That was mostly me finishing my read-through and commenting on one of the ongoing plot threads I had opinions on.
In my defense, I wouldn't consider what I said to be doomposting.
Congrats on catching up, its always nice to see new people here! Here is your complementary knife for the true knife-fights where we will get into the
really spicy arguments. But seriously, while I like arguing with people over the internet on stuff like this, I occasionally get too personally invested and heated about it. So don't hesistate to call me out if I go too far, okay?
Anyway, back to Lucan:
You don't need to make a deal with Tzeentch to be one of his contingencies. Just for example, someone who claims (and might well believe) that he snuck into the heart of the Ruinous Powers' strongholds, filched fragments of their Thrones, and then escaped again alive and whole... might not properly understand what those stolen fragments of divinity might do to him, or how they could be weaponized against him by beings like Tzeentch which have infinitely more knowledge of how they work.
As for what Adam did, that's part of my point. If we analogize the warp to deep space, then Adam turned himself into a Cyberman before even attempting that journey. Lucan didn't. On top of that, my understanding of Adam's gambit was that he basically launched a series of lightning raids on the Four, relying on his incomprehensible power to rip a chunk out of each Chaos God before fleeing into the Materium and burning the chunks as fuel to empower himself further.
Comparing that to Lucan presumably infiltrating the innermost sanctum of Khorne, Tzeentch, and Nurgle, stealing bits of their Thrones, and then sneaking out unnoticed each time... That's taking a risk that's at least comparable to what the Emperor later did, if only because it involves much longer periods of risk and Lucan has much less personal power to attempt an escape if caught.
First, he didn't steal fragments from their Thrones. The metaphysics of the quest don't allow that. You either get
all of the Thrones of the god in question by eating said god (or more than one god), or you get
nothing. Or you topple all the Thrones, killing the god without eating any of the said Thrones. No partial claims to the Astral Thrones that have been already claimed. Instead, he stole raw power from the Realm of Chaos and purified it from its taint, though I have to admit here I'm not 100% sure about the details on how that works. Just about what it is not.
Second, if the nature of what he stole was a problem as a direct vector for Chaos to influence him, Adam would've already found out and done something about it, considering how he knew what Lucan had done unlike the situation with Pandora and Tzeentch. There was plently of time before he became the Emperor. No, the Chaos Gods needed to be more subtle here, and it worked wonderfully. First, Lucan created the Gateway of Molech. Second, he demonstrated it could be used to steal power from the Chaos Gods.
And the gambit worked. Adam, in his despair looking for the perfect solution, damned himself to self-inflicted insanity due to Lucan having demonstrated what could be done. Because it was always the Anathema who was the main target of their plot. Not Lucan. I'm pretty certain that whatever problems he is causing now are just a bonus to their main plot which they already succeeded in.
Third, again: It is
not comparable to what Adam did. In the quote I already put into my previous post, Lucan points this out calling it "factual suicide" when compared to his own attempt... Which Lucan already thought as suicidal. Even with how much more powerful Adam was even back then when compared to Lucan. And Adam, very tellingly,
doesn't disagree with him.
The Then-Three invested only so much into Lucan because he was their best way for getting Adam tear himself apart. So looking for hidden triggers in Lucan at this point is just the worst kind of paranoia: the useless kind. Instead, we should be paranoid about what he is planning to do out of his own free will, having been driven to the extremes in his solutions.
And yes, there is a difference. The latter is something we can at least theoretically get him back down from if we keep talking to him instead of just rejecting and isolating him. Or maybe adjust whatever plan he has hatched to be more favourable for us. The thing on the Throne, however, is
beyond reasoning. Maybe not beyond appeasing with enough of its orders being followed. But not something you can convince with words.
The galaxy is in unimaginably worse shape now than it was when the Age of Strife set in, and he would know that better than most who yet live.
This one is much more simple: again, we still don't actually know how he plans to accomplish his goals. I wouldn't be so eager to dismiss something that we are completely in the dark about in this point of time. And even if turns out to be something that we cannot accept (seems to be very likely)? He still probably thinks it will be genuinely worth it to save humanity.
Also. If we, the players and Pandora were just concerned about the ability of humanity to survive... Well, quite many of the reforms we are planning for the future are bound to lean more towards just improving the lives of those at the bottom of the Imperium. And not killing aliens. Considering the instability it can cause, this is actually terrible in the short-term (and maybe even medium term) for humanity's survival. Just look at what even modest reforms about the Abhumans, Mutants and Psykers can have stirred up!
But we are still doing them, because taking risks about humanity's survival is something we have to balance against making sure that it doesn't stay as the Imperium of Man in all of its horrors and suffering.
Its just that Pandora's own Virtue and abilities inform her differently about how she should go about things. She is a lot more uncomfortable about the amount of immediate death even a civil war would cause, which would still probably be tame to whatever Lucan has planned.
Also, he did a really bad job of convincing me that he's a sane or trustworthy figure when he mindraped half of an Imperial fleet, made them slaughter their comrades - and then, logically, would have either had to kill them all or completely delete their former selves and upload his own ethics into their skulls to keep them from going insane at the horror of what he made them do.
You mean when he heroically stopped the space nazis from genociding countless innocent people who were also his own allies? Because it is all a matter of perspective. If he was the protagonist of this quest, I will guarantee you that most people would be
gleefully celebrating that. And Telepathy is just his main tool because it is something he is the best at, even if its icky to many people.
Besides, if all of these people all went insane like you are proposing, they wouldn't be much use to him as a fighting force outside of being constant puppets, now would they? Which clearly didn't happen, so your point doesn't stand. And he needed those people and ships to have something stopping Imperium just continuing its genocide.
Also, if you want to insist that a free will is a sacred right. That nothing makes up for violating it like this. That making puppets of people is wrong, even temporarily.
Well then. I want you to take and keep a hard stance of
freeing or killing all the Servitors converted from living humans on this turn. And switching to just making ones from (hopefully) unthinking clones.
Oh, what is that? We can't do it because it would cause even more suffering and almost certainly be the death-knell of humanity because how much basically their everything leans on Servitors and so many of them are converted criminals and "criminals"? And we can't replace them fast enough if we cut off the pipelines from the converted humans at the same time? And can't replace them with AI because we lack the experts?
But even worse, the politics of it. Mars and Antegymax, at this point, would almost certainly decide to rebel and trigger a civil war if we tried to shove something like this down their throats. Which, almost certainly, would mean a death spiral for us at our current level of preparation and Imperial subversion.
What Lucan did is
nothing when compared to that violation present everywhere in the Imperium. Constantly. Which we should be looking for a solution btw, even in this very real AP hell. But at the same time, if you want to feel icky about Lucan puppetting someone temporarily, maybe remember that there are more important fights to be fought.
