Threads Of Destiny(Eastern Fantasy, Sequel to Forge of Destiny)

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thinks about it

[X] Bring Zheng Fu on and go to talk to the Ministry with him along.

Eh, I think this is one of those times where being straightforward is better. The Zheng are known to butt into people's business anyways.
 
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[X] Bring Zheng Fu on and go to talk to the Ministry with him along.

We have a pretty strong rhetorical card to play for this one. Zheng Fu previously fought at Ling Qi's side in the defense of Emerald Seas' people. He's proven deserving of a modicum of trust, and lending our martial bond some weight is pretty traditional.

Plus, there's the fact he independently identified the issue and then came to us to conference before making any moves. That proves both his suitability to the task at hand and a willingness to cooperate with local hierarchies that his clan isn't always attributed in rumour. Though these talking points would be getting into the weeds too much. Mentioning that he sought us out gets the point across enough, Cao Chun's not dumb.

Unlike other posters, I'm not all that worried about consequences to keeping Zheng Fu's involvement close to chest. I think it'd be fine, more than likely. I just don't see much benefit to keeping him under our hat with the MoI either. Like, I can think of some scenarios where we want to shake some bushes from an unconventional angle, but eh.

Also, probably also unlike a lot of posters, I don't mind if Cao Chun saddles us with Jin Tae. Baby Detective Squad would be hilarious.

Edit: to be clear, part of the hilarity would be that Jin Tae is the most baby. We've got a whole year of cultivation on him, and Zheng Fu has at least that, so we can do dumb stunts Jin Tae probably doesn't have an equivalent for. Not that he'd be useless; he's got more developed areas of expertise too. It's just if we have to jump into the liminal or something, he'll need a boost from Ling Qi or Zheng Fu. Like an ickle baby toddler.
 
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[X] Bring Zheng Fu on and go to talk to the Ministry with him along.

We were told to at least show conviction if we're going to offend, rather than appear obsequious or uncommitted.

I wouldn't necessarily be opposed to Jin Tae so long as Cao Chun was certain that Jin Tae wouldn't be a part of the MoI faction that could be involved with this. I'd be a little disappointed that Jin Tae would be on the detective squad, but it wouldn't be bad. Especially if he ends up here long term for whatever reason
 
[X] Bring Zheng Fu on and go to talk to the Ministry with him along.
If you want future Qingge's to be able to say No to an offer like this because she thinks it'll make her life worse instead of better according to what she wants, and to be able to do that while expecting to not be punished enough to ruin her life for disobedience to clan interests, you need a lot more of a legal presence sticking their noses into clan affairs and dictating how they do things. And boy do people really hate that. It's a really tough nut to crack with very deep cultural roots, but a worthwhile one. In a better world no one would be able to do anything to convince Qingge to take that offer except to offer her further rewards for doing so.
The cure may well be worse than the disease here.
The root cause is that a clan simply has too much soft power for any individual component of the clan to resist effectively when it comes to matters of clan interest. There is a lot of degrees of emotional, material, and physical coercion available, even as simple as cutting off cultivation supplies or assignment to menial labor, to even limited physical punishments(as per the culture of the period, a great deal of punishments are permissible if you avoid causing permanent damage...and for a cultivator that allows for a great deal of inventive circumvention) and solitary confinement.

This further intersects with clan secrets and Ways, which are a strategic military element of a cultivating feudal society. You don't get whistleblowers - even if they disagreed with a specific decision, actually going to an outsider on the matter invites the ruination of the clan, so the best bet is to cultivate high enough to have an executive vote on decisions, something made harder by clan internal politics.

So how do you fix this then?
Theres many approaches but it boils down to 3 solutions:
-Abolish the clan and feudal system as a fundamental building block of society, replace it with something else to turn resources into cultivators. Of course, the basic workings of cultivation means you're still permanently concentrating a lot of power into a small number of individuals so consider whether a CEO, Living God or President-for-life is going to do any better than a clan head...and of course clan-like structures will still form anyway because you aren't going to stop people from having personal relationships with their relatives, and a 300 year old patriarch/matriarch is more or less going to be a heavy fixture just by weight of connections.

-Greatly strengthen the central state's ability to interfere in family matters. Note that central state is going to be a lot more enthusiastic about imperialism than individual quality of life, and consider that the main limiting factor is that it can't force its component clans to do anything unless it genuinely appeals to a common interest. It is entirely possible that forced marriages for clan alliances and clan eugenics simply get replaced with forced marriages for state alliances and state eugenics.

-Somehow force greater empathy and communication between the decisionmakers of any group and the individuals that have to bear the costs. Would probably take an Ascension and considerable amounts of worship and support to actually make happen on anything more than one clan scale.

TLDR - What drives this is power dynamics in the end, once the people that call the shots are too distant from the people that actually carry it out it can be considerably difficult to care about the details.

Damn, are we really going to need to intervene personally to see justice done about this? By which I mean the Liu young master dead, the Liu's precious family reputation dragged into the gutter where it belongs, and the He clan never having power over anyone ever again.
Even if we intervened personally 'justice' would not be done in all likelihood short of personally assassinating him and then probably see our family caught in a blood feud they can't win.

They could be punished, but what happened to Qingge is just a misdemeanor charge.
What else they're doing in Tonghou sounds like grand felonies though, so that'd be nice to look forward to when the audit gets there. But its not a quick process, and its quite likely that the direct offender isn't actually important enough to get smashed for it.
 
I feel like making anyone free to leave a Clan at any time and social services on par with those in Xiangmen is probably a fine way to prevent Qingge's situation. Most people won't want to leave a Clan and will thus usually stay and do things they may not be wildly happy about, but really intolerable situations will allow clan members to vote with their feet and just leave.
 
The cure may well be worse than the disease here.
Or it might not be. I agree that true anarchy can't actually last more than 5 seconds without some new set of assholes making a new monstrous hierarchy, though.
Even if we intervened personally 'justice' would not be done in all likelihood short of personally assassinating him and then probably see our family caught in a blood feud they can't win.

They could be punished, but what happened to Qingge is just a misdemeanor charge.
You point out that Qingge's suffering is barely even considered a crime in this society, and then put scare quotes around justice when I am indeed talking about straight-up murder? How is murder not a valid means of justice when the law is this horrible?

Also, the blood feud won't be unwinnable if we strike when the audit has fucked them over hard enough.
-Somehow force greater empathy and communication between the decisionmakers of any group and the individuals that have to bear the costs. Would probably take an Ascension and considerable amounts of worship and support to actually make happen on anything more than one clan scale.
Sounds like a great direction to take Ling Qi in.
 
I'm clearly out-voted by a large margin, but

[X] Best to keep some separation and sources hidden, talk to the Ministry alone, but accept Zheng Fu's aid.

Because there isn't a good reason to assume Qi is going to lie about having Zheng on the team if it comes up. But there are good reasons not to bring a chaotic element to negotiations when it isn't necessary. Zheng bravado isn't going to make CC feel happier with anything.
 
I feel like making anyone free to leave a Clan at any time and social services on par with those in Xiangmen is probably a fine way to prevent Qingge's situation. Most people won't want to leave a Clan and will thus usually stay and do things they may not be wildly happy about, but really intolerable situations will allow clan members to vote with their feet and just leave.
cultivator distances mean that doing this would require a robust public transportation system to facilitate it. A fairly admirable goal, and the Great Spirit of the Wind Stones over in Golden Fields might assist with that. Zheng may have some good ideas on this
 
The Imperial Bureaucracies and Scents[sic], both Great and small, are both types of institutions that distance individuals from the influence of their clans of origins. Not wholly, that's really difficult under this culture, but they DO involve taking on oaths and obligations that are typically respected as having some amount of weight.

Which is probably part of why the Bao[sic] are so pissed about the great sect system. Attendance on the part of their scions is viewed as a fundamentally unnaceptable trespass on Bai sovereignty. Not to mention identity.

But yeah, there's a number of jobs and roles that take people out from their clans' thumbs. The freedom is just... relative and in the margins. Military postings, foreign diplomatic duties, even marriages. There's stuff out there, though not to our modern mostly western sensibilities.

Edit: okay phoneposting created some funny typos here, so I'm going to preserve but mark them

[X] Bring Zheng Fu on and go to talk to the Ministry with him along.

We were told to at least show conviction if we're going to offend, rather than appear obsequious or uncommitted.

I wouldn't necessarily be opposed to Jin Tae so long as Cao Chun was certain that Jin Tae wouldn't be a part of the MoI faction that could be involved with this. I'd be a little disappointed that Jin Tae would be on the detective squad, but it wouldn't be bad. Especially if he ends up here long term for whatever reason
Especially if he grows a crush on Zheng Fu, you mean.
 
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You know, I wonder if the Old Crows find it refreshing to be stared at like this. Ling Qi staring, Sun Liling staring. All sorts of MoI and White Plumes staring, no doubt.

I get the vibe people try to ignore when they're around, within the bounds of politeness, back home.
 
You point out that Qingge's suffering is barely even considered a crime in this society, and then put scare quotes around justice when I am indeed talking about straight-up murder? How is murder not a valid means of justice when the law is this horrible?

Also, the blood feud won't be unwinnable if we strike when the audit has fucked them over hard enough.
Because thats revenge porn, not really fixing anything even if its satisfying. An audit isn't going to take a Viscounty into hitting range of a Baron unless it has already taken them to the point of open rebellion, since thats what happens when you try to break the back of an armed power.

Even their liege lord Count would hesitate because they need that viscount with viscount resources right there to keep millions of people alive from the environment. Theres not going to be much in the way of idle sovereign cultivators to step into those shoes, at least not without causing problems at higher level politics.

Justice is going to lie heavily in setting up better protections and shelter for unaffliated mortals. Prevent harm rather than cause indiscriminate harm.
The initial marriage arrangement can't really be touched without rivers of blood. Nor can exiling from a clan, which is only fair to no longer benefit from clan resources if you refuse your role in clan prosperity.

But everything after that is mortal abuse which is illegal but poorly enforced.

cultivator distances mean that doing this would require a robust public transportation system to facilitate it. A fairly admirable goal, and the Great Spirit of the Wind Stones over in Golden Fields might assist with that. Zheng may have some good ideas on this
Yep. The big challenge there is that in theory being disowned from a clan just means you no longer get clan resources, and may be on the hook for resources already consumed(which yes, the individual doesn't have any say in until they leave, but the imbalance generates lasting ill will).

In practice, this depends entirely on where you live, who you crossed and how powerful you personally are.
If the area you can travel on your own is larger than the turf of your clan, you could leave and make your own living, assuming you have marketable skills.

Which means both travel and upkeep must be available, or you run facefirst into economics. Neither are cheap in a deathworld, somebody has to foot the bill, and somebody has to permit it.
Which is where you see the Great Sect system doing exactly that.
And the local nobility needing to have it shoved down their throats in general because it IS an infringement on their political soveriegnity.

As are the Empress' soup kitchens and similar initiatives. Those with political power dislike it because it erodes their soft power.
 
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