So dragon tsundere by the equivalent of super?Don't worry, we have a precedent with Vegeta
Dragon Ball: After the End
- Location
- Dual citizen of SV&SB
Suddenly, relevant!So dragon tsundere by the equivalent of super?
Tsundere Vegeta getting cheated on by goku.
ElleonXan
Self-Proclaimed King of the Dumpster Fires
- Location
- USA
Okay, you got it.
*clears throat*
My friends, much has been said these past many pages. Not all of it nice, not all of it fair. Yet in the end I believe we can come together to have a civil discourse on the subject, and to that end I would like to conclude in this fashion.
I've said many things already on this subject, in attempts to sway opinions. And yes, some of them may have been, as the word that was bandied about, fear mongering. I cannot apologize for doing so, because if I swayed yet one person to my side, I can gladly say I would do so again. I am firm and committed to my belief that the plan to seal Dazarel inside of us is the wrong one, and will not regret fighting against it. If this offends anyone, I apologize for their hurt feelings, but most emphatically not apologize for my stance.
To conclude, I will just state my stance, hopeful that it might sway someone here in the last hour.
I have many reasons for disliking the option to seal the Dragon inside of us, but foremost among them is this: that the option to seal him within us is firstly a direct attempt to grab power, and I feel strongly that such an action at this time will reflect poorly on our character.
But Elleon, I hear you say, how can you say that this option is a blatant power grab? Others have espoused multiple reasons to do it that have nothing to do with power. And this is true, except for one thing: the vote weighing from Ambitious. This option speaks to the primal part of Kakara that wants more power, otherwise it wouldn't be getting said vote weighing. This shows that deep down, no matter what fancy motivations we attach to it, Kakara wants this extra badly because she is ambitious.
And by itself, this wouldn't be so bad... but this comes on the heels of us having just achieved a power not seen amongst our people since we literally walked amongst those with the power of gods.
To me, after literally becoming the strongest thing for systems (maybe even galaxies) around, to immediately try to reach for more power when we currently have enough to do anything we set our mind to... It implies that we (as Kakara) are developing the first stirrings of being power hungry in our heart: that we won't just reach for power to help us achieve our goals, but simply because we want more power.
And while I have no indication of whether this will immediately effect us mechanically, as say a trait; well, I believe I've mentioned before that I see this as a story of literature first and a math-based game second. Even if this does jack-diddly-squat mechanically, it changes how I see the character of Kakara, and for that reason, I vote against sealing him inside us.
And furthermore, some of the other reasons people have posited for this option likewise fill me with disquiet. The implications that we are planning on being the arbiter of Dazarel's knowledge likewise strikes me as a turn I would rather not take. And of course the conceit that we are the only ones capable of, and in fact are the only ones who should be involved in, the redemption of Dazarel leaves me scratching my head. We are the "social spec'd" saiyan, and that means we forge relationships. But if we insist on doing every single thing by ourselves, then said relationships are pointless and we might as well be playing Jaffur.
Of course, there is the argument that sealing Dazarel inside us is more humane than sealing him into a smaller, non-threatening body. Respectfully, I disagree. Sealing him inside us places him in a jail that we carry with us everywhere we go. He will be forced to be with us, the person who beat him bloody, until WE decide to let him go. Furthermore, we will have complete control over his situation- anything from giving him a view of what we see and possibly letting him communicate with others to total sensory deprivation... and he knows it. It is hard, practically nigh-insurmountable some would say, to build rapport and friendly discourse with someone you see as an enemy who is silently holding the threat of torture over your head like the Sword of Damocles.
And as an aside, just let me say that to those who say that we could brainwash Dazarel into being a better person: that is probably the best way to send us into a dark spiral of negative character development that leads to evil done in the name of the Greater Good. Honestly I believe anyone who is willing to engage in "brainwashing someone to be good" probably doesnt have any idea of what good really is themselves.
But people aren't voting just for their option, but against mine. And that's fair, each entitled to their own opinion and all that. I would however, like to make a few replies:
To those who point out that it is harder to release him after he is reformed if he in chibi-form than if he were sealed inside us, I can only reply that it IS harder, but not as utterly impossible as some of you've made it sound.
To...
No, sorry, I can't do this anymore. I am just too tired. I'm tired of writing out long posts, only to delete them as I've realized that my temper got roused and I had written more of a rage piece against a person than a rebuttal of an idea. I'm tired of this back and forth where I try to make people acknowledge that I have serious concerns about things, only to be accused of fear mongering. I'm tired of the absolutely vicious way this difference of opinions has seemingly turned into a grudge match. But most of all, I'm just tired.
I'mma go to sleep now... hopefully when I wake up, the vote'll be over and we can go back to treating each other like civilized human beings.
- Location
- Mid-Atlantic
I KNOW, RIGHT?
...
That... is a very good question.
Suffice to say that while it never really came up one way or the other, there was a reasonable understanding by people who weren't brick-stupid that there were no other groups of saiyan survivors.
The only saiyans we know of who survived the destruction of Planet Vegeta were...
-Goku and Vegeta, whose children form the ancestors of the Exile community.
-Raditz and Nappa, who both, so far as we know, died childless.
-Turles from that one movie, who so far as we know, died childless.
-Tarble from that other movie.
-Broly and his father Paragus, who died.
-Arguably Bardock if we believe some spin-offs, but again so far as we know, he had no other children besides Goku and Raditz.
Tarble is basically the only known candidate who could have been the ancestor of any now-living saiyans.
So of the confidently known saiyan survivors, four out of the nine had no children, two more had no more children after the fall of Planet Vegeta, and the seventh and eight interbred specifically with Earthlings, a species that seems unusually saiyan-like.
With this as our baseline, it wasn't unreasonable to suppose that Tarble died childless, even if that turned out to be incorrect.
The only way they'd have lost the memory of fellow descendants of the Z-fighters who didn't come to Garenhuld, I think, would be if all the first-generation Exiles specifically decided not to talk about the others who didn't come with them. That's at least plausible, since the first generation Exiles may have been worried about their children doing something stupid like piling into the still-functional spaceships and going looking for their cousins.
Now, this is certainly possible, but I wouldn't exactly call it a default assumption we should have seen coming, as opposed to the more parsimonious "everyone who survived the fall of Earth wound up on Garenhuld" hypothesis.
From DBZ canon we have GOOD reasons to believe that there were no saiyans living off-planet, with the canon exceptions of Goku, Tarble, and Turles (who'd left earlier), and Vegeta, Raditz, and Nappa (who were off on a mission). Bardock, Broly, and Paragus were all there during the destruction of the planet and were saved by one factor or another.
There could have been, there's no evidence there weren't, but absence of evidence is not evidence of presence.
Now that we've been explicitly told descendants of Tarble still live, that's believable and relevant information. But there was no reason for us to expect saiyans to be alive elsewhere.
I PUT A BUNCH OF STUFF DIRECTLY RELATED TO THE VOTE IN SPOILERS. IF YOU WANT TO REPLY TO THIS STUFF, PLEASE IN SPOILERS PLEASE?
I honestly don't feel like it's fearmongering in the usual sense of the word, because we get new traits in this quest every single time anything important happens.
It's pretty much a given that we will experience some major trait changes; the question is which ones. Speculating that the trait which decisively changed the outcome of a vote that would be the one that evolves in reaction to that vote seems to me like a pretty straightforward possibility. Sort of like how "Pacifist" was the trait that evolved when Kakara saved millions of people from a nuclear attack and then got into a pitched battle along with her friends when aliens attacked her, and talked them all down without killing anyone.
To do so would be a wildly inaccurate interpretation of the arguments I made, insofar as those arguments gave rise to the aforesaid belief.
Now, I could totally see my position giving Kakara a trait like:
"Epistemic Doubt: You are keenly, constantly aware of how surely or unsurely you know the things you know, and how often other people lack this awareness. Bonus to Intrigue and Deception checks made to detect inconsistencies in the generally accepted consensus version of the truth. Penalty to Communications checks, because everyone thinks you're being a contrarian fool half the time for even bringing up your doubts in the first place. Arguably, they're not wrong."
And that would arguably suck, but at least it'd be fair.
Whereas a trait like "A PLAGUE UPON ALL SORCERORS!" would just be unfair.
I'm not a fan of the argument "some things are unpredictable, therefore everything is unknowable and we shouldn't worry about it."
Trait development isn't random, it makes sense in hindsight. Reading the Garenhuld II story, it was easy to see why Kakara got the trait she did. Reading the story of the nuke shootdown and the fight with the scouts, it was easy to see how Kakara started that fight as a troubled pacifist and ended it as a Protector.
And if you read the story of how Kakara bested and absorbed into herself the dragon Dazarel, while there are certainly other possible outcomes, it would hardly be surprising if you learned "aaand this was the day when Kakara showed her first signs of a slightly unhealthy thirst for power." Such a narrative might not unfold, but we can hardly claim that it 'wouldn't make sense.'
The thing is, I think you're making an unfair comparison here. There are specific reasons to think an ambition-driven, partially power-motivated vote would evolve the Ambitious trait. And to not assume that a vote NOT based primarily or even secondarily on fear/distrust of sorcerors should evolve into an anti-magic trait.
Look, you can say "blame the administrators, not the engineersThat is a fair quibble, but it is not my point.
The point is, systems can result in large crowds of people going "yep, this system is perfectly safe," and no one really questioning this, until suddenly the system abruptly goes 'boom' and nearly everyone except a handful of Cassandras is shocked.
And it usually turns out that the system had acted in such a way as to marginalize the Cassandras.
With the space shuttle, the management culture and the desire for rapid turnaround and a fast launch schedule silenced the Rockwell/Thiokol/etc. engineers who made a major point of "never launch in sub-freezing weather."
Here, well. You have Yammar Vegeta not-so-subtly menacing the massed ranks of the sorcerors in an attempt to get a quick decision in a timely manner. I can't blame him for that- but look at the way the decision worked out. Pair off, discuss, find another pair, discuss, repeat. Whatever opinions floated to the top of the heap must have survived something like 10-13 consecutive hurried discussions. They would not be the result of detailed analysis, but of falling back on first principles, simple concepts, and conventional wisdom. Given that a quick solution to the problem was urgently required, this was arguably the only choice. Yammar cannot fairly be criticized over it. But if somewhere in that crowd of ten thousand sorcerors is one person who noticed that the prevailing ideas are based on assumptions that may be invalid for a psychic dragon, or at power levels in excess of ten billion... We probably wouldn't find out about it for days, maybe even years.
The system acts in such a way as to marginalize the Cassandras, and the people now speaking to us are spokesmen who won 10-13 consecutive debates about what to do, very fast. Hopefully that means they've stripped out all the fancy chancy stuff from their plan, but it could also mean they've overlooked something important.
Probably not. Hopefully not. But I'd much rather hedge my bets.
I for one am a HELL of a lot less sure that "head-dragon" is a bad idea than I thought.
If you'd taken the me of two or three days ago, and told him "I looked far into the future of the quest, and head-dragon ends well," I would have been very surprised.
If you took the me of right now and told me that, I'd say something like "Phew, boy is THAT a relief," but not be massively surprised.
In fairness, you're not wrong- but it's likely there will be far more energy available in a few decades. Just a bit of mandatory training could probably increase the average power level of the Exiles from 1.5-2 million to, oh... I don't know, more like four or five million? A major increase.
If we can find a way to get away with relaxing the ban on super-saiyan transformations without having Garenhuld torn apart by civil war, that goes up hugely further.
So there may come a point in time at which we could unseal Dazarel with only a fraction of Garenhuld's energy, having persuaded the rest of the planet to stand aside. We couldn't do it now, but we don't need to do it now. Dazarel's immortal and we're young yet. There's time to play with.
- Location
- Rockford, USA
- Pronouns
- They/Them
...socks.
*sigh*
God damn it. Well, vote's still open if anybody wants to make any more votes. I still have the other quest to update first, and this hasn't changed that. Stay classy, everybody.
*sigh*
God damn it. Well, vote's still open if anybody wants to make any more votes. I still have the other quest to update first, and this hasn't changed that. Stay classy, everybody.
- Location
- Dual citizen of SV&SB
If it makes you feel better, they came in relatively last second, and you still have well over a hundred honest votes?
- Location
- Rockford, USA
- Pronouns
- They/Them
Helps, I suppose.
Speaking of honest votes...
My lovely wife, upon me informing her of the vote under discussion, actually filed her own opinion. I'd make her an account, but we share a computer, so same IP, which means...well, how would I go about proving that her account wasn't a sock to skeptical and wary mods? Means she can't join SV, but she wouldn't post much elsewhere than my own quests anyway, so she says it's a small loss.
So, through me, she submits this vote, for your consideration:
[X] Seal him into an actual house cat, because you think it's funny.
-[X] Without control of the body (harshest, Dazarel is as restricted as the inanimate object version. But in a cat. Why even?).
--[X] And then keep the cat as a pet.
Her reason?
"Because it would be funny. And hey, who could get him out of that?"
I am Lawful Evil. My wife is Chaotic Evil.
- Location
- The Great Beyond
- Pronouns
- He/She/They
It's always nice to see when people can overcome both their similarities and differences in romance.I am Lawful Evil. My wife is Chaotic Evil.
The family that schemes together, eh"Because it would be funny. And hey, who could get him out of that?"
I am Lawful Evil. My wife is Chaotic Evil.
Now I know you were mostly joking but i dunno if it's really that funny, apart in the horror movie/kafka novel way ("Mr Scruffy had a person inside and nobody ever cared because he was a wonderful pet. The end").Helps, I suppose.
Speaking of honest votes...
My lovely wife, upon me informing her of the vote under discussion, actually filed her own opinion. I'd make her an account, but we share a computer, so same IP, which means...well, how would I go about proving that her account wasn't a sock to skeptical and wary mods? Means she can't join SV, but she wouldn't post much elsewhere than my own quests anyway, so she says it's a small loss.
So, through me, she submits this vote, for your consideration:
[X] Seal him into an actual house cat, because you think it's funny.
-[X] Without control of the body (harshest, Dazarel is as restricted as the inanimate object version. But in a cat. Why even?).
--[X] And then keep the cat as a pet.
Her reason?
"Because it would be funny. And hey, who could get him out of that?"
I am Lawful Evil. My wife is Chaotic Evil.
I can already immagine 10 to 15 years later when the cat will die kakara will try to see what happened to the dragon only to find him either catatonic or regressed to the mind of a feline himself. Mmm ok I guess the second is kinda funny. I rescind my argument
.
- Location
- USA
Probably honest votes.
Lots of people coming out of the woodwork, and while I think the mods have purged the socks, we will now always have that lingering doubt.
There's also probably at least one person that was brought in to vote for a particular side, and while that's only frowned upon it is manipulation of the vote. No real way to tell unless we have everyone who's first post in this thread was this vote, and even then we'd have a lot of false positives work the lurkers that popped up.
Although a chunk of the people who get called in will stick around after the call and become players, so that's not all bad
- Location
- Rockford, USA
- Pronouns
- They/Them
Yeah, she kinda stopped contextualizing Dazarel as an actual person once I told her he came to eat everybody. I don't think she was even aware of it, but it was fascinating to watch.Now I know you were mostly joking but i dunno if it's really that funny, apart in the horror movie/kafka novel way ("Mr Scruffy had a person inside and nobody ever cared because he was a wonderful pet. The end").
I can already immagine 10 to 15 years later when the cat will die kakara will try to see what happened to the dragon only to find him either catatonic or regressed to the mind of a feline himself. Mmm ok I guess the second is kinda funny. I rescind my argument
- Location
- Dual citizen of SV&SB
This happens just about every time there is a neck and neck vote; The lurkers swarm out of their hiding places one after another. I don't know a quest where this hasn't happened. (At least, when it is this binary, and such different options.)
fictionfan
Please sir, may I have some Meows?
- Location
- Tempe, AZ
Admittedly stroking a cat with a sealed abomination in it would be a great way to give bonuses to intimidation checks.
- Location
- The Great Beyond
- Pronouns
- He/She/They
Small obscure quests, mostly. But yeah, this is pretty normal for highly contentious votes.
- Location
- Mid-Atlantic
Helps, I suppose.
Speaking of honest votes...
My lovely wife, upon me informing her of the vote under discussion, actually filed her own opinion. I'd make her an account, but we share a computer, so same IP, which means...well, how would I go about proving that her account wasn't a sock to skeptical and wary mods? Means she can't join SV, but she wouldn't post much elsewhere than my own quests anyway, so she says it's a small loss.
So, through me, she submits this vote, for your consideration:
[] Seal him into an actual house cat, because you think it's funny.
-[] Without control of the body (harshest, Dazarel is as restricted as the inanimate object version. But in a cat. Why even?).
--[] And then keep the cat as a pet.
Her reason?
"Because it would be funny. And hey, who could get him out of that?"
I am Lawful Evil. My wife is Chaotic Evil.
My wife, when informed of votes in anything pursuant to Star Trek, always advocates "beam tribbles into the enemy's pants." For a very flexible definition of 'enemy.'
Wiadi
Uncompromising Radical Leftist
- Location
- Something Clever
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Speaking as one of the lurkers who has crawled out of said woodwork (and would now like very much to return to it, as it is comfortable and blessedly devoid of salt), I will thank you not to cast aspersions upon the legitimacy of my vote simply because I have chosen not to involve myself in the rest of this thread. I will further thank you not to do the same to my fellow lurkers. You claim that "we will now always have that lingering doubt;" I counter that you need not have such doubt, and should in fact be more confident in the legitimacy of this voting process than ever, as most votes do not have the mods bothering to check for sock-puppets in the first place. Additionally, I find it to create a distinctly inhospitable thread environment if new voters are greeted with immediate suspicion of their motives and, indeed, personhood. As such: kindly stop.
- Location
- USA
I don't know if it's because you lurk instead of participate, but you read a lot of hostility into a statement that had very little of it. Lots of grumpy weariness, but not hostility.
When you have a blatant case of socks in a contested vote, it's not something easily forgotten. Sure, it's probably been cleaned up, and it usually doesn't happen, but when something bad happens that you didn't think would you don't suddenly think that it can't happen again.
This thread has had some issues with people being called in during votes before, and while they usually get handled or don't cause any problems it does happen.
As for new voters? The phrase "a few bad apples spoils the bunch" comes to mind. You've probably heard something like that in some form or another, and it rings pretty true -- at least in our perception of groups.
Sure most new voters that show up are of the honest sort, and even of those that aren't a lot will transition into new players or at least lurkers with the quest brought to their attention. But with a smokescreen of honest people to obscure themselves, the not so honest can pass unnoticed. The mods aren't all-knowing, especially with the work they have on their plates.
Tl;Dr
You don't have to try to ignore something you don't know is happening. And while most are honest, the are those that aren't
- Location
- The Great Beyond
- Pronouns
- He/She/They
... You are being needlessly hostile, whether you intend it or not.
In particular...
You do not speak for the thread. I do not have the lingering doubt you speak of. By saying 'we will now always have that lingering doubt', you are spinning this as 'us' (existing voters) versus 'them' (lurkers). Sure, you have lingering doubts, and that's fine. Turning this into you and all existing posters against the new posters is presumptuous, offensive to me (what with not agreeing with the sentiment you have shoved into my mouth), and hostile to all new voters/former lurkers/etc.
- Location
- USA
The you are far less of a cynic than I, although I never presumed to speak for every single person in the thread. Neither, I presume, do you when use words that speak for greater than yourself.
Quest culture is full of speaking in terms of collective, done rightly or wrongly.
But since you take offense to me using such common practice, I'll endeavour to not do so here*.
I never really considered the various ways honest voting could be manipulated a problem in this thread. I suspect with a fairly high degree of confidence that others felt the same way. Now that it has happened so blatantly here, it's something that lingers in the back of my mind, and can exist as a doubt for other.
Jesus, this whole thing started as an offhand comment on how one thing going wrong messes ecerevery up for those that come after who are of the good sort because of the very human thoughttprocess "things have gone wrong before, so what is keeping things from going wrong agint"
*Although, with how atho correct is bugging out on me, I'm surprised taht I can even be mostly coherent.
Edit: fuck phone posting, and fuck dyslexia. I'm not gonna bother trying to fix this mess
AProcrastinator
You can Certainly Try
- Location
- Getting Somewhere
- Pronouns
- She/Hers
But things didn't go wrong.
They almost went wrong! But they were stopped before they did.
I hope that assuages your doubts some.
- Location
- Here and there
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Holy fuck we are picking between chibi anime mascot and snarky internal narrator on a nat 100 role that was never necessary to crit on. Calm down, odds are that if Darzael pulls something it would have happened regardless of our choice.