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[Exalted/SMT] Shard of a Broken Sun

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Baughn said:
Oh, I'll tell you straight out. Kagutsuchi is suppressing physics; that's what he does, to clear the way for creating the vortex world. It doesn't count as a shaping attack, since he's just not doing what he normally does. Very forcefully.
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Well, that's pretty much what I was guessing at beforehand.

Anyway, that means that Infernals are exactly the place we need to look. Without Charms supplementing things Solars are just as affected by being Outside Fate (which is physics) as anybody else. Infernals on the other hand are intrinsically outside fate, and they run off of their own internal mythos. They are proto worlds and universes in and of themselves, Kagatsuchi on a lesser scale. This isn't even a charm, it's just the nature of their Exaltation.

If we can replicate that, it would be really helpful. CRP is way too difficult for her to get, but maybe we can cobble together a much lesser effect? CRP projects physics around the Solar. What about instead we just make a charm that projects physics inside the Solar?

That should be orders of magnitude easier and far less destructive on her. We already know 'how' it's done with the Infernal Exaltation, and that doesn't even require a charm on its part. This should be much less difficult and just as effective, since Amu will be able to focus on not being crushed anymore. It may require a Charm for us to do, but I doubt there would be as many consequences as trying for the full CRP would.

Heck, IPP is a Essence 1/Ability 1 charm, and this is very damn similar. It should be within her capabilities at the very least.
 
Baughn said:
Lightening the load on Amu by replicating the pattern herself? Um...

She doesn't qualify to learn the charm, she'd be skipping the training time, and you'd be skipping the adaptation time. Call it fifty-fifty that it'll make things worse.
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Wha? o_O
Last time i checked (Which was few seconds ago) Amu had Lore 4 and essence 3 and Chaos Repelling Pattern require Lore 3 and Essence 3 to be learned.
Look:
CHAOS-REPELLING PATTERN
Cost:8m; Mins: Lore 3, Essence 3; Type: Simple
Keywords:Combo-OK, Obvious
Duration:One hour
Prerequisite Charms:None

The presence of the Lawgivers wards away chaos. This Charm surrounds the character with a mystic pattern of Essence—what the Fair Folk call an "island of Creation" or a "dead waypoint." The character's immediate vicinity—out to (her Essence) in yards—functions according to the laws of Creation, even if the character is in the Wyld, Malfeas or some stranger location.
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The training time and adaptation time are probably a problem, but she is perfectly qualified to learn it.
 
Giygas said:
The training time and adaptation time are probably a problem, but she is perfectly qualified to learn it.
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Oh, whoops. Thought it was Integrity-based.

That changes things a bit, yes. It means you're much less likely to break Amu by using it.
 
Maybe not break Amu, but we might break something else instead without the adaptations.
 
Baughn said:
Oh, whoops. Thought it was Integrity-based.

That changes things a bit, yes. It means you're much less likely to break Amu by using it.
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Question, would cobbling together a lesser "Self only" version of CRP be even easier on Amu? It might be better in the long run anyway, since we don't want to accidentally alter physics so that the Seal no longer works.

Edit: Also, given the example of the Infernal Exaltation doing that same thing without a charm, it should be easier on that merit alone.

Altering Amu herself would prevent her from being removed from existence and then the Seal would be supported by her, keeping up normal physics for everyone else.
 
Cytokinesis said:
Anyway, that means that Infernals are exactly the place we need to look. Without Charms supplementing things Solars are just as affected by being Outside Fate (which is physics) as anybody else. Infernals on the other hand are intrinsically outside fate, and they run off of their own internal mythos. They are proto worlds and universes in and of themselves, Kagatsuchi on a lesser scale. This isn't even a charm, it's just the nature of their Exaltation.

If we can replicate that, it would be really helpful. CRP is way too difficult for her to get, but maybe we can cobble together a much lesser effect? CRP projects physics around the Solar. What about instead we just make a charm that projects physics inside the Solar?
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Is this anything like her already natural talent in shaping? She was already having issues with self shaping before, so perhaps something could be done with this?
 
If it is 'merely' failing to provide the laws of physics, then honestly the biggest problem is likely 'controlling the Dragon Stream/seal'.

Integrity Protecting Prana was designed and works perfectly well to let people work in that kind of area without risking sudden existence fail after all. They called those places wild zones. I doubt that Chaos Repelling Pattern would actually help what seems to be the relevant issue here, which is 'she can't control the amount of energy she actually has to control to keep the seal working and under control'.

If it was a direct attack like I thought it was, then yes, it might help, but since it isn't a direct attack anything that falls under 'extra defenses' is unlikely to help and if it uses even more energy is likely to make things even worse. What we need is either some way to bleed off excess energy harmlessly, or a way to better handle said energy.
 
Hmm, if Happerry's hypothesis is right it occurs to me that she's essentially doing Sorcery here. Large scale Essence manipulation to alter physical laws.

Too bad we can't give her any initiations without running into problems then, given her low occult...

Huh, I'm going to go try to think of other ways we could help her handle this.
 
Infernal Initiations don't require occult, just the appropriate Yozi Excellency.

EDIT: And the Five Trials, of course.
 
RCa said:
Infernal Initiations don't require occult, just the appropriate Yozi Excellency.
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I think trying for the Infernal Initiation would be just as damaging, if not more, than forcing a Charm that's 1 dot out of her reach on her considering all the obstacles in the way.
EDIT: And the Five Trials, of course.
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We're nowhere near where Creation's metaphysics touch though, so that shouldn't even be applicable anymore.
 
The question you should be asking yourself, when it comes to Amu's current state of physicslessness, is...

Oh, I guess that would be telling.
 
The idea of trying to whack the guy with something like Sublimation of Ordained Purpose is hilarious, but sadly "scope of its purpose" possibly includes the option to uncreate things, even if you somehow lifted the social attack requirement and blew past his willpower.
 
Well, that brings to mind this quote.
Actual physics (quantum graph theory) -> planck-scale "lifeforms" -> Magatsuhi -> Kagutsuchi -> Earth -> Humanity?

Or at least, this is the way your shard understands it at the moment. The local "physics" is a deeply layered, but somewhat leaky abstraction; in particular, human minds do not run on the physics Kagutsuchi implements, but rather on the more fundamental substance more commonly known as "Magatsuhi". This sometimes allows them to bend the rules they're supposed to be following.
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Amu may be running on the pure Magatsuhi level. Her mind still functions due to a deeper connection to physics even if her body no longer exists. What could we do to aid that then?
 
Uh.

There's a Cecelyne charm that makes your natural state dematerialized and lets you materalize. Learning it could theoretically make maintaining her dematerialized state easier, I suppose? Seems like a lot of work/risk for very little potential gain though, even assuming her current state is just 'dematerialized'. Probably something else more immediately useful.
 
Baughn said:
The question you should be asking yourself, when it comes to Amu's current state of physicslessness, is...

Oh, I guess that would be telling.
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Teeeellll Ussss~ Tellll Usss~

:p

If we could be assured of this actually ending soon, I might have voted for a perfect soak so we can stand the overflow the needed bit longer.. As we can't be assured of that I can't vote for that in good faith though.
HyperspatialParasite said:
So that's not the attack itself, but the attack needs physics to be down first to initiate?
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No. We can be almost totally sure this isn't the case. We aren't burning up from trying to survive in a place that doesn't have laws of physics. Exalted do that all the time. It's called visiting the wyld.

What's killing us is keeping the rank five manse equivalent of the dragon stream/seal working even when all the physical hardware that runs it has vanished.

..Actually, come to think of it in those terms, a variant of Chaos Repelling Pattern might be helpful after all. If we can get the physical structure of the seal back into existence, or even just a bit of it, that might really help with controlling it.

..I need to go reread the update.

Edit : Though we should keep in mind 'too much shaping defenses' are as likely to kill people as not enough, from what I know of SMT metaphysics.

EditEdit : Though Spirit-Repelling Diagram might be a bit more useful as it could make him go away and let the Dragon Stream actually get to working..

When it comes down to it, we seem to be in a highly conceptual state of existence right now. Something involving that would probably help if I could just think of a way to use it to get the seal to stop needing us to stand in for all the physical bits.
 
Happerry said:
What's killing us is keeping the rank five manse equivalent of the dragon stream/seal working even when all the physical hardware that runs it has vanished.

..Actually, come to think of it in those terms, a variant of Chaos Repelling Pattern might be helpful after all. If we can get the physical structure of the seal back into existence, or even just a bit of it, that might really help with controlling it.

..I need to go reread the update.
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Just as a thought, but could Amu's own shaping ability also define local physics? If instead of counting on just the seal to do it, she tried to instantiate some physics around her through her natural shaping.

Well to put it another way, is it really necessary to even use a charm for this? Or does she already have an innate ability for it? Her various Chara certainly at times made physical objects after all... even food one could eat occasionally, considering Su.
 
HyperspatialParasite said:
Use the Charas as the base physics for the CRP? They aren't strong enough to tank it straight.
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No, I mean... isn't Amu already capable of shaping things in to the correct physics herself. If keeping the parts together is such a big deal, can't she just solidify it together again some what using her own shaping magic? Just because Kagutsuchi pulled the plug shouldn't mean that she can't enforce her own shaped area with in the limits of her capacity. And the seal area itself is already defended with an anti-shaping defence.
 
Ok, we've already seen that if he'd just stop actively trying to unsupport reality the Seal would start working again. We've witnessed it make that reality egg before, when Kagutsuchi tried directly unshaping us only to run into IPP.

What is actively killing us is having to stand in for all the physical bits of the seal.

And we're acting in a highly conceptual frame of existence right now.

Would it be possible to either build the needed hardware, or make a variant of Chaos Repelling Pattern that creates the needed substructure in this conceptual space we are in?

The other bits that stand out are how we felt like we were empty. Could we fill ourselves somehow in some way to help us withstand this energy somehow?

And if we aren't in our actual body.. What are we in?

If we could only let the Seal start working at all.. Somehow we need to keep Kagutsuchi from denying its attempts to reform reality. We've seen it work, so we know it will work if we can only block off this active antisupport of existence.

This is strangely like the chicken and the egg problem.. If we could only let the seal work for a bit, we'd get the physical hardware back, but if we could get the physical hardware back, we'd probably have the spare power to force the seal into working despite Kagutsuchi.

I really wish i could come up with a genius idea, but it's just not gelling. Hopefully this helps though..
 
...so, speculation, what would happen if Amu were to use Shadow Etched in Air Shintai on herself in this situation?

Its Primordial base makes it seem like it might be able to cause Amu's body to run on her 'Mythos' rather than depending on local physics to exist. At cost of her being effectively registering to the world as a demon and not interacting right with the local physics.
 
I doubt it'd directly help with the energy flow issues, and given that it uses more energy then we're already using and can't be turned off I'd highly recommend against it.
 
Quantumboost said:
...so, speculation, what would happen if Amu were to use Shadow Etched in Air Shintai on herself in this situation?

Its Primordial base makes it seem like it might be able to cause Amu's body to run on her 'Mythos' rather than depending on local physics to exist. At cost of her being effectively registering to the world as a demon and not interacting right with the local physics.
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Couldn't she shape her body with out using that charm anyway? I mean... that's what's been the problem up till now, why not make it work for you instead? She might be able to extend the range beyond her own body as well, her Chara certainly could and she's combined with two of them right now.
 
Fun as this is, I'll have to call the vote at 21:00 UTC. Don't worry, it won't go too badly.
 
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