Doing complex math equations in an empty room, alone, and occasionally gesturing to your calculator so he can confirm a seemingly incongruous bit of your equation...
... Not boring.
I don't know where you're going with this.
You know what it means, if astrology involves mathematics?
It means you need educated people. Which means you need writing systems to record knowledge, you need civilizations capable of supporting a specialized knowledge-base, you need places these can gather to meet and learn and share ideas. It means you get factions who favour one school of thought and process over another, you get orthodoxies and heresies and innovations, you get great figures and hate figures. It means you get political controversy when the ruling class favours one group over another, and you get falsified results when an astrologer doesn't want to bear bad news.
It means you get artisans making fine silver telescopes, and spies copying precious star charts, and engineers commissioned to construct great towers that can view the stars ever more clearly. It means you get trade embargoes blocking the finest sand from getting to the mountains where the best astrology is practiced, and bribery changing a child's "official" date or place of birth to alter the facts of an astrological reading, and apprentice astrologers who make windows because it's a more profitable application of their glass-making knowledge than casting cheap fortunes.
It means you get failed astrologers beckoning the disciples of the Pavane of Dying Stars for knowledge of alien skies, and conspirators praying that their local storm gods will obscure the heavens during a particularly vital reading, and the sorcerous master of the colleges making a show of riding an elemental horse above the clouds themselves to take his measurements.
If astrology requires mathematics, that means it requires human thought
.
This comes with all sorts of baggage and edifices and requirements, which are interesting as hell.
If "astrology" requires chatting up otherwise insensate spirits... it doesn't.
Also, no it's not how astrology "works" in real life, because IRL astrology is basically an exercise in creative reinterpretation and self-delusion. I suppose if I was trying to make a legitimate point and not just ad-libbing flavor text because somebody's post gave me a snippet idea, I might have had reason to look up what the laws of astrology currently are. In fact, I'd better go back and edit that information into my original post.
I'm not talking about newspaper self-help guides, I'm talking about
astrology.
Actual, real-life astrology - the kind of shit that
mattered.
Cities in Mesoamerica were built on astrological principles, and the Aztecs considered astrology a field of knowledge suited to royalty. Rulers across Europe arranged marriages and coronations on auspicious dates according to astrological predictions. Ancient medicines had their effectiveness linked to the alignment of planets and stars. Whole nations set their calendars (quite literally) on the word of astrologers, in ancient times, and you could expect a well-picked astrologer - with great records of past events and calculations of future alignments - to stand alongside a ruler's greatest ministers as a matter of course.
The first Roman Emperor, Octavian, made sure to cement his claim to the imperial throne with astrological backing. Astronomers in ancient China were
executed for not predicting an eclipse. John Dee was imprisoned and threatened with burning just for casting a horoscope for Queen Mary I.
Across the world, astrology has - for ages and ages - been this weird and fascinating melange of scientific practice and political reality and religious or pseudo-religious belief that is
perfect for Exalted. People lived by this stuff - and died for it.
Third - well, okay. You do have absolute seniority here, but I was making the basic extrapolation that if Solars can order around least gods, then Thaumaturges should be able to get them to talk about something they previously experienced, and talking up pieces of wood and scraps of light for tales of a man's past seems far more interesting as a means of describing a PC's dice results than "Okay, you successfully conjugate the logarithm of the 17th house of Mars. Your chosen target is therefore blah, blerg, & also bloop."
Well, I'm not leaning on seniority - it's just not something that's ever been the case in Exalted. Look at the Varang City-States or even the actual Art of Astrology to see how non-Sidereals generally deal with it. There's a grand total of one piece of magic that I'm aware of which interrogates least gods, and it's She Who Lives in Her Name doing brute force data recall. Certainly, "order around least gods" isn't something Solars have ever been particularly noted for - least gods aren't actors in the setting, and are intended more as fun flavour than relevant entities. Notably, they only exist in Creation - but those powers which seem to make use of them work just as well in the Underworld or Malfeas.
Welp, I'm out then. 3E's particular brand of Deliria-esque woo-woo is the exact opposite of what I'm here for. Have fun.
I'm not taking sides on that one, just pointing out the distinction. If anything, your version of events fits better with 3e than 1/2e.
