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Echoes of Creation (30k/Exalted)

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Alratan said:
Just picking up something I missed



I still think there's a very good argument that Fan should get Loom Snarling Detection + Eldritch Secrets Mastery and Thalassa should get Hide the Evidence, Clark Kenting, and Masquerade, and they should both try to fade into the background while the Emperor is around, and try to avoid meeting him.

The Emperor is probably in a hurry, so if Lorgar goes out to intercept him, and we stay at home, then we may be able to make it look like Lorgar is simply modest and shares credit for his achievements with people around him, the better to motivate his followers.
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I think the horse is not just out of the barn, it's broken the door on the way out and sired a whole host of foals.

Maybe we could have pulled that off before Kairos. Now the Emperor will damn well be paying attention. All he would have to do is read a transcript of that speech last turn and he will see Lorgar claim that he and Fan made Thalassa a demigod. There's no way that claim isn't worth a look no matter how busy he is.
 
Yeah, you can certainly hide from the Emperor and others, but the consequences of your actions? Not so much.
 
DragonParadox said:
Heck, one look at Dharok the holy-shit-Marine would be more than enough to clue him in that someone is doing some serious Sorcery.
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To be fair, Dharok is the absolute best case scenario for a Space Marine Ascension. He is not that much different from Mephiston and the Sanguinator.

So he will not attract that much scrutiny, other than his True Name.
 
DragonParadox said:
Yeah, but the timing still looks funky, it's been a few years since Lorgar landed. Not a lot of time for him to grow.
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Well, the fact that Lorgar HAS space Marines, let alone over a thousand would warrant a reaction, but by the time the emperor reaches, it would be 10 to 15 years.

So it is not that Dharok will not get a reaction, it is that there are so many things that the Emperor would have to Prioritise, if you do not want to do a disclosure.
 
DragonParadox said:
Heck, one look at Dharok the holy-shit-Marine would be more than enough to clue him in that someone is doing some serious Sorcery.
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Considering the Emperor ITTL spared the Thunder Warriors, he's more likely to go the seduction route(probably not literally) to find out how we did that. He might offer to teach us more Enuncia in trade, come to think of it.
 
[X] Plan Clones and flesh shaping hurray
-[X] Fan: Joy In Violence Approach -> BROKEN SOUL WISDOM -> Splintered Gale Incarnation 30 XP
-[X] Lorgar Iron Resolve 2 XP
--[X] Lorgar bank 12 XP
-[X] Dharok Mind Partition 4 XP
--[X] Dharok bank 9 XP
-[X] Thalassa Lore of Flesh 5 Shape Flesh 20 XP
 
DragonParadox said:
I think the horse is not just out of the barn, it's broken the door on the way out and sired a whole host of foals.

Maybe we could have pulled that off before Kairos. Now the Emperor will damn well be paying attention. All he would have to do is read a transcript of that speech last turn and he will see Lorgar claim that he and Fan made Thalassa a demigod. There's no way that claim isn't worth a look no matter how busy he is.
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The thing is, what does demigod mean? It could easily just mean 'very powerful person' who is that way because she's been massively augmented. Which she has. She can pretend to just be someone with peak Mars level plus some DAoT archeotech implants.

ALso, the fact that it's sired a bunch of foals is cover. There's just so much apparently random shit.

In many ways it's easier for him to believe that Lorgar's just extraordinarily talented because the Emperor did such an amazing job making him and he got lucky with where he landed, and everything flows from that.

We don't have to hide the consequences of our actions, just whose the cause of them. We can give Lorgar the credit. Note that he's the one with Cult N/A. Not Fan.

DragonParadox said:
Yeah, but the timing still looks funky, it's been a few years since Lorgar landed. Not a lot of time for him to grow.
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Look at how Guilliman assembled an interstellar realm spanning multiple systems before the Emperor arrived. Some Primarchs are more precocious than others.

The Emperor wouldn't necessarily know how small a base we started with. If he though that, for example, Colchis was a peak civilized world with Mars level tech that Fan was the heavily augmented ruler of when Lorgar landed, then things might make a lot more sense.

He may never actually visit Colchis in person, and we should try to avoid him doing so.
 
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Alratan said:
The thing is, what does demigod mean? It could easily just mean 'very powerful person' who is that way because she's been massively augmented. Which she has. She can pretend to just be someone with peak Mars level plus some DAoT archeotech implants.

ALso, the fact that it's sired a bunch of foals is cover. There's just so much apparently random shit.

In many ways it's easier for him to believe that Lorgar's just extraordinarily talented because the Emperor did such an amazing job making him and he got lucky with where he landed, and everything flows from that.

We don't have to hide the consequences of our actions, just whose the cause of them. We can give Lorgar the credit. Note that he's the one with Cult N/A. Not Fan.



Look at how Guilliman assembled an interstellar realm spanning multiple systems before the Emperor arrived. Some Primarchs are more precocious than others.

The Emperor wouldn't necessarily know how small a base we started with. If he though that, for example, Colchis was a peak civilized world with Mars level tech that Fan was the heavily augmented ruler of when Lorgar landed, then things might make a lot more sense.

He may never actually visit Colchis in person, and we should try to avoid him doing so.
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A Demigod is a being with a mythos bar, something that has far as we can tell all primarchs share, I think it is a pretty safe bet that this is something which is externally observable to the only other being who we know of to have made Demigods, twenty of them. Also the history of Colchis is in no way secret, if the Emperor so much as grazes the mind of Random Citizen 1834899 he will know that Colchis used to be a feudal world and he will know the contants of that speech last turn... the one with going down into the underworld. It would be remarkably stupid of him not to ask to meet with Lorgar's friends and while I trust Ebon dragon charms to fool him, I do not trust Thalassa's.
 
DragonParadox said:
A Demigod is a being with a mythos bar, something that has far as we can tell all primarchs share, I think it is a pretty safe bet that this is something which is externally observable to the only other being who we know of to have made Demigods, twenty of them. Also the history of Colchis is in no way secret, if the Emperor so much as grazes the mind of Random Citizen 1834899 he will know that Colchis used to be a feudal world and he will know the contants of that speech last turn... the one with going down into the underworld. It would be remarkably stupid of him not to ask to meet with Lorgar's friends and while I trust Ebon dragon charms to fool him, I do not trust Thalassa's.
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That's only an issue if the Emperor visits Colchis though. If Lorgar and Dharok intercept him in some system on the way and doesn't take Fan and Thalassa with him, and they're off busy doing something else like adventuring in the Eye of Terror or in warp transit to bring a system on the other end of their territory into their coalition, I think it's quite possible that the Emperor would be in too much hurry to wait around indefinitely until they come back, he needs to go and find the other Primarchs. He's on the clock.

And the Emperor well knows that the content of speeches you make to the masses don't necessarily have any connection to the reality of the situation.

Lorgar would probably have to avoid lying to the Emperor, but he can shade the truth and not mention things. Occam's razor comes into play here. Lorgar is already extraordinary. It's easier to believe this is all on him being special because the Emperor did such a good job and that Fan is just a particularly skilled mortal who's at the top end of the normal augmented range.
 
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Alratan said:
That's only an issue if the Emperor visits Colchis though. If Lorgar and Dharok intercept him in some system on the way and doesn't take Fan and Thalassa with him, and they're off busy doing something else like adventuring in the Eye of Terror or in warp transit to bring a system on the other end of their territory into their coalition, I think it's quite possible that the Emperor would be in too much hurry to wait around indefinitely until they come back, he needs to go and find the other Primarchs. He's on the clock.

And the Emperor well knows that the content of speeches you make to the masses don't necessarily have any connection to the reality of the situation.

Lorgar would probably have to avoid lying to the Emperor, but he can shade the truth and not mention things. Occam's razor comes into play here. Lorgar is already extraordinary. It's easier to believe this is all on him being special because the Emperor did such a good job and that Fan is just a particularly skilled mortal who's at the top end of the normal augmented range.
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Those ships will be staffed by Colchisian crews who have that speech tattooed on the inside of their skulls to hard it gives them in intimacy. I do not think it is realistic to try to hide so much.
 
DragonParadox said:
Those ships will be staffed by Colchisian crews who have that speech tattooed on the inside of their skulls to hard it gives them in intimacy. I do not think it is realistic to try to hide so much.
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This is where the fact that political speeches and reality don't necessarily have to have much in common with reality comes in.

Even knowing what Lorgar said in the speech doesn't mean that the Emperor would assume than Fan and Thalassa are actual demigods or greater.

Just that Lorgar used them as props to sell his story.

Demigod may OOC be a technical term. IC in the context of human empowerment it very likely just means a heavily augmented person. Note that Lorgar will have been speaking in Colchisian, not High Gothic. Colchis has its own language. The fact that Lorgar used a word in that language that when translated means demigod does not mean, or even strongly imply they have a Mythos. It just means they're very powerful, and have walked further down the path to power and self-actualisation than others.
 
Alratan said:
This is where the fact that political speeches and reality don't necessarily have to have much in common with reality comes in.

Even knowing what Lorgar said in the speech doesn't mean that the Emperor would assume than Fan and Thalassa are actual demigods or greater.

Just that Lorgar used them as props to sell his story.

Demigod may OOC be a technical term. IC in the context of human empowerment it very likely just means a heavily augmented person. Note that Lorgar will have been speaking in Colchisian, not High Gothic. Colchis has its own language. The fact that Lorgar used a word in that language that when translated means demigod does not mean, or even strongly imply they have a Mythos. It just means they're very powerful, and have walked further down the path to power and self-actualisation than others.
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I think that for people who understand how gods work it may also be an IC technical term. Physical being+Divine mantle = Demigod. I also think that given the direct comparison between Thalassa as an artificial demigod and Lorgar himself the Emperor would fall on the side of 'check just how magical we are talking'. There is also the fact that he could ask Lorgar point blank 'is she like you?' to which I really do not think he has the chops or the heart to use weasel words (remember he has an intimacy to the Emperor).
 
DragonParadox said:
I think that for people who understand how gods work it may also be an IC technical term. Physical being+Divine mantle = Demigod. I also think that given the direct comparison between Thalassa as an artificial demigod and Lorgar himself the Emperor would fall on the side of 'check just how magical we are talking'. There is also the fact that he could ask Lorgar point blank 'is she like you?' to which I really do not think he has the chops or the heart to use weasel words (remember he has an intimacy to the Emperor).
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The Colchisian word is not likely to be an IC technical term though, and the Colchisian audience who heard it wouldn't have understood it that way, so why would Lorgar have cared whether it was techncially accurate or not when speaking to them?

Remember the theme of the speech, that all of humanity could ascend. It was all about how Thalassa and co weren't inherently special, just further along a road everyone can walk.

Lord4StarCommand said:
And big E by just one look at Thalassa would figure out she is more than just an empowered mortal.
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If he ever gets a look at her, which we should avoid.
 
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Alratan said:
The Colchisian word is not likely to be an IC technical term though.
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There's only so many dialectical ways to interpret demigod though it's either child of a divinity someone bearing Divine blood or someone who is through some manner then raised to partial Divinity there's no word that means demigod that could be too far from any of these and a single glance if he has any level of mystical sensory abilities at all which he does would discern what exactly they meant.
 
Degorium said:
There's only so many dialectical ways to interpret demigod though it's either child of a divinity someone bearing Divine blood or someone who is through some manner then raised to partial Divinity there's no word that means demigod that could be too far from any of these and a single glance if he has any level of mystical sensory abilities at all which he does would discern what exactly they meant.
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If she's not there he can't look at her.

And the word demigod can be used colloquially in a speech to just mean 'uplifted to great power'.

As I say, the entire point of the speech was to deny that the Circle was inherently special, that everyone could ascend to be like them if they tried.

It was I'm a demigod, she's a demigod, you too can be a demigod if you put the work in.

That's very unlikely to be compatible with how the emperor defines demigods.
 
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Alratan said:
The Colchisian word is not likely to be an IC technical term though, and the Colchisian audience who heard it wouldn't have understood it that way, so why would Lorgar have cared whether it was techncially accurate or not when speaking to them?

Remember the theme of the speech, that all of humanity could ascend. It was all about how Thalassa and co weren't inherently special, just further along a road everyone can walk.
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I do not think the language offers enough cover for this. It would not cost him anything to just ask given the direct comparison so if it even crosses his mind the jig is up.
 
Alratan said:
If she's not there he can't look at them.

And the word demigod can be used colloquially in a speech to just mean 'uplifted to great power'.
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There's the thing if it does mean uplifted to great power then he's still going to want to know and he's practiced in demi-God forging he made 20 of them the fact someone else made someone they would call a demigod is not beyond his imagination. If she's not there you are correct he cannot look at her general direction and discern that she is a demigod but if you ask Lorgar to say that she's a different entity than him he would not be able to say so truthfully if he asked any person from our planet if she is a demigod they would say so anyone who saw or can remember her manifesting a world engine to bring back the planet and subsequently resurrect them will also remember.
 
Lord4StarCommand said:
But Malcador may or at least send a spy, is not always that the Imperium finds a world with as much industrial power as Mars where one of the most infamous Daemons died and throw a wrench at Destiny so he would be first to send a spy or do secret investigations.
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He can send a spy, but unless that spy is also a demigod who has acquired the right Mythos powers Thalassa's own Mythos powers probably means they would report back that she's just a very highly augmented mortal.

DragonParadox said:
I do not think the language offers enough cover for this. It would not cost him anything to just ask given the direct comparison so if it even crosses his mind the jig is up.
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This is one on Lorgar. If we don't think he can or will dissemble well enough then this won't work.

If he just says that he and his father made her into an incredibly powerful full conversion cyborg using archeotech and the auramite from his capsule and that she incarnated the Machine Spirit of the cybernetics, he can just not mention the rest of the process.

Incredibly highly augmented Mechanicum Archmagos and Tech Priests using cyber-theurgy rituals to push technology beyond its physical constraints and both things that the Emperor should be well aware of.

The main thing that Lorgar would be skipping over is quite how effective it was and the part Fan's sorcery played in the process. The fact that she wasn't a psyker before can be similarly not be mentioned.

If we get her old bosses' archeotech psy-amplifer and she can design an implanted version before the Emperor arrives that would also help sell the story. The difference between a very powerful mortal psyker and a demigod is probably not obvious for most people.

Degorium said:
There's the thing if it does mean uplifted to great power then he's still going to want to know and he's practiced in demi-God forging he made 20 of them the fact someone else made someone they would call a demigod is not beyond his imagination. If she's not there you are correct he cannot look at her general direction and discern that she is a demigod but if you ask Lorgar to say that she's a different entity than him he would not be able to say so truthfully if he asked any person from our planet if she is a demigod they would say so anyone who saw or can remember her manifesting a world engine to bring back the planet and subsequently resurrect them will also remember.
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She is a different entity to him. She's not a Primarch. She functions very differently.

What matters is whether he chooses to highlight the differences or similarities when talking to the Emperor if the later asks.
 
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