Except for the part where the design and key elements are Autobot's doing, and Autobot's craft tree at a minimum matches that of a hypothetical infinite-XP solar.
That is because Holden did not, and does not understand Infrastructure or issues of Scale, which are the primary keystone to understanding the Alchemical Exalted. It is his "there is no Bureaucracy system" of 2e, and you would be well-advised to take anything he says about the subject with a grain of salt, because this is the same man who ALSO broke the "you cannot be Exalted Twice" rule within
mere pages of being handed the reins to the Autobots book even before that awful short fiction. It is fanwankery of the highest order, even beyond the part were he then went on to spin up his own version of "someone steals the secrets to Exaltation" bullshit plots to create backstory for both the Exigents and the Getimens of Ex3.
Like, lets take a deep, critical look behind why Demiurge exists: It is an attempt to justify out why a single Solar cannot simply stealth inside Autochthonia, steal the secret of Alchemical Exaltation from all five of the Sodalities under the heaviest guard and secrecy they are capable of as a society, and duplicate it themselves elsewhere. Okay fine, fair enough, assuming good faith here Holden was trying to treat Exaltation as a setting-meaningful subject, and one which should remain meaningful. But in the event you even
have the full thaumaturgical recipe at your disposal, what are the 1e requirements to make an Alchemical in the first place?
- One, a suitably Exaltation-worthy soul and a soulgem to contain it. Someone with a long and
thorough history of generations-spanning heroic deeds which will resonate with the Caste it is being used to energize. It must explicitly be that of a mortal human being, because Celestial Exalted gain their power through one-off feats of world-shaking importance, inherently incompatible with the process.
- Second, rare and valuable clays, waxes and various other materials culled from the Far Reaches of Autochthon's own body, which even the Eight nations themselves with all their sprawling economies have difficulty keeping in ready supply to meet the demand. That is before you factor in the Magical Materials costs numbering in the multiple 5 Resource dot purchase ranges.
- Third, you need a Vats complex for the assembly of these materials, which requires not only a Manse-equivalent structure rated as 4+ dots, yet another 5 dots of Resources to build it, but also a staff of highly skilled thaumaturge-technicians trained for maintaining and operating it, using regular infusions of 4-5 dot Resource purchases with
every use of the complex, not just those intended to install Charms and upgrade Essence scores.
- Fourth, actual Charms this time, which are system-wise treated as interchangeable with Artifacts of a rating equal to the Essence minimum listed. So those require exotic materials and assembly as well, starting with a minimum 8 dots worth even for a single Alchemical with what could be seen as "chargen" competency.
- Fifth and finally, you need access to Autochthon himself, and the thought-lightning cables from his Godhead to weld the soulgem and body together as one. Its explicitly noted that Alchemicals flatly
cannot be constructed within Creation without the Great Maker's presence there, which means that either "Exaltation" as a concept is deeply connected to Autochthon's domain of power similarly to that of Malfeas and vitriol acids, or it requires directly tapping into his power as a component of the process beyond the "spark of life."
That is by no means an easy list of things to accomplish, and this whole production delivers you only
One Exalt, not even an entire batch of them. This is the refined process of almost
five thousand years of advanced industrial processes, literally twice as long as modern civilization, using extremely high-end material costs and a setting-locked access requirement. We're looking at well beyond "I have CNNT, Words-As-Workshop and Wyld-Shaping Technique, I think I can make this happen."
But lets even set
all that aside, and assume our hypothetical Craftmaster Ultrathief Solar somehow
has all of these things by hook or by crook, by developing some kind of means to not only subvert one of the existing Vats inside Autobot to her will and convey a sizable enough amount of Wyld-shaped materials in there with her, to kickstart assembling her own independant Alchemical army literally within the guts of the primordial himself. With the sheer SCALE of the planning, logistics and infrastructure being put to work here, that Solar could be making
literally any other thing she conceivably wants and it would be similarly setting-redefining for the costs and time she has been investing into it, not to mention the ST permission for it to actually come to pass to begin with.
There isn't anything particularly special about setting "rules" when you hit that point of sweeping permissiveness and readily-available means to accomplish goals. It could have been a fully-functional Directional Titan, or a new Five-Metal Shrike, or even carving out a Realm Defense Grid of her own. It could BE another, entirely brand new Exalt-type for that matter, one unconnected to Auotchthon at all, given how this all is naturally dependent on the Seal being broken from the outset to permit the knowledge of it being Possible.
At the point where "making an Alchemical Exalt" is a valid approach to a problem, you are well beyond the average scope of the common campaign and the structures of the setting to maintain its internal consistency anyway. So looking at that considerable list and saying "that doesn't sound like
enough shitwork to dissuade anyone, lets add
another complication to the mixture, which takes the most unique and defining aspect of this Exalt-type and actively undermines its value into an aesthetics footnote mincing over whose hands hold the tools," shows a Shocking lack of awareness or insight towards the material.
And then he goes and makes Independent/Exalt-created Exalts a thing anyway. Guess it just sucks to be mortals with literally any amount of time or resources, doesn't it?
