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A Simple Transaction I

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DkArthas said:
Let's not forget that Freedom states that Hunger might go on adventure one day again. The way I see it, it's a long break, where Hunger finally learns to live for himself for a good while and becomes more than an echo of the forebear. But there is no telling how the future will go.
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Yeah, that makes sense. Live out his Indenture and then pick up the Apocryphal again, maybe? Much easier fight that way.
Wolfy said:
.. you know, why don't we overcharge our clones into being valid Curse targets, now that I think about it? We could basically artificially increase our Curse load on our own, and because we are Hunger we can take it on. Just take on milionfold curses.
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Well, a million Tyrants would take issue with being ordered around, though if Hunger's nature is perfect self-cooperation that might work. A million decimations is an exceedingly heavy burden, and I'm sure Fisher King isn't a full solution because it would only apply to each instance's own territory. A million Indentures makes it almost useless, too, and a million Apocryphals is very, very stupid to accept, especially given the statistical inevitability of turning us against ourselves.
Also, it doesn't clone our companions or infrastructure.
Good try though, it initially seemed promising.
Wolfy said:
Wolber who was noted to be exceptionally smart when it comes to Apo got crushed under it with ease.
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Eh? Is that Discord info? The only Cursebearer's Association member I remember having lost is Daylian, and even then not explicitly.
Kurowari said:
If not for Hunger, who shall become their executioner? Should they be able to escape their rightful punishment? There is no better individual than Hunger, once implement of their machinations now transformed into the implement of their demise, the Imprisoner himself to deliver their just desserts.
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I strongly suspect that one of the Hidden Masters embodies the 'cycle of revenge' principle. If I'm right, Vengeance might be counterproductive against that Master in particular.
JOEbob said:
Fracturing Of Alloyed Metals
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That sounds like a specific reference, but I'm not sure what to. Enlighten me?
 
HoratioVonBecker said:
That sounds like a specific reference, but I'm not sure what to. Enlighten me?
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That was an advancement from Immersion.

[ ] Fracturing of Alloyed Metals [15 BP] - A quintessential self-alchemy; once performed, it cannot be reversed.
Allows you to 'sacrifice' or 'destroy' some chosen aspect of yourself by cutting it away, such as an Ability, a Skill, an Achievement, a mental state, an injury, or any other quantifiable or comprehensible item. After being performed, said item is replaced by another, related item - yet one that is, in some definition, greater, better, or more preferable to its predecessor, though not always the most ideal. It may be hard to comprehend or predict this power, especially without hands-on experience with its use.
As an example, performing this sacrificial action on one of your Attribute Perks (or even Attributes!) might yield a completely new one that doesn't even exist in the game, but applies to the same Attribute or yield a Perk in another Attribute; using it on a fatal, bleeding wound might yield a permanent scar, one that's almost objectively perceived as unsightly and disfiguring, but not in any way immediately life-threatening; using it on a Level 500 Craft Skill might yield a Level 999 Basket-Weaving Skill. Draining and onerous to perform; lowers the MP and SP pool capstones for a long time as a condition, healing on its own after that time's passed. Once fully healed, action may be performed again.
Anything comprehensible may be cut away, but it must be objectively and definitionally a part of yourself - you cannot cut away 'bad circumstances that cause a depressive episode,' for example, but you might cut away 'depression' in general, likely to be replaced with another, but less severe condition. There's always some level of connection between the sacrificed item and the received item, such that the 'general shape' or silhouette of the outcome is at least within mild predictability. However, this power isn't limited by the Cardinal System or its inset values and may produce absolutely perplexing and alien powers; ones that nobody else possesses, or even can possess.
Another purchase of this power will allow you to gently steer the outcome, and make the outcomes generally more favorable to your present circumstances, and generally less random and bewilderingly unpredictable.
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Too bad there's no way to empower duplicates enough to embody specific Curses rather than all of them, but I don't think it works that way unless specifically Mitgated, and who'd spend an entire Mitigation Stage on that?
 
ilbgar123 said:
[ ] Quality 40. Planet Quality is a system that determined a planet's 'carrying capacity' for sapient life. It varies from species to species, but it is generally agreed that a 10 can handle a population of a billion indefinitely. This can be increased with technology, such as Earth potentially being able to hold 10 trillion with enough effort. The population can also be increased beyond it at the cost of life quality, such as the Imperial Hive World. The capacity doubles with each number above 10, and halves for each number below. 2 billion at 11, 4 at 12, etc. while a 1 is used for anything with a capacity of 1 million or lower. Many larger asteroids that don't qualify as planetoids fall here. A 40, meanwhile, would have a capacity of 1,073,741,824,000,000,000. It was not initially believed that anything over a 30 was possible.
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Would the race picking this start off with it mostly exploited? Because picking it in 40k would just have us get murdered for it if not.
 
HoratioVonBecker said:
Ah. Was it taken? Did it immediately get used on the MP and/or SP pools, so as to make itself more powerful?
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we had the option to take it at discount at one point, but instead voted to take an advancement of equal power capable of slightly mitigating the gargantuan ever-escalating initially-concealed negative consequences of the very first vote (and also of unlocking some new travel destinations.).
 
HoratioVonBecker said:
I strongly suspect that one of the Hidden Masters embodies the 'cycle of revenge' principle. If I'm right, Vengeance might be counterproductive against that Master in particular.
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It's not really the 'cycle of revenge' principle unless the reason that Hidden Master did revenge-worthy actions was because of the Forebearer or someone associated with him having previously done revenge-worthy actions, for all actions currently considered for vengeance.
So, unless the Forebearer did a super evil before the Procession (Somehow), or we consider the Hidden Masters to have already suffered the full vengeance for the Procession (then why are they alive?), killing the Hidden Masters is not a cycle. This is likewise the case if the reason Hunger had to fight the tyrant and had all his friends die, is not for revenge on the Forebearer but just because the Hidden Masters like tormenting people like that.
 
Could Hunger use Space, Law and Supreme Enclosure to access all the Alternate Fragments of Hunger/Forebear Shard/Echo/whatever, then piece himself together? It seems to me that Hunger used the Shattering Blow, but the key word is in the name Shattering, so it follows that there must be many fragments of Hunger that could be accessed and thusly re-integrated into the prime self. Perhaps one of the issues of Hunger becoming the Forebear is that whilst he may be the Forebear in Truth, he is most assuredly not the Forebear Entire. 'Merely' the prime, core, essential spark.

A similar principle might be used to Empower Gisena, but this unconsciously risky for what I hope are obvious reasons.

Anyway..

---

Long ago, The Hidden Ones enlisted one of many,
One of countless many, finite yet uncountably so.

Upon a procession of worlds, parable of tribulations,
Spark of least cosmic good, wrapped in ceaseless trials.

From the crucible of many, a blade was forged,
The Will to Power incarnate, One alone entire.

Fighting for freedom, he cut himself free,
Yet true liberty for One, is Tyranny for the rest..

---

Long ago, the Accursed struck down The Tyrant,
One of countless many foes, finite yet uncountably so.

Upon a procession of curses, his was his own nature,
Cosmic will itself, to withstand all that might change.

From the carnage of battle, the blade was lost,
The Incarnate of Will, laying his sword to rest.

Freedom had claimed the Tyrant from the Hidden Ones,
Yet, every story spoken had been spoken before..

---
 
JOEbob said:
It's not really the 'cycle of revenge' principle unless the reason that Hidden Master did revenge-worthy actions was because of the Forebearer or someone associated with him having previously done revenge-worthy actions, for all actions currently considered for vengeance.
So, unless the Forebearer did a super evil before the Procession (Somehow), or we consider the Hidden Masters to have already suffered the full vengeance for the Procession (then why are they alive?), killing the Hidden Masters is not a cycle. This is likewise the case if the reason Hunger had to fight the tyrant and had all his friends die, is not for revenge on the Forebearer but just because the Hidden Masters like tormenting people like that.
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Hmm. Point. Getting the Forebear to kill them may be an ascension scheme.
Shard said:
Could Hunger use Space, Law and Supreme Enclosure to access all the Alternate Fragments of Hunger/Forebear Shard/Echo/whatever, then piece himself together? It seems to me that Hunger used the Shattering Blow, but the key word is in the name Shattering, so it follows that there must be many fragments of Hunger that could be accessed and thusly re-integrated into the prime self. Perhaps one of the issues of Hunger becoming the Forebear is that whilst he may be the Forebear in Truth, he is most assuredly not the Forebear Entire. 'Merely' the prime, core, essential spark.
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I'm down for rederiving the Dream of Fairness's prerequisite!
 
Since discussion seems to have died down, here's something I've been thinking on lately. What votes, in this quest, could have had the most dramatic impact, if they'd gone differently? Aside from the obvious answer of the character creation ones.

Three that immediately spring to mind are the decision to go to the Temple of the False Moon, the Ritual Grounds vote, and our Cursebearer association sponsor. The Moon Temple Arc really codified a lot of things in this quest, from Hunger's general recklessness to our build path, to the OOC factions that we all became obsessed with for a long while. Imagine if we'd gone looking for a civilization right away, perhaps hitting the elixir sovereignty far earlier then in canon? Or what if we'd hunted monsters for a while before setting off to track down Ber, who maybe would have been actually relevant in that case?

The Ritual Grounds vote could also have seen a dramatic shift in playstyle - Gardening quest would have been a truly fascination experience, and Mage Lord my beloved would probably have been very strong in the long term with how busted Linear Halo was, and would have forced Hunger to slow down a tad - perhaps dodging Vanrier entirely. We also would have gotten more Soul Evocation lore, and a wider variety of tactics much earlier then the eventual horizon-broadening of Empyrean Signs and Archmage. The way Linear Halo works would have encouraged physical stat gain whenever possible, possibly resulting in us taking Threefold as our Trinity choice to maximize that aspect. We may never have gotten Praxis in this hypothetical world though, Uttermost seems like a rare drop and I'm not sure how hard it is to acquire Cut Through without it.

Finally, the Cursebearer's Association sponsor would have been a very big deal if we'd picked someone other then Haliel. Simply because of how much more the other sponsors would have involved themselves in Hunger's adventures. Imagining Daylian vs Procyon is a fun image, and Wolber could have really proved his worth in outsmarting and combating Dien. Haeliel kinda hasn't done much yet, although easier access to Once and Future III did matter a lot.
 
A couple more tactical thoughts. We'll beat this horse back to life yet!

Logically, when thinking about actions taken in the present with long-term impacts, precommitting comes to mind. Most are too irresolute to follow through on choices made. Fortunately, this is one of many problems solved by being the Forebear; Hunger considers giving his word an absolute commitment. There are many possible oaths to be made, simply swearing not to oppose the Accursed again foremost among them.

Then there's Aobaru. His Heroic empowerment during the Mordred proc delayed Haeliel's next two visitations. But there's no reason that process couldn't be reversed, theoretically. Have Gisena nerf Aobaru to reset the cooldown, allowing both Hunger and the Maiden to benefit from the Seraph's Advice Corner at a time when her wisdom is most needed! A tad tyrannical given his performance in the fight, but that's Hunger for you.
 
It's just-

I'm flabbergasted, you know? You went through this entire journey on a quest for vengeance, over the killing of your family and friends and your betrayal by people whose names you literally can't remember. You sacrificed your very name to destroy a Tyrant, one that you are now becoming. The previous version of you fought extremely hard to break himself free from the Procession of Worlds.

Now, you're going to become that very Tyrant you once opposed. Now, you're going subject yourself to a series of worlds worse than the Procession of Worlds. Now, you yourself are going to personally kill your wife and unborn child and repeat the tragedy that brought you here. Now, you're going to repudiate everything you fought and sacrificed so much for and then spit upon the grave of those ideals for good measure.

For what? A tiny, miniscule chance that you might possibly kill the people who originally subjected you to the same? By what, doing to yourself the exact same things they did to you? it's just so bone-headedly insane. Because let's be clear here. You're killing them for the sake of power. Expedience.

You're doing this because fundamentally, you don't believe you have the ability to grow to their level of power without help. You don't believe in yourself. This is a story. How can a hero - Or Tyrant - who in their heart of hearts does not believe in themselves win any kind of victory worth naming?

The answer is: They can't. They say that nothing is impossible when you believe. Consider the obverse statement:

Nothing is possible when you do not believe.
 
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Shard said:
The answer is: They can't. They say that nothing is impossible when you believe. Consider the obverse statement:

Nothing is possible when you do not believe.
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Not a logical inversion. The logical inverse of nothing is impossible when you believe(equivalent to 'A when B', [nothing is impossible] when [you believe]), is when something is impossible, you don't believe (!B implies !A). Inverting the original statement doesn't even guarantee that there is Anything which is impossible when not-believing- it could be that neither belief nor non-belief can render anything impossible.

Besides which- taking Vengeance does not mean Hunger 'does not believe he has the ability to grow to their level of power without help'- only that he thinks the help... helps his chances. Or accelerates his speed, or some other thing.
Keeping hold of the acceleration of Progression no more implies a lack of self-belief than keeping grasp of ones limbs. One would be a fool to release the tool so truly suited to their aim- yet that does not mean the journey is impossible by other means, such as charisma or voice-controlled vehicle.
 
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Im sorry Shard but do you keep have to make these really and I'm sorry, annoying speeches about how Freedom is the only option that makes any sense?

Sorry if that is too negative or controlling but it's like the 3 one now.

Save that for the case you are right after the last vote is done. 🤷‍♂️
 
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Shard said:
It's just-

I'm flabbergasted, you know? You went through this entire journey on a quest for vengeance, over the killing of your family and friends and your betrayal by people whose names you literally can't remember. You sacrificed your very name to destroy a Tyrant, one that you are now becoming. The previous version of you fought extremely hard to break himself free from the Procession of Worlds.

Now, you're going to become that very Tyrant you once opposed. Now, you're going subject yourself to a series of worlds worse than the Procession of Worlds. Now, you yourself are going to personally kill your wife and unborn child and repeat the tragedy that brought you here. Now, you're going to repudiate everything you fought and sacrificed so much for and then spit upon the grave of those ideals for good measure.

For what? A tiny, miniscule chance that you might possibly kill the people who originally subjected you to the same? By what, doing to yourself the exact same things they did to you? it's just so bone-headedly insane. Because let's be clear here. You're killing them for the sake of power. Expedience.

You're doing this because fundamentally, you don't believe you have the ability to grow to their level of power without help. You don't believe in yourself. This is a story. How can a hero - Or Tyrant - who in their heart of hearts does not believe in themselves win any kind of victory worth naming?

The answer is: They can't. They say that nothing is impossible when you believe. Consider the obverse statement:

Nothing is possible when you do not believe.
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Well we have explicit confirmation that it is actually impossible for us to rise to HCB levels with Freedom. If anything that's the option where we don't believe in ourselves, we quit and rest rather than fight for a gargantuan task we are unlikely to accomplish, but with drastic impact if we do. At this point vengeance isn't even necessarily about the Hidden Ones. That's part of it, but it's also taking the mantle of a Cursebearer to its fullest. Pushing for the possibility to remove the accursed of one of his many burdens.

Hunger now quite simply is not the hero that you are referencing, they're so far apart they might as well be different people. We don't have an emotional attachment to his wife as players, and Hunger never mentioned her in quest at all even in internal dialogue. Not only that, this isn't really his wife it's the Maiden using his dead wife as a vessel. He isn't killing his wife he's denying her resurrection since it would involve giving up his duty. That is a very important distinction.
 
I'm not really seeing how stabbing a woman who looks exactly like your wife, as part of symbolically refusing to resurrect your wife, is meaningfully distinct from the act of killing her. A continued life for her is both possible and available - and you are violently, personally refusing. That's close enough to be psychologically synchronous with the traditional implications of the act.

Now, if you think Hunger wouldn't kill his wife, please remember that Catherine's motto was "Win. That's all that matters." The question isn't if he would. It's whether given the choice, he considers a near-certain death march towards a potential abstract victory against perceived tyranny to be winning, rather than not having to do that.
 
Shard said:
It's just-

I'm flabbergasted, you know? You went through this entire journey on a quest for vengeance, over the killing of your family and friends and your betrayal by people whose names you literally can't remember. You sacrificed your very name to destroy a Tyrant, one that you are now becoming. The previous version of you fought extremely hard to break himself free from the Procession of Worlds.

Now, you're going to become that very Tyrant you once opposed. Now, you're going subject yourself to a series of worlds worse than the Procession of Worlds. Now, you yourself are going to personally kill your wife and unborn child and repeat the tragedy that brought you here. Now, you're going to repudiate everything you fought and sacrificed so much for and then spit upon the grave of those ideals for good measure.

For what? A tiny, miniscule chance that you might possibly kill the people who originally subjected you to the same? By what, doing to yourself the exact same things they did to you? it's just so bone-headedly insane. Because let's be clear here. You're killing them for the sake of power. Expedience.

You're doing this because fundamentally, you don't believe you have the ability to grow to their level of power without help. You don't believe in yourself. This is a story. How can a hero - Or Tyrant - who in their heart of hearts does not believe in themselves win any kind of victory worth naming?

The answer is: They can't. They say that nothing is impossible when you believe. Consider the obverse statement:

Nothing is possible when you do not believe.
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While I'm much less ardent an advocate for Vengeance after Rihaku's clarifications, this isn't simply an uncharitable interpretation, it's outright incorrect in several respects. Striking down the Maiden is not morally equivalent to killing Hunger's wife and child. She's inhabiting the cored-out shell of an alternate-universe version of Catherine to destroy what Hunger's built in the Human Sphere, and is now holding his family's resurrection hostage as a final gambit. Letting them remain dead doesn't make him guilty of their murder.

One can at least debate whether Indenture in conjunction with the Apocryphal Curse is worse than the Bleak Procession. But while the dangers of the former may match or even exceed the latter, the Procession's horrors are without peer. It's a staircase that only ever descends, into depths of evil and turpitude unimaginable to the mortal mind, unconstrained by the need to make things 'interesting'. Indenture targets only scale in difficulty, and imperfectly at that.

And Hunger as a matter of fact doesn't have the ability to attain true omniversal relevance without Progression, sliver of the Imperial Praxis or no. Without the Lathe of Heaven, the Hidden Ones are beyond him. Freedom trades agency for happiness. There are many valid arguments to be made as to why that's a favorable exchange, but to claim we can have our cake and eat it too misses the point of the option. Freedom's Hunger lives not by the Blade but by the Ring his namesake, refusing at long last the calls of both heroism and tyranny in favor of a deserved respite.
 
Orm Embar said:
While I'm much less ardent an advocate for Vengeance after Rihaku's clarifications, this isn't simply an uncharitable interpretation, it's outright incorrect in several respects. Striking down the Maiden is not morally equivalent to killing Hunger's wife and child. She's inhabiting the cored-out shell of an alternate-universe version of Catherine to destroy what Hunger's built in the Human Sphere, and is now holding his family's resurrection hostage as a final gambit. Letting them remain dead doesn't make him guilty of their murder.
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But how far back for that logic travel? If it weren't for Hunger being here, and choosing Vengeance, the Maiden wouldn't have been resurrected in the first place. Her presence as a cosmic parasite warring with his regime is purely an extension of it. You can't ascribe the moral relevance associated with rational action and willful decision-making if everyone involved is causally dependent on your own decisions to even exist.
 
GenericName said:
Well we have explicit confirmation that it is actually impossible for us to rise to HCB levels with Freedom. If anything that's the option where we don't believe in ourselves, we quit and rest rather than fight for a gargantuan task we are unlikely to accomplish, but with drastic impact if we do. At this point vengeance isn't even necessarily about the Hidden Ones. That's part of it, but it's also taking the mantle of a Cursebearer to its fullest. Pushing for the possibility to remove the accursed of one of his many burdens.

Hunger now quite simply is not the hero that you are referencing, they're so far apart they might as well be different people. We don't have an emotional attachment to his wife as players, and Hunger never mentioned her in quest at all even in internal dialogue. Not only that, this isn't really his wife it's the Maiden using his dead wife as a vessel. He isn't killing his wife he's denying her resurrection since it would involve giving up his duty. That is a very important distinction.
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Orm Embar said:
While I'm much less ardent an advocate for Vengeance after Rihaku's clarifications, this isn't simply an uncharitable interpretation, it's outright incorrect in several respects. Striking down the Maiden is not morally equivalent to killing Hunger's wife and child. She's inhabiting the cored-out shell of an alternate-universe version of Catherine to destroy what Hunger's built in the Human Sphere, and is now holding his family's resurrection hostage as a final gambit. Letting them remain dead doesn't make him guilty of their murder.

One can at least debate whether Indenture in conjunction with the Apocryphal Curse is worse than the Bleak Procession. But while the dangers of the former may match the latter, the Procession's horrors are without peer. It's a staircase that only ever descends, into depths of evil and turpitude unimaginable to the mortal mind, unconstrained by the need to make things 'interesting'. Indenture targets only scale in difficulty, and imperfectly at that.

And Hunger as a matter of fact doesn't have the ability to attain true omniversal relevance without Progression, sliver of the Imperial Praxis or no. Without the Lathe of Heaven, the Hidden Ones are beyond him. Freedom trades agency for happiness. There are many valid arguments to be made as to why that's a favorable exchange, but to claim we can have our cake and eat it too misses the point of the option. Freedom's Hunger lives not by the Blade but by the Ring his namesake, refusing at long last the calls of both heroism and tyranny in favor of a deserved respite.
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1. There has been statements from R' implying that Hunger may be more capable without laboring under the constraints of the Apocryphal (and Death% etc) - Certainly, with Tyrant mitigated he could actually make better decisions from listening to advise of his companions and such.

2. If the vengeance isn't even about the Hidden Ones, then it becomes even more obscene, because at that point you should be looking at what benefits the Accursed most - Which is easily evaluated by looking at what the Accursed most approves of. Which is Freedom.

3. Frankly it's equivalent to killing his wife personally in every way that matters on every level that one could care to describe, emotionally, ethically, causally. Saying otherwise is disingenuous. If Hunger is going to kill his wife, he should at least own up to it instead of hiding behind excuses.
 
Shard said:
3. Frankly it's equivalent to killing his wife personally in every way that matters on every level that one could care to describe, emotionally, ethically, causally. Saying otherwise is disingenuous. If Hunger is going to kill his wife, he should at least own up to it instead of hiding behind excuses.
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No it's not? I mean no offense mate, but if you're going to make such an emphatic claim -- and in terms like 'insanity', 'flabbergast[ing]', 'killing for the sake of expedience' -- with no justification or reasoning, it should at the very least be self-evidently true, and it really isn't here? Especially when you call any other claim 'disingenuous'. It's not just shoddy argumentation, it's a tad rude.
 
Strange9 said:
No it's not? I mean no offense mate, but if you're going to make such an emphatic claim -- and in terms like 'insanity', 'flabbergast[ing]', 'killing for the sake of expedience' -- with no justification or reasoning, it should at the very least be self-evidently true, and it really isn't here? Especially when you call any other claim 'disingenuous'. It's not just shoddy argumentation, it's a tad rude.
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It's in the option itself:
Rihaku said:
[ ] Vengeance - Carry on, O Forebear of Dynasties. You have debts yet to pay. A debt of gratitude to your patron, who rescued you from your lowest point; and a debt of the sword to the Hidden Ones, who brought you there. Cut through, even she who you cannot bear to cut.
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How else does one interpret this? As far as Hunger is concerned, he is killing Catherine.
 
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