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Exalted: Out Of The Eater

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[X] Because it's the only way for this to end. Because the only freedom you or any helot could ever have would be on the backs of a million Lookshyan dead. Fine then. If you had a choice you'd buy it with their blood.
 
ZerbanDaGreat said:
Or, yknow, just kill them.

We already have sufficient moral justification to kill literally every single military and mid-upper-tier governmental official in Lookshy as well as like 90% of its armed forces, being any edgier about it's just getting greedy.
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If we accrue enough edge then we can become nothing but edge, a solid sphere composed of nothing but infinite cutting blades that will slice anything it touches despite being completely round.

The circle, pure, infertile, all that. Look what ye have wrought, Lookshy, and embrace the destruction present in my red eyeliner
 
Xantalos said:
If we accrue enough edge then we can become nothing but edge, a solid sphere composed of nothing but infinite cutting blades that will slice anything it touches despite being completely round.

The circle, pure, infertile, all that. Look what ye have wrought, Lookshy, and embrace the destruction present in my red eyeliner
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Are you suggesting Alexius learn some kind of Charm that would allow him to physically transform into a Judgement Cut?

Someone, get home brewing.
 
[X] Because it's not fair, because they killed you before you ever got a chance to live. Because they stole the future from you and took away your past and so if you could you would take everything from them.

Approximately a month ago, I wrote a rewrite of Lookshy, tired of having a place on the map that perpetually felt like a no-fun area.

It was inspired by East Rome in its dying days, by the feelings the mighty Etruscans might have felt as the wild men of the Republic to their south stood at their border, by the adulation of the West for an imagined Rome that never existed, by Spartan dreams of glory and Athenian dreams of freedom from tyrants. It was a decaying Lookshy, a dying Lookshy, a place where people - and their honour - went to die.

Approximately two thousand and four hundred years ago, a man named Pericles made a speech in the city of Athens, widely recognized as one of the best speeches in history. In this speech, he praised freedom, courage, the ancestors, democracy and the will of a people that would not be cowed. He said:

"Our form of government is called a democracy because our form of does not imitate the laws of neighboring states. On the contrary, we are rather a model to others. Our form of government is called a democracy because its administration is in the hands, not of a few, but of the whole people. In the settling of private disputes, everyone is equal before the law. Election to public office is made on the basis of ability, not on the basis of membership to a particular class. No man is kept out of public office by the obscurity of his social standing because of his poverty, as long as he wishes to be of service to the state.
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Athens practiced chattel slavery. Its wealth was vast in silver. Silver mined by slaves. Silver mined in blood. In ancient Greece, dead were laid to rest by laying a pair of silver drachmae upon their closed eyes. Fitting, right? The same coin would have ended vastly more lives, was it minted in Athens.

Today, I awoke to an update to a quest, where although I knew the twist coming, the dagger of sorrow still twisted in my heart.

This was an excellent update. It was excellent writing. That @TenfoldShields has taken upon himself to write this quest is the greatest praise to the Lookshy I wrote a month ago I could ever receive.

Thank you @TenfoldShields.
 
[X] Because it's the only way for this to end. Because the only freedom you or any helot could ever have would be on the backs of a million Lookshyan dead. Fine then. If you had a choice you'd buy it with their blood.
 
[X] Because it's not fair, because they killed you before you ever got a chance to live. Because they stole the future from you and took away your past and so if you could you would take everything from them.

Well. It happened.
Nothing more to say, as a lot of people have already said and better, but bravo @TenfoldShields.
 
ZerbanDaGreat said:
We already have sufficient moral justification to kill literally every single military and mid-upper-tier governmental official in Lookshy as well as like 90% of its armed forces, being any edgier about it's just getting greedy.
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I think it goes beyond that. The way the social order of Lookshy works means that the citizen class is intrinsically complicit in the brutalisation of the Helots. Even the lower rung members are still middle class in Lookshy as a whole, because their comfort is like... directly built on the toil and anguish of Helot servants doing the scut work and enabling their master, the State of Lookshy, to go about its day to day life. Like, you're saying 90% of Lookshy's armed forces need to go, but Lookshy's armed forces are its citizens, one and all.

From ManusDomine's Lookshy writeup, which this quest is based on;
ManusDomini said:
Five years of service in the army is mandatory for every citizen and long-term residents of Lookshy may join in order to seek the path of citizenship. For citizens, their service does not end here, as every citizen of Lookshy is considered to be part of an even greater military institution; the themes. The city of Lookshy is organized into different themes; tribes and districts with the duty to practice nearly daily together as a whole army of citizen-soldiery. The sheer vast scale of this military proficiency would be impossible elsewhere, but Lookshy has maintained it successfully for centuries due to the maintenance of the helotry.

The helotry of Lookshy is slavery on a vast scale. A hereditary slave caste that began as a few tribes surrounding Lookshy itself and has expanded to become a vast population twice as large as the entire citizen population of Lookshy, the helots are suppressed and kept down with scare tactics, murder and intimidation. All menial tasks in the entire empire are seen to by the helotry, ensuring that Lookshyan citizens can maintain their training as soldiers and warriors.
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ManusDomini said:
Lookshy is proudly democratic. Every citizen theme votes together for the officials that will represent them and lead them in war. With a simple majority vote, they can exercise nearly absolute power over their part of the city, going as far as to demand someone killed or exiled from their district. Fighting together, deciding together and living together creates an impressive sense of loyalty, but also fosters pettiness and spite in the ranks. Siblings of the spear they may be, but siblings are known to turn on one another.

Of course, for subject peoples and cities, the world is quite different. Lookshy rules, iron-fisted and no longer velvet-gloved over the jewels of her empire; citizens of the heartland happily vote the freedoms of their subjects away. The elites of these subject cities are inevitably Lookshyan themselves, or strongly influenced by Lookshyan culture and ideals. They lack any real connection to their commoner subjects and instead play court games and make a show out of their donations to Speakers and temples, in order to demonstrate piety and faith.
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Lookshy does not, cannot, function without its Helots. They comprise the vast majority of the labouring and servant class of the Lookshyan Empire, and the reality is that if I were a citizen of that Empire, I would be complicit in this, directly benefiting from and actively working to maintain this injustice. When you get out beyond the City, into the subject peoples and territories, then you can start to talk about people who deserve mercy, but Lookshy, the city? Lookshy, the citizens?

No. They, all of them, are up to their elbows in this... this living atrocity, and they've got to go. I don't propose hunting down everyone who flees for their lives (although if a significant number flee as a political entity, trying to maintain the spirit of Lookshyan culture or a government-in-exile, that's a different thing), but every man jack of them that stands firm in defence of Lookshy has forfeited their right to live.

That said, we also needn't and shouldn't be cruel about this. No, we shouldn't soulforge the citizens into some macabre monument, or anything of the sort. Not for their sake, but for that of the Helots. War makes monsters of people, and the Helots have gone through enough already. Let them not be party to more horrors in saving them from the lash. Make it quick, make it clean, leave room for something nurturing to grow afterwards, among those whose chains are struck.

But Lookshy, the empire, the city, the citizens, the goddess, the idea, it all needs to die.

Sic semper tyrannis.
 
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[X] Because you don't know what love is but you know hate, you know anger and shame and loneliness and hunger. Because Lookshy made you something less than human. So let them see the fruit of their labor.

Because I want lookshyans dead more than I want the helots freed.
 
[X] Because it's not fair, because they killed you before you ever got a chance to live. Because they stole the future from you and took away your past and so if you could you would take everything from them.

They made him love. After all the pain, all the hate, every foul thing they did to him, they made Alexius love. And love one of them. He didn't know the word, he didn't recognise the emotion, but that's what it was. Fuck me sideways, there wasn't anything left to take, so they gave him something new and took that.

I would like to reiterate my position. We do not stop until Lookshy is a smoking crater.
Sic Semper Tyrannis.

@TenfoldShields , let me add my voice to the chorus. You can fucking write, dude.
Adhoc vote count started by BadAtScreenNames on Nov 29, 2018 at 4:11 AM, finished with 69 posts and 49 votes.
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Imrix said:
I think it goes beyond that. The way the social order of Lookshy works means that the citizen class is intrinsically complicit in the brutalisation of the Helots. Even the lower rung members are still middle class in Lookshy as a whole, because their comfort is like... directly built on the toil and anguish of Helot servants doing the scut work and enabling their master, the State of Lookshy, to go about its day to day life. Like, you're saying 90% of Lookshy's armed forces need to go, but Lookshy's armed forces are its citizens, one and all.

From ManusDomine's Lookshy writeup, which this quest is based on;

Lookshy does not, cannot, function without its Helots. They comprise the vast majority of the labouring and servant class of the Lookshyan Empire, and the reality is that if I were a citizen of that Empire, I would be complicit in this, directly benefiting from and actively working to maintain this injustice. When you get out beyond the City, into the subject peoples and territories, then you can start to talk about people who deserve mercy, but Lookshy, the city? Lookshy, the citizens?

No. They, all of them, are up to their elbows in this... this living atrocity, and they've got to go. I don't propose hunting down everyone who flees for their lives (although if a significant number flee as a political entity, trying to maintain the spirit of Lookshyan culture or a government-in-exile, that's a different thing), but every man jack of them that stands firm in defence of Lookshy has forfeited their right to live.

That said, we also needn't and shouldn't be cruel about this. No, we shouldn't soulforge the citizens into some macabre monument, or anything of the sort. Not for their sake, but for that of the Helots. War makes monsters of people, and the Helots have gone through enough already. Let them not be party to more horrors in saving them from the lash. Make it quick, make it clean, leave room for something nurturing to grow afterwards, among those whose chains are struck.

But Lookshy, the empire, the city, the citizens, the goddess, the idea, it all needs to die.

Sic semper tyrannis.
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Well yeah but like...

So Theoretical Shin Violence Alexius comes home astride Shin Godzilla and conquers Lookshy with its laser breath and a ground force made of zombies. Some arbitrarily high percentage of the armed forces are killed in the fighting and everyone left is rounded up after surrendering. Alexius sets up a Sabrina-brand Evil Trial and after a few calls for disorder in the court, the dishonourable zombie judges pass verdict that anyone within the chain of command needs to be executed for their probably literally uncountable war crimes.

Now what?

You mention a significant portion leaving and trying to be a government in exile being bad but honestly is that some kind of terrible "they'll immediately spring back up and offend again like those cheating AI cunts in strategy games that spawn new armies and bases the moment your back is turned" fail state? I don't think so. I think once you're done with the conventional conquering, executing the people in power, you've mostly just got a small pack of assholes that have spent their whole lives being waited on hand and foot while sniffing their own farts. While we still don't know what the rough ratio of helot to citizen is compared to the historical 7:1, it's definitely significant, and I'd imagine step 2 is turning around and building a sick Shadowland Minas Morgul on the salted ashes with a whole asston of newly freed helots having a place to chill that's none more goth. As far as neighbours we know Xauma is actively stoving their shit in already, and iirc they treat the Realm as some mortal enemy they plan to rise up against but tbh I doubt they even feature in the official memos on the Blessed Isle (too busy having scaly orgies). And the way Lookshy is I doubt they'll find friends anywhere else in the immediate vicinity.

Basically tbh I think you could still solve the problem by just like... kicking them out. What you'd have left is a small bunch of arrogant amoral assholes who've not had to do anything for themselves for as long as they can remember, with no significant resources or military might, having made less than zero friends while in power. Sounds to me like they'd either swiftly earn a Darwin Award trying to keep up the terrible work or learn a little humility having to scrape to survive without their slaves, which is suitably ironic a comeuppance for a story without the whole Rule-2-intertwined "lol time for ethnic cleansing" thing.

Plus Exalted doesn't have the internet so they can't resurge by posting videos about (((helots))) controlling all the banks :V

Granted there is still soooooooo much empty space on the proverbial table for more pieces to be added so I can't even pretend that this is a be-all-end-all plan but I'm just saying. Maaaaaybe start thinking about alternatives to genocide nice and early, for SV's sake if nothing else :p
 
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[X] Because you don't know what love is but you know hate, you know anger and shame and loneliness and hunger. Because Lookshy made you something less than human. So let them see the fruit of their labor.
 
[X] Because you don't know what love is but you know hate, you know anger and shame and loneliness and hunger. Because Lookshy made you something less than human. So let them see the fruit of their labor.
 
ZerbanDaGreat said:
Well yeah but like...

So Theoretical Shin Violence Alexius comes home astride Shin Godzilla and conquers Lookshy with its laser breath and a ground force made of zombies. Some arbitrarily high percentage of the armed forces are killed in the fighting and everyone left is rounded up after surrendering. Alexius sets up a Sabrina-brand Evil Trial and after a few calls for disorder in the court, the dishonourable zombie judges pass verdict that anyone within the chain of command needs to be executed for their probably literally uncountable war crimes.

Now what?
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Well, guillotine's would probably be most practical. Appropriate, too.
ZerbanDaGreat said:
You mention a significant portion leaving and trying to be a government in exile being bad but honestly is that some kind of terrible "they'll immediately spring back up and offend again like those cheating AI cunts in strategy games that spawn new armies and bases the moment your back is turned" fail state? I don't think so.
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I do. These are people who have built their whole culture around brutalising a slave class in order to enable them to devote themselves to the conquest and maintanence of Empire so they can acquire more slaves to brutalise. They are, all of them, professional soldiers who derive a significant portion of their cultural identity from a fetishistic idealisation of military power.

Yes, they're going to offend again. Whether through conquest or simple banditry, they'll try to acquire a new Helot class to support them while they plant the vile seed of Lookshy elsewhere. If they don't, it's because they've given up on being citizens of Lookshy - at which point I care nothing for them, they aren't a government-in-exile, they're simply individuals fleeing for their lives. Let them.

Also, for reference;
ZerbanDaGreat said:
and iirc they treat the Realm as some mortal enemy they plan to rise up against but tbh I doubt they even feature in the official memos on the Blessed Isle (too busy having scaly orgies).
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Per canon, and this is something that @ManusDomini's writeup does not seem to change, Lookshy is pretty much the opposing power to the Realm. They are the one Shogunate Legion who refused to kneel to the Scarlet Empress, and checked her power in the East through a terrible store of First Age weapons, and through having the single largest concentration of Dragonblooded Exalted (living comfortably on the backs of Helot labour) in Creation outside of the Realm.
 
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ZerbanDaGreat said:
Granted there is still soooooooo much empty space on the proverbial table for more pieces to be added so I can't even pretend that this is a be-all-end-all plan but I'm just saying. Maaaaaybe start thinking about alternatives to genocide nice and early, for SV's sake if nothing else :p
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You know, I had an immediate and visceral reaction to this post of "NO WAY IN HELL" that I do not usually associate with people saying genocide is bad. :p

In all seriousness, you might have a point, but I don't see a way to get to there from here; Alexius is an emotionally tortured slave who's heart's just been broken and who's just watched a bunch of his fellow slaves get burnt alive for the sake of convenience. Fuck, he has ALSO just been burnt alive for convenience, technically. I cannot see a way, in character, to justify mercy.

Now, as you yourself pointed out, we're waaaaaaaaaaaaay in the early days right now. This all could change. But if that's the way you think we should go, you're going to be fighting uphill a bit until the situation changes.
 
[X] Because you don't know what love is but you know hate, you know anger and shame and loneliness and hunger. Because Lookshy made you something less than human. So let them see the fruit of their labor.
 
[X] Because it's the only way for this to end. Because the only freedom you or any helot could ever have would be on the backs of a million Lookshyan dead. Fine then. If you had a choice you'd buy it with their blood.
 
I actually used the soundtrack to Hellraiser for this one. Track 3, "Hellbound Heart".

[X] Because they told you you were sick, that you were wrong, but you know the truth. It's the world who's sick, not you. It's the world that's twisted and wrong, not you. So break it. Reset it. That's how you heal it.
 
[X] Because they told you you were sick, that you were wrong, but you know the truth. It's the world who's sick, not you. It's the world that's twisted and wrong, not you. So break it. Reset it. That's how you heal it.
 
ZerbanDaGreat said:
Basically tbh I think you could still solve the problem by just like... kicking them out. What you'd have left is a small bunch of arrogant amoral assholes who've not had to do anything for themselves for as long as they can remember, with no significant resources or military might, having made less than zero friends while in power. Sounds to me like they'd either swiftly earn a Darwin Award trying to keep up the terrible work or learn a little humility having to scrape to survive without their slaves, which is suitably ironic a comeuppance for a story without the whole Rule-2-intertwined "lol time for ethnic cleansing" thing.
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My concern would be that they'd instead go forth and start trying to build a new helotry out of rural tribes and villages, places too small and weak to defend themselves. After all, the nobility of Lookshy are still Dragonblooded, and trained soldiers to boot.

They'd likely never manage to raise up the Lookshyan banner again, but they'd still be killing and torturing and enslaving people in the name of their toxic so-called faith. Even if they were driven back by some grand alliance and slaughtered to the last, they'd still reap one last harvest of innocent victims on their way to Oblivion. Leaving any vestige of the Lookshyan upper class alive is like performing an autopsy on a plague victim and leaving the infected blood & organs sitting in the communal trash instead of sending it to an incinerator - jeopardizing the wellbeing of others in the name of expediency.
 
Can I just say, that death scene was both beautiful and utterly heartrending.

Alexius curled up and clutching his stone, surrounded by smoke and fire, just... watching the burning ceiling come plummeting down, making note of which specific piece of timber is going to kill him. God it's so beautifully bitter.
 
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