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A Simple Transaction I

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Aabcehmu said:
Word from discord is that Rihaku puts Hunger's odds of reaching High Cursebearer status with Vengeance in the 0.1%-1% range. Which is incredible! But also pretty small objectively.
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Whether this is small depends entirely on the average chance to make High Cursebearer which we don't know. We do know it's better odds than Seram had and he had less curses than Hunger.
 
LordOfMurder said:
Whether this is small depends entirely on the average chance to make High Cursebearer which we don't know. We do know it's better odds than Seram had and he had less curses than Hunger.
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It's absurdly good odds! Even if you sampled everyone in our multiverse, it's almost certain you would not find someone with better odds than that even with a minimum Curseload. Most people in all of creation would not be able to accomplish such a thing, even given infinite time.
 
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I haven't been reading this story since halfway through NIlfel, so my vote would be uninformed. So let me catch up and then I'll vote for the angry option!
 
Much of AST's story has been Hunger accepting enormous risks for commensurate gains. He's demonstrably undeterred by long odds. At every point where he learned more of the Forebear, he approved. Hunger embraced the lessons of his prior incarnation long before he learned the truth of his identity. To turn back here, rejecting his identity as Forebear in favor of the path of safety and (relative) mediocrity, is a refutation of his trajectory for the entire quest.

Also, I just flat-out don't want to give the Maiden the satisfaction, or for Hunger to end up with an entity that's even partially her. She thinks she can eke out a last-picosecond compromise in this ultimate clash of ideals by dangling some choice bait in front of us, when she's been completely unwilling to negotiate up until this point? Get real. You can't hook a fisherman! It's age and treachery, not youth. No maidens need apply.
 
Consequence evaluation, as honest as I can make it. Somewhat obviated by Rihaku's clarification post, but not entirely.

Vengeance. High stakes gambling, unknown weights. The entry fee, not even our ante, is to make Tyranny the absolute essence of our nature.
*Our ante is the lives of everyone in our dominion; Hunger's utility as a living nonhigh Cursebearer, including however much (if any) Hunger mitigates the Curses he's bearing just by being alive; Hunger's humanity; Hunger's alignment with the Accursed.
*The pot is approximately: Tyrant's Doom removal; Procession removal; Hidden Ones removal.
Possible outcomes:
-We die before accomplishing anything particularly noteworthy, which is the most likely option by a considerable margin. We deprive the Accursed of whatever utility a living nonhigh Cursebearer provides, which may or may not be significant. We've condemned a lot of people to both immediate war and eventual doom, but we've greatly improved their quality of life in the interim.
-We survive, but lose to value drift. Some combination of: Hidden One Removal, Procession Removal, Tyrant's Doom Removal, Giving The Accursed Another Curse Before He Beats Us For Making The Universe Unacceptably Worse, Hunger Never Bothers To Save His Friends Even If He Wins.
-We survive, and don't lose to value drift. We will never be less than a Tyrant, but we can probably fix the Inevitable Ruin problem, and we do get to resurrect more than two of the Hidden Ones' victims.

Freedom. Risk mitigation, and also comfort. Buy-in is nearly all of our already-pretty-tiny chance to kill the Hidden Ones.
-Our immediate payout is the not-inherently-doomed lives of everyone in our dominion; Hunger's utility as a living nonhigh Cursebearer, including however much (if any) Hunger mitigates the Curses he's bearing just by being alive; Hunger's humanity; Hunger's alignment with the Accursed.
Possible outcomes:
-We never accomplish anything particularly noteworthy, but we also never die trying.
-'Never' is a somewhat fuzzy pronouncement, on both counts.
-This story has pretty much taught us not to trust our ostensible chances of anything.
Aabcehmu said:
Word from discord is that Rihaku puts Hunger's odds of reaching High Cursebearer status with Vengeance in the 0.1%-1% range. Which is incredible! But also pretty small objectively.
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Oh yeah, way better than 2^-1000 that the previous description suggested.
Orm Embar said:
I think Freedom is the Hidden Ones screwing Hunger over, honestly. Torpedoing his chances of becoming a threat by removing the Lathe, blunting his desire
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I don't think they have that much control of the Apocryphal Curse.
Lealope said:
It's absurdly good odds! Even if you sampled everyone in our multiverse, it's almost certain you would not find someone with better odds than that even with a minimum Curseload.
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Does 'everyone in our multiverse' include other iterations of Hunger, e.g. the Balance build?
 
Orm Embar said:
That Hunger himself will be happy does nothing for the countless innocents who will suffer from their caprice in the future.
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Reminder that the Forebear reborn ascension would also inflict great suffering upon a literally infinite number of innocent
Rihaku said:
As his reign and onslaught commence, Devouring War will mitigate a progressively greater portion of the Decimator's Affliction. If the Forebear's standard shall be a pennant of blood, then the future will know only war.
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You could say that's justified by the very low chance of hastening the Victorious World in a kind Pascal Wager (iterated through NaN transfinite escalation of cardinalities, etc.) and that argument would even tempt me, if not for the fact that the Accursed explicitly brought up the possibility that he might have to fight us if we chose this path
Rihaku said:
"Once you proscribed to pay me back for the powers I had imparted on you. Do me this favor, old foe: rest. Let me never again be forced to take up arms against you...

…It was a difficult enough fight the first time."
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and is therefore asking us not to do that. But in any case, I just don't think the innocent harmed by the Hidden Ones are an important part of the moral calculus here, given both the very low probability of success, the certainty of great harm and everything else which is at stake here.
 
Also I'd just like to say thank you for everyone for helping create this amazing quest. It's been a fixture in my life for years now and I honestly don't know where I'd be if I hadn't met some of the people that I found in this community.
 
formalAI said:
Reminder that the Forebear reborn ascension would also inflict great suffering upon a literally infinite number of innocent
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But that's the lot of all Apocryphal Cursebearers, whether they wish for it or not. Their very presence brings interesting times to the places they exist in. Consider whether or not the peoples the war is brought to are innocent in the first place; Rihaku has already mentioned that there exist plenty of entities performing the very worst sort of abuses that Hunger might be capable of with his power. The Blood Halo brings war, but for worlds being nerve-stamped by The Oppressors's transfinite cruelty, is his advent so horrible?
 
If Vengeance wins I want to roll a d100 and, on anything other then a 100, say "whelp Hunger died the sacrifice was pointless".

The final battle of the quest is also the oldest one in this quest: Not Dying Gang vs Dying Gang. We're keeping up with our track record I see. So few actually care about Hunger's life when the nebulous distant chance of a minor victory in the Accursed's war is dangled in front of them.
 
Rihaku said:
Does it seem likely to you that the Accursed would be manipulated by, or personally endorse, the machinations of the Hidden Ones?
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When you put it that way, no. But Vengeance has a chance - however narrow - at actually achieving its namesake, whereas Freedom gives up on the vendetta. Unless their values are very strange, the latter would be more pleasing to them. 'Fuck the Hidden Ones' is a perk of the former path.
 
Lealope said:
But that's the lot of all Apocryphal Cursebearers, whether they wish for it or not. Their very presence brings interesting times to the places they exist in.
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The consequences of the Apocryphal can be pretty bad, yes. But when weighted against a guarantee of eternal war... And these poor people will have to deal with both if we chose Vengeance, it's not a choice of one or the other.
Lealope said:
Consider whether or not the peoples the war is brought to are innocent in the first place; Rihaku has already mentioned that there exist plenty of entities performing the very worst sort of abuses that Hunger might be capable of with his power. The Blood Halo brings war, but for worlds being nerve-stamped by The Oppressors's transfinite cruelty, is his advent so horrible?
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What fraction of the innumerable worlds which will fall under the influence of the Forebear reborn do you expect to actually be improved by eternal war? Indenture is not the Procession, you should not expect the worlds that Hunger end up visiting to end up better off having to deal with eternal war!
 
formalAI said:
What fraction of the innumerable worlds which will fall under the influence of the Forebear reborn do you expect to actually be improved by eternal war? Indenture is not the Procession, you should not expect the worlds that Hunger end up visiting to end up better off having to deal with eternal war!
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We know what the face of war under the Blood Halo looks like and, even in times of direst exigency, it's as follows:

Rihaku said:
*Of course, being reasonable people, the legions are comprised almost entirely of sub-sentient constructs with only a few sapient handlers per legion, and each of those residents of time-accelerated realms who have lived full and happy spans of at least subjective millenia. Still, at the rate he'll lose them, Hunger will by this one writ be placing many trillions of lives on the line.
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From where I'm standing currently, looking at the world I see and considering the state of known Indenture worlds, I'd welcome the Blood Halo's coming and gladly die in his service.

So, to answer your question, the vast majority of them, really.
 
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Orm Embar said:
When you put it that way, no. But Vengeance has a chance - however narrow - at actually achieving its namesake, whereas Freedom gives up on the vendetta. Unless their values are very strange, the latter would be more pleasing to them. 'Fuck the Hidden Ones' is a perk of the former path.
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In point of fact, their only known activity has been setting our protagonist on his Dark Fantasy Tragedy Isekai. So getting him back on the rails may well be more pleasing to them than increasing their collective death chance by up to one percent!
 
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I'm a bit sad that we didn't get to see Gisena being insufferably smug even though it was one of the listed benefits of A Perfect Merger.
 
LordOfMurder said:
I'm a bit sad that we didn't get to see Gisena being insufferably smug even though it was one of the listed benefits of A Perfect Merger.
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Ahem.

"And yet. Why was the Genius smirking still? That smug insufferable smile was not the triumphant cackling of one who had successfully maneuvered foe and tyrant both into mutual annihilation and could now preside unimpeded, grievously wounded or not, over the remains..."
 
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