition to the Quest--as the Shadow spent considerable information to not only get this info to Manuel, but conceal that he knows it from Heaven's Censor Beam. It's an IC bit of info he's getting, which suggests it's actionable in all cases

We're just deciding which one we're getting insight into reaching.

1) Possibly a measure on how to surpass the Heavens? Or at least veer away from their biggest traps on the road of cultivation by gaining insight into what it should be
2) By identifying what we did to be Cursed, we can figure out how to further mitigate them into functional irrelevance by exploiting the system.
3) By identifying how the Sea Conquering Army got to the Turtle World in the first place, we can potentially learn how to leave ourselves--or barring that, send word to the greater faction we originate from and getting either evacuated or supported depending on how good our toehold is.

[X] Blind the Eyes of the Wrathful Watchman
[X] The Truth of the Two Paths
[X] The Moment of Despair

the points for MoD made me want to see it, but i still want to see the two paths as well

[X] Sever the Bright Strands of Fate
[X] The Moment of Despair

With Yao, I think that we can conquer Jingshen as we are now. At the very least, we'd be able to strangle them aggressively without worrying about them going for a Nascentbowl. Casia should be ascending soon no matter what we do. We're getting more and more Great Circle Core Formation cultivators, we'll get our second Nascent soon anyway.

However, the kill button can be used on a strategic level. It can kill someone on a Great Circle Nascent Soul level, a feat we'd be unable to reach with even three Nascents. The kill button could take out the Wei Princess or Altar Lord. If things become desperate with Old Cannibal, we can reduce the Bees to two Early Nascents. If only the Elder of Day can trigger the Soul Severing Will, then taking him out would remove our enemy entire.

Alectai said:

1) Possibly a measure on how to surpass the Heavens? Or at least veer away from their biggest traps on the road of cultivation by gaining insight into what it should be
2) By identifying what we did to be Cursed, we can figure out how to further mitigate them into functional irrelevance by exploiting the system.
3) By identifying how the Sea Conquering Army got to the Turtle World in the first place, we can potentially learn how to leave ourselves--or barring that, send word to the greater faction we originate from and getting either evacuated or supported depending on how good our toehold is.

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Hmmm. I was more leaning towards different interpretations a bit.

I think number 2 is "Figure out what we did to the Heavens, and thus figure out what state the Heavens are in now; and because of that, we know either what to avoid, or we know what else to do to the Heavens in order to win." Knowing number 2 will be of aid to us if we ever metaphorically get to the "negotiating table with the Heavens" stage of things.

Number 3 is "It entered the world, wrapped in the million strands of the web. They began to fray as it entered, but it could give to the last strand the knowledge of that moment." Number 3 could be knowledge about Heaven's Shadow itself, I think.

Knowing more about Heaven's Shadow, means knowing more about... well. How to win. How to avoid losing. If we knew how to empower our benefactor more -- or even just knew what our benefactor was for and functioned as -- we might have a better idea of what to do for it, no?

As for number 1, the truths of the paths? I think it would tell us about the motivations or aims of the Heavens. It would tell us "This is what the Heavens are trying to do. This is how they try to bind things." ... Of course, I guess hearing "The Heavens control Cultivation in order to control people" is not news, so it probably makes more sense to hear about the ways in which Heaven specifically inserts its control points and pitfalls into Cultivation.

It's also possible, though, that it could reveal to us the history and depths of conflict between the Heavens and man. "Once there was only a single path, true and clear. Then the other split them in twain, the true path and the false. The path of unbounded growth and the path of hateful servitude." What if picking it reveals a truth -- that there was once a path to Ascension or Enlightenment or something? But somebody won first, ascended the Silver Ladder, and kicked down the ladder afterwards?


EDIT: You know thinking about it, I think I can guess what the Attempted Goal and the Oops Fuck Up of the SCA was.

I think they wanted to connect their Shadow to Heaven.

But the way they ended up connecting their administrative-being to the Heavens? Weeelll...

occipitallobe said:

It didn't know. Surrounded by burning, terrible light. Always the light.

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occipitallobe said:

It couldn't look, couldn't see, couldn't feel anything else.

The light burned, but it knew... it could cloak something. Guard something from the light. It grasped out blindly, eager to spend the shard of power before the light evaporated it.

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occipitallobe said:

The light burned at it always, but it could grasp a shard of it, now.

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... Yeah. Oops.

Maybe they wanted to install a backdoor. Maybe they wanted to overthrow the Heavens. Maybe they just wanted to be able to talk to the Heavens. Maybe they just wanted to be able to change some of the rules of the Heavens; not rule over everybody, but change the Heavens enough to be able to do what they wanted and maybe have special permissions for them to do their special things in 1 or 2 Seas (special areas where they could do stuff and probably send useful things, or people, back to their home planet).

But when they connected the Strands to the Heavens? Well. It went badly wrong.

I'm just hoping that the Truth of the Two Paths will improve our good seeds' development.

The really nice thing about the insta-kill option is the ludicrous amount of rep it would give Manuel. If we used it on (say) Old Cannibal, just deleting him... I mean, you thought Old Jinshen was a cowardly paranoiac about us BEFORE. Imagine his caution after we somehow just nope one of the scariest Nascent's in the area.

Probably too risky to be worth it, but it would be a fun read. I wonder if he'd even have the nerve to 3 v 1 us.

You know, so long as we're getting a Free Ride to Nascent Soul anyway...

... It's too bad that we can't get one of our peeps to Twin Soul Core Formation first while we're at it.

... Or could we? If all it would cost would be a shitload of money, then...?

Would it be worth it, do you think guys? Would it be worth it to funnel Manuel's economic activity and treasure-hunting, into getting enough Cultivation Resources to boost Casia or Xie or Kleisthenes into Twin Soul, since we have a guaranteed Nascent Soul breakthrough from our Boon? (EDIT: Wait, no, it takes 312 additional years and like .001 out of 100 cultivators reach it... Darn. Probably not really viable. Ah well. Shame.)

pblur said:

The really nice thing about the insta-kill option is the ludicrous amount of rep it would give Manuel. If we used it on (say) Old Cannibal, just deleting him... I mean, you thought Old Jinshen was a cowardly paranoiac about us BEFORE. Imagine his caution after we somehow just nope one of the scariest Nascent's in the area.

Probably too risky to be worth it, but it would be a fun read. I wonder if he'd even have the nerve to 3 v 1 us.

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Manuel Konstantinos vs. Old Jingshen (2021, Colorized)

Yeah, that's kind of the issue, if we get Not!Balefire, the correct move is to save it for Old Cannibal, because he's too canny to go down any other way.

But that means we have to take Jingshen on the chin.

Conversely, having two Nascent Souls makes it a lot more likely that we can hold off Old Cannibal until all the various Righteous powers he's pissed off with his raiding stab him in the back.

Actually hold on, this might technically be viable...

Okay, we have one "IOU A Nascent Soul Tribulation" voucher from the Heaven's Shadow, right?

What if we save it for our THIRD Nascent Soul?

What if we try to have one of our Councillors reach Nascent Soul using just our, and their, own efforts and treasures and wealth. And if they fail, we go for one of the other 2 candidates and then use the gauranteed-tribulation Boon on it.

But if they succeed. If they succeed on their own merits? Then we save the Tribulation IOU.

And have the candidate spend the next 300 years trying to reach Twin-Soul Core Formation, and use the Boon on their Tribulation.

It's a gamble. It's gambling that our Elder can succeed on their merits and with our help and our gathering of tribulation treasures. But if we pull off the gamble? We could have a Twin-Core Nascent Soul as our 3rd Nascent Soul.


Or not even that! We just keep it as a super-important Strategic Reserve. We keep it as an "Press button in case you need an immediate Nascent Soul" strategic reserve.