Most of all, because it's what Ivy herself wants. She is one of the most screwed by their powers people in the setting. She deserves to take back some control. And, as I understand it, the vote would go like this: we make Ivy her talisman, granting her perfect protection against Archive's influence, then she tries to force the issue. @DragonParadox do I understand this correctly?
Green Flame Rising (Exalted vs Dresden Files)
- Thread starter DragonParadox
- Start date
- Crossover Fantasy
Because when people are talking colloqially, they use natural language.
Because power levels are relative, not absolute.
I will remind you that Dresden discorporated He Who Walks Before with a soulfire-enhanced gunshot to the face in Cold Days.
The reduced energy the ritual had been able to use, the framework that the ley line would have turned into a deadly construction, vanished, released into the night sky to be shaken to pieces by the music. We will, we will, rock you.
"Hey, Sharkface!" I shouted, stepping forward, gathering Winter and soulfire as I went.
The furious Walker whirled back to me just in time to have the heavy, octagonal barrel of the Winchester slam through the ridge of bone that he had instead of front teeth, and drive all the way to the back of his mouth.
"Get rocked," I said, and pulled the trigger.
Along with the .45-caliber bullet, I sent a column of pure energy and will surging down the barrel and into the Walker's skull. His head exploded, literally exploded, into streamers and gobbets of black ichor. His cloak of rags went mad, throwing the headless body into the air and sending it thrashing through the shallow water like a half-squashed bug. Dark vapor began issuing from the frantically twitching body—then suddenly gathered into a single cloud, all in a rush, and shot away, emitting a furious and agonized and terrorized scream as it went, alien but unmistakable.
Then the body went limp in the water. The cloak continued flopping and thrashing for a few seconds before it, too, went still.
"Hey, Sharkface!" I shouted, stepping forward, gathering Winter and soulfire as I went.
The furious Walker whirled back to me just in time to have the heavy, octagonal barrel of the Winchester slam through the ridge of bone that he had instead of front teeth, and drive all the way to the back of his mouth.
"Get rocked," I said, and pulled the trigger.
Along with the .45-caliber bullet, I sent a column of pure energy and will surging down the barrel and into the Walker's skull. His head exploded, literally exploded, into streamers and gobbets of black ichor. His cloak of rags went mad, throwing the headless body into the air and sending it thrashing through the shallow water like a half-squashed bug. Dark vapor began issuing from the frantically twitching body—then suddenly gathered into a single cloud, all in a rush, and shot away, emitting a furious and agonized and terrorized scream as it went, alien but unmistakable.
Then the body went limp in the water. The cloak continued flopping and thrashing for a few seconds before it, too, went still.
Do you genuinely think something like that would have phased any angel?
Can you see, say, Nicodemus, doing that to Uriel?
In this AU we've seen Mab kill a shard of Nemesis.
Do you think she could do that to an avatar of an angel?
As in, not a Fallen, but a fullblown loyalist angel?
1)I read the quote. I maintain that you are misreading it. Power level similar to Uriel =/=Peer to Uriel.
Not to mention that the onscreen feats pretty clearly put them on very different tiers of power.
The bog-standard angel Amitiel is able to do outre shit like reach inside Dresden's head and shut down his Sight in Ghost Story because it would damage Dresden to activate it in the angel's presence.
Besides?
Its a key principle of DF that the more power you have, the less freely you can act.
The Outsiders have too much freedom to have that much power.
2)We saw him face He Who Walks Before/Sharkface in Cold Days.
We saw him comprehend Sharkface, even if for a short period of time. In none of that time does he say, or suspect, or suggest, that Sharkface is only using a fragment of his power.
We see Titania talk about Nemesis in Cold Days, and she makes no such insinuation.
Neither do the Mothers, or even Morgan in the Journal short story.
3) No, he cant do that.
Mantles can be separated from people. People, whether mortals or spirits, cant generally be divided into differing fragments.
The only time I am aware something like that has ever happened has been with Bob/Evil Bob, and the division there did not result in any apparent reduction in power on either side.
I am not aware of any text or Word of Butcher that has ever implied otherwise.
Archangels dont fight Outsiders in this setting; thats left to the fae and mortals.
Angels dont fight Outsiders.
So their power is very much not primarily designed for the purpose of deterring or fighting off Outsiders.
Archangels and angels helped build the setting.
Thats the same explanation Butcher has given for why Dragons and Titans were/are so powerful; they were some of the construction personnel that helped build Dresdenverse reality.
Because their remit is beyond this one dirtball in this one solar system.
There's at least one entire universe out there, whether or not the parallel timelines thing is canon here; even if the rest of the universe was simply made of inanimate matter, thats an entire universe of shit to keep an eye on.
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Do they, like king arthur has plenty of stories avout their flaws or even robin hood or the various jacks. My knowldge in that field is limited.
The nature of the flaws changed from hubris and not obeying guest rights to things like sloth or wrath or other classical sins.
Remember when Uriel lent his Grace to Michael and was killable by mortals? What do you think Nemesis does to infect people and free them from normal rules? Can you really not see the similarities?
I find it very informative that the moral paragon that is Knight of the Cross Michael Carpenter is urging caution first.
VOTE
[X] No
-[X] Take some more time to study this before taking it head on (Advise that she try to learn more about said limits and why they might be there)
REASON
1) Michael is urging caution. Michael Carpenter is urging caution.
When our Mentor 5 and current wielder of the Sword Amoracchius says take time to think about this and assess?
I listen.
2) This is also potentially a test of our judgement.
Whether or not Ivy is deliberately testing us, the care with which we approach topics like this will certainly inform her assessment of us and how trustworthy she finds us in the future.
And furthermore, there's a good chance that the Archive Entity is making an independent assessment of us as well.
Kincaid certainly is.
3) Measure twice, cut once.
Do not meddle in a millenia old mechanism of supernatural warfare until you are certain what effects your meddling will have.
We dont get doovers if we fuck up.
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BoredMan
Maintaining the Agenda is our top priority
Because they are two completely different levels of power with different rules? It's not impossible but you really shouldn't be looking at wizards to show how viable it is or isn't. A warlock is an enterly different kind of threat to an evil Exalted.
Don't put words in my mouth. No one said anything about "paragons of morality" or saints or whatever.
Artemis summed it up rather well.
The fact that we can analyze a situation midcombat -physical or otherwise- from completely differring perspectives and debate over the repercussions of multiple unique tactics for hours on end sometimes days even while time stands still to find a course of action a majority of people agree is best before acting is a huge factor that(depending on the situation) gives Molly an unfair advantage for decision making, one that's objectively better than a lot of individuals by defualt.
The people voting and debating have furture knowledge and references from the books to draw upon at will along with a myriad of information on the settings involved the power systems in play ect, that characters in universe are simply not privy too. We even have the ability to ask the GM about some things to give us even more info before doing anything.
This allows us to, in the very least, make better informed choices from a more rational and distanced standoint than people who are living in universe and thus have a much more limited range of knowledge and time to make do with.
OctarineShrike
Avatar of Mandos
[X] No
-[X] Take some more time to study this before taking it head on (Advise that she try to learn more about said limits and why they might be there)
-[X] Take some more time to study this before taking it head on (Advise that she try to learn more about said limits and why they might be there)
No I genuinely cant.
Nemesis infects and alters other people; he doesnt alter himself.
Uriel divested himself of his own Grace.
The two are not remotely similar in scale or scope.
- Location
- Germany
He is also our dad.
Sometimes caution is just caution, not some greater good.
We are Exalted.
Doing the difficult immediately and the impossible with some time and effort is our metier.
Just giving Ivy some more freedom to act is the merely difficult, so we should do it just as we did it for Lilly.
Working on changing the Mantle so it doesn't force the opinions of a 2000 year old corpse onto people how they should live their life is step 2.
To be fair this is weird sorcery out of lost ages, very much not his idiom. In Molly's estimation her dad does not have super special lore about this or he would have told her already. On the other hand the wizard you have with you is also urging caution so take that as you will.
Wizards are dangerous in a way that's different from exalts, yes, but these differences make it easier to create a unified self-governing and regulating body for exalts than it is to create one for wizards. That's my point. Yes, individual exalts might be more dangerous, but they are also easier for other exalts to find, and control, than wizards are for other wizards to locate.
You asked "Do you genuinely think something like that would have phased any angel?" My reply was - yes, if an angel put themselves into a vulnerable position through investing into a mortal, where Uriel giving Michael his Grace was a canon example of such happening. This was a rebuttal to your rebuttal.
We don't know what infecting others does to or costs Nemesis. We can surmise it's not a free action, or all mortals would have been infected.
- Location
- Who knows?
I find it interesting that your post has the general wariness of massive change, but then pivots to argue argue for spreading exaltations in the DF world. The latter would be disruptive to the point of making most revolutions look tame.
To expand, exaltations are currently a massive OCP to most players (good or evil) on the board. As players it's nice since that's how Molly's pulled off so much of her BS lol. While there's people definitely more powerful and evil than Protypical Selfish Amoral Fresh Exalt would be (Nicomedus anyone?), as existing factors they have preexisting opponents, obligations etc that result in DF's current equilibrium. I don't think the status quo should be perfectly preserved; however I'm still against actively spreading exaltations as to me that would be introducing an invasive species without any real way to control or mitigate the downsides.
Is it fair only Molly gets the special exalt ocp? No. Did she really do anything to deserve it? No (sorry Usum). Are there those out there who might be able to do just as much good, if not more, with an exaltation? Yes. However, from what I've seen trying to control who exalts/gets it tends to be a loosing proposition.
Therefore, and to drag another metaphor into it, I see the exaltation as Molly suddenly, without particularly earning it, becoming a magical font of nuclear material/energy. She's been using it to generate energy/make powerplants instead of tossing nukes willy nilly (see her running around hero-ing vs idk immediately using the crown to get the White God's weakness and selling it to Nicomedus), but the capability remains. It's not fair she specifically got it, but even with that proliferatation it seems incredibly irresponsible.
I will admit part of me doesn't want more exaltations since I like Molly being ~*speciful*~ but looking at some of these charms it seems like even if we got a 99.9% successful way to ensure exaltations went to Good People, that 1 out of 1000 could wreck ridiculous amounts of havoc that could dwarf the combined efforts of the rest. As a hypothetical Maximum!Malice Molly could've started using her Crown to ask for weakness and also how to get the info their worst enemies. Sure maybe she'd get smacked down in a week by everything in DF that bodies baby exalts, but what a destructive week that would be. Especially since I don't think many groups (organizations and groups) are equipped to handle "someone suddenly gets a power that did not exist until now that fucks you from a completely orthogonal direction."
Sure I imagine eventually things would reach a new equilibrium after breaking the Black Vault open, but I think trying to avoid that upheaval if we can is worth it.
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He almost never questions or disputes Molly's judgement, at least not in public.
And he's had more than twenty years of supernatural operating experience.
Im inclined to listen.
Our ability to deal with the consequences of the impossible is much less absolute, as the entire history of Exalted 2E Creation will attest to.
I generally prefer to assume that other NPCs in the setting arent unintelligent or incapable.
Presumably, the people who set this up the Archive werent gratuitously cruel, so there had to be a reason why they set it up the way they did. And a reason why Ivy's umpteenth ancestor accepted it.
Figuring that out first seems like elementary due diligence
So both the wizard and the Knight are saying slow your roll.
Im not saying no.
But I'd like her to take a second, and a third look at this before anything.
Same with us.
@uju32 She is asking for a basic human I don't even know the call it. It's not even right, it's something. Humans are intrinsically born with the ability to be themselves. There is no need for the archive to actually do what it does to cause Ego death That is a unfortunate hiccup with the programming As far as I'm concerned. nothing about its function needs that to be a thing. She should be allowed to be herself without being eaten mentally by a weird magic thing. I know it's a mantle, but that is what mantels are weird Magic things that have ideas about how being their attached to should be.
I actually rather dislike Mantels they're essentially Sauron rings that Turn their holders Into their preferred version of ring wraith.
I actually rather dislike Mantels they're essentially Sauron rings that Turn their holders Into their preferred version of ring wraith.
Uh, that is not true.
Wizards are born, but require training, books and research time. They require a society and social links to achieve their full potential, and that allows for both early socialization and personal interest to result in a central governing body.
Exaltations were literally designed to be endlessly respawning autonomous godkiller weapons that require nothing to boot themselves into a going concern. An Exalt can boot himself into a global threat in a cave with a box of scraps, and requires nothing outside himself to do so.
We have seen them do it in Exalted 2E.
The Bull was a barbarian tribesman who became an existential threat to the Dragonblood Empire out of the blue in less than 5 years. No training, no infrastructure.
Nfecting other people is Nemesis' standard MO. Divesting himself of his Grace? Is not Uriel's MO.
If possessing people put Nemesis at risk the way Uriel did by divesting his Grace, he'd be permadead by now; we've seen at least two or three people that Nemesis had a hand in get killed onscreen: Aurora, Maeve, potentially Eldest Fetch.
Not to mention the Leanansidhe, who was in Mab's custody for several years.
So no, your rebuttal makes zero sense.
She has figured something out and wants to share it but cannot and seems quite frustrated that she cannot even tell under what circumstances she would be allowed to share. It's like she found a weird programing glitch with something useful behind it that she cannot talk about. That said yes she is asking for mind control and possession protection to force through the limiters whatever those are.
- Location
- Germany
I generally assume that reasons two millennia out of date are not valid.
I generally assume that people can't make decisions for their umpteenth descendants down the line.
Things that made perfect sense with the state of the world back then are most likely nonsense by now.
I see as little reason to allow the Mantle to have control over Ivy as I see to force her to obey Augustian Reform Roman laws.
Um, no, there's a miscommunication here somewhere. In context my point was that "gradual slow change that results in a qualitative change to the benefit of the minority power and detriment of the majority power" doesn't work. Or at least doesn't work systemically. If there's anything there, it's exhaustion and disillusionment with the slow and gradual approach.
In the choice between "horror without end" and "horrific end" I think that at this point in life I trend to "horrific end", especially if there's at least some hope for improvement there. Or at least intellectually want to trend to it, even if in real life I am too afraid.
A completely untrained Molly was able to break the Laws.
Didn't Bull use remnants of the First Age?
Uriel is operating from the position of strength - Creation is his home turf, and White God is the biggest boss around. Nemesis is in enemy territory.
And I said similar, not the same. I didn't say that it put Nemesis at risk the same way or to the same degree. I said that your rebuttal, which I read as "Nemesis can't be equal in power to Uriel, because there's no way Mab would be able to injure Uriel" makes no sense, because there are canon circumstances under which Mab or even a mortal with a baseball bat would be able to stomp Uriel.
Ok, thank you for clarification. Further question, if you don't mind - does Molly think (does Archive herself think, if Molly is allowed to ask as a free action) that there's a significant risk of damage to the Archive (as in the mantle) from Ivy acquiring the immunity to its influence?
@uju32 Yurgen Koneko Venerable elder of the ice walker Tribe was not a barbarian. He was a man who lived to be in his sixties in an area of the frozen north that experiences constant tribal warfare. The Tepet Were sent to die they got sent on a forced march to Enemy territory with thin supply line the Northeastern Empire that he created was thousands of miles away from the blessed aisle. His confederation of tribes Had every advantage of Imaginable from having horses mammoth gods and Five exalts on their side. An army, marches on their stomach and by the time that legion got there, they were empty in enemy territory with no back up.
Have you actually read the books? No offense, because you arent talking like you are aware of what the Archive is.
1)The Archive doesnt appear to be constrained from much, if anything.
Their only hard constraints are that they run the Oblivion War, pass the Archive down to their children, and that they maintain a level of neutrality towards the rest of the setting's factions so she can do her primary job.
The Archive has been everything from the Oracle of Delphi to miscellaneous soothsayers.
It doesnt mandate the person's lifestyle.
2)As far as you are concerned? Upon what basis are you making this determination?
We know nothing about how the Archive works.
We dont know what measures are essential, or what are conditional based on other stuff.
3) The Archive wields as much power as, at a minimum, a junior Queen of Winter according to the White Council.
Dresden said that, based on what he saw, she's more powerful than the Summer or Winter Lady.
Right now, she could punk everyone in this bar simultaneously.
The people who created that sort of self-perpetuating magical construct put a human in charge for a reason, with the measures they did, to run a war.
Basic due diligence means taking the time to ensure that you dont fuck shit over.
4) I dont have any interest in, say, disabling some of the safeties that allow someone to wield that much power and not unintentionally the town where they live during a nightmare. Or during pregnancy.
Or during puberty.
The Archive is five thousand years old. People have remained largely the same in that time period to the best of our knowledge.
Given as we do not have any idea of what the reasons why things were set up like that?
Its frankly irresponsible to Leeroy Jenkins this.
My two cents.
You know perfectly damn well that all previous Archives are fundamentally different from Ivy in a way that in way favors Ivy.
I'll give you biologically (and even that is arguable, actually, given changes in nutrition, metal content, etc), but culturally? No.
It is indeed important to remember that the *Appeal to Tradition* fallacy is, well, a fallacy.
*Because that's how it's always been done* is not an argument, and *it works now, why change it?* isn't either because it working doesn't means it can't be better, perfection is a process, not a state, something to strive for, not something to pretend you have reached to stop working.
The mantle was made so long ago that it is absolutely going to be obsolete on some points, and that's not even counting our current circumstances that the makers couldn't anticipate.
There is also the possibility, even if it's very, very small, that the limits Ivy just found might be cracks made by the enemy during the long running of the Archive. That one is unlikely, but not strictly impossible.
- Location
- Germany
Really?
I thought I read something about the first Archive having something to do with Alexandria, which is a bit over two millennia old?
I disagree with the rest, but that's just more of the same arguing that's been going on since forever here.