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Green Flame Rising (Exalted vs Dresden Files)

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Nyarky said:
I know, but it is still leagues better than the knee jerk reaction of *welp, guess it's time to kill her right there right now*

We barely learned her goal, giving up on it seems premature.
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To be clear, it's not her goal that made me give up on her.
It's the confirmation that she sold her soul and can't go against direct orders.

That's all I need to know to be sure we can't flip her in the short time before we have to fight an ever stronger Akuma, a fight in which her backstab is extremly likely to turn the battle against us.
 
Nyarky said:
I know, but it is still leagues better than the knee jerk reaction of *welp, guess it's time to kill her right there right now*

We barely learned her goal, giving up on it seems premature.
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If I had to choose between knee jerk kill or join I'd take kill, because we're talking about serious business stuff right now. An idea sounding great on principle has very little relation to how feasible it is to actually implement.

We aren't guaranteed success and we aren't immune to consequences, for ourselves or for the people living in the splash zone of our efforts.

But we don't need to pick without looking first, so it just makes sense to check before making a decision.
 
Artemis1992 said:
The moment she openly sides with us, Emma-O can give new instructions to betray us or just kill herself.
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Serious question, as I don't know - can he do it remotely? It was stated that he can see through her eyes if he wants to, but can he remotely communicate with her to give her orders? If he can, how does any akuma ever escape / rebel?

Also, why would Emma-O get her to kill herself when, if he can see through her eyes, she'd be a perfect spy for him? Yes, a known spy, but still someone he could gather intelligence through. He's an immortal and can see long-term picture, I think.
BronzeTongue said:
She wasn't willing to let go, but she's still acting on a desire to spiritually manipulate her demon lord boss.
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She was to afraid to let go, which she considers her greatest sin. That actually tells a lot about her.
 
Yog said:
Serious question, as I don't know - can he do it remotely? It was stated that he can see through her eyes if he wants to, but can he remotely communicate with her to give her orders? If he can, how does any akuma ever escape / rebel?

Also, why would Emma-O get her to kill herself when, if he can see through her eyes, she'd be a perfect spy for him? Yes, a known spy, but still someone he could gather intelligence through. He's an immortal and can see long-term picture, I think.

She was to afraid to let go, which she considers her greatest sin. That actually tells a lot about her.
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He can definitly give new orders as soon as Eiko sleeps, that part is explicit.

He might have also allowed the Greater Akuma to give her orders. I don't know for sure, but I think it's a fair guess that someone called the Will of Kakuri represents the will of Kakuri here.

I do not know if Emma-O can actually give remote orders outside of sending dreams. I guess he could personally leave his hell to do so, but that would be a huge risk with a Knight of the Sword next door.
So no, I'm not sure on that part.
 
Artemis1992 said:
He might have also allowed the Greater Akuma to give her orders. I don't know for sure, but I think it's a fair guess that someone called the Will of Kakuri represents the will of Kakuri here.
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Can the Will of Kakuri do so remotely, though?
If she keeps her distance and cuts contact/goes dark/silent, then she may be able to not receive any such orders.
 
Yog said:
Also, why would Emma-O get her to kill herself when, if he can see through her eyes, she'd be a perfect spy for him? Yes, a known spy, but still someone he could gather intelligence through. He's an immortal and can see long-term picture, I think.
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I think that was supposed to be an illustrative example of his degree of control. It doesn't really matter because if he learns whatever his reaction was would be bad for us.

As to if he can do it; not as a native ability, but he is a demon lord. Knowing some communication magic of having some way of issuing orders at need makes sense. The force they're Akuma to renounce their dharma in their dreams, so that implies they have some options even outside of establishing a mundane communications channel.
Yog said:
She was to afraid to let go, which she considers her greatest sin. That actually tells a lot about her
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Terror and greed were both factors. It says more about her that she's willing to face similar or greater dangers to her reduction for the sake of remaining strong.

This is only tangentially relevant though. If her plan is unworkable then it doesn't matter what her moral character is like, we shouldn't commit to it. Maybe help her another way, but not tilt at windmills with her.

Edit: autocorrect issue

Edit 2: Seriously though; committing sight unseen to anything, even implicitly, is a bad idea.

Regardless of what we want to do in the end getting her to lay it out first is worthwhile.
 
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Just a quick question, but as Eiko's (unconventionally) loyal does that mean the greater akuma is the one who wants to escape Emma-O's service?

Yog said:
Also, Kakuri probably has Ebon Dragon('s corpse) buried deep under it. That's definitely worth looting.
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Which Ebon Dragon? The Exalted one or the WoD one who is the embodiment of the principle of Yin and one of the chief ministers of the August Personage of Jade (basically God).

The WoD Ebon Dragon is basically an archangel. He's also one of the two entities that were deputised to create the tests that uplifted mortals into the Wan Kuei.

Yog said:
We have magical super-coffee. Nowhere does it say that it only works on mortals. Also, the question remains - how did any akuma in history rebel / escape successfully?
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Wan Kuei don't sleep in the day because they're tired. They sleep because they're under a magical curse that causes them to be weakened when the sun is in the sky and rot in its light.

Also, our super-coffee reduces the length of sleep required, not the fact that it's needed at all.

The one akuma ever known to escape rather than be released stole back his own soul from Emma-O's treasury on the way out. As he was then in possession of his own soul again, presumably Emma-O couldn't use it to control him.
 
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Yog said:
We have magical super-coffee. Nowhere does it say that it only works on mortals. Also, the question remains - how did any akuma in history rebel / escape successfully?
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By keeping things to themselves until the time to act comes.
Or by only talking about it while they don't have their Yama-King's direct attention.

But right now she is on a high profile mission, currently talking to the new bearer of Kakuri's former superweapon, so we have to assume she's under high scrutiny.
 
Yog said:
We have magical super-coffee. Nowhere does it say that it only works on mortals. Also, the question remains - how did any akuma in history rebel / escape successfully?
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Magical super coffee reduces but doesn't remove the need for sleep.

The others all relied on staying unnoticed until it was go time. This is sort of an obvious situation there'll be a follow up on if she goes back, and if she stays out then it becomes even more clear what's happening.
 
Artemis1992 said:
By keeping things to themselves until the time to act comes.
Or by only talking about it while they don't have their Yama-King's direct attention.
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Note that the Yama King and its servants can observe a lesser akuma at any time. That means that akuma can probably spy on each other, and that Emma-O's devils certainly can.

He will have enough devils to have one assigned to permanently watch every akuma he has. The only question is whether the devil is smart enough to understand what's going on.

I'm assuming that Eiko is being so elliptical because she knows she's being watched and over heard and so has to pass a message without the devil noticing.
 
Alratan said:
Note that the Yama King and its servants can observe a lesser akuma at any time. That means that akuma can probably spy on each other, and that Emma-O's devils certainly can.

He will have enough devils to have one assigned to permanently watch every akuma he has. The only question is whether the devil is smart enough to understand what's going on.

I'm assuming that Eiko is being so elliptical because she knows she's being watched and over heard and so has to pass a message without the devil noticing.
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I dont agree. The fact that something is possible doesnt mean its plausible.
Yama Kings do not have infinite manpower and resources, and what they have is often a lot more profitably used warring with and spying on enemies and watching their prisoners than tailing their screened servitors.

Eiko being elliptical is more likely to be on the chance she might be watched, not because she is definitely being watched.
Well, that and the fact that she probably has to work around standing orders.
 
uju32 said:
I dont agree. The fact that something is possible doesnt mean its plausible.
Yama Kings do not have infinite manpower and resources, and what they have is often a lot more profitably used warring with and spying on enemies and watching their prisoners than tailing their screened servitors.

Eiko being elliptical is more likely to be on the chance she might be watched, not because she is definitely being watched.
Well, that and the fact that she probably has to work around standing orders.
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When you have probably low dozens of akuma and tens or hundreds of thousands of devils then assigning one devil per akuma is a rounding error.

And you don't just have them watched for disloyalty, you have them watched because you want to know if they're in trouble or get caught. Akuma are valuable assets that you would keep an eye on.
 
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uju32 said:
I dont agree. The fact that something is possible doesnt mean its plausible.
Yama Kings do not have infinite manpower and resources, and what they have is often a lot more profitably used warring with and spying on enemies and watching their prisoners than tailing their screened servitors.

Eiko being elliptical is more likely to be on the chance she might be watched, not because she is definitely being watched.
Well, that and the fact that she probably has to work around standing orders.
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There's also the organizational overhead.

You don't just lose the guys doing the spying, you also lose the guys who have to collate their reports and manage their work. It's not like Emma-O is going to want to personally micro manage every one of his Akuma. Just trying would probably have seen him toppled ages ago from the sheer inefficiency.

The more simultaneous coverage he wants the larger the overhead grows, and it wouldn't be linear with the number of additional targets to watch.

Alratan said:
When you have probably low dozens of akuma and tens or hundreds of thousands of devils then assigning one devil per akuma is a rounding error.

And you don't just have them watched for disloyalty, you have them watched because you want to know if they're in trouble or get caught. Akuma are valuable assets that you would keep an eye on.
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The demons are also suspect though. He needs watchers for his watchers and so on, making the whole thing complicated.

Edit: autocorrect again. I need to proofread more when phoneposting.
 
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Alratan said:
When you have probably low dozens of akuma and tens or hundreds of thousands of devils then assigning one devil per akuma is a rounding error.
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Yama Kings are fighting multiple ongoing wars with enemy Yama Kings, tracking promising kueijin in the mortal world, and trying to keep an eye on the millions of Po souls and potential rebels in their own Hell. And thats in addition to their own personal security.
Literally not an option.

If I take your numbers at face value, you are suggesting that in sending 19 akuma here(17 lesser + Eiko + Chadkuma) Emma-O sent to anywhere from a fifth to a third of all the akuma he has to Chicago.
Which seems way, way off.
 
uju32 said:
Yama Kings are fighting multiple ongoing wars with enemy Yama Kings, tracking promising kueijin in the mortal world, and trying to keep an eye on the millions of Po souls and potential rebels in their own Hell. And thats in addition to their own personal security.
Literally not an option.

If I take your numbers at face value, you are suggesting that in sending 19 akuma here(17 lesser + Eiko + Chadkuma) Emma-O sent to anywhere from a fifth to a third of all the akuma he has to Chicago.
Which seems way, way off.
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I would not count the mooks.

Thos are more likely to be bonked over the head as Chin-Mei and domesticated than proper soul-selling Elders.
 
BronzeTongue said:
There's also the organizational overhead.

You don't just lose the guys doing the spying, you also lose the guys who have to collate their reports and manage their work. It's not like Emma-O is going to want to personally micro manage every one of his Akuma. Just trying would probably have seen him toppled ages ago from the sheer inefficiency.

The more simulation coverage he wants the larger the overhead grows, and it wouldn't be linear with the number of additional targets to watch.


The demons are also suspect though. He needs watchers for his watchers and so on, making the whole thing complicated.
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There's a reason Hells have bureaucracies...

uju32 said:
Yama Kings are fighting multiple ongoing wars with enemy Yama Kings, tracking promising kueijin in the mortal world, and trying to keep an eye on the millions of Po souls and potential rebels in their own Hell. And thats in addition to their own personal security.
Literally not an option.

If I take your numbers at face value, you are suggesting that in sending 19 akuma here(17 lesser + Eiko + Chadkuma) Emma-O sent to anywhere from a fifth to a third of all the akuma he has to Chicago.
Which seems way, way off.
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Yama Kings have lots of things to do, but they also have lots of devils. The number required to keep watch on all the akuma deployed to the mortal world should be irrelevant in the grander scheme of things.

I think the numbers we're given is that there's 1 vampire per hundred thousand people. That means that in Japan there would be about twelve hundred Wan Kuei in total. In East Asia as a whole there'd be about 15,000, in South East Asia just under 7,000 and in South Asia another 20,000. So a total of about 42,000

Now, what proportion of Wan Kuei do we think are akuma? Let's say it's 5%, which seems high, but possible. That's about 840 total akuma. Those are divided up between the at least ten Yama Kings that are active in the world. That makes it about eighty akuma each.

Artemis1992 said:
I would not count the mooks.

Thos are more likely to be bonked over the head as Chin-Mei and domesticated than proper soul-selling Elders.
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Lesser akuma don't need to be elders. It's the greater akuma who are made from them.
 
BronzeTongue said:
There's also the organizational overhead.

You don't just lose the guys doing the spying, you also lose the guys who have to collate their reports and manage their work. It's not like Emma-O is going to want to personally micro manage every one of his Akuma. Just trying would probably have seen him toppled ages ago from the sheer inefficiency.

The more simulation coverage he wants the larger the overhead grows, and it wouldn't be linear with the number of additional targets to watch.


The demons are also suspect though. He needs watchers for his watchers and so on, making the whole thing complicated.
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^^^
This.
We've seen real world police states like the East German Stasi, and the organizational overhead of any sort of surveillance is pretty huge as a percentage of available power.

Not to mention that in setting up that sort of panopticon organization, he's handing the heads of it a huge amount of power, and they are now potentially a threat to his own regime.
And if there's anything a Yama King wont tolerate, its a threat to their own power.
Artemis1992 said:
I would not count the mooks.
Thos are more likely to be bonked over the head as Chin-Mei and domesticated than proper soul-selling Elders.
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I wouldnt discount them.
Essentially everyone with the willpower or joss to claw their way out of Hell and back into the materium is a potential threat,even after losing their Dharma.

And given that the Yama Kings apparently get enough candidates to occasionally burn some as entertainment, I think the idea of low dozens is well off.
BronzeTongue said:
Well he is sending a retrieval team after what he sees as a stolen WMD, so that part at least could make sense.
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Not if it weakens his home forces sufficiently for another Yama King to make a play.
I mean, Chicago is pretty widely acknowledged to have a major Faerie Court presence. The Stone Table is in Chicago over Chicago.
There was always a chance of "vanished; eaten by the locals" even before making contact with Molly.
 
uju32 said:
^^^
This.
We've seen real world police states like the East German Stasi, and the organizational overhead of any sort of surveillance is pretty huge as a percentage of available power.

Not to mention that in setting up that sort of panopticon organization, he's handing the heads of it a huge amount of power, and they are now potentially a threat to his own regime.
And if there's anything a Yama King wont tolerate, its a threat to their own power.
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That was to watch an entire population, not keep track of few dozen people. There's something like six orders of magnitude difference.

Having permanent surveillance of all their akuma would be literally trivial for someone with a Yama King's resources. It wouldn't be giving the heads of it significant power, and they are no threat to a Yama King, given they are near omnipotent in their own domain. None of their servitor devils could contest them.

Yama Kings lead state level polities. The resources to keep tracks of dozens of people are completely insignificant to institutions on that scale.

uju32 said:
Not if it weakens his home forces sufficiently for another Yama King to make a play.
I mean, Chicago is pretty widely acknowledged to have a major Faerie Court presence. The Stone Table is in Chicago over Chicago.
There was always a chance of "vanished; eaten by the locals" even before making contact with Molly.
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The Stone Table manifests wherever the Fey Queens want it to, it doesn't seem to have a fixed location.
 
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Alratan said:
There's a reason Hells have bureaucracies
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That's the point I was trying to make. Expanding a bureaucracy always involves overhead, the more people you want watched at once the more it costs. Especially since the manpower needs of the management itself changes as the group grows, it's not necessarily a constant ratio. That doesn't even start on data analysis and cross correlation between accounts to look for hidden details.

A smaller group that uses more sophisticated mechanisms to pick when and where to watch makes more sense than an equal sized force.

Which makes it likely Eiko is being watched, but doesn't ensure she's under constant surveillance.

Honestly this would be one of those things where a friendly dream mage would be nice, if exposing Rosie to this wouldn't be insane and she had a few more dots on her path.

They probably don't bother watching stuff like that all the time, and if we were working with her Eiko long term then we'd want a private communication channel.

Edit:

This also addresses another flaw in your base assumption. Rather than having a devils who might not be smart enough to pick up on something, intermittent inspections by professionals would make it highly likely that any spying that did occur would be effective.
 
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BronzeTongue said:
That's the point I was trying to make. Expanding a bureaucracy always involves overhead, the more people you want watched at once the more it costs. Especially since the manpower needs of the management itself changes as the group grows, it's not necessarily a constant ratio. That doesn't even start on data analysis and cross correlation between accounts to look for hidden details.

A smaller group that uses more sophisticated mechanisms to pick when and where to watch makes more sense than an equal sized force.

Which makes it likely Eiko is being watched, but doesn't ensure she's under constant surveillance.

Honestly this would be one of those things where a friendly dream mage would be nice, if exposing Rosie to this wouldn't be insane and she had a few more dots on her path.

They probably don't bother watching stuff like that all the time, and if we were working with her Eiko long term then we'd want a private communication channel.
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You don't need a large or complex bureaucracy to watch a few dozen people full time. That's the thing. You could easily have three or four devils assigned per akuma and it would still be a meaningless fraction of the Yama King's legions, and it would give you a headsup if they were in trouble and needed bailing out or if they were screwing something up.

Fundamentally, akuma are rare and valuable. The time of the devils required is not.

And yes, sometimes Yama Kings waste akuma because they hate them as they hated their Wan Xian predecessors. That doesn't make them always that stupid or wasteful, particularly not when the akuma are being sent on critical missions.
 
Alratan said:
That was to watch an entire population, not keep track of few dozen people. There's something like six orders of magnitude difference.

Having permanent surveillance of all their akuma would be literally trivial for someone with a Yama King's resources. It wouldn't be giving the heads of it significant power, and they are no threat to a Yama King, given they are near omnipotent in their own domain. None of their servitor devils could contest them.

Yama Kings lead state level polities. The resources to keep tracks of dozens of people are completely insignificant to institutions on that scale.



The Stone Table manifests wherever the Fey Queens want it to, it doesn't seem to have a fixed location.
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1)You vastly underestimate the administrative overhead required for regular surveillance of even a few dozen people.
Especially since you need watchers watching the watchers to prevent their subversion.

You are also assuming that the Yama Kings can bestow power to watch all their akuma simultaneously.
Instead of, say, enough bandwith to watch maybe five people at a time. Given the fact its explicitly stated in Thousand Hells that Yomi Wan does sometimes lose track of their akuma, we know both their bureaucracy and surveillance is limited.

Anyway, the Greater Akuma who stole his own soul reliquary from Emma-O's treasury and got away clean pretty clearly indicates that the Yama Kings either cant or wont maintain constant surveillance of even their highest value akuma.
Let alone the lower tiers.


2)The Stone Table is in Chicago-over-Chicago, which is a plane of the NeverNever over Chicago.
Hence the name.
Summer Knight chapter 23: Lea takes Dresden there.

The Queens might be able to summon it, or more likely just take people there directly.
But thats its permanent location.
 
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